European authorities are still investigating the four crimes from the first semi-final of Eurovision 2014. But that didn’t stop the jury and televoters from committing four more musical felonies in the second semi-final. The police have been notified and you will have to pay fines for this gross miscarriage of justice! Please note: these opinions reflect those of the author, and not everyone on wiwibloggs.com!
Israel — Mei Finegold
This is so heinous a crime it outweighs all the others combined. Mei was amazing. She told a story of female empowerment with great panache—and some killer dance moves. This is not a case of something that should have been 7th slipping to 11th. This is a clear-cut case of one of the best acts being disrespected and disregarded. I don’t know if this is a matter of discrimination against Israel or a lack of neighbours voting. Or maybe everyone in Europe has suddenly lost all musical taste (that has happened before). But where is the jury of “music professionals” to rescue Mei? Where?
Ireland
Ireland brought a beautiful singer with a song that oozed Celtic charm. There was drumming. There was Riverdance. And in the end there was one very cold shoulder from Europe. Are you kidding me? This was one of the better songs of the night, and it faced a rather weak field. Yet a man crooning “Cheesecake” (Belarus) and a group that could be called Mumford & Sons 2.0 (Malta) walk through. Shame. This was upbeat, full of energy, sung brilliantly, and deserved to reach to the final.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9LHOYl4s2Y
Malta
Really? When it came time to vote was everyone thinking of last year’s entry instead? Maybe playing first actually gave Malta an advantage: viewers got excited that the semi-final was starting and then attributed their excitement to Malta, forgetting what they actually heard. There’s just no way this belongs in the final (although it is better than Iceland… barely).
Belarus
Ok, this is not quite as bad as Malta. But it definitely gave them a run for the money in terms of suck-titude. I understand that the second semi had a lot of weak entries (while the first had at least 11 that deserved to go to the final). But that’s no reason to pick randomly and send something as bad as this. I admit that his dance moves are nice and that he’s got charisma. It’s just a shame he doesn’t have a strong song…
So what do YOU think? Which non-qualifier should have made it? Sound off below.
David T is a Colorado-based correspondent for wiwibloggs.com. He contributed this report from Copenhagen. You can keep up-to-date on the latest Eurovision news and gossip by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs and by liking our Facebook page.
Allow the mask to rest on the skin for 10 to 15 minutes, then rinse it off
with cool water. A good smile earns a number of compliments,
makes us feel nice about ourselves and brighten others’ days.
Post laser teeth whitening, you are advised to
stay away from hot and cold, food and drinks, for at least 48 hours.
Ok please David just because you think so about these countries doesnt mean you are right !! Malta’s entry was one of the freshest songs there was on that semi-final ok maybe there is a comparison with Mumford and Sons but look at Poland you said nothing about that and they only passed because of their ‘Slavic Beauty’ Ireland had bad vocals from her first rehearsels .. Nice song but her vocals didnt work Israel i really dont know why it didnt pass.. But i liked it Belarus i didnt like it but then as I heard them live i… Read more »
Israel and Ireland! Those deserved the final!
Any ordinary Europeans should also view the music videos of all the present entries of this year’s ESC (and for the future contests). Even during the semi/grand finals, the organizers should’ve at least preview them shortly. That way, they’ll get to learn more of the quality (and even its story) each songs can offer to their audiences and one of them, for me, is Mei Finegold. Her music video rocks!
Guys, I have a feeling that there are several countries that don’t need to send a singer or a song. All they need is their 3 minutes with a guy holding its national flag… no music needed. They will still qualify to the final. You all know which countries they are… On the other hand, there are several countries that could send the best ever eurovision song, they wouldn’t qualify to the final, surely not instead of the countries mentioned before… Could be funny to see if some songs like Israel’s would have qualified to the final if they were… Read more »
Israel – Wasn’t good, right decision made. If people like people that look like women, but sound like a guy, well they voted for the bearded joker guy. Ireland – What happened Europe? Has something bad been in the news lately about the country? Is there now disgust for them winning three times in a row? Malta – Boring and weak song, I think Jury members are a joke. Five people that have equal power against everyone else, just take a look at their qualifications and laugh. Belarus – Pretty catchy, I can understand how it got through with it’s… Read more »
I don’t fully agree with your review. Malta was actually one of the good ones in the semi final. Isreal should have gotten through instead of Belarus and Ireland instead of Poland. Keep in mind that everyone has his own opinion and the juries and the televoters have the right to express that.
regarding Malta – I do not agree at all with your review and seems that most of the wiwibloggs readers do not agree with you either. the Maltese entry is fresh and sounds different from the rest so it made it to the finals on its own merits. i tend to agree that Israel had to make it to the finals…..maybe it was kissed by the unforunate 2nd spot….sandwiched between two good entries – Malta and Norway. my suggestion is for israel to be represented by Idan Raichel’s Project and an ethnic song similar to their popular Bo’i. Ireland needs… Read more »
in the israeli papers it is published that Israel will probably not take part in future contests! i am happy for that decision because it is worthless for our good singers to spend so much time and money and then realize after that nobody cares about their song but only about who they are,
due to our absence you will be able to meet other new countries such as : Lebanon, Morroco,Egypt, Syria? lybia?- there will be a new block voting and many more guards outside the hall( or maybe also inside?? )
Israel was a shock yes… But Ireland…was just a weak vocal car crash. After the first 20 seconds I was saying to my house mate ‘Oh dear, Ireland isn’t going through’
Teo (or Yuri) is just ridiculous. It’s not charisma; jerkish and ridiculous. Malta’s better by the way.
@ Alex – Nice to “meet” you. As I see it, we outsiders (albeit followers of the ESC, at least really seriously in my case) tend to keep things more or less “within proportion”. I mean, you’re from North America and I am from South America, and we surely have quite different tastes. Please don’t think I go Latino, for you’d crash miserably 😉 What gathers us all here is our love of the Eurovision, take its pros and cons. Other than lengthy introductions, I’d like to say that your comment was a breath of fresh air among many of… Read more »
Israel killed it. Shame she didn’t go through.
To defend David: As a fellow American, I can understand the problems David has with Malta’s entry. It’s veeeeerry close to Mumford and Sons’ “I Will Wait.” After having heard “I Will Wait” on the radio a million times here, it’s impossible to think of Malta’s song without hearing the other. That being said, while fairly unoriginal, “Coming Home” is extremely well sung and the middle section is wholly original and quite moving. Belarus, though, I don’t have a problem with. The bookies had it qualifying, and they were right. He sang well, the song is catchy, and people got… Read more »
Copy/paste error. Oh, the joy of letting your relatives on your PC -_-
But yeah, the link to my petition: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/raid%C3%ADo-teilif%C3%ADs-%C3%A9ireann-rt%C3%A9-change-ireland-s-eurosong-format
I set up a campaign for RTÉ to change the NF format:
if its you master acting up, youve already told me you used to pretend to be other persons
Mr Thielan? Who the hell are you to be an authority on music & Eurovision music. Malta got through because the voters thought it was a better song than at least those that were eliminated. Ireland’s entry was a sad mess…not oozed charm as you seem to think…in fact the Irish are as fed up of oozed charm in Eurovision just as they are fed up of the politicians presently in power. & are fed up with RTE who don’t/didn’t it seems, know/knew how to organise a creche never mind a national song contest in 2014/13/12/11/10/09/08/07/06/05 etc. Now let’s just… Read more »
Hi Mickateriyan It’s me, Deven. Listen, I ABSOLUTELY agree with you on the national final front. It is in a desperate need to change. Do you remember I told you about my national final, Eirevision. If you don’t, I’ll refresh your memory: 1. It will be held in the RDS Simmonscourt in front of 5,500 people. 2. There will be two presenters. (Maybe JEDWARD) 3. There will be 5 judges. They will all be people involved with the Eurovision in recent times. (EG: Alexander Rybak, Lena Meyer Landrut, Emmelie De Forest, Svante Stockselius ETC.) 4. Instead of 5 songs, there… Read more »
What a self obsessed writer. The european juries and voters have their own opinions and It’s fair that the most popular acts went tru. Try to realise your own tastes are nice but It’s not a crime for people to disagree.
ireland not qualifying was the best thing for the future of ireland in eurovision, now rte can pull there finger out and make a bloody effort! Obviously i am gutted that kasey didn’t make it with a great song ( 🙁 ) but the staging was one of the worst stagings I’ve seen for about 10 years or so and destroyed any chance they had of doing well, if ireland couldn’t make it out of a semi that had only 15 songs and the uk voting than something was SERIOUSLY WRONG with the staging. now rte that i have asked… Read more »
Mei’s downfall might have been the luck of the draw (and by luck, aka, DR producers). Valentina was a large favorite among fan polls last year and performed at SF2 at No. 2 just like Mei….and didn’t advance. Can’t explain Malta but the song is better than Belarus.
Israel and Ireland deserve to be in final instead Malta and Belarus or Finland.
WORDS SET IN STONE. thank you.
In fact, Mei was more sexier than all of those Polish women…
Polish show was actually Buryanovskiy Babooshki in their 20’s
Mei is more sexier and striking!
My fav r Belarus Poland and Austria from sec semi. . No idea how the hell Norway passed ??? The worst performance/song ever so boring and .. boring. ..
Also I love all those voices about Cleo and girls being to sexy when all they did was close up to cleavage. No nudity… but when last year we had girls in transparent nightdress with no underwear on that was ok. …
Billy K.: Like Alex from Hungary last year, Firelight’s advancement into the finals was due, I think in large part, to their music video. A good song, plus a very good stage presentation, plus an outstanding video, make for an excellent overall presentation. I expected Malta to advance.
Oh! So now it’s an advantage being first? That’s why Malta got through. It’s not the best song, by far, but it was definitely than most trash in the second semi-final and that’s why it got through. Wiwibloggs, admit it, this year wasn’t your year. All your reviews are faulty. You criticized Netherlands for being too slow, Sweden for having a badly styled singer etc etc. Look where the bookies are placing them now, and rightly so. You supported Armenia but he was hopeless live; he couldn’t hit one correct note in the first half of his song. I’m voting… Read more »
Look, sometimes studio versions sound better than the live performance and sometimes the live performance picks up the energy that the studio version lack. Both Israel and Ireland had performances that were far too mechanic and automatic. Both acts sucked out the life of the great songs. They passed by anonymously, professional but unspectacular. “Cheesekake” is a horrible song, but Teo had charisma on stage. IMO: At the end of the day, Eurovision is a live TV event; thus at its heart its about artists harvesting 3 minutes on stage. Its cruel, its fair. Everything else is besides the point… Read more »
Cooky, you are 100% right.
If I must say so, the one big change they should make is to get rid of the separate performances for the audience (televoters) and juries. Let there be ONE performance for EVERYBODY; where the televoters and juries make their decisions on the same night! It does a contender no good to have a good jury night and a bad televoter night, or a bad jury night and a good televoter night. Let ONE performance, for the semis and/or one for the finals (good or bad), settle everything all at once. Once more, it will minimize any possibility of shenanigans… Read more »
It’s not the first time that Israel has been wronged in Eurovision. 2012’s “Time” was also a criminally underrated piece of art.
Are you serious? I guess your so called unobjective article should be the 5th crime… Israel and ireland have great songs on cd but not live… Israel was a cheap copy of queen bee (beyonce) … Hair – moves – clothes -performance and all… Lol a joke… And ireland just had too much going on… Sometimes simple is better and thats why malta and belarus went through… I guess its a question of sour grapes… But i hope you feel better cause younsound rather upset 🙂
Just read the press release. It doesnt say which 3 countries though.
Bravo John…. You’ve got some balls. I never saw a citizen from a country being so sincer and so parcial judging his own country’s performance. I couldn’t have said it better. The Irish song was good this year, but the delegation couldn’t have done it worse. Se didn’t even sound like in her studio version. She was vocally very weak. She wasn’t dressed accordingly. The staging was terrible and the dancers were plain silly. They themselves destroyed the scence of the song in a very cruel way I would add. Regarding Israel (it was one of my favourites), I think… Read more »
Why was tonights jury final cut short????? :\
Hi BREAKING NEWS
What website did you get your information from?
I feel like you put Malta in just so that there were 4 ‘crimes’ that weren’t even crimes…Malta was one of the best of the night. But i guess it’s opinions, everybody has them, i just don’t agree when people say that it’s ‘wrong’ that someone went through, purely based on their opinion…
Hey breaking news don’t lie please!!!!
****BREAKING NEWS**** [09/0514]
Jon Ola Sand admits there was an error with totalling last nights votes and that 3 countries were incorrectly named as finalists. An announcement will be made in 90 minutes to make an apology to the three wrong named finalists and to inform the delegations of the correct finalists which will compete on Saturday.
My Opinion/Ranking of these 4 countries:
1. Malta (enjoyed the sound and the vocal ability of the lead singer – AMAZING!)
2. Ireland (liked the sound, by the stage/act made no sense)
3. Belarus (liked the singer, and the dance moves – song was okay/catchy)
4. Israel (I didn’t understand the song and so I didn’t enjoy the performance)
Georgia should have qualified, and the Bake a cake -song, they were fresh and different, and very nice! I don’t have much good to say about the others. Finland should win, they are really into making music of their own. A pleasure.
It’s about time Eurovision face the disgrace that happens with its voting system. It just makes no sense there’s no level playing field. Starting with the 5 sponsor countries (great that they want to sponsor! but free ticket in?) and continuing with this disastrous point system that ensures favoritism, politicking, and as a consequence, the support of poor art. There is just no way on the planet that Poland’s boobs entry qualified, there’s no way that Iceland’s clown mockery qualified. Songs (music) that were artistic on the other hand, like Israel’s, were punished and pushed out. Unfortunately, no one in… Read more »
I think if CNN are having interviews with your bloggers then they’ve really lost their dimension of journalism. How the heck can you compare the non-sense song from Belarus with Malta as better. Malta’s song is nothing special but definitely better than Belarus. And Ireland’s song lol What the heck. She’s really hot and beautiful but that’s it. Her song doesn’t even exist. Israel could have passed, was better than Slovenia’s, Belarus and even Poland’s is more of a political satire about times gone by. However ye, the conclusion is that this blogger has attended a little too much parties… Read more »
Cannot agree about Ireland – she was terrible live and the dancers looked ridiculous. This was one of my favourite songs – so no axe to grind – I really wanted it to do well. On the other hand spot on regarding Israel – a fantastic song and artist – truly robbed of a final place.
I’m not surprised at all about Ireland. While the song was ok (though a bit on the boring side) I was perplexed by the performance on stage. The clothes and props and background and coreography didn’t match the song at all.
Israel on the other hand is a travesty. I loved the song and the performance. But I suspect people didn’t respond to her low register and unusual covals. A shame!
A T T E N T I O N – Lithuanias Vilija was fantastic act that didn’t get to the final unfortunately… ……………………………
Vilija and Dilara, girls thank you for memorable show on the eve of ESC…
http://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/54955/_dvi_zvaigzdes_?popup
Maltese band is professional team of musicians they were spectacular indeed.
It ‘s wrong to compare them with Mei and Belarus team. Mei reminded us of lilla Patricia Kass….
On the contrary,
Israel was in the league of Ireland, Poland, Russia, Portugal, Spain, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia, UK.
Belarus are in the league of Greece, France, Denmark…
Completely agree. Israel was miles more memorable than Malta which bored me to death. I get that Belarus has a catchy song but the performance was lacklustre and did certainly did not deserve the final over Israel.
Still shocked and eagerly waiting the results of the semi-finals. Israel not making the top 10 is bad enough but if it’s any lower than 11th then I am really done.
Haha “karma” and “the 2nd position curse” are the two stupidest reasons I’ve heard about why Israel didn’t qualify, even the conspiracy theories against Israel seem more plausible, but I don’t believe those either. Fact is: Mei was great in her performance, but it seems it just wasn’t enough for televoters, and while I don’t believe in “curses” I do believe performing that early did affect her to some degree.
Israel!! I think this is the hugest non-qualifyer shock ever since 2004! Forget about Kate Ryan, forget about Dj Bobo.
She gave THE best performance of the night, and she actually moved on stage. I don’t agree with Malta, though. They deserved the finals too.
By the way, i noticed that last year, Valentina Monetta from San Marino were also a huge fan-favorite, failing to qualify in the second position in the second semi-final just like Israel this year. I guess the 2nd position in 2nd semi final is a dangerous spot.
i dont know who rote that article about malta but i think you are crazy saying that malta had an advantage playing first .. thats a big disatvantage .. go back to school welldone malta .. go back to school my friend ..