Short Eurovision Judgement

The Eurovision contest just finished with Europe. It's a pretty big deal over there in Europe apparently. Russia won, but there was a lot of controversy over it, so I thought I would watch all of the performances and judge for myself. I didn't get to watch them all, but I made a point of watching at least all of the semi-finalists. All of the semi-finalists have an asterisk in from of them, and the list is ranked according to my personal opinion.

1. Armenia - Amazing voice both when live and canned. Musically the song was very well written as well.
2. * Croatia - I think they had the best combination out of everybody when it came to talent, on stage performance, and composition. The only thing they lacked was oomf to their song; it was too light hearted.
3. * Turkey - Finally something different from the rest!! His voice wasn't amazing but the performance stood out enough to boost it up for me.
4. * Portugal - This one stood out too! The style, a girl who wasn't a typical skinny-beauty, good stage performance. There were just a few noticable flaws in the singing by the backup team.
5. Israel - Good singing - wonderful voice. They could have used their bodies more on stage though. They were just standing there and singing
6. * Iceland - Ah, true European techno. The performance was amazng. SLIGHTLY off notes by the femaile but it was a beautiful performance. Run of the mill as far as style though. The style didn't stand out like Croatia, nor did the talent like Armenia.
7. Serbia - Very good voice. I liked the composition as well. The chorus sounds a bit like Numa Numa Yay though.. hehe.
8. * Denmark - Crisp and clean performance. The singer was talented and he delivered the oomf I think was needed. The composition lacked substance though.
9. * Sweden - Very similar in caliber to Norway and Denmark. A few notes were off though. Genre is also run of the mill.
10. Norway - Very good performance. It seemed like a normal gospelly pop song performance which was well done.
11. Slovenia - Very talented voice. I liked the miming going on in the background as well. The background singers didn&t have it together though.
12. * Albania - even though she had a very nice voice, it didn't seem to match the instruments at all. The guitarist's sound of choice didn't help much either.
13. Azerbaijan - Crazy singers. Kudos for their talent. I didn't really like the song or the delivery of the visual theme though.
14. * Ukraine - Besides the creepy men running around, she's not too bad. There's one or two notes she always misses though, and that's annoying..
15. Andorra - Bad singing. Wasn't as bad as Russia, but was still off here and there. Her backup singers were TERRIBLE at singing though.
16. Poland - Overall plain flat. It's not as bad as missing notes I guess, since she was consistent. Pretty much the same thing though.
17. Russia - Terrible singing. Live his voice is all off tune, but in the studio version his pitch is corrected
18. * Georgia - The singing was pretty much as bad as Russia. It was compounded though by her awkward stage presence.
19. * Latvia - I commend them for the theme, but the singing was TERRIBLE... just a cacophony of a group of cool people having fun.
20. Bosnia & Herzegovina - Started out very well. I thought they would be my favourite until the male singer came on. He was so annoying.
21. Spain - He's a good performer but seems a bit too comedic for this contest... Besides, I feel his performance isn't hard to imitate

This list is long enough that you'll have to watch the performances yourself to appreciate it, so I apologize. General review though: I found that a lot of these songs went for a positive feel in both the music and lyrics, and didn't put in much wit and thought into them. The only exception was a few songs with regard to the music, mixing different styles etc. Of coures I can't understand what they're singing half of the time, but overall I was disappointed with the lyrics. It seemed like the songs that won based on how "positive" the lyrics are. If they were going to vote on the content of the songs the artists should have just submitted poems instead of having songs performed

So anyways I think Armenia's song was by far the best of the lot. I personally think it was a lame song on its own merits, but so were the rest of them =).

1. Semi final performance (terribly out of sync)
2. This performance is earlier on and much better
3. And finally the canned version of the song.