He entered the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 as a huge fan favourite, and ultimately placed seventh with televoters in the grand final. But, more curiously, MELOVIN finished dead last with the professional juries during the grand final. It’s a result that’s left many fans scratching their heads — particularly those of us who loved his haute Halloween take on “Under the Ladder”, which included a fantastic two-tiered piano with coffin on top.
So when we dispatched wiwiblogger Deban to Kyiv to attend MELOVIN’s concert on Saturday evening, he had one big question on his mind: “MELOVIN, were you surprised by the jury result?”
Long pause.
“To speak the truth, yes, I was shocked,” the singer says.
“They do their job — I respect what they do. But I actually don’t perform for them. I perform for the fans. And if they put me in seventh place it means I’ve got something they want to listen to, to see and to hear.”
So should the EBU abolish the jury?
“If we speak about the division of jury votes and televotes, the jury votes from their experience. They are professionals in music and the TV business, so they vote for something which is very now for charts, for business.”
“You can not say the same about televoters, because they just like it. They send a televote for that particular song that relates to them in that moment and on that night.”
“I am very happy that I resonate with so many different people in so many different countries. Again: it means much more to me than the jury vote.”
You can watch the full interview — including his thoughts on Jean Paul Gaultier, Verka Serduchka and his ongoing tour in Ukraine — above.
For anyone who was asking – in his latest interview he officially confirmed that he’s straight.
You don’t expect him to cry on jury votes. Instead he took all he wanted from this Eurovision and keep on working with no sleep. That’s the most important thing to do your best. He never complains and some haters should learn this too and stop spreading the poison everybody’s tired of. Look at your own life first
Handsome Vampire queer prince was my fav this year….i wish he would come back to Eurovision one day and win it… come to France honey 🙂
Ukrainian audience should understand the FACT that their music taste does not match the pan-European one. This was the case when Jamala won in Ukraine and was appreciated by the majority of European audiences, but the Ukrainian trolls aggressively insisted that some whatever-band should have won instead. Now we have the opposite situation with this Melovin guy whom Europe placed last but his local Ukrainian fans still insist that we didn’t and/or we shouldn’t have.
Europe didn’t placed him last, jury did. Europe placed him 7th (Ukrainians couldn’t vote, you know that right?).
And where were all these diasporas in 2017, why was not Otorvald in the top 10?
It’s ridiculous. If talking about diaspora votes then Portugal or Italy for instance would place him higher. You want it or not, he has international fans, I see them on his Instagram all the time. And if you’re surprised by this then you know nothing about what’s needed to get yourself a strong fanbase. And you don’t know him either to judge
Melovin is absolutely right!
The public matters for an artist, not the professional juries. They do their job but as an artist he performs for the people. And the fact that he came 7th in the televote is a success. Because he managed to get the message across all Europe.
Jamala was visibly dissatisfied and worried when Melovin won “Vidbir” because she knew that Ukraine was surely getting another bottom-end place. Skip to 21:33 and 23:52 for Jamala’s reaction in the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsYHMr-UCcQ
Jamala – O.Torvald “vidbir” – 1 place
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV8Sc3YtYtg
(O.Torvald Eurovision 2017 – 24 place)
Jamala was worried only because then she felt he couldn’t do Eurovision emotionally, he’s young and less experienced. But he went well through it and she was completely satisfied when she was commenting Eurovision final in Ukraine. She said he did really good!
One of my favourites this year, he did well in the televote considering he performed first and the song was great. The jury vote is hard to understand but that’s also true for many other choices they made. Melovin should be proud.
I’m always surprised how people who call themselves Eurovision fans are more than ready to shoot poison at someone’s artistic effort. While I understand people who might not have liked the song, I really don’t understand the ones who have no sense of respect and think that being toxic equals to being funny.
If you refer to me, I wasn’t trying to be toxic – nor to be funny. I just stated what I believe is a fact – if you are a SINGER, singing a SONG (like Netta, Eleni, Cesar), you really shouldn’t need a gimmick. Now where’s the poison in that?
Those who believe in their song and in their singing don’t need to set a piano on fire to draw attention.
The piano wasn’t even on fire, this isn’t Austria 2015.
He is a very nice guy and to be honest being last was a bit harsh.
The televote points came mostly from neighbours and diaspora, so they can’t be taken too seriously either.
15th – 20th is a fair result.
No, only neighbours and diaspora are not enough to be in the top place in the televoting (as Poland’s case in recent years shows). Melovin was a hit among the Eurovision fans from the semifinal, Tumblr was full of posts about a ‘handsome vampire from Ukraine’. And many actually liked the song – it’s catchy but not that simple, well built. Interesting to say at least.
This is not a “Nice Guy Contest” but the “Eurovision Song Contest” and he lacked everything that is required to succeed in it.
You missed the topic. He was memorable.
Out of all Eurovision songs, Ukraine’s was the song I listened to the least. I don’t know why….maybe because the video came out late. Considering he was performing first in the final, I still remember him and his performance. I agree with you. He is a charismatic performer and memorable.
I wasn’t shocked. His performance was typical jury poison–he was doing WAY too much, and the song wasn’t remarkable at all either. But huge respect to him for being so confidently queer in a country like Ukraine where 80% of the people still think homosexuality is unacceptable.
He never confirmed his homosexuality, on contrary, in his interview 2 days ago he tells he is positive towards gay people, he wishes them much happiness but he is not one of them.
https://wz.lviv.ua/interview/371869-yevrobachennia-iak-muzychnyi-velykden-usi-spivaiut-tantsiuiut-i-veseliatsia (question number 17).
It’s obvious that the problem was the pronunciation… It wasn’t good… I love him but sounded less professional… Thankfully he has a lot of fans….
He had a nice voice and great staging, but I feel this was never acknowledged properly, his pronunciation was some of the worst I’ve heard at Eurovision, he might have been better singing in his own language?
Keeping it real, most of his points came from neighbouring countries and diaspora. You can just take a look at the results.
In any event, I think 17th is pretty fair.
Edit: Non-neighbour/diaspora votes were:
7 from Montenegro & Israel
4 from Portugal & FYR Macedonia
2 from Cyprus
San Marino’s vote doesn’t really count, because it’s based on other countries, probably including Italy, which has a big Ukrainian diaspora. Also, Ukraine benefitted from the fact that many ex-Soviets countries were eliminated in the semis this year.
Yeah, he was nearly last in several countries’ televotes and he was 12th on average. Plus those 4 points from Portugal were totally diaspora, they have many Ukrainian workers.
I’m portuguese, not Ukrainian, and voted for him.
it’s not only diaspora – last year Ukraine got only 2 points from Poland, this year – 12; that song was well received among Polish fans and not only diaspora voted, I am Polish and I voted for Melovin because I actually liked the performance; Ukraine got also 12 points from Czech Republic (also diaspora there but not THAT big as in Poland, relatively). Remember Poland’s case in 2016? There was also saying that IT’S ONLY DIASPORA AND NEIGHBOURS. It wasn’t true, in 2017 Poland barely got to the final and in 2018 didn’t at all. And remember Ukraine 24th… Read more »
“Time” was too bad, just like “Rain of Revolution”. Also, I never said Poland 2016 was a only-diaspora case.
Portugal is full with Ukrainians, so yes diaspora there too.
Melovin is such a sweetie 🙂 Wiwi guys thank you for being so kind to him, Deban and William are both melovinators now :))
he looks so vulnerable and innocent in real life than on stage…. i have read he went through hell in his young life ,been abused and recived a lot of homophoibic attackes , poor guy, hope he will come in Belgium some day so i can see and listen him live, bless your beautiful soul :))
I can’t blame the juries. Being last is hard but someone has to be last and I personally wouldn’t have put him on 7th place
yes someone has to be last but it definitely shouldn’t be him… there were enough entries deserved that place, and yeah i blame juries, put Sweden second and Melovin last speaks a lot about how ‘professional’ they were….and with his running order it was pure evil what they did to him
Sweden wasn’t bad. But placing Austria first and Ukraine last? And Finland and Portugal among the last places? How is that professional and all about charts, while all the songs could be hits?
But none was.
Well, at least Benjamin knows how to pronounce English perfectly, unlike Melovin, probably juries couldn’t understand him at all, and just put him on the last place. I would do the same in their place. 🙂
I just wished he could have worked more with his enunciation. You could hardly understand him.
But I do not think he deserves to be in the last place.
I love his attitude a lot and he is so gorgeous:))
when he gonna do Euro tour? i would go for sure:D
Well, the jury had to come back to avoid blockvoting. So in the end this seems to most honest way!
It is like democracy itself, it is not the best system but we cannot think of a better one!
Bye, the jury has been more responsible of pattern voting than the televote lately.
I think the stage performance turned juries off. The whole dracula coffin thing was a bad move
He came 7th with televote so his move wasn’t that bad. You perform for the audience and not for juries.
Any artist will tell you that they want to get love from the people (televote) and not juries. For instance I’m pretty sure Mikolas was much happier with the results than Benjamin or Cesar. Eleni also said the she was very grateful for winning the televoting in the 1st semifinal. Because artists want people’s love. That’s what matter at the end of the day. Also Sergey always says that winning the televote was the most important thing cause you actually connected to many people. Otherwise, I guess Måns was very mad when he found out that he came only 3rd… Read more »
Yeah, well, Il Volo now are successfully touring the United States while Måns has to perform at Eurovision national finals to keep his name out there… you see who truly won.
I’ll say it again: juries have a purpose, I prefer the combined vote to one or the other, makes for a more interesting and less predictable voting sequence.
Yeah, I don’t want the juries to go anywhere. However, they do leave me scratching my head sometimes. The worst example this year was Italy. I can only imagine that it was punished because it did not sound like some generic chart hit. The juries need to understand their job is to reward quality.
No denying that. I think each sort of is the gauge of a different facet: quality vs. appeal. Of course there’s a lot of intersection there, but I think the juries consider which songs have the best staging/performance objectively and the televote decides which one is just the most appealing and catchy. There should be a little of both sides sneaking into either vote, but the way I see it, it’s a little like a singles chart vs. a critic’s list. The critic is talking about the artistry, the public is talking about appeal.
I’d much prefer it if they gave the PUBLIC televote points in the “country-capital calling” section, and saved the Jury points for the final, suspenseful countdown. Nobody really cares what the Ukrainian jury thought, we want to hear what the Ukrainian *public* thought, and same for all the other countries. I’d also prefer it if the Juries got fewer points to distribute than the televoters did (Top 8 getting 8 points down to 1 point, maybe, with no ’10’ and no ’12’). If they were the ones giving all their points in “One Big Lump” at the end, the change… Read more »
Beautiful, charming and smart Mélovin :))
Does anyone know what the actual criteria the juries are given to vote on, if any? Or is this not disclosed? I’ve heard they vote solely on whether the song has ability potential to be a radio hit. If that’s the case, you can see why juries and televote will often be quite different.
Their vote is tentatively based on song content, vocals and performance, but in reality it’s all based on personal taste and bias.
Pump the hate brakes, lion boy
Cute as always! That last place for him from the juries was abysmal and should have been taken by other acts who brought underwhelming vocals or props on stage. Not telling any names.
“I was shocked by the Eurovision jury result” ehehheeh
he should know that its a contest…