ESC 2018 General Discussion Thread

[ZoboCamel]

Was just looking for a general discussion thread to chat about the 2018 contest and realised that no one had made one yet, despite it almost being March

Feel free to post whatever you want here as long as it's related to the 2018 contest, I guess: thoughts on overall song quality/content, memes, rumours, predictions and expectations, whatever.

It's probably best to keep most detailed stuff to its dedicated threads - e.g. discussions of individual songs, top-lists, ticket-swapping etc. already have a specific place elsewhere in other threads - but I figured it'd help to have a more general chat thread too. So go wild!

 

[ZoboCamel]

To start things off with what I meant to post in the first place - I'm really liking the prevalence of national languages so far this year! 9/19 songs chosen so far are entirely in native languages, and that goes up to 10 if you count the U.K. as well.

Sure, a couple might change their language by the time the main contest rolls around, but most of those nine have confirmed they're staying in their native languages, so this is regardless still looking like the best year in a while for language variety.

Also consider that we've already got significantly more non-English songs than there were in the entirety of last year (9 vs. 5.5, counting bilingual songs as 0.5), and we don't even have half of the 2018 songs yet!

 

[Realest]

I think me might have a year like 2011 with no huge Favorites and 8-9 potential Winners.

 

[ZoboCamel]

I think me might have a year like 2011 with no huge Favorites and 8-9 potential Winners.

People seem to say that just about every year... but yeah, I think this time it might actually be a little more accurate (unless something unexpected rolls pops up from the internal selections, of course). It's not often that we get to late February without a clear favourite - the shortest song in the odds is still available at odds higher than 8/1, (and 9/1 only a couple of hours ago), which is rare when we've got half the entries. For example, I think this time last year we had Italy at about 5/1.

We've got some decent genre variety, none of the favourites so far are screaming "obvious winner", and there are a lot of dark horses that I think could stand a chance. Plus, a lot of those dark horses come from countries that haven't been considered particularly strong until recent years or this year, while a bunch of the big perennial contenders (Sweden/Russia/Romania/Italy/Ukraine) are indicating they might not be in top form as far as results go. Hopefully we'll get an interesting results show!

 

[Realest]

I think we still havent heard the Winnersong at the Moment. And probably (although La Forza would be a perfect Winner) wont have it too.

 

[ChrisOL]

I think we still havent heard the Winnersong at the Moment. And probably (although La Forza would be a perfect Winner) wont have it too.

I actually could imagine Benjamin winning Eurovision for this year (of course only if he wins Melodifestivalen). Not that I really like his song as a winner, but it is good and catchy somehow and it would be a refreshing winner after 2016 and 2017.

 

[Realest]

I actually could imagine Benjamin winning Eurovision for this year (of course only if he wins Melodifestivalen). Not that I really like his song as a winner, but it is good and catchy somehow and it would be a refreshing winner after 2016 and 2017.

Yes, I also love this Song, but im not sure if it is "the One".

 

[JChan]

I think we still havent heard the Winnersong at the Moment. And probably (although La Forza would be a perfect Winner) wont have it too.

If La Forza wins Eesti Laul I think it becomes my favourite eurovision song of all time.

 

[Realest]

28 Songs revealed and we probaby still havent heard the Winnersong. Now its vs I guess.

 

[tsegaye]

28 Songs revealed and we probaby still havent heard the Winnersong. Now its vs I guess.

Wouldn't count out or just yet.

 

[Realest]

Wouldn't count out or just yet.

I have no hopes in but maybe i get surprised. But I forgot

 

[DaFlo]

Croatia will bring the winner song #hearditherefirst

(or Australia)

edit: rip this prediction

 

[Realest]

BTW (and maybe ) are in Danger. I have a feeling that at least one of them will fail.

 

[Ezio]

Ukraine is not in danger, Azerbaijan and Romania totally are.

 

[tsegaye]

I have a strong feeling now that the winner will be from the first semifinal...

 

[midnightsun]

This year is a wonderful year. After two dissappointing two years, I really love this year. I don't think we have a clear winner by now. The last years the winners have always been very obvious... there were a bunch of 3-5 songs that were meant to win from the very beginning. This year it's quite different, escpecially because the songs are so different. We have some old school classic Eurovision song versus the modern radio-friendly dance pop songs. I'm really looking forward to how it will turn out in the end. I'm sure ther will be quite some surprises...

 

[popavapeur]

Well I don't feel that Jamala nor Salvador were obvious winners. Jamala were in a bunch of 5 acts that could win but I would have predicted other countries before Ukraine and you don't remember all the fuss with Italy last year and how despised was Portugal's entry with a lot of people predicting it would stay in semis. BUT, you're right that in the finale, even before the show started, we could all feel Portugal could win. That was the same effect with Austria in 2014.

Actually I don't like very open years cause I feel like an Eurovision Winner should quite stand above everything else to give it like..a winner vibe you know ? Azerbaijan winning was like.. yeah that could have been someone else or they could have been second or third you know. I'm more into a clear 5 horses race than a 15 with 12's coming for everybody in the room.

 

[WhoKnows]

Well I don't feel that Jamala nor Salvador were obvious winners. Jamala were in a bunch of 5 acts that could win but I would have predicted other countries before Ukraine and you don't remember all the fuss with Italy last year and how despised was Portugal's entry with a lot of people predicting it would stay in semis. BUT, you're right that in the finale, even before the show started, we could all feel Portugal could win. That was the same effect with Austria in 2014.

Actually I don't like very open years cause I feel like an Eurovision Winner should quite stand above everything else to give it like..a winner vibe you know ? Azerbaijan winning was like.. yeah that could have been someone else or they could have been second or third you know. I'm more into a clear 5 horses race than a 15 with 12's coming for everybody in the room.

You're right about neither Ukraine nor Portugal being the obvious winner at this time in their respective years. However, we did have Russia and Italy that seemed like locks at this point. Yeah, they both ended up coming up short in the end, but we don't have anyone this year that feels like a far and away frontrunner.

 

[Chorizo]

 

[ag89]

People are complaining about the quality this year - I don't get it, there are so many up to date, well produced serious songs this year!