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Is the jury agenda coming full circle now?

A-lister

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Each year, since the juries re-joined the contest, we've seen a decline in entries using national motives and a major decline in use of native languages aswell (2014 was a record of both). Subjective taste in music aside, these were two traces that made Eurovision unique amongst other music shows and the contest have been a source for showcasing and celebrating all Europe.

The ones who are old enough to remember the 100% jury years (or atleast who have knowledge in those years), would remember that juries always favored the safe, mostly standard ballads, over exotic and national rhythms.

2014 mark the year with a record of non-native language entries, aswell as a year where any traces of Europe has been put to the minimum. Poland's ethnno-R&B was trashed to bits by the juries, Portugal's summery local song aswell (both entries would have faired far better just based on the televoters). We're left with an all English, all safe-standard-western pop/ballad top. 10. The few other entries which were presented in native languages (atleast partly) like Italy, France and Israel, were all trashed by the juries aswell.

Looking at the past years, juries have backed Finland's attempts while sending wannabe American stuff, but trashed them when they sent a local ethno anthem (liked by the public) back in 2010. Netherlands was trashed by the juries when they sent a local Dutch schlager, but loved when sending Americanized music. Bulgaria have been blocked by the juries to enter the final two times in a row (but would have made it on televotes) when they sent local inspired entries in native language. The list goes on forever and ever, and it's the same thing repeating. English standardized westernized pop and ballads are being loved by the juries, local and different things are being trashed and punished.

Have the juries come full circle now? Will a country even dare to try anything local next year? Where is the Eurovision spirit if you get punished for staying true to your own colors? How come a country importing an entry from abroad with zero attachment to the country get more jury love than the ones trying to represent their countries? Shouldn't Eurovision be about celebrating European diversity?

I state the same each year, and each year I get lots of disagreements (mostly by people happy about the approach). But objectively looking, the decline is obvious, and it correlates with the jury influence. Now when EBU has strengthen the juries' power even more, the decline in everything local is even more brutal than just a couple of years ago. Is this really what EUROvision should be about? Shouldn't these experts atleast pay SOME attention to the concept of the show? Some attention to the public?

We're having juries running the show now, and they are very apparent that they have a major dislike for everything European or anything that is different from the western radio pop norm (and we're not even talking up-to-date radio).
 

Mrm

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I doubt it will be anything local next year..and in native language will be maybe 2,3,4 countries..even Spain sang more in English this time than in Spanish lang.
 

tuorem

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I guess it's also up to the participants to dare sending songs that show their culture and national language. I dream but if every country sent an entry with a local flavor and in their language, the juries would have no choice but to vote for some of them.

I agree with you about the juries overall, Finland only qualified when it was awful (2009-2011-2013-2014).

If I remember well, the only ones that didn't fit the Americanized standard stuff and that they wanted to save (in the semis of course) were Croatia 2009, Croatia 2012 (it didn't qualify though), Albania 2012 and Monténégro 2014.
 

A-lister

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I guess it's also up to the participants to dare sending songs that show their culture and national language. I dream but if every country sent an entry with a local flavor and in their language, the juries would have no choice but to vote for some of them.

I agree with you about the juries overall, Finland only qualified when it was awful (2009-2011-2013-2014).

If I remember well, the only ones that didn't fit the Americanized standard stuff and that they wanted to save (in the semis of course) were Croatia 2009, Croatia 2012 (it didn't qualify though), Albania 2012 and Monténégro 2014.

You don't get it, countries/broadcasters cater want success. Some broadcasters don't even pick songs like those to their selections anymore, and if they do they have local juries preventing them from winning, and this is all calculated because they want to cater to the taste of juries in ESC. It all correlates. It's just natural in a sense that countries try to pick entries they know will be successful, and with the knowledge that the juries will PUNISH you for trying something different or local, it's obvious they won't even take the risk any longer.

It's all very tragic what happened to ESC, and I've been saying this year after year, now we see the results of what the EBU tried to achieve. Eurovision is no longer a European contest, it's a contest which solely caters to the taste of the western masses. It's no longer a celebration of European diversity and a musical exchange.

The juries were not brought back because the contest needed musical "expertise", they were solely brought back because some western countries were fed up with eastern success and diaspora voting. To some extent they were needed, but now they are taking it way too far with punishing countries and try to minimize everything local in the contest.
 

Salmon

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There's a simple reason for all that. Juries => Safe and "normal" acts/songs winning (even though Conchita kinda turned this upside down) => No one is scared away from the contest => More viewers => More money for the EBU.

Other than that, I have nothing to add to your words, OP.
 

RainyWoods

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What if there was a rule stating you can only send an entry in a foreign language (english) every other year? A country can't for instance send two English entries in a row, however they would be free to sing in their native tongue or a national language as many years in a row as they'd like. I think this would be a really interesting rule and restore what a lot of us want back to the contest. We'd end up with a 50/50 mix of english and native tongue this way.
 

A-lister

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There's a simple reason for all that. Juries => Safe and "normal" acts/songs winning (even though Conchita kinda turned this upside down) => No one is scared away from the contest => More viewers => More money for the EBU.

Other than that, I have nothing to add to your words, OP.

Conchita is 100% safe camp dated Americanized ballad from another decade. Yes it was a bearded drag, but the song is absolutely nothing fresh nor is it any representation of Austrian music (isn't it an imported song aswell?).
 

RainyWoods

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Conchita is 100% safe camp dated Americanized ballad from another decade. Yes it was a bearded drag, but the song is absolutely nothing fresh nor is it any representation of Austrian music (isn't it an imported song aswell?).

John Barry the Bond composer was British. It's a very British sound actually.
 

A-lister

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What if there was a rule stating you can only send an entry in a foreign language (english) every other year? A country can't for instance send two English entries in a row, however they would be free to sing in their native tongue or a national language as many years in a row as they'd like. I think this would be a really interesting rule and restore what a lot of us want back to the contest. We'd end up with a 50/50 mix of english and native tongue this way.

I think one major issue is lack of native languages, however another (probably even more) major issue is the lack of entries that are daring, different and especially entries including local motives. The juries seem to trash the latter to pieces each year since they re-joined, and it's killing the diversity and imo the whole concept of this contest. Just take a look at the final top. 10 this year music wise, there was not a single entry which could be described as actually representing their countries, they were more or less all safe-pop in English with a 100% westernized/americanized sound.
 

FilipFromSweden

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There should be a jury, but a more profesional one.
 

Mrm

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Maybe the best option is to organize editions by genres, f.e. 2014 only rock entries, 2015 only folk music entries, 2016 only pop ballads entries.. :D :)
 

A-lister

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No, I was just correcting you xqueenbitch

Yeah, but still UK is a major player (and always was) in the mainstream English language music. It's one of those countries setting the "norm" for mainstream pop. It's UK and USA and to some extent Sweden aswell, and it's an issue if that is all what is accepted by the juries in Eurovision. I mean it's like there's a natural law that everything should sound like it's coming from those countries? Who is setting the agenda here really? How are Russians feeling represented by an internally picked cheesy Disney ballad in English (2013) with no connection to their own music scene? How are Armenians represented by a dubstep ballad in English? I mean what we see now is countries doing everything they can to cater to the juries' extremely western-anglo-centric view on music, and when countries are daring to go against that idea of music, they get punished for doing so.
 

RainyWoods

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I think one major issue is lack of native languages, however another (probably even more) major issue is the lack of entries that are daring, different and especially entries including local motives. The juries seem to trash the latter to pieces each year since they re-joined, and it's killing the diversity and imo the whole concept of this contest. Just take a look at the final top. 10 this year music wise, there was not a single entry which could be described as actually representing their countries, they were more or less all safe-pop in English with a 100% westernized/americanized sound.

I agree to an extent, although I thought the top 10 was actually pretty decent-ish this year and countries did contain certain aspects of culture within their music. Sweden was very Swedish, Ukraine had ethnic elements, Russia had a VERY Russian sound.. plus there was a beautiful contemporary song in the final from Carl which sounded very un-eurovisionary and more like a song you'd hear on an alternative singer songwriters album like Perfume Genius.
 

tuorem

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You don't get it, countries/broadcasters cater want success. Some broadcasters don't even pick songs like those to their selections anymore, and if they do they have local juries preventing them from winning, and this is all calculated because they want to cater to the taste of juries in ESC. It all correlates. It's just natural in a sense that countries try to pick entries they know will be successful, and with the knowledge that the juries will PUNISH you for trying something different or local, it's obvious they won't even take the risk any longer.

It's all very tragic what happened to ESC, and I've been saying this year after year, now we see the results of what the EBU tried to achieve. Eurovision is no longer a European contest, it's a contest which solely caters to the taste of the western masses. It's no longer a celebration of European diversity and a musical exchange.

The juries were not brought back because the contest needed musical "expertise", they were solely brought back because some western countries were fed up with eastern success and diaspora voting. To some extent they were needed, but now they are taking it way too far with punishing countries and try to minimize everything local in the contest.

I do get it. I was just saying that if everyone sent a song that really represented their country, there wouldn't be any safe Americanized stuff for the juries to vote.
 

FilipFromSweden

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The juries don't only trash, they saved Montenegro! xlove
 

A-lister

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I do get it. I was just saying that if everyone sent a song that really represented their country, there wouldn't be any safe Americanized stuff for the juries to vote.

True, but broadcaster see the results of the few daring to do so, and with that knowledge they won't risk it xshrug
 

A-lister

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I agree to an extent, although I thought the top 10 was actually pretty decent-ish this year and countries did contain certain aspects of culture within their music. Sweden was very Swedish, Ukraine had ethnic elements, Russia had a VERY Russian sound.. plus there was a beautiful contemporary song in the final from Carl which sounded very un-eurovisionary and more like a song you'd hear on an alternative singer songwriters album like Perfume Genius.

Sweden did indeed sound like a standard Eurovision ballad, Ukraine had 2 sec of ethnic elements and that was it, Russian entry VERY Russian? I guess Norway was the only "different" in the top. 10 (maybe not a Norwegian sound, but atleast something different from the standard... however it could have been a British entry aswell).
 

Terence

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Well to add insult to the injury, the lack of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia didn't help matters...

I'm torn about this matter, like I said a million times. Disapprove full televoting, yet I don't agree 100% with the juries because of the potential trashing of certain entries (on purpose? we will never know).
 
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