Thinking of Slavic/Eastern Eurovision countries... "How to Win?"

[Loindici]

Not thinking of this as an issue to be urgently advocated, but it just kept me wondering.

It seems much harder for Eastern Eurovision countries, in general, to succeed or be considered a big competitor, post-2008.

Okay, maybe the can reach the top 10, and that's awesome. But reaching top 3 is far harder for them.

This is sans of Ukraine and Israel, who has done relatively good and even earned the Big Mic, or the Voldemort of Eurovision, because they will never fail by default.

Aside of political reasons, and the scales of these countries, to have a goal of winning Eurovision, what do you think:

1. The countries themselves should do with their selection/management?;
2. The things around the contest should apply/change (system, bookies, draw, EBU, etc.)?

I was probably so desperate of an underdog story, but it's just more about having these countries to be taken seriously.

 

[NeoTen]

Also adding to valid points above: I could write a whole essay about color theory, and how crew wore too much, how won by organizing expensive writers & composers camps over a decade ago, how the jury of the most eastern countries and the Iberian island always don't vote for a top 3 slavic or eastern-EU song, because EE-entries have too much creative freedom to write their songs. How EE-artists should tour their own region instead of ESC-Pre parties. How the national finals in the East don't value and strengthen international juries and televoters enough. In kiev there were 3 betters, that had spreadsheats on hair colours of artists, BPMs, rhyme schemes, dress review charts. They shot songs down within 1 minute. If they can do it...

Yes, we need full random draws, juries need to be past performers, & EBU needs to cut the AR. But it boils down to this first: The creative directors of these EE-countries aren't really perfectionistic enough to tackle the disvantage they have with Russia and Belarus not voting by being ruthless enough in coaching an entry from A>Z.

 

[Loindici]

Also adding to valid points above: I could write a whole essay about color theory, and how crew wore too much, how won by organizing expensive writers & composers camps over a decade ago, how the jury of the most eastern countries and the Iberian island always don't vote for a top 3 slavic or eastern-EU song, because EE-entries have too much creative freedom to write their songs. How EE-artists should tour their own region instead of ESC-Pre parties. How the national finals in the East don't value and strengthen international juries and televoters enough. In kiev there were 3 betters, that had spreadsheats on hair colours of artists, BPMs, rhyme schemes, dress review charts. They shot songs down within 1 minute. If they can do it...

Yes, we need full random draws, juries need to be past performers, & EBU needs to cut the AR. But it boils down to this first: The creative directors of these EE-countries aren't really perfectionistic enough to tackle the disvantage they have with Russia and Belarus not voting by being ruthless enough in coaching an entry from A>Z.

I love how you stated it. EE countries (including Baltics) are oftentimes much more creative and free-spirited with their entries. Much more often I find EE songs with self-composed credits.

I awould add that it comes to other three things: finance, staging, and hype. I think when compared to their North-Western counterparts, EE countries were generally tighter with their budget. Their way of staging an entry were either too 'kitsch'/camp-y for juries' taste ( ) or like the North-Westerns yet without much excitement ( ) About hype, they're often much smaller, less known countries and I won't deny fans tend to criticize/underestimate much more with their entries.

But I guess, we're getting there. Having Croatia to go 2nd this year is so wonderful. If these EE countries can generate good hype with their entry, I suppose an actual EE win would be next year.

 

[Loindici]

By the way, as the 2025 housing thread is already established, I'd love to continue the discussion there. See you in Nemo's Nook!

 

[WhoKnows]

I love how you stated it. EE countries (including Baltics) are oftentimes much more creative and free-spirited with their entries. Much more often I find EE songs with self-composed credits.

I awould add that it comes to other three things: finance, staging, and hype. I think when compared to their North-Western counterparts, EE countries were generally tighter with their budget. Their way of staging an entry were either too 'kitsch'/camp-y for juries' taste ( ) or like the North-Westerns yet without much excitement ( ) About hype, they're often much smaller, less known countries and I won't deny fans tend to criticize/underestimate much more with their entries.

But I guess, we're getting there. Having Croatia to go 2nd this year is so wonderful. If these EE countries can generate good hype with their entry, I suppose an actual EE win would be next year.

Where are we getting? An EE country CAN score a random good result (see Moldova coming 3rd one year) but the juries will continue to take away their chance for a win.

And we can try to explain away why this or that EE country didn't do better with the juries - too camp, too kitsch, too unserious, too much vocals, not enough vocals, too creative, not creative enough, too this, too that. But these same things don't stop WE countries from winning, while we continue to look for unicorn from EE that would be worthy of the jury's love.

 

[Uto]

I don't see the issue, there is nothing wrong with the product from the Eastern reaches in general, it's just that the West tends to send stuff that is better polished. I mean we can take the curious case of Denmark which often shows up with stuff that is half-baked and they flop in such cases. Belgium this year definitely had a good song, but the polish was lacking so it's sent packing. Ukraine never misses a beat, it's always a proper finished product, they are at 100%. It's that simple.

I mean you can totally show up with a total pile of nothing, put a cute girl on stage with prince charming on flute, do basically nothing and still get a result to be proud of. Why? Because it looked the part, it had all the polish it needed. It was supposed to look a bit incompetent but oozing with charm. But yeah if you have a woman in a catsuit crawling on the floor for half the song and then screaming high notes without anything making sense you're not going to get away with it and you have to be happy to be in the final at all. I feel there is nothing preventing any country from winning.

Maybe the only pattern that sort of holds is that the West is sending more commercially viable songs and juries tend to vote for that a lot, but I see that as an issue with the juries because commercial viability should not be a significant argument over artistic and technical achievement. I mean Switzerland winning is nice for them, but it's obviously bullshit how much that was overrated by the juries. Same with Loreen last year. I mean if we follow this line of reasoning we end up in a place where the advice would be to send McSongs. Rather flop in style.

 

[WhoKnows]

Ukraine never misses a beat, it's always a proper finished product, they are at 100%. It's that simple.

And yet, Ukraine has never finished first in the jury vote.

Ukraine gets paraded around as an example that an EE country can be successful, but it has literally never deserved a victory according to the juries. Not Zlata, not JH&AA, not even Jamala. Go A finished 9th. Melovin dead last.

During that time, Germany, Australia, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, UK won. Austria won twice. Switzerland won twice. Sweden won three times.

What does Ukraine have to do to win the jury vote?

 

[Storm]

What does Ukraine have to do to win the jury vote?

Maybe send Tamara Todevska with Proud?

Seriously, I don't think anybody denies that the Eurovision jury is more prone to give points to regular international English pop songs. Or prefers certain genres in general (they also don't mind Italian or French or Portuguese ballads apparently). But it's not like this formula is closed off to Eastern contries. We don't have the language rule in place anymore. They're free to send their own 'The Code'. They don't have to 'go down' with Trenuletul or Rim Tim Tagi Dim, relatively speaking. (the songs did great, no reason to complain in the first place in my eyes. Croatia even made a jury podium so well done!)
I mean don't get me wrong, they can send what ever they want, great additions, we wouldn't want all the countries to do the same, but then maybe they just don't win, just like Europapa wouldn't for NL. Or Switzerland probably also doesn't win if they send a folky Swiss-German Schlager Volksmusik song. You know what I mean?

When Estonia or Latvia won Eurovision back in the day, there was nothing Eastern about it, Estonia even had an American disco pop singer on stage. Dima Bilan won with the most basic English song imaginable. There's Azerbaijan's success in the early days of the 50/50 system (lots of foreign/Scandinavian writers) or Bulgaria at the end of the 2010s with jury faves Poli Genova, Kristian Kostov and Victoria (especially if 2020 had gone through). So is the complaint that Eastern countries or the Eastern sound does not win? Because the first I don't see as a given, they would just need to adapt to the current system more, the second I do see, but the 'Eastern ethno folk' sound isn't the only genre that would struggle.