JESC 2021

[AlekS]

"For (non-COVID) medical reasons Tanya did not sing live in this rehearsal and used playback to rehearse".


France's rehearsal:

 

[apasionata]

Armenia:

 

[Sean]

Vote in our JESC 2021 poll below;

POLL: Who do #YOU want to win Junior Eurovision 2021?

Well, the year is now drawing to a close, but the Eurovision fun is definitely not over yet - this weekend, the Junior Eurovision 2021 finally gets underway as

www.escunited.com

 

[Dr J]

Instagram Battles

Sara Egwu-James (Poland), who had lost 8,000 instagram followers last month, has picked up 5,000 more in the past fortnight. It is a good sign of momentum going into the vote on Sunday. Her closest rival among the instagram kiddies and teens, Tatyana Mezhentseva (Russia), picked up only 1,000 followers in the same period. Now Egwu-James stands at 126,000 followers and Mezhentseva has 122,000.

I was never sure why Sara lost the 8,000 in November: the only thing she did was sing "Jesus You Are My Life" at an international conference organised by the Catholic Church. MAYBE this turned off some of the urban teens in Poland who are anti-Church. Most Poles are deeply religious but many young city dwellers regard the Church as related to the governing Party, who have done things like abolishing abortion rights and so is perceived as old-fashioned and anti-modern. It was bad signalling on Sara's part. It's a guess. Lately, she has been posting about going to Paris, including "Please VOTE for me now", with directions how to do that. That this has gained her followers rather than lost them is a very good sign for her.

The Armenian Balloon - Hot Air!

I cannot understand the Armenian balloon that has blown up on this site in various places. Arpine Martoyan ("Malena Fox") has about 500 instagram followers and a tiny 10,000 subscribers on Youtube. Could any supporter of Armenia please explain to me where her votes are meant to come from to challenge powerhouses like Sara and Tanya? You like her song? My favourite song is North Macedonia's but I'd be pleasantly shocked if they won. I deliberately don't run around trying to create the illusion that they are going to win.

Plus, as I have already posted, Comrade Arpine posted on youtube that she has a crush on Lenin: is this how European kids want to be represented? If she somehow wins it will be because most of them don't know about the political position she has published. Should the spelling of her song title be changed to "Commie, Commie"? I don't want to see politics in JESC but she put them there, I just informed and responded. If I have a wrong impression, Arpine should show she is capable of representing Europe in 2021 and pull the photo down. If she wins and the press get that photo, there will be a fire-storm!

 

[AlekS]

Not a lot of people in the press center. I-net is lagging constantly

, as well as mobile network.

Spain screwed up yesterday (according to Levi himself, "my voice craked", but Ukraine and Poland cheered him up). Germany had the worst vocals of the day. All those vocal screw ups don't mean a thing as long as they perform well at the jury show After all this is probably the first time they perform at such big stage.
Georgia changed costume (pants). had some technical problems with sound (earpiece), but in the end she sounded well.
Poland received the biggest applause of the press center.
A little clip of Russia's televersion from yesterday has leaked (when she rides a bicycle), a close up reminded me Ireland's ESC performance but less cartoon-ish.

 

[shameless]

Greenhouses Are Open! Back To The Future Or An Idea Whose Time Has Passed?

One past strategy to win the JESC is what I call the "Greenhouse Strategy". Georgia and Malta perfected it in 2008-2016. It was how a small country, with few televotes, could pool its resources and put its best foot forward: and win! Greenhouses in these countries won JESC in 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016.

A greenhouse, by my metaphoric definition, is a music/singing school that grooms JESC contestants. It has a gardener: a musical and/or singing expert who trains the children to be technically perfect. In most cases, the gardeners also wrote and composed the songs for JESC entry but the contestants participated in this process to a greater or lesser degree. This replaced the practice from 2003 to 2012, and 2014, where the winning child singer usually wrote the song - lyrics at least.

The greenhouse was the first step in the professionalisation of JESC, leading to the current practice, in which the national broadcaster chooses a song, chooses a child (often, but not necessarily, by public national contest) and packages them for JESC. My personal opinion is that these were not steps up, they were steps down. I think that the early days, when we heard directly from children and they came out on the stage warts and all, gave us much better songs and a much less commercial contest which was still beautifully produced by the host cities/countries on show day.

Georgia had the first greenhouse. It started when Giga Kukhianidze's students, 2 Mariams and 1 Giorgi, calling themselves "Bzikebi" ("Wasps"), flew away with the 2008 JESC in an historic landslide. The song, of course, was called "Bzz". They dressed like wasps, danced like wasps and sang in a waspish language (I guess the JESC national language requirements were overlooked). If you have never seen that performance, you should. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMHcS_QdiIU. It was original, unique, fun, funny, amazing.

The next year, 2009, Giga was not involved in the Georgian national selection, at least so far as the published literature goes. "Princesses", who came out of God-knows-where, won the national selection with a brilliant - and, in my opinion, one of JESC's most underrated - song, "Lurji Prinveli" (Blue Bird) but Georgia dropped down to 6th.

Then the next year, it was Giga to the rescue. He formed a greenhouse, "Bzikebi Studios" and took students. In 2010, Giga ran with one of these students, "Baby Gaga", Mariam Kakhelishvili, who had lost to Bzikebi in the national selection in 2008. Georgia went up to 4th but perhaps Giga realised that he could not keep trying to copy Bzikebi's wins with nonsense language: Mariam's "Mari-Daris" had done only a little better than the Princesses' "Ram-ta-pa-ta-pas" and nothing like Bzikebi's "Bzzz-bzzalos".

In 2011, Bzikebi Studios got it right. Giga filled the stage with 5 of his older girl students, called them "Candy" and gave them a song in proper Georgian called "Candy Party". Georgia won the contest. The one nod to the old formula was a 10 year old Armenian member of Candy, Irina, who threw in a winning "Oo-ah, oo-ah" whenever needed.

2012-2015 was a dry spell for Giga. Georgia did not win. Again, Giga tried to beat an old formula to death, trying to recreate Candy with kid groups whose main attractions seemed to be pulling faces and mugging for the camera.

Also, Georgia did not win in 2012-2015 because it got outgreenhoused. In Malta, the greenhouse was La Voix Academy and the gardeners were Maltese pop stars Gillian Attard (voice) and Matthew "Muxu" Mercieca (music). Their first big success was Gaia Cauchi, who won for Malta in 2013, followed by Destiny Chukunyere's landslide in 2015.

In 2014, La Voix stumbled with Federica Falzon, a child operatic singer who sounded 50 years old when she opened her mouth. Technically perfect: but opera is definitely a downer for today's kids. ask Melani Garcia (Spain, 2018) and Jackie Evancho and Emanne Beasha from America's Got Talent. Hearthrob Vincenzo Cantiello (2014) went over much better, singing about his first love. A strong Italian contestant is always dangerous for Malta, as he/she will pull votes from Malta's Italophiliac elite kids: it could happen this year too.

In 2016, Malta could not get over "Mamadashvili mania" among the juries, as there was no televote. Giga had pulled one of his former students, 11 year old Mariam Mamadashvili, back from New York, where she was studying for the theatre. He put her with someone else's song and produced the video. The televote was gone, the juries loved "Mzeo" ("Sun")'s complex structure and Mariam's Broadway style of singing and Georgia won.

In 2017-2020, both greenhouses were out of the JESC competition although they remained successful music schools. Both Georgia and Malta tanked, Malta hitting rock bottom in 2019 and Georgia falling to 14 out of 19 contestants in the same year.

This year, Giga is back with, in my humble opinion, one of his best songs: "Count The Smiles". It has a vibe perfect for JESC and includes as the common language French instead of English. Can he win, or is focusing on the song another example of trying to beat an old formula to death? Niko Kajaia is unknown outside Georgia. I cannot find his total followers but his posts on Instagram get likes in the hundreds while Sara's (Poland) and Tanya's (Russia) get likes in the thousands. Georgia's total voters are too few to compete with Poland's and Russia's on a national basis. So where can Georgia's winning majority come from? I will leave it with this: (1) if the contest were decided on merit alone Georgia would win and it could have done so in JESC 2012 as it then was (2) the juries will love this entry and (3) Georgia have a good shot at the top 10, maybe even top 5, but not number 1.

This year, Malta's greenhouse is only half into the JESC. Gillian Attard's La Voix Academy is still going strong but Gillian did not write "My Home". La Voix is there, however, in the person of Kaya Gouder Curmi, a La Voix student (you can see it in her stage presence and hear it in her technically perfect singing) and Muxu was a co-writer of the lyrics. Probably, Gillian has been coaching Kaya behind the scenes but that is a guess.

Is half a greenhouse good enough? First of all, La Voix not running this show is going to hurt Ike and Kaya: the "What were they thinking?" strategy of a duo singing half in rap is combining JESC's least favourite attributes, duos and raps. Gillian was never so "creative" in the worst sense of the word. No duo (Bulgaria and Serbia please note!) and no even partially-rap song (ask Arina Pekhtereva (Belarus, 2020) has ever won JESC. Young children like neither. They need a single candidate they can identify with and, except in some urban areas and among immigrant and first-generation children, they do not feel comfortable with rap. Add to this that the rap and ballad are not combined properly: a child looking at the video thinks "Kaya is trying to sing a beautiful song so why is Ike barracking her?". Even being in English and some Muxu impact on the lyrics will not save this. All that was needed to totally bury Malta's chances would have been for Kaya to start singing opera in the middle of it all. Add to this a strong candidate in Italy, in Elisabetta Lizzi, "Signorina Maneskin", and we start looking for Malta as a distant rock, drowning in the ocean, perhaps, as in the recent past, a Slavic ocean.

The greenhouses were a transitional phase in the movement from a child-dominated to a broadcaster-dominated contest. They offered children a chance at stardom and broadcasters well-trained children with partly-professional songs who could win JESC. They made good sense for small countries. However, they probably cannot survive an environment of superstar candidates, nationalist voting and professionally-packaged songs and singers, marketed professionally. Georgia and Malta are putting their best feet forward by going back to their greenhouses this year, Malta stumbling by not going full-on with their greenhouse. Now we will see whether greenhouses are still relevant and can save the day or are an idea whose time has passed.

Very interesting analysis. Maybe I've never read a deeper one. Just one single remark: There was a duo that won JESC - the Tolmachevy Sisters.

 

[AlekS]

RTVE leaked the Spanish postcard

 

[DanielLuis]

RTVE leaked the Spanish postcard

They always do this kind of thing. I don't understand how they haven't received any warning from the EBU yet

 

[I bims]

Instagram Battles

Sara Egwu-James (Poland), who had lost 8,000 instagram followers last month, has picked up 5,000 more in the past fortnight. It is a good sign of momentum going into the vote on Sunday. Her closest rival among the instagram kiddies and teens, Tatyana Mezhentseva (Russia), picked up only 1,000 followers in the same period. Now Egwu-James stands at 126,000 followers and Mezhentseva has 122,000.

I was never sure why Sara lost the 8,000 in November: the only thing she did was sing "Jesus You Are My Life" at an international conference organised by the Catholic Church. MAYBE this turned off some of the urban teens in Poland who are anti-Church. Most Poles are deeply religious but many young city dwellers regard the Church as related to the governing Party, who have done things like abolishing abortion rights and so is perceived as old-fashioned and anti-modern. It was bad signalling on Sara's part. It's a guess. Lately, she has been posting about going to Paris, including "Please VOTE for me now", with directions how to do that. That this has gained her followers rather than lost them is a very good sign for her.

The Armenian Balloon - Hot Air!

I cannot understand the Armenian balloon that has blown up on this site in various places. Arpine Martoyan ("Malena Fox") has about 500 instagram followers and a tiny 10,000 subscribers on Youtube. Could any supporter of Armenia please explain to me where her votes are meant to come from to challenge powerhouses like Sara and Tanya? You like her song? My favourite song is North Macedonia's but I'd be pleasantly shocked if they won. I deliberately don't run around trying to create the illusion that they are going to win.

Plus, as I have already posted, Comrade Arpine posted on youtube that she has a crush on Lenin: is this how European kids want to be represented? If she somehow wins it will be because most of them don't know about the political position she has published. Should the spelling of her song title be changed to "Commie, Commie"? I don't want to see politics in JESC but she put them there, I just informed and responded. If I have a wrong impression, Arpine should show she is capable of representing Europe in 2021 and pull the photo down. If she wins and the press get that photo, there will be a fire-storm!

Did the follower count matter much in past years?

And who cares if a child says she likes Lenin, lol.

 

[AlekS]

The scoreboard has leaked too:

 

[goncalovieira]

Our song is so... meh.
But well, seems that the RTP team is taking notes from SVT work. The staging is quite good.

 

[Dr J]

Very interesting analysis. Maybe I've never read a deeper one. Just one single remark: There was a duo that won JESC - the Tolmachevy Sisters.

Cheers for the compliment, Shameless!

I did mention the "duo" of the Tolmachevy twins but are two twins singing in unison really a duo? Technically, you're right but what Kaya and Ike are doing is quite different and has never won.

 

[Dr J]

Did the follower count matter much in past years?

And who cares if a child says she likes Lenin, lol.

I cannot get historical figures on Instagram following but last year, it was glaring. Valentina published her song very late, France did not have a strong history on JESC but suddenly she won by a huge margin. What I found was that Valentina had this huge Instagram following on "Valentina Official", 300,000, that no other candidate had. If those people voted twice, which they were allowed to do, it accounts for 600,000 out of France's 700,000 televotes and she did post on Instagram asking her followers to vote "for France".

Will it make a difference in 2021? I am arguing that at least it could. Sara Egwu-James is not as popular across Europe as Valentina was because of Kids United but her Instagram lead merely demonstrates her big popularity in Poland: and she is asking them to vote in JESC, just like Valentina did. And remember 2018-2019? A candidate who can get the Polish kids to vote can swamp the JESC televote and even lose the juries but still win JESC.

Re Comrade Arpin, if a kid playing football in the street in Yerevan says she misses Lenin, it's just weird and sad, for even Armenia suffered horribly from Communism. That kid needs better education but you're right: we don't need to care. But if a girl who wants to represent Europe's youth says she has a crush on Lenin, yeah, Europeans should care and even those who outside who want Europe to stay democratic should care. If that photo of her sitting with Lenin's picture and saying "my new crush" got into the Armenian press, 75% of the country would be trying to kill Arpin. Again, I say, if she wants to be taken seriously as a candidate to represent today's young people in Europe, Arpin should take that photo off her community page of youtube. Until then, no one who believes in today's democratic, capitalistic Europe should vote for her because she raised the issue.

"Teach your children well" . . . because "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it".

 

[shameless]

I cannot get historical figures on Instagram following but last year, it was glaring. Valentina published her song very late, France did not have a strong history on JESC but suddenly she won by a huge margin. What I found was that Valentina had this huge Instagram following on "Valentina Official", 300,000, that no other candidate had. If those people voted twice, which they were allowed to do, it accounts for 600,000 out of France's 700,000 televotes and she did post on Instagram asking her followers to vote "for France".

Will it make a difference in 2021? I am arguing that at least it could. Sara Egwu-James is not as popular across Europe as Valentina was because of Kids United but her Instagram lead merely demonstrates her big popularity in Poland: and she is asking them to vote in JESC, just like Valentina did. And remember 2018-2019? A candidate who can get the Polish kids to vote can swamp the JESC televote and even lose the juries but still win JESC.

Re Comrade Arpin, if a kid playing football in the street in Yerevan says she misses Lenin, it's just weird and sad, for even Armenia suffered horribly from Communism. That kid needs better education but you're right: we don't need to care. But if a girl who wants to represent Europe's youth says she has a crush on Lenin, yeah, Europeans should care and even those who outside who want Europe to stay democratic should care. If that photo of her sitting with Lenin's picture and saying "my new crush" got into the Armenian press, 75% of the country would be trying to kill Arpin. Again, I say, if she wants to be taken seriously as a candidate to represent today's young people in Europe, Arpin should take that photo off her community page of youtube. Until then, no one who believes in today's democratic, capitalistic Europe should vote for her because she raised the issue.

"Teach your children well" . . . because "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it".

It's very sad how we have to judge children on their social media behaviour. I don't think you're not right but I still see the aspect that she's a child first of all and should be excused for a lot of things. I know that our society is very bad in excusing people in first place whenever they do or post something "wrong" (by what standard whatsoever) but can we, as I assume people who are older and a bit more reflective not be too judgemental about this? I might touch a difficult topic here (and we don't need to get too much into it). Lord knows my friends and me in our teenage days were using a lot of codes from the GDR youth in order to be "hip". Even though we didn't grow up in that system (or parents did though). it was more a nostalgic aspect and us thinking "screw capitalism". It is not always easy to put things in the "good" and "bad" category when it comes to the culture of ones country / nation whatsoever especially when you see it from an outside perspective.

 

[Mainshow]

That "argument" of Poland winning in 2018 and 2019 "just because of Polish votes" is so ridiculous and unjustified. I can´t believe people still bring this up. They had the best productions and entries. In the other two editions in which this online voting procedure had been used, Poland didn´t even end up being Top 7 (2017) or ended up being bottom 4 (2020).

 

[Dr J]

It's very sad how we have to judge children on their social media behaviour. I don't think you're not right but I still see the aspect that she's a child first of all and should be excused for a lot of things. I know that our society is very bad in excusing people in first place whenever they do or post something "wrong" (by what standard whatsoever) but can we, as I assume people who are older and a bit more reflective not be too judgemental about this? I might touch a difficult topic here (and we don't need to get too much into it). Lord knows my friends and me in our teenage days were using a lot of codes from the GDR youth in order to be "hip". Even though we didn't grow up in that system (or parents did though). it was more a nostalgic aspect and us thinking "screw capitalism". It is not always easy to put things in the "good" and "bad" category when it comes to the culture of ones country / nation whatsoever especially when you see it from an outside perspective.

I guess this is about Comrade Arpin. First of all, she is not a little child. She is 14 years old. If you study her you will see that she is really motivated to become an international superstar, even changing her name to make that easier. If so, she is going to be judged on her social media behaviour all her life.

Second, we are not running in to put a little girl on trial on our own motion. We, her audience, have the right to decide whether to vote for her or not. I am not trying to kill her, just saying we should not vote for her until she shows she can represent all European children, not just the Komsomol. Arpin could have done what all the other candidates are doing: focused on her music. She chose to put up a political statement on social media that is offensive to millions of eastern Europeans who know what Lenin stood for. Doesn't she ever get to learn that choices have consequences? Would it be good for her never to learn that?

With respect, I don't think what Arpin did has anything to do with the culture or her country. Armenia has put that part of their history behind them. It is an individual choice on her part, not Armenia's. As I said before, most Armenians would hate her for it. Only about 20% of them vote for ex-Communist apparatchiks who would smile at her post. Arpin in no way represented her country or her culture in announcing her politics: but representing her country and her culture is what she is meant to do.

To put the issue in context, if Paulina put up a photo of herself giving a picture of Hitler the "heil" salute, would no one care? Would Europe not care? Would Germany not care? Would they just say "Oh, she's just a little girl, it's OK"? Or would most German kids vote against her if they knew about it?

 

[Dr J]

That "argument" of Poland winning in 2018 and 2019 "just because of Polish votes" is so ridiculous and unjustified. I can´t believe people still bring this up. They had the best productions and entries. In the other two editions in which this online voting procedure had been used, Poland didn´t even end up being Top 7 (2017) or ended up being bottom 4 (2020).

The argument cannot be justified because the country sources of the votes have not been recorded. On the other hand, that does not ipso facto make it unjustified and certainly not ridiculous. Also, I did not say that Poland won "just because of Polish votes": for the same reason, that also cannot be justified. I said that a Polish candidate who could bring out the Polish kids to vote [would have a big enough base of votes that, added to votes in other countries, she] could be pushed over the top that way. If Tanya can bring out the Russian kids to vote, the same thing will happen for her because Russia is so populous. There is no magic to it.

When you say Poland had "the best productions and entries", how do you justify that? It's just your idea of what is best. There's the magic!

2018-2019 were relatively normal years and the other two years were not normal. In 2017, Russia lost both the juries and the televote but won the contest. Only a minority of voters got their preferred choice. In 2020, Valentina's personal popularity (including instagram and Kids United) brought enough new votes (the total was up from 3,770,000 in 2019 to 4,500,000 in 2020) to get 16% of the total over the 2nd place 10%. Also add that this was in the depths of the pandemic and there were only 9 candidates: opposition to Poland tended to concentrate on Valentina (much to Solea's chagrin) rather than to be spread across 9 other candidates (who weren't there) in bits and pieces that would have raised Poland's rank. Finally add that Ala Tracz was too young to appeal to the Polish teens who had brought Viki and Roxana over the top: probably many of them did not vote and their places were taken by Valentina fans. However, note this: if we could somehow scrunch 2018, 2019 and 2020 together, Valentina's 700,000 votes would have beaten both Viki at 567,895 votes and Roxy at 150,529 votes. 2020 was indeed a special year.

Now there is no superstar on the ballot. The closest one to a superstar is Poland's own candidate. This is a more normal year. Break out the pierogies . . .

 

[AlekS]

1st run: Earpiece issues? She didn't sound well at all in the beginning (+ there were major technical issues in the press center), but she got way better in the end
2nd run: Much much better!
3rd run: She was excellent!
She begins too quietly tho, so prerecorded vocals sound louder, hopefully they will fix it.

ps. The intro sounded great at the soundcheck.

 

[Kitakaze]

Having trouble picking out a winner from the likely top 3 in France, Poland and Armenia. At the moment I’m running with France as it just stands out a bit more than the other 2, especially in terms of bringing the fun. Judging from the rehearsal snippets, they just seem to have the more distinctive staging and choreography and with factoring in the running order and Enzo’s charisma and star quality, it just has that fresher edge and leaves a stronger impression. Though I really can envision scenarios for all three winning, particularly with Poland if the diaspora turns out. Thought I’d do a pre-show prediction anyway so I can look back and see how wrong I was. Will be rooting for my favourite Elisabetta & Italy but with the standard being so high this year, don’t think I’ll be too disappointed with whoever does win.

01 France 02 Poland 03 Armenia 04 Italy 05 Russia 06 Georgia 07 Ukraine 08 Azerbaijan 09 North Macedonia 10 Spain

11 Albania 12 Kazakhstan 13 Portugal 14 Germany 15 The Netherlands 16 Ireland 17 Serbia 18 Malta 19 Bulgaria

 

[AlekS]

Russia caught cold, she didn't sound good, but she will sound better on Sunday.
1st run: She didn't hear herself in the earpiece, so she stopped the music after the 1st verse and they started again. The man who attached her to the ring was visible on video. Right after that she lost concentration, squealed & forgot the lyrics. She coughed one time. I feel sorry for her, because she was almost crying in the end.
2nd run: She sounds better in the beginning, but her voice cracked in the last chorus. People who bring bicycles to the stage are visible on camera. Some people in the press center laughed. Imho, her throat hurts and it feels horrible to sing, she's a little girl for heck's sake. Laugh? Really?
3rd run: Much better vocally. But the voice cracked again when the ring started to ascend. Random people aren't visible and the video footage is ok.