For many, especially casual fans, the late noughties were the peak of entertainment value. The last years were full of "joke entries" and gimmick-packed, high energy stagings like "Be My Valentine", "Day After Day", and even the 2008 and 2009 winners. But the next decade turned it around, to focus on intimate, personal performances by the singer and slick, stylish stagings rather than crazy visuals and choreography. The "joke entries" also pretty much completely disappeared. I so wonder how something like Sweden's "Fuldans" would have done if it had won the NF!
There's been attempts to go against the norm, of course, but they've mostly ended in the semis, like the ambitious Ivan and Greta in 2016 and Moldova's hilariously over-the-top Eduardo in 2015, but since then there's been a subtle shift. It seems the few extravagantly staged entries in recent years actually tend to make the final, and do decently, which could be a sign of a greater change about to happen.
2017 specifically, was a minor comeback for visually intense stagings, with several entries in the top 10 containing both high-energy dance and wild visual effects. The next year was slightly calmer overall, but both of the top 2, Israel and Cyprus, as well as Czechia's Mikolas on 6th place and Doredos on 10th showed both dance and visual assault can still get top scores.
2019 looked like it would be more subdued, but against the expectations of many, big show entries did pretty well: Switzerland's dance-fest got 4th, and visually spectacular entries from Azerbaijan, Australia and Iceland all made the top 10. Plus Norway actually won the televote, while the staging was pretty simple, the song was pretty "crazy" by current standards. San Marino and Czechia also got their best and second-best results with colorful, high-energy shows.
It seems this minor comeback hasn't really been recognized, neither by mass media or ESC fans, but clearly there's a desire both among viewers and creators for "wilder" entries again.
I'm thinking Australia (Kate Miller-Heidke) and Iceland (Hatari) especially might be the pointer to what's about to happen. Is 2020 gonna be the year that ESC becomes fully crazy again? Though this year's winner might lead the trend in the opposite direction, as i claimed in a previous thread, will we see a bunch of similar stagings, and musically more adventurous entries?
There's been attempts to go against the norm, of course, but they've mostly ended in the semis, like the ambitious Ivan and Greta in 2016 and Moldova's hilariously over-the-top Eduardo in 2015, but since then there's been a subtle shift. It seems the few extravagantly staged entries in recent years actually tend to make the final, and do decently, which could be a sign of a greater change about to happen.
2017 specifically, was a minor comeback for visually intense stagings, with several entries in the top 10 containing both high-energy dance and wild visual effects. The next year was slightly calmer overall, but both of the top 2, Israel and Cyprus, as well as Czechia's Mikolas on 6th place and Doredos on 10th showed both dance and visual assault can still get top scores.
2019 looked like it would be more subdued, but against the expectations of many, big show entries did pretty well: Switzerland's dance-fest got 4th, and visually spectacular entries from Azerbaijan, Australia and Iceland all made the top 10. Plus Norway actually won the televote, while the staging was pretty simple, the song was pretty "crazy" by current standards. San Marino and Czechia also got their best and second-best results with colorful, high-energy shows.
It seems this minor comeback hasn't really been recognized, neither by mass media or ESC fans, but clearly there's a desire both among viewers and creators for "wilder" entries again.
I'm thinking Australia (Kate Miller-Heidke) and Iceland (Hatari) especially might be the pointer to what's about to happen. Is 2020 gonna be the year that ESC becomes fully crazy again? Though this year's winner might lead the trend in the opposite direction, as i claimed in a previous thread, will we see a bunch of similar stagings, and musically more adventurous entries?