Eurovision in the 2010's - a decade of pretentiousness

[PinchyCrabstina]

As we're approaching the end of this current decade I've been thinking a lot lately about what sets the 10's apart from previous decades and possibly make some predictions about the future. Now, I realize the word 'pretentious' has a negative connotation but I think it's a fitting word to summarize this decade nonetheless. The 10's has been a decade where the winners have had to have a message that goes beyond love, love, peace, peace (something that signals that you're socially aware), like Netta, Conchita and Jamala. Salvador would probably also fit into this category with his rejection of "fast food music". Even Loreen fits in here even though her song was pretty meaningless, she herself has a "I perform barefoot and I reject the mainstream" streak about her.

All the winners have had in common is that the stage shows have never been "tacky". Måns won purely by having a really cool stage show that never crossed the border of being tacky. In other aspects he's an odd one out together with Emmelie and Ell & Nikki, as they all had very meh songs and don't possess the forementioned traits, though I'm not sure about Emmelie? The first winner of this decade, Lena, had the weird voice/accent going for her, awkward movements on stage à la Salvador Sobral and a general oddball vibe
à la Loreen, so she set the tone for this decade by not being too mainstream and too easily listened too.

As who will win this year, I think it'll be someone who would fit right into the above desciptions. Portugal, Italy, Albania, Iceland are ones to look out for (so far). Australia also has a chance I think, though I wouldn't necessarily call it pretentious. Australia would be a good crossover to what will be more gimmicky, slightly tackier and hopefully more fun 2020's. Everything comes in waves. The 2000's was a decade when peolpe didn't take things as seriously, it was more easy going and fun though many songs perhaps lacked in quality. If it still was the 2000's, Eleni would've won last year. But she wasn't weird enough, it was too mainstream so "yeah yeah fire" was simply not enough. The same goes for Sergey Lazarev in 2016. The 90's on the other hand had better songs and was a bit more like the current decade. The 80's was fun like the 2000's.

Next decade is going to be a lot more fun and we'll see a resurrection of joke acts though I hope we'll bring with us some of the wuality we had this decade.

 

[Ezio]

I suspect the 20's will be a big circus again. And it all starts as soon 21.

The end of this decade feels a bit dire, because we were all stressed out between (2010-16) with the massive Uranus square Pluto aspect. The world was in a constant rage.
Now we have a sober, slightly depressing Capricorn theme, that climaxes next year. Everything is about restriction, purification, bringing order into chaos, austerity, xenophobia.

We will witness the rise of spectacular Aquarius themes by 2021, that will enter with a bang and will solidify after 2024. It will bring a humanistic revolution, progress and - joy. I suspect Eurovision to become more gleeful and colourful, televoting less neighbour-friendly, maybe the abolition of juries again. The next decade resembles the years of 1997 and 2009, but there will be plenty more time.

 

[Alaska49]

reading this reminds me of that huge article predicting that we would only have picture-perfect, cute, idol-esque winners in the 50/50 era because we got rybak, lena, ellnikki and emmelie all almost in a row with only loreen being slightly different, and then we got conchita and only mans was ever another idol-esque winner afterwards

my point being, eurovision changes far too quickly now for us to think of decades as a cohesive sequence. big changes already started in 2017. eurovision is basically nothing like it was in 2010.

 

[PinchyCrabstina]

I suspect the 20's will be a big circus again. And it all starts as soon 21.

The end of this decade feels a bit dire, because we were all stressed out between (2010-16) with the massive Uranus square Pluto aspect. The world was in a constant rage.
Now we have a sober, slightly depressing Capricorn theme, that climaxes next year. Everything is about restriction, purification, bringing order into chaos, austerity, xenophobia.

We will witness the rise of spectacular Aquarius themes by 2021, that will enter with a bang and will solidify after 2024. It will bring a humanistic revolution, progress and - joy. I suspect Eurovision to become more gleeful and colourful, televoting less neighbour-friendly, maybe the abolition of juries again. The next decade resembles the years of 1997 and 2009, but there will be plenty more time.

My Aquarius moon is trembling. Can't wait for 2021.

 

[BorisBubbles]

The one pattern that is really consistent is that every winner comes with a clear plan in mind and *killed* its execution. You only need 10ish seconds of Heroes or 1944 to instantly realize what they are about, whether the presented message is genuine or not. Of course other characteristics play into the mix as well: Melody, tonality, press coverage, beat, gimmicks rhythm, staging, mood, instrumentation, camerawork, charisma and goodwill all play an important role as well, but each winner has their own different strengths (Mans for instance is immensely charismatic, while Conchita is very impressive vocally) and the same applies to songs ("Amar pelos dois"'s anti-Eurovision style, "Toy"'s wit and shock factor, etc).

What you can expect of winners nowadays is that they'll have an ironclad concept going in. The sooner, the better really. Netta benefited a lot from going world-wide viral last year, meaning that everyone knew who (or rather: what) she was before the contest even started. and definitely stand out as Different this year and if that's what the casual are feeling, one of them probably wins. If they want a Good Song without any strings attached, they'll go for and . If they want something Moderately Alternative, they'll go for and . Whichever of these executes their entry the best will be our winner.

 

[ThatGuy]

My take with the 2010s was that it was the "Decade of the Underdog". Not counting 2011, 2012 and 2015 (it was really Sweden who won those years as was pretty much a Swedish endeavor with an Azerbaijani face). Countries that nobody would think would win in the 2000s would win this decade. While the remnants of the 2000s stayed in from 2010-2013, 2014 marked the beginning of where countries that were considered least likely to win becoming favorites. I will tell you if you said to someone in 2010 that in 2017 the top 5 would be , , , and followed by , , , , and with even reaching top ten, people would think you're completely insane. Israel was going through a rough time from 2000-2015 (except in 2005 & 2008), and so was Denmark from 2002-2012 to a lesser extent. And nobody expected Portugal or Austria to win, ever. Heck, even sent great songs since 2014, even though they did not live up to it live.

I guess what I am trying to say is that after 2012, many countries upped their game when it came to song selections and how they approached the contest. Also, neighbor voting is not as much of a problem than it was before since the reintroduction of juries in 2009, even though the juries should be reformed a bit. It still exists of course, but it was not as much of a problem in 2007.

I am really not sure about how 2019 will turn out. None of the songs, are a clear winner but I am rooting for a few countries that had not been so lucky these past few years. I'm very interested to see how this year and the next decade holds. It might be more fun songs, but I get the feeling it will be a mix of the two.

 

[musicfan]

Defining the decade by the top placed songs seems limited, I wouldn't do that with an individual contest either. If I define anything (if there's a need) then I would likely do so through my favourite songs. I don't remember the others much.

 

[midnightsun]

...something that signals that you're socially aware...

I tend to agree in most points but not in this one. The "socially aware" songs have always won or placed high. Not only this decade but in every decade.
In the 2000s we didn't have juries and block voting was a thing, so we had a high amount of good looking girls or boys with tight clothes. ;-)
But social awareness > short dresses, that's why Molitva won!
Now we have juries who are supposed to keep everything balanced - unfortunately they don't anymore like in the late 2000s/early 2010, they just vote according to their own taste although that is actually forbidden by the ESC laws... but nobody cares these days, unfortunately.