My Very Late ESC 2014 Grand Final Review (Part 2): Thoughts on the scoreboard feat. the semis

By Jaz, May 28, 2014

If there’s a prize for being late to the party (the party being reviewing Eurovision 2014) then back off, because it’s mine! The thing is – and you’ll be bored of me rehashing this – since I was too excited to study during the ESC week, and too depressed to be productive in the few days afterwards, I’m now in a period of chaos where I have multiple MAHUSIVE assignments due within the next week (my last week of the semester, thank the Lordi) that I’ve barely begun. Therefore, I’m having to work my butt off with little time to blog, which sucks. That’s my excuse for why the second part of my final review is coming out over a fortnight after the contest, and over a week after the first part.

This is basically just a run through of the scoreboards from the final and the semis, with comments by moi, plus a recap of the Australian online vote and a mini post-show ranking to show you how my preferences were changed by epic lighting and/or magnificent costuming. I’m not going to get into the intricacies of the split results much, as similar analysis has been done (The Eurovision Times published a a few particularly good ones you can find here and here if you haven’t checked them out yet) so this is more of an overview accompanied by catty judgments.

 

The Final Scoreboard: A Closer, Totally Unbiased Look

 Two things about the voting sequence before we get to the results:

a) Crossing to all of the spokespersons at once on the big screen? More of that please. Although if I’d spotted Alyona Lanskaya I would have remembered to mute her impromptu and totally unnecessary version of Solayoh. You had your moment last year, Alyona. NO ONE CARES.

b) Umm, that early winner announcement! I’ve had more than one night’s anger over that. After the backlash caused by the same thing in Malmö, I assumed it wouldn’t happen again. But oh no, charming Nikolaj and adorable Pilou lost a bit of their charm and adorableness when they announced Austria as unbeatable with about two or three countries left to vote (I know they were just doing what they’d been instructed to, but I have to lash out at somebody). We all knew Conchita was the winner – to announce it early took away from the significance of the remaining countries votes, turning them into an afterthought. I am hoping this doesn’t become a tradition.

Now, those results…we’ve all seen them, but who wouldn’t want to see them again and then hear me complain about Greece not beating Romania for several paragraphs?

1. Austria 290 – No real surprises here. After Conchita’s performance I was thankful I’d predicted Austria as a probable winner. Still, with the spread of scores and the relatively low gap between 1^st and 2^nd place, this was no landslide.

2. The Netherlands 238 – I’m thrilled for the Dutch, still. If Anouk had been last year’s runner-up, I’d have struggled to understand it, but The Common Linnets captured the mood and created a magic that I totally got (in the end).

3. Sweden 218 – I’m happy with this, and I hope Sanna is too. I knew my favourite song of the year wasn’t quite going to go all the way after a certain point, but because I was worried Sweden could head in the direction of Hungary in 2011, the bronze position is brilliant.

4. Armenia 174 – Again, this ain’t exactly shocking. I never saw Armenia winning with Not Alone, as much as I love it. Finishing in 4^th, they’ve got to be at least a teensy bit pleased that they blew Azerbaijan out of the water.

5. Hungary 143 – This is proof that Hungary is getting better and better at playing the Eurovision game every year. A very good, very current song that many thought would bomb because of its subject matter triumphed instead. Well done Andras!

6. Ukraine 113

7. Russia 89 – Now THIS was a surprise. As the televoters much preferred it over the jurors, I put it down to the staging, which I personally couldn’t tear my eyes away from. The hair trick and giant see-saw are surely what people remembered when they picked up their phones.

8. Norway 88

9. Denmark 74

10. Spain 74 – I guess the lesson here for Spain is if they send an attractive brunette who can sing the leg off a chair to perform a typically Eurovision ballad, they’ll secure themselves 10^th place. That’s a good showing for Spain.

11. Finland 72

12. Romania 72 – Romania and Moldova are experts in just missing out on the top 10. In this case, Romania should have completely missed out IMO.

13. Switzerland 64

14. Poland 62 – The jury sealed Donatan & Cleo’s fate via the drag effect of ranking them 23^rd to the televoters’ 5^th. Not that 14^th is a terrible result – I’m just mourning what could have been for one of my favourite entries.

15. Iceland 58

16. Belarus 43

17. United Kingdom 40 – Ouch. After weeks of steadily declining odds and promising rehearsals, Molly failed to meet expectation and then some. But there was only 34 points between her and Ruth, which is something of a consolation.

18. Germany 39

19. Montenegro 37 – Not only did they make the final for the first time, but Montenegro beat big players Greece, Italy and Azerbaijan. That’s a win for them as far as I’m concerned. Figure skaters = success. Just ask Dima Bilan.

20. Greece 35 – How…just how did this happen? I am CRUSHED. Okay, so when I step back and look at all the factors I can kind of see how it happened. But even cookie-cutter, dated Aphrodisiac did better than this!

21. Italy 33

22. Azerbaijan 33 – So, they’re not invincible after all, eh? For the first time since their 2008 debut, Azerbaijan finished out of the top 10, and not narrowly. I have to admit, it pleases me to learn that they are capable of failure, since up until now I assumed they’d do amazingly even if they sent a bag of garbage (literally) to represent them, and that irritated me.

23. Malta 32

24. San Marino 14 – Props to SM for not coming last. I hope such an unprecedented result doesn’t encourage a fourth consecutive appearance from Valentina (and Ralph)…*shudder*.

25. Slovenia 9

26. France 2 – Not for the first time in recent history, one of my most-loved entries lost the final. Waldo’s People in 2009, Tooji in 2012, and now this! Maybe Moustache wasn’t very effective in such a grand setting, but…TWO POINTS?!? I guess I should just be grateful that Twin Twin didn’t pull a Jemini.

 

Australia calling! The results from our unofficial final vote

Over on broadcaster SBS’s Eurovision site, us fans Down Under had the chance to thumbs up or thumbs down each entry as was our want. I couldn’t even do that, because of state-related time zone issues, so it was up to the rest of my fellow Aussies to decide our “points”. Here’s our top 10, in traditional ESC fashion:

1 point went to Ukraine

2 points went to Malta

3 points went to Switzerland

4 points went to the UK

5 points went to Poland

6 points went to Iceland

7 points went to Finland

8 points went to the Netherlands

10 points went to Sweden

Aaaaaaaaand, surprise surprise…our 12 points went to Austria.

So it looks like Conchita has recruited herself a fan club over here as well. We actually agreed with Europe’s entire top 3 (albeit in a slightly different order) but put Finland, Iceland, Poland (woohoo!), the UK, Switzerland and Malta in place of Armenia, Hungary, Russia, Norway, Denmark and Spain. Oh, and in case you were wondering, San Marino came in 26^th. So I guess it wasn’t so much a Maybe here as a Definitely Not.

 

Back To The Semis: The Winners, Losers and Almosts

Semi final 1 ↓

1. The Netherlands 150
2. Sweden 131
3. Hungary 127
4. Armenia 121
5. Ukraine 118
6. Russia 63
7. Montenegro 63
8. Iceland 61
9. Azerbaijan 57
10. San Marino 40
11. Portugal 39
12. Estonia 36
13. Latvia 33
14. Belgium 28
15. Albania 22
16. Moldova 13

• For the first time ever, the Netherlands topped a Eurovision semi final. I’m still surprised by this to be honest (because I didn’t think the majority would rule on a humble l’il country number…and it’s the Netherlands) but it’s something for all of the countries in a rut to take note of. With the right song and act, anything is possible.
• Sanna pipped Andras for the honour of qualifying second, but not by much. Hungary are going from strength to strength, having qualified every year since their 2011 comeback, and made the final top 10 for two consecutive years.
• There was a 55-point gap split between the 5^th and 6^th qualifiers – Ukraine and Russia. Montenegro made it to their first final on the same point level as Russia, with Iceland very close behind.
• Azerbaijan’s 9^th place made quite the change from their previous stellar history. During the 2008-2011 period they qualified 6^th, 2^nd, 2^nd and 2^nd, and won their semi final last year in Malmö. It’s safe to say Dilara didn’t start many fires with her slow-burn ballad!
• Jaws all over the globe hit the floor when San Marino went through, unsurprisingly in 10^th place. What we didn’t know at the time was that poor Portugal had finished just under San Marino. A single point was all that separated Valentina and Suzy, which probably left the latter wondering what she could have done to win over a few more jury members (it was the juries who sealed her fate by ranking her last).
• Moldova’s hair-ripping routine failed to get them to the final for the first time since 2008. Perhaps now they’ll realise that the classic costume reveal is still okay?

 

Semi final 2 ↓

1. Austria 169
2. Romania 125
3. Finland 97
4. Switzerland 92
5. Belarus 87
6. Norway 77
7. Greece 74
8. Poland 70
9. Malta 63
10. Slovenia 52
11. Lithuania 36
12. Ireland 35
13. Macedonia 33
14. Israel 19
15. Georgia 15

• From losing their semi final and limping only to 16^th place in last year’s to winning the whole thing, Austria sure rose up (pardon the pun) in the rankings this time around. Conchita’s powerful pipes won convincingly over Paula Seling’s dog-frightener of a note.
• Surprisingly high qualifiers in this semi (for me) were Finland and Switzerland, in 3^rd and 4^th places. Switzerland turned out to be less of a borderline entry than many of us thought it would be. Greece, on the other hand, didn’t do as well as is expected of them, nor as well as I was hoping.
• Poland’s qualification was pretty convincing for a country that hadn’t seen a Saturday night since 2008, putting them 18 points ahead of just-in Slovenia.
• Vilija can’t have been as devastated as Suzy must have been to end up 11^th, as her result was brought on by much more than one point. Things were quite tight in the 11^th-13^th-placed range.
• Israel coming second-to-last with only four more points than bonkers Georgia was a big shock for me, and I’m not even a massive fan of Same Heart. Mei’s performance was fiercer than 100 angry Beyoncés in a fistfight, and I’m sure she’s made it her mission to hunt down and poke her sword at everyone who failed to vote for her.
• Georgia last = duh. Okay, so the song has grown on me, and the parachute thing actually worked IMO, but Three Minutes To Earth was always going to be more like Three Minutes to the Bottom of the Scoreboard.

 

My top 10, two weeks later

As usual, seeing the songs performed live for the real deal changed my already changeable mind a LOT. Once again I used this handy sorter to gauge my own opinion, and below you can see my post-show top fifteen (because I didn’t think anyone would want to read through my entire top 37 for the third time) and how they’ve moved from my most recent ranking done just prior to the first semi. I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who might have been hoping for a renouncement of my Team Sanna membership.

1. Sweden (=)
2. Poland (+5)
3. Greece (-1)
4. France (-1)
5. Armenia (+1)
6. Denmark (+4)
7. Italy (+6)
8. Belarus (=)
9. Norway (=)
10. Hungary (-6)
11. Montenegro (-6)
12. Ukraine (+12)
13. Iceland (+1)
14. Finland (+21)
15. Albania (+7)

So I’m clearly crushing on Finland after Softengine rocked the Hallerne…what about you? How have your rankings changed since the show?

 

That’s about all I have to say on the scores at the moment. I hope this overview was worth the delay in one way or another! If you’re still up for complaining and/or rejoicing in the outcomes of this year’s contest, I’m up for listening, so comment down below with any of your unaired thoughts.

 

NEXT TIME: Watch out…the 2014 EBJ Awards for Eurovision Excellence are coming! I’m about to open my People’s Choice polls, and I want you to vote to decide each winner (duh. That’s the whole point) so make sure you drop by in a few days’ time to have your say. This year you get to vote on more awards than ever before in the two-or-three-year history of the ceremony, so get excited! Please? Just a little bit?

 

10 Responses to “My Very Late ESC 2014 Grand Final Review (Part 2): Thoughts on the scoreboard feat. the semis”

1. Boordevol May 28, 2014

   Great stuff, J – and worth the wait.

   There were nearly tears in our household when it looked like Twin Twin were heading for a nul point-er. Thankfully the Swedes and Finns saved the day.

   Hey, I haven’t seen reference elsewhere in the ESCosphere to the fact that — on any reckoning ( or number of entries) — Austria now holds, by a huge margin, the record for the “Longest Time Between Drinks” (i.e. between wins): 47 years!! I reckon CW could (should!) do a killer version of the ’66 winner.

   Anyhoo, keep up the great work: we, your fans, will stick with you, no matter how tardy your timezone. Or, to re-paraphrase a certain defected and/or water-logged Prime Minister: “We’ll go all the way with EBJ!”

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• Jaz June 3, 2014

  I guess very few people (outside of Sweden and Finland) wanna have a moustache. That is very sad. I’m getting quite accustomed to songs I LOVE coming last in the final.

  Go Austria, right?? I wonder if they’ve pencilled another hosting gig in for 47 years’ from 2015.

  Thanks for being a fan (I have fans?? :D:D:D:D) and for the compliments! They are much appreciated, and give me the will to go on with le blog (not to sound overly dramatic or anything).

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2. Zolan May 28, 2014

   After some reflection I’ve switched to your side on the early winner announcement.
   However obvious it is, disrupting the voting announcements to annouce it has several bad effects. A little time saved in getting the winner ready is not worth it.

   I think the songs from San Marino and Azerbaijan deserve more respect than they received, but I understand they’re really too low key to make an impression at ESC.

   I’m happy that Georgia got points. And wow, double digits 😀

   Now I just have to stop singing “… facts about China …” in the middle of random tunes.

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• Jaz June 3, 2014

  I wonder, now we’re out of Scandinavia, whether fewer cues will be taken by next year’s hosts from the previous show. I.e. FOR GOD’S SAKE, AUSTRIA, LET THE VOTING HAPPEN AND DON’T ANNOUNCE THE WINNER EARLY!!

  Well, we know Azerbaijan weren’t happy with their result (when you’re used to eating chocolate cake, it must suck to suddenly be served up a plate of haggis) but not only did San Marino qualify, they didn’t come last in the final! Woohoo!! I just hope that doesn’t prompt entry #4 for the Siegel-Monetta duo.

  So in the semi-final, Georgia got more points when there were less countries voting than France did in the final with all countries voting (I know there was more competition then, but still). Shocked. And. Horrified!!

  It took me way too long to figure out what the deal was with the China fixation. At first I thought it was just Pilou being drunk as usual.

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3. Andy May 28, 2014

   This year was the first year that we all as a family sat down and watched it-and we loved it!
   Kids were all involved-making a chart to give marks to each song.
   I never knew about semi-final appearances-thought the final was a one off competition?
   Anyway, my wife ranked The Netherlands one top, my kids favourites were mixed, and I liked Ukraine. Tick Tock!
   Unfortunately Austria’s performance was overshadowed by the beard thing-heated debate among the children about gender, but on reflection since winning I think it sounded very much like a Bond theme-and a worthy winner. Still like Ukraine’s entry though! Followed by Sweden and Germany.

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• Jaz June 3, 2014

  I wish my whole family would watch Eurovision with me!! I may have to watch with yours instead.

  Did you let your kids watch Poland all the way through?? That would have opened their eyes!

  I’m happy to see some love for poor Germany. I think they were a hot tip for last place (and as a France fan, I sort of wish Elaiza HAD come last…).

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• Andy June 4, 2014

  I gave Poland top marks, said it was because they were wearing national dress. My wife told me precisely what to do! 🙂

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• Jaz June 6, 2014

  Hey, that sounds like a totally legit reason to me! I loved their costumes, and as a straight female I can tell you I was looking at the material and not what was busting out of it. Well, most of the time…I am only human.

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4. RoryG May 28, 2014

   OMG THAT IS POSSIBLY THE BEST REVIEW OF THE ENTIRE SHOW I HAVE EVER READ!!! 😀

   First of all, those photo captions have possibly rendered me speechless with the amount of laughing I’ve done! ValMon definitely was the best xD Rodolfo Chikilacuatre would be proud 😉

   Getting to the final, I’m also really surprised Russia did as well as they did – like you said, it was probably down to the staging, but their vocals weren’t as up to scratch as I thought they would be..and for God’s sake, why must Rui Andrade (or whatever, I have no clue how to spell his name – illiteracy ftw!) stand behind the “sun” after he’s closed them? Eesh!

   HOW COULD ESTONIA AND ALBANIA NOT QUALIFY ON TUESDAY!?! 😥 They possibly had the best vocals of the entire night, along with The Common Linnets and Mariya..and the fact that MEI WAS ROBBED in the second semi-final is just appalling..I voted for her, so she must qualify!!

   Absolutely *amayzin* review, Jaz. Much love :3

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• Jaz June 3, 2014

  And here I was doubting my captioning abilities!! With some of the photos, the captions write themselves TBH…

  Why must Rui Andrade (I think that’s actually right!) lose in Portugal and then go on to do backup for Russia? That’s my question. Maybe he’s shy and felt the need to hide behind the sun??

  Lucky you voted for Mei – she won’t be hunting you down and attacking you with her sword in all her pantless glory.

  Thanks for the praise. You’re too much!

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