Talking Eurovision 2017 From Top (Three) To Bottom (Three): James + Jaz’s Big British ESC Chat!
Hey there, Eurovision fam…if there’s anyone out there I can still consider family of the Eurovisual kind. Yes, it is true (Yohanna) – I’ve been blog-gone for a while. But my MIA status had a lot to do with Melodifestivalen, so you’ll forgive me, right?
Basically, in case you didn’t know, I made my second trip to Stockholm (after winging my way to the ESC last year) in March. I went mainly to hit up the Melfest final at Friends Arena, and it was FREAKING BEAUTIFUL.
Talk about a beautiful mess…the aftermath of an amazing night.
Okay, so my mum (who came with me and is pretty close to being brainwashed by yours truly into a bonafide Eurofan) and I didn’t have the best view of the stage. But I can now say from experience that crystal-clear stage views are hard to come by in a venue that makes Globen look like Hagrid’s hut in Harry Potter. Still – even though we were sitting on the sort of angle that made Robin Bengtsson’s perfect facial features difficult to make out (or make out with, sadface) – it was one of the greatest evenings ever. I’ll definitely be rambling about it more in the future, when the kraziness of Kyiv is over, and sharing some more photos that feature a person who may or may not be Wiktoria because when they’re that blurry, who can know for sure. But for now, I’m just going to apologise for my recent blogging fail (I was in Europe for a month, and the pre-trip prep had me super busy beforehand) and move on to something else.
‘Something else’ = a little story I need to tell you. Soooo, after spending a week and a half in Stockholm feat. literal heaps of snow, I headed off to London for three weeks (missing the London Eurovision Party by ONE DAY, which is the dictionary definition of devastating). There, I managed to meet up with ESC Views co-founder and my formerly online-only friend James, who you might remember from past EBJ Jury review sessions (together we created a crapload of controversy over Finland 2015, and damn, we were proud of it). If not, here’s a refresher:
‘Hej! I’m James, a Creative Writing student at Edge Hill University. I like music, cocktails, writing and making people happy – and Eurovision, of course! I was incredibly excited to host my annual Eurovision party last year, and indoctrinate a load of my non-fan friends with the 2016 line-up. It went well – I even managed to get a couple of them to use the Gerbear sorter thing (which of course required them to have listened to, and formed opinions on all 43 songs…so how’s that for progress!?).’
Stolen without permission from James’ Instagram. #noshame
It was awesome meeting him in person, partly since we spent most of our time together discussing Eurovision. I knew this would happen, so I figured a chunk of our conversation/s could be turned into EBJ content. What I had in mind was a written interview, but it turns out that a) I recorded nearly TWO HOURS of ESC 2017–centric chat, and nobody wants to read a transcription of that; and b) I’m far too lazy to transcribe more than a half-hour of audio anyway.
So what I’m offering you now is a podcast-type thing that is nowhere near as professional or logical as a podcast should be. In other words, it’s over an hour of James and I reviewing our current — at the time of recording — bottom and top three songs of the 2017 bunch. If you like listening to people complain about and compliment Eurovision entries, and you’re curious to find out what two obsessed fans are digging and disliking, then click that play button right now!
Oh, but just before you do…a few FYIs. We recorded this in a busy London park pretty close to a main road, so please excuse the traffic and people noises in the background (I’m not techy enough to edit them out, apparently). Please also excuse all the awkward pauses when I’m speaking. I get stage fright as soon as anything is recording me, leading to constant brain blanks that make me sound like a moron. James, you don’t need to worry about — he’s a natural.
Now sit back, relax and enjoy our honest, uncensored opinions on the best and worst music this year’s show has to offer. Don’t forget to tell us what you think in the comments.
*crosses fingers for a fully-functioning embedded audio file*
NEXT TIME It’s already April, so the Eurovision 2017 review train really needs to leave the station. Next week I’ll kick things off (with the help of my Melfest-loving mother) by judging Azerbaijan, Denmark, Georgia, Hungary, Norway and Portugal. Drop by to find out what we think of Dihaj, Anja, Tamara, Joci, JOWST and Salvador. Oh, and their songs. Have your own opinions at the ready too…
eurovisionbyjaz.com 
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