Eurovision

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Le Baron
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Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 14, 2022 9:28 pm

Anyone watching this final?

I'm confused as to how Australia are competing being not in Europe and everything. After singing (while singing actually) the fellow starting crying and shouting 'anything is possible!'.

I thought, yeah, except you winning mate.
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Le Baron
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 14, 2022 11:03 pm

A fix as usual.
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Cavesa » Sun May 15, 2022 11:46 am

It's high time for my Yearly Rant on too much English in the Eurovision songs!!! :-D

Followed by the less important rant on how the Czech participation is a joke, because the selection process is totally artificial on the national level, with 0 participation of the public allowed. Therefore I don't even understand why the TV channel buys the rights, as nobody really cares :-D

Oh, and anything is possible, real geography doesn't matter. Australia and Israel in the Eurovision, Euro was played in Baku, next time we might get martians competing.
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Le Baron
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sun May 15, 2022 12:20 pm

Cavesa wrote:It's high time for my Yearly Rant on too much English in the Eurovision songs!!! :-D

That said, did you see that the Dutch entry was in Dutch? One doesn't see that sort of thing normally. It's usually any excuse to use English in such a context.
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Re: Eurovision

Postby MaggieMae » Sun May 15, 2022 1:22 pm

Cavesa wrote:It's high time for my Yearly Rant on too much English in the Eurovision songs!!! :-D


Yes!

For reference: last year was my first Eurovision. This year, I hadn't done any research into the songs before the finale, and I remember turning to my husband partway through saying, "I love how many songs this year are in native languages and not just English!" And then watched in dismay as only 2 songs in the last half weren't in English. :cry:

ETA:
Le Baron wrote:That said, did you see that the Dutch entry was in Dutch? One doesn't see that sort of thing normally. It's usually any excuse to use English in such a context.


The Austrian commentator actually mentioned that specifically, pointing out that many people still consider the Germanic languages to be too harsh to be musical, but how she proved them wrong.
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Le Baron
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sun May 15, 2022 1:35 pm

MaggieMae wrote:The Austrian commentator actually mentioned that specifically, pointing out that many people still consider the Germanic languages to be too harsh to be musical, but how she proved them wrong.

Yes, and with regard to German I find that common accusation of 'harshness' to be unfounded. To my ears German is often a soft-sounding language, even around Düsseldorf which like Dutch is 'low franconian' in terms of local speech (I'm picturing Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk singing the lyrics to Neonlicht :D ). And of course Dutch past the middle of the country into Belgium is very soft-sounding.
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Re: Eurovision

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun May 15, 2022 2:35 pm

I watched the semifinals and the final for the entertainment value. Whether people sing in their native language or not, I really don't care. I heard that this year had something like 14 languages present. From a polyglot perspective I think that's "good enough". I think Romania had (some) lyrics in Spanish, Serbia some lyrics in Latin... Kudos to France who sang in Breton. The Swedes are everywhere, as songwriters, light and sound, choreographers... :roll:

The billion euro question:
Did the right song win?
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Le Baron
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sun May 15, 2022 2:55 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:The billion euro question:
Did the right song win?

Well it's known for being a bit political. I think we can all nod and say why Ukraine won. Lovely song and everything.

I'm surprised Putin himself didn't enter for the Russians. He plays the piano you know...
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Re: Eurovision

Postby MaggieMae » Sun May 15, 2022 3:19 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:The billion euro question:
Did the right song win?


As far as I'm aware, that answer is, "Never." But I think Europe legitimately enjoys arguing about it. :lol:

@LeBaron: people definitely exaggerate how "harsh" the Germanic languages are, I'll agree with that. A lot of it stems from Opera, actually. Originally, opera was only allowed to be written in Italian (and maybe Latin, but I'm not sure). French was added after that, and considered ok, probably because it became the Lingua Franca. It wasn't until Mozart's time that German was even considered as an operatic language, and only then it was because Mozart had a, "I'm gonna do it and you can't stop me" attitude toward the whole thing.
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Le Baron
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Re: Eurovision

Postby Le Baron » Sun May 15, 2022 3:32 pm

True indeed and before Wolfgang Handel ditched Italian for English; probably to please his new audience. What a trailblazer.
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