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United Kingdom UNITED KINGDOM 2022 - Sam Ryder - Space Man

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escYOUnited

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If I was an astronaut, I'd be floating in mid-air
And a broken heart would just belong to someone else down there
I would be the centre of my lonely universe
But I'm only human, and I'm crashing down to earth

If I was an astronaut, I'd have a bird's eye view
I'd circle 'round the world and keep on coming back to you
In my floating castle, I'd rub shoulders with the stars
But I'm only human, and I'm drifting in the dark

I'm up in space, man
Up in space, man
I've searched around the universe
Been down some black holes
There's nothing but space, man
And I want to go home

If I was an astronaut, I'd speak to satellites
My navigation systems would search for other life
But I'd be up here thinking 'bout what I'd left behind
'Cause I'm only human with the real world on my mind

I'm up in space, man
Up in space, man
I've searched around the universe
Been down some black holes
There's nothing but space, man
And I want to go home

Gravity keeps pulling me down
As long as you're on the ground, I'll stick around
Stick around
I'll stick around

I'm up in space, man
Up in space, man
I've searched around the universe
Been down some black holes
There's nothing but space, man, no
Oh, I'm in the wrong place, man
Nothing but, nothing but, nothing but space, man
Nothing but, nothing but, nothing but space, man

I've searched around the universe
Been down some black holes
Nothing but space, man
And I want to go home​
 

Sean

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Anyway, my #1 suggestion - KSI

I will keep saying it. Give the guy the role, let him do his thing and manage his own promo and don't act surprised if he ends up bringing our best result since 2009
 

Chrisiam

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Posts
968
Someone just needs to pose it to him like it is some kind of Epic Youtube Prank thing that'll get him on board. Or something, I dunno, I always thought KSI was a sofa retailer.
 

Sean

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It's vital that the BBC just pick a brilliant song first and foremost and don't even give it a second though about whether "it's right for Eurovision"

There is no formula for success at the contest other than bringing a brilliant song with an engaging performance - genre, style, artist are all irrelevant if you have that
 

Fluke

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Sweden
Seriously, something needs to be changed.

Third last, third last, 15th, third last, and dead last two times in a row. That's just objectively almost the worst result possible. You can't just blame "Brexitphobia" or "Russian vote tampering" or anything else than the actual quality of your songs.

Clearly the BBC just has no clue what works in Eurovision, but if they're so dead set about remaining in charge, at least sack the people responsible for picking the entries (or potential entries when you had a public selection) because they are, looking at the results, black on white, simply not good at what they're supposed to do!

Any other country would have completely reorganized their selection after having these results for half as long as this. The BBC just has too much pride in themselves!
 

Laepo1

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Its crazy to think a country who has won 5 times and placed second 15 times is struggling so much. Specially if that country is a music powerhouse like the Uk its even more mind blowing. Are the people responsible to organise it old and out of touch?
 

Chrisiam

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The bad news is we will finish 27th with the first ever negative score in the contest's history!
 

Loindici

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Sombody wrote about rumors of BBC taking a withdraw for 5 years but I don't know if it's legitimate.

What I want BBC to do is pick an artist that has enough charisma and either ask them to create or choose a good song that sparks interest in people to talk about it.
 

ESCConor

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Sombody wrote about rumors of BBC taking a withdraw for 5 years but I don't know if it's legitimate.

What I want BBC to do is pick an artist that has enough charisma and either ask them to create or choose a good song that sparks interest in people to talk about it.

As long as ratings remain high, then I dont see the BBC stepping aside.
 

ESCConor

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Im personally warming to the idea of having the UK Compete seperately as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
 

Chrisiam

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Seeing as we are still in the realm of suggesting acts that would likely never do the contest I am happy to suggest Pale Waves or Wolf Alice. I can't see either group doing it though Wolf Alice has recently changed their Twitter profile picture to a picture of Måneskin shortly after they won. Ssssoooo... I mean... its a stretch, and I don't think the BBC would be that brave but, I person can dream can't they?


 

A-lister

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Im personally warming to the idea of having the UK Compete seperately as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ehm no, only recognized independent countries should take part. We can't turn Eurovision into the UnitedKingdomVision , but you're actually onto something though, you could have a national selection (a bit similar to Bundesvision that was in Germany) where the different countries of the UK compete with a couple of entries each...

In fact, I think that concept (if executed well) could potentially turn out popular for the BBC.
 

Chrisiam

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Ehm no, only recognized independent countries should take part. We can't turn Eurovision into the UnitedKingdomVision , but you're actually onto something though, you could have a national selection (a bit similar to Bundesvision that was in Germany) where the different countries of the UK compete with a couple of entries each...

In fact, I think that concept (if executed well) could potentially turn out popular for the BBC.
Coincidentally I was thinking the exact same thing last night.

I remember that after the 2019 contest there were some saying that the BBC should pull out of Eurovision and do a "Great British Song Contest" instead. But, truth is they could do that without pulling out of the contest.

Do that as the national selection with artists from across the British Isles (and possibly beyond if the show becomes popular enough to include other British territories) with the winner being crowned the best act in the UK and then they are sent off to Eurovision.

Do it over five weeks (A week for each region in the UK) with the top act/top two acts from each region going to the finals with week six being the finals. It would build up hype for each act regardless of if they win in the end and it would make them more well known in the Eurovision bubble if people are invested in seeing their favourite act going through to the finals.

Only hard requirements I'd like to see is that there would be no celebrity judging panel and the acts taking part can't be some reality TV reject, they need to be an established act; sure they can be unsigned or under the radar so to speak, but they can't just be someone who has spent most of their life as an 'artist' singing into their hair brush as most X Factor dweebs seem to be.

I mean internal selection does prevent against that to a degree but the less control over the end result the BBC has the less chance we end up with something that is nice but not nice enough to vote for.
 

Chrisiam

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Fair point, but I'd still like something in that neighbourhood of musical credibility and experience.

It could be Grime, it could be Jazz, it could be Rap, it could be Dance. It just needs to feel like it is coming from an established act who knows what they are doing and has a clear creative voice behind them.

If we'll see that or not I doubt know. I worry that whatever the UK sends next year it will be so safe and edgeless it will make an orange look sharp. Plus the rumours about the UK pulling out, whilst I doubt them, aren't exactly filling me with much optimism either way.
 

seagull

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Its crazy to think a country who has won 5 times and placed second 15 times is struggling so much. Specially if that country is a music powerhouse like the Uk its even more mind blowing. Are the people responsible to organise it old and out of touch?
Yes! They are.

If your mind is blown by this, and given that I am guessing you are from Portugal, I imagine you have some idea how it feels to actually BE British. I remember when we were actually good in the 1990s and the brief, blissful moments this century when it looked like something was happening (*cough* Jessica, Jade, Blue, Molly, even Lucie)...

It's breathtaking to me how many false-starts and chances for change there have been and not taken. And the artists that could have been gone for us if the BBC had just had the brains. Katie Melua is the one everyone likes to bring up, but someone like Sophie Ellis Bextor in her prime (2003-2008), combining neo-disco with her indie roots from her theaudience days would have been scored points and given that she still has ties to the BBC and did serve on the You Decide Jury in 2019 and given her 'Kitchen Disco' exploits over Lockdown, she might have been willing to do it if she'd had confidence in the staging team. There have been two generations of good artists who might have happily gone and done reasonably well who have been knowingly ignored in the name of Josh Dubovie. I'm sure Josh is lovely, he seems nice, but my God was that a let down!

There's a weird numerical pattern through the 2010s onto '20s:
2010-Josh (Bottom 5)
2011-Blue (11th)
2012-Engelbert (Bottom 5)
2013-Bonnie (19th, Bottom 6)
2014-Molly (17th)
2015-ElectroVelvet (Bottom 5)
2016-Joe and Jake (Bottom 5)
2017-Lucie (15th)
2018-SuRie (Bottom 5)
2019-Michael (last)
2020-no contest
2021-James (last)

Every three years for the last decade we have a blip of relative success, followed by an immediate return to the Bottom 5, usually 24th. We missed out last year, which was due to be our year to do better, and then, we know what happens next. By that maths, 2023 is our year to land somewhere in the middle, before having an immediate collapse in 2024 and 2025-which DOESN'T bode well.

Given the state of Scottish politics (I come from a solidly Unionist area right next to England and is economically reliant on its relationship with northern England, so naturally independence wouldn't be a great thing for this area), we may actually have a 'yes' on indyref2 in 2023 or '24 BEFORE the BBC gets its act together and then maybe a withdrawal for a few years whilst the BBC breaks itself up and much like Yugoslavia, all that history and those 5 wins, 15 2nd places and the 3rds, Sir Terry when he was good, Sir Cliff, all of it, goes into the waste-bucket of history, which is terrifying to me. It's even possible that some longer-term thinking MIGHT have snuck in somewhere, somehow if they are assuming they WILL have to break up and are trying a few things out, not to win as the UK, but to give the broken broadcaster the best chance of knowing what NOT to do when the Scottish public broadcaster has to start entering (to the Semis), which is an SNP goal per the white paper 'Scotland's Future' published pre-2014.

I would hope that either they continue with the BMG partnership for a few years, trying out different genres and styles and being open to getting it wrong but still willing to experiment until we find whatever our 'brand' is or a large segment of voters decide we don't want to be in the same country anymore, whichever comes first.

It's not as if other countries don't know who they are: Belgium, Italy, France, and Portugal are the hipster countries with Bulgaria and The Netherlands contenting the pop-friendly hipsters. Sweden does IKEA-machine pop, Malta, Greece, and Cyprus do Yas, Queen, Slay, Finland is usually tormented, Moldova is pop-madness, Ukraine mixes pop-madness with cultural and linguist pride, Israel sends songs which use Klezmer music undertones in the instrumentation so there are enough traditional Jewish elements slipped in to know it's from where it is. Iceland is the unpredictable little scrappy. San Marino does neo-disco. Czech Republic, Norway, and Denmark look like they are going down the chart-friendly pop route. Ireland used to lean into their ethnicity and when it tried in 2007 and 2012 it didn't work so it abandoned it and seemingly lost the will to live. The UK does NONE of this, we have no identity whatsoever except that we are failures, and that's meant there was no consistency or development beyond continued failure.

We are world-beaters at rock, indie, alt, electronica, urban, and a bunch of other sounds. We last came 2nd with a garage song in a period where most of Europe had not encountered the genre yet for Christ's sake! Hell, I'd even be fine with a full-on big ass, heart-on-the-sleeve ballad because we are better at musicals than anyone else except the Americans, its an indigenous music form and done properly, with an emotionally affecting lyric and performance and proper (i.e. virtually no staging, just using lighting, tight angles and perhaps a bit of back projection to tell your story), it could score points. It's better than trying to do a summer bop that fails.

The ONE thing I DON'T want us to do is to reach for the obvious, either try and get someone people have heard of, but are out of date like Steps which is SO lazy, or go down the novelty route like Bill Bailey or something desperate like that that will just get us laughed at further. Someone credible at one they do, in their 20s, who is part of a current UK music scene, genre non-specific PLEASE. I am DONE with feeling like crying after every f**king Contest!
 
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