Eurovision 2021 was full of surprises, and after all the votes have rolled in, many are claiming that we are looking at one of the strangest results of all time. So, now that the EBU has revealed full results, let’s get out our magnifying glasses take a closer look at the peculiarities of the Eurovision 2021 results.
A flop for pop
Despite Eurovision 2021 being the year of bops, upbeat pop music really struggled to bring in the points. The highest placing pure pop song was from Malta, who finished just seventh, despite being the long-time favourite for the win. Only Greece and Moldova joined Malta on the left side of the leaderboard, whilst slick pop performances from Serbia, Cyprus, Israel, Azerbaijan and San Marino were all left dwindling on the right-hand side.
One explanation for this is that there were simply too many female-led pop bangers, which led to the vote for these entries being split. Meanwhile, entries representing more niche genres, from the likes of Italy, France and Switzerland, stood out as the only songs in their field, meaning they got more overall votes from fans of their genres. Furthermore, all of the top nine songs, bar Malta, were written (or co-written) by the artists themselves – showing that authenticity was really valued in this year’s contest.
Qualification surprises
One of the biggest shocks of the semi-finals was the non-qualification of hot-favourite Croatia who actually was top ten with both the televote (9th) and the jury (10th). However, the retro-pop song placed eleventh overall, whilst Belgium, who finished 11th in the televote, qualified due to their 7th position with the juries. In semi-final two, it was Denmark who narrowly missed out on a spot in the final. Despite finishing 7th in the televote, the juries awarded the entry just nine points – allowing Albania, who finished 11th in the televote but 8th in the jury vote, to sneak into tenth place. Therefore, in both semi-finals we see the jury having more power than the televoters in choosing the qualifiers.
Four nil points
A true curiosity of 2021 is four countries receiving zero televotes – all in a row. Before 2021 there had never been more than one country per year being awarded nil points from the televote*, so four is a real achievement!
It should be noted that all four countries were automatic qualifiers, implying that the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and the UK would not have qualified if they were competing in the semi-finals, and we could have seen the likes of Croatia and Denmark take their places. Similarly, in 2005, the Big Four and host-country Ukraine all finished in the bottom 5 places, supposedly because they had no semi-final to quality-check their entries. This simply shows that the automatic qualifiers system can be completely hit and miss – this year finishing in the last four places, but also the first and second.
Unfortunately for the UK, they also failed to score any jury points, making them the first country to receive nil points overall since the new voting procedure was introduced in 2016. Every country’s televote ranked the UK in 20th position or higher, with the exception of Malta, where it was 14th. The song was slightly more popular with the juries, ranking 15th with Malta, 14th with Norway and Serbia, 13th with the Czech Republic and narrowly missing out on a point from Poland, who ranked them 11th.
*Due to the voting procedure, in 2015 both Germany and Austria finished with 0 points overall, although Germany did in fact receive 5 points from the televote.
Suspicious jury voting
As always, there appeared to be suspicious ongoings regarding the jury vote. We see San Marino and Poland exchange 12 points, whilst all five Israeli jurors unanimously rank the UK last, and all Bulgarian jurors ranked Moldova first. Moldova is an even more interesting case, managing to finish on the left-hand side of the leaderboard, despite a vocal performance that many claim to be highly questionable.
Moldova gave their top-three jury points to Bulgaria, Russia and Greece, and in return, we see Bulgaria and Russia award Moldova their 12 points, as well as 10 points from Greece. Let’s remind ourselves that Moldova’s participation was produced by the “Dream Team”, headed by Bulgarian-Russian Philipp Kirkorov and Greek songwriter Dimitris Kontopoulos. Some might say that’s fishy. But, in reality, Kirkorov is a huge star in Bulgaria (where he was born) and Russia, where he remains the king of pop music and the country’s highest-paid entertainer. Moldova likely benefited from his star power in the region.
Furthermore, Moldova killed it in the semi-final two televote, achieving the most 12 points of any country. Moldova received maximum televote points from eight countries – Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Latvia, Greece, Portugal, San Marino and Serbia – whilst Iceland achieved the second-highest number of 12 points, with just three sets. However, “Sugar” was divisive, and six countries awarded Moldova zero points. This mix of success could be partly due to Natalia’s heavy promotion in Russian media the past months, helping her win votes in countries with Russian diaspora (she also released a Russian version of the song), but having less impact elsewhere. Moldova typically does better with the public than with juries.
The impact of running order
There were some unexpected choices when producers revealed the final running order – most notably Malta, who was put in a surprisingly early sixth place, despite Destiny winning her semi-final. Although producers chose to put favourites Italy and France near the end of their draw, they did not do the same with Malta – and the impact was harsh. After closing the first semi-final, Malta won the jury vote and placed second in the televote. However, after performing sixth in the grand final, Malta’s rank with televoters dropped to just fourteenth, below competitors from Lithuania, Russia and Norway who she had previously beaten.
Surprisingly, in the top ten, we only see two songs that performed after 20th position: Italy and France. It’s possible that Italy and France’s late position in the running order, as well as being surrounded by less popular entries, attributed to them dominating the leaderboard.
The struggle of small nations
San Marino, Iceland, Malta and Cyprus were the four smallest countries (by population) competing in Eurovision 2021 – and despite their size, all worked hard to deliver quality entries in 2021. Nevertheless, despite all of them being considered contenders for the win ahead of the grand final, results were disappointing for these small nations, with Iceland being the only one to achieve a top five position. Whilst pre-contest favourite Malta finished seventh, the winner of the semi-final one press poll, Cyprus, finished just 16th, and – despite an appearance from the actual Flo Rida – San Marino finished in a shock 22nd place.
Cyprus and Malta suffered from early spots in the running order, whilst all three suffered 2021’s curse of female pop bangers. It is also often argued that smaller countries struggle in the televote due to having less diaspora and voting partners – and it is indeed true that all of these countries scored higher with juries than televote, with the exception of Cyprus. However, we know that these countries can all deliver on televoting, with Cyprus ranking second in 2018, Malta second in 2005 and 2002, and San Marino in tenth in 2019. Therefore, it appears to be an unfortunate mix of attributes that account for the disappointment for Europe’s tiniest nations.
Language revival
Whilst English-language songs are statistically more successful at Eurovision nowadays — supposedly because they have a greater international appeal and are more effective at conveying their message — this was not the case in 2021. Four of the top five and all of the top three songs were sung entirely in a national language, making this year’s contest a true success for language diversity at Eurovision. The last time the top three was non-English was 1995, before the rule that each country must sing in its national language was lifted. This also marks the third song sung entirely in a language other than English to win since the rule change.
Whether you supported the final result or not, Eurovision 2021 was a roaring success. After two long years of waiting, producers were able to put on a spectacular show during a global pandemic, boasting the best viewing figures since 2007. We wish all the best to all the artists and delegations that participated in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, and bring on 2022!
What do you think? How did the 2021 results differ from previous years? What have you noticed? Tell us your thoughts below!
where can one check, televoting results beyond the first 10 places of any country?
There can also a problem with televoting, People living in other countries can vote for their own song. Lithuania has been in the UK’s top 2 countries in the last 5 years that they were in the final.
And Ireland too ( big points to Lithuania via the diaspora vote every year). I recall one year UK and Ireland both giving Lithuania 12 televote points in a Semi Final, when virtually no other country gave Lithuania points!
Funny though that Greece received no points from Germany and the UK this year. The Greek diaspora in these two countries is large. In the previous year you could see this effect clearly ( unless this year COVID and online teaching has kept the Greek students out of the UK universities )
Our professional jury gave 12 points to Albania… if that is not political I don’t know what is. Our song was rubbish (NOT the singer!!!), while realistically, all the songs in front of Malta were better… Rock n Roll Never Dies… Amen!
What’s the point of the jury voters if they vote with even more political bias than the public? And why did the Belgian jury award 12 points to Switzerland and 0 to France? I thought France’ vocal and non-vocal performance was more complete than Switzerland’s, but OK, we can differ on that, but no points at all I do not understand. They gave 6 points to Bulgaria, which was a sweet song but a rather forgetable chorus and performance.
France’s song was really, really incomplete and disjointed. And overall pretty bland and whiney. Switzerland’s was so much more accomplished. Plus, his voice. Shocked that France got so high when there were so many better songs (ukraine, switzerland, iceland, Finland and even Australia, which randomly didn’t make it to the final)
Malta’s 2004 rep said that Maltese delegation in recent years pays bookies to keep Malta high in betting odds to create a false hype. Now this result makes more sense.
Kindly quote source, please – thanks
So looking at the viewer votes only around 3,000 people voted. I find it odd that 182 million people watch but 3,000 vote. Or have I missed something?
Where can I find the number of people who voted by country?
What are you talking about?
my goodness…. that is a REPRESENTATION of the voting!!!! Not 3000 voted… Stop this island. I want to get off!
It’s interesting that you don’t include “10 years” in the category “upbeat pure pop” – what would you call it? Electronica? Dance?
I would call it boring.
The Italian jury has been bizarre the last couple of years, they often balk the countries that seem to be their most dangerous rivals and give 12 points to a random country. Case in point: in 2019, the Italian jury ranked Netherlands (eventual winner) 12th, Switzerland (finished 4th) 17th and Russia (finished 3rd) 23rd, with their 12 going to Denmark. This year, while giving France 3 points, they totally dismantle Switzerland, putting Gjon second-last in their ranking (Switzerland in turn gave Italy 8 points)! The jury voting criteria is clear (artist vocal capacity, stage performance, originality/composition of song and overall… Read more »
As an Italian I agree. Giving 12 to Lithuania this year was not that strange I think (since Lithuania was still very appreciated) but I remember those 12 points to Denmark (like, wtf?!).
I think that this often happens among countries which are favorites to win unfortunately. For example, Malta didn’t give a single point to Italy with the juries while usually always gives 12… and I don’t think that it’s a coincidence since Destiny was also considered a favorite.
Shall we speak of the juries from France, Malta, Spain, Azerbaigian, Moldova, Israel, Ireland, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark who gave ZERO points to Italy? Come on, there were other juries who were much worse / biased than Italy.
And yet, some people here are saying that ESC is developing into a more “serious” song competition. Moldova ranked higher than belgium. Please.
in the czech republic we don’t have many viewers/voters, so it can be very easily done/bought, we gave 12 to Moldova in the semi and in the final. Notably, even Russia got less points than usual – 5 (2019: 12, 2018 not in the final, DoReDoS 6; 2016: 10, 2015: 8), and as we know, Manizha is being “too progressive” for some people, maybe for the part of our russian diaspora too, so the usual “votes” for Russia just went to Kirkorov’s Moldova. by the way, the co-commentator for the grand final Albert ?erný from Lake Malawi said after Manizha’s… Read more »
Maxian was a good commentator. Although…he should focus on geography 🙂 moving to Zurich, the capital of Switzerland….did I here it correctly or did someone else notice?
Italy being placed 6th with Grande Amore in jury ranking was way more scandalous than Destiny’s 7th place overall and Natalitsa’s undeserving 13th. I wish you ‘d made such a thorough editorial as this one, about it back then
The five countries that beat Italy in 2015 for the jury votes were Sweden, Latvia, Russia, Australia and Belgium – all five of which had very jury friendly songs. A 6th place for Italy in the jury votes seems fair, considering that while Grande Amore was very well sung, it was not exactly radio friendly.
Italians were in a league of their own. Only in an alternate universe, Senhit ending up 22nd could be more bizarre than Tonight Again beating Grande Amore.
Are we the alternate universe, perhaps?
Could this be the year that fandom finally realise that their opinions doesnt rule the outcome? Malta didnt to well with audience because it came off as a cynical attempt trying to much to win, though Destiny is absolutely not to blame. And San Marino was obvious from the start it only worked in fanworld because that overtly Americanized sound never works.
This year’s results make absolute sense. It is not about genre popularity. You just need to apply a ‘truth’ filter – the most relevant value in the world today. None of the top 5 (and most of the top 10 for that matter) came across as pretentious or unfit to the personalities of the performers, no matter how much they differed between them. On the contrary the bottom 5 either looked like they were made up to trick an algorithm ( see the over produced San Marino) , or childish (Germany) or just boring ( Spain). Sure the running order… Read more »
I agree, George – the top 5 all had what Conchita called “authenticity”. San Marino was like a formula with money thrown at it.
Authenticity ! That is the right word. Thanks Ruth
I think Sweden was the last winner who wouldn’t fit into the authentic brand, and they won because if you aren’t authentic, you have to execute slick pop perfectly, which they did.
Jamala, Salvador, Netta, Duncan and Maneskin are all radically different in terms of musical style, but they share a sense of authenticity.
Remember Swedish producers are responsible for all the pop hits that have been dominating the charts for a couple of decades now. In essence all the mega pop hits of this century have come out of Sweden’s own Max Martin and team, be that with the voice of Britney Spears, the BackStreet boys, Katy Perry or even The Weeknd. Factor in ABBA ( probably the biggest pop innovators of all time – I know Beatles fans will disagree) and you will realize that you cannot get more authentic in Pop than Sweden
Maneskin have been signed to sony since 2017. Interesting definition of authenticity. WTF was Dadi doing so low in the ratings. That’s criminal. They were truly authentic and talented, as were Roop, Go-A and Gjon’s Tears.
Fun fact: Back in 2018, the greek jury gave Cyprus and Eleni only 7 points for Fuego at the 1st Semi Final. Lighted up her flames in the Final anyway… 😉
The Greek jury gave her 7 because of her Albanian origin. She is continously experiencing racism and discrimination because of her origin.
Honestly, I think Iceland should never have gotten anywhere near the top 10, much less #4. However, it’s probably Karmic justice …. Iceland has produced many great entries in the past that were overlooked … Hero Bjork and Eyþór Ingi in particular. Only fair a “so so” entry makes top 5.
Really? I think Iceland had a great entry! One of my favourites this year!
I think Iceland was fantastic. 100% live close harmony, 100% their own song, super sweet lyrics, original presentation.
I think we desperately need the jury. It would be trash/cheese extravaganza if we got rid of them. Both them and the televote are too biased but they often balance each other nicely. Having said that, a change is needed. I think that each jury member should have to fill a sheet for every performance with a couple of sentences for each category they are asked to rank the acts on (vocal capacity, performance on stage, composition, originality of the song, overall impression) which should be available online. Jury should do more than a quick ranking with no explanation whatsoever.… Read more »
Requiring the juries to explain why they ranked each song as they did would be very welcome.
Can we do something about the immigrant diaspora and neibhour voting too?
Could someone explain why the Polish jury ranked Russia as 10th (so by awarding them 1 point) & the UK ranked 11th when looking at the jury score the UK actually scored better than Russia (i.e. the UK total jury score was lower than Russia’s total jury score)?
It’s simple, since 2018 the jury ranking is no longer determined by adding the five jurors’ rankings. It’s determined via a system that gives more importance to top placements by a juror than bottom placements, so negative voting is cancelled out. Basically if you do 1 – 2 – 1 – 2 – 26, you will still rank higher than a country who did 6 – 6 – 7 – 5 – 6 even though you have a worse average ranking.
I think we se patterns where they do not exist. 1. Italy: great winner, different, charismatic lead singer, loved by the public. 2. France: great runner-up. Emotional, genuine, good singer. 3. Switzerland: unique voice, emotional, good staging. A little less of massive appeal than the rest of top5. 4. Iceland: diffrent,corky, likeable band, makes you smile. 5. Ukraine: maybe the stand out of the night, folk, interesting and very unique sound, visually strong. ——— 6. Finland: strong, solid, loved by many and especially loved by Nordic countries. 7. Malta: modern, radio friendly, visually captivating but at times “forced”, maybe not… Read more »
I really dont understand why old fashioned ballads are considered ”boring” by some eurofans. Just because you dont like it doesnt mean it’s boring. It’s a different genre, not meant for eurovision i guess.
I do not think all ballads are boring. It is not a matter of genre but a matter of song. Lots of ballads are beautiful but some are indeed boring especially for a show like Eurovision when artists have just 3 minutes to stand out. On the contrary if a ballad is powerful I think it can be very succesfull in eurovision.
crikey… I really don’t understand why people liked France’s… it was whiney and awful and a very disjointed song. There were really much better offerings which came out lower in the ratings.
This is not the first time San Marino has (probably) had pacts with other countries in the Eurovision Song Contest, for example in 2011. For the result next to be better next year, I think. 1. The jury members do not vote after they have possibly discussed with the others in the country’s jury and they are not appointed by the country’s TV company but for example the EBU or some other organization. 2. 15-20 jury members per country. 3. More countries than just the top ten get points from each jury / viewing group. If more countries get points,… Read more »
The discussion about “diasporas” made me wonder if that was a major reason for Senhit being unable to beat Serhat’s best showing, given that the latter is Turkish while the former is of Eritrean background. Of course Senhit is Italian-born, but Italians outside Italy likely voted predominantly for Måneskin.
There is also interesting insight above on why Moldova did so much better than better acts, especially Anxhela.
Oh definitely. Serhat would’ve flopped and been a NQ in 2019 if not for the Turkish diaspora. He nearly qualified in 2016 for the same reason even though the juries rightfully eviscerated him back then. Beyond the Eritrean diaspora being a lot smaller than the Turkish one, Senhit isn’t famous in Eritrean entertainment, having made her name in Italy, whereas Serhat is famous in Turkish entertainment.
Well, first of all Serhat isn’t famous in Turkey, especially among youngsters
2.) it wasn’t the countries (Germany, the Netherlands, France or etc) voted for Serhat. if you check the results, you will see. The countries who voted for Serhat are those which Turkey got no or less points from in the past
3.) When you look into results it’s clear that Turkish diaspora only vote for Turkey 🙂 not Azerbaijan nor the Turks representing other countries
3.) I recommend you research about issues what you have no info about
The audacity of the British moaning about Greece Cyprus points exchange… when they are entirely responsible for Greece and Cyprus being separate countries to begin with!!!
I think that’s r@cist but I’m not sure, hope we won’t get another Vanilla BANNED from the site
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Many other factors contributed to Greece and Cyprus ending up as separate countries.
This is the most non-sensical fallacy I’ve come across in months. And I’m on the internet a lot!
I think we ended up with a great top 10 (I’d perhaps swap Bulgaria for Greece), there are some quality and diverse songs in there. It’s great to see that most of the top 10 were written by the performers and 4 of the top 5 are not in English.. There will always be a few suspicious jury or televotes but I think this year overall quality was the winner with such a top 10. As we move onto Italy 2022, I hope the quality and diversify is maintained.
Me too! I loved this year. There wasn’t one entry that I could say I hated 100%. I couldn’t listen much to the original version of Germany’s but the slow version he did in a clip was actually ok.
I’m glad there’s room for more than cheesy pop. The most cheesy song here was Moldova and it was the 2nd best of them…okay. And talking about Moldova, I was waiting for someone to point out that suspicious voting. Is the EBU even investigating it? Well, if they are they will conclude there is nothing relevant. Lazy EBU… Moreover, I do think blockvoting have been reduced but there are still flagrant issues that have to be adressed alongside some other suspicious voting: Cyprus and Greece exchanging 24 points every single year. Come oooon even the juries… Same from Rumania/Moldova. Nordic… Read more »
Portugal gave 12 to Moldova on televote it was not the jury
Because of Moldovan diaspora in Portugal. The jury tanked her.
As they should.
I don’t wanna be this guy, but it’s really interesting how badly people of colour did in the contest this year, especially in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement 🙁
Because people are tired of the things being constantly pushed to their faces.
too right
People voted for the songs, not for the skin
Moldova’s televote haul begs to differ.
Except for Moldova yes, that was rigged
You are absolutely right. Jeangu, for instance, deserved SO much better. I loved his song.
I understand that Birth of a New Age is not the most immediate, televote friendly song. But the 11 points from the juries was shameful. It’s the sort of deeply meaningful and well performed song juries are supposed to reward. Also, fans were being so disrespectful with the broccoli jokes.
I completely noticed this as well, especially with the televote. Very poor results from most of the people of color. I mean overall Malta was 7th but she did poorly with the televote. And then Russia was represented by a Central Asian woman and did OK, but not as high as some other ethnic Russians.
Throw in Czech Republic getting 0 in the televote in SF2 (granted the vocals weren’t great but Moldova came 4th in the SF2 public vote).
Czech Republic was just remarkably bad, both the song and the performance. And why ignore Sweden getting significantly more from the televote than the juries? The problem with racism accusations is that it’s just too easy to pick out facts that support the theory and ignore ones that don’t.
don’t, don’t do that. three white men got a 0 from televote and you’re trying to spin how europe is racists and didn’t vote for certain artists because they aren’t white. dami was 4th in telelvote. don’t do that.
send better songs and you won’t have to worry about anything.
so, you think people should vote based on skin colour and not a song? well, three white men got a zero on televote, i’d like to hear how can you spin that
They won’t. They’ll pretend everything is fine
Think there were too much quality songs this year for all the cheesy pop to make a real impression. Plus France, Ukraine Italy all looked great even Switzerland had a certain camp charm about it. None of the girls with dancers really brought a complete package I mean Malta never had the stageing,Cyprus had the stageing but not the song, Moldova was fun but lightweight. Croatia and Serbia looked great but those songs were never going to be real contenders. They all cancelled each other out really.
True.
The bottom line is we already have Dua Lipa, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga, Lizzo etc. We’re looking for something different in Eurovision, and not their cheaper versions and copycats hence the success of Italy, France, Switzerland and Ukraine. I’m liking the direction this contest is going. First Duncan’s win, now Italy.
Let me tell you why Malta flopped; because she was everywhere! People got sick of this stupid campaign about her and turned their back. If you have a good act you don’t have to be on everyone’s timeline 24/7.
Malta was “everywhere” on specialist sites, but I haven’t seen her elsewhere. The vast majority of voters are not Eurofans, they are viewers who only watch the grand finale of the competition and discover the songs on saturday night. Malta especially suffered from being placed at the start of the program (when all viewers are not necessarily watching their TV yet), and in the midst of other up-tempo songs. Not sure that at 11 p.m. people remember what they saw (or not) at 9:30 p.m.
I mostly agree, but Malta had paid adds on Twitter during the last couple of days of the contest.
I think the “female enpowerment” element of Malta entry may have hurt it a little too.
I can confirm this, and she had even an ad before the grand final livestream on youtube. just ridiculous.
They had adds on FB and Instagram in North Macedonia for quite a while.
A lot of people didn’t vote for malta as they thought her song hypocritical, she’s singing a feminist song, yet manhandling a guy in her video…. Makes no sense! Destiny is a good singer, but the complete entry was a mess
Why Malta´s singer looked so upset during the votes?
She has been hyped up the entire season and was almost expected to win, especially by the Maltese. There was just a lot of weight on her shoulders. I think it was more stress as she didn’t want to dissapoint anyone. She has went to instagram thanking everyone and being proud of what she did. (as she should :-))
She had a pretty good score. She should be proud of herself.
I agree with the writer, the surprisingly many points awarded by the juries to Moldova were really suspicious…
Also what’s up with San Marino?? I honestly can’t believe it only finished 21st in the televote and 22nd overall!
Senhit didn’t deserve worse than Serhat, a top 20 result would have been fair but the overall act was not top quality, like the bubble loved to think
I genuinely believe Hooverphonic and The Black Mamba were the most underrated this year.
And from the semis, Fyr og Flamme
Hooverphonic was straight up robbed by the televote.
Luka would’ve been a terrible choice to sing The Wrong Place. The song was clearly written for Geike.
As a greek, ofc i disagree with the jury 12 we exchange each year. But guys, we can’t say that we were overrated this year. 10th in juries and 10th in televoting is pretty balanced. We had 8 years to enter the top10, and remember how many greek songs were underrated these years, like better love(deserved at least top15) or oniro mou(deserved the final).
True, but I’d say Greece robbed Finland in semi final 1 in 2017!
As much as I love Oniro Mou and still listen to it, that semi was a bloodbath and like Roxen this year, it wouldn’t be fair to other songs to qualify with that vocal performance. Still 2018 is my favorite Greek song and Romania 2021 my favorite Romanian song.
Demy was overrated though… She didn’t deserve the final but I guess it balances out if we count Freaky Fortune and Risky Kidd from 2014 plus Maria Elena Kyriakou in 2015
This year, I think it’s perfectly justified for Greece and Cyprus to exchange the 12 points. Both entries were strong, and Greece/Cyprus really do have the EXACT SAME music industry, pop culture, etc. …
In other years, however, it can get a bit embarrassing. Imagine how ridiculous it would have been if Cyprus gave 12 points to Greece’s 2016 entry! Thankfully, they never had the chance to do that.
Cyprus’ jury only gave Greece 3 points in SF1 of 2016, although the televote gave 12 points to Greece.
All Israeli jury members put U.K. last? so?
what benefit Israel get from that??
I think it was just a coincidence U.k. song wasn’t appreciated by whole Europe. there are only 5 jury members…. if there were 50 members doing so then i could say that something is strange,,,
Exactly… As even Israel is in EU, UK’s placement was unfortunately deserved
Israel’s not in the EU
That’s what sot said
I do not see what is bizarre in the rankings… The only thing which could be bizarre is that for once the ranking is almost fully based on quality and authenticity.
Of course there are some minor weird juries decisions but this is not specific to this year.
For me this is one of the most fair contest.
I suppose results that would have had Wiwi’s darling, Malta top 3 would not be bizarre. I am for once pleased that the public doesn’t get influenced as much by certain blogs/websites etc that promoted certain acts. I mean, all the way until rehearsals, everything was about Malta on here.
And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Wiwi’s efforts, particularly during the rehearsals week
I would have never said it better
Highlight:
Portugal being 7th in the jury. (Left side overall)
Also the first year they sing in English, they acheived the fourth better “English” song by the jury.
…all of this and yet, it was a “sure NQ” by wiwiblogs…then “maybe they can sneak through and be a Q”…
This year guys you were waaay off! XD
You could see on almost every top 39 fans base on Youtube Portugal ranked on the bottom 5 and then San Marino, Bulgaria on the top 10 if not top 5 lol.
That’s what i am trying to say, the esc bubble is funny…they live in there world:
LOCOLOCO!! XD
Well if wiwibloggs would be able to tell thefinal rankings with 100% accuracy then why would still need to have the live show?
Wiwibloggs gave their personal analysis based on videos and rehearsals.. what happens on the night of the semis of the final cannot be forecasted entirely. Chill
Ende, calm down…i am chilled, really!! as i said…it’s funny to watch the clouded minds of (almost) all esc bubble fans… i wasn’t saying forecast the future(that would be boring)… however there’s some middle ground, that’s all xD
I am going to try to explain a bit better, my parents(60yo both), on the night of the show, watching and hearing for the first time the songs, they got 9 Q of 10 right of semi 1, and 10 of 10 right in semi 2…
And that’s why i find it funny, just that! I am included in the esc bubble for sure…
Huh? YOU need to chill. People thought they wouldn’t qualify. Everyone takes wiwis opinions as if they were right all the time, he’s just saying that wiwi’s and eurofans personal opinions/taste don’t determine the final results.
For me Portugal was a clear qualifier..I wrote that in several videos. And when the rehearsals started there was no doubts about it. 4th place in their semi was a strong qualifier indeed.
And you´re right, Wiwibloggs completely failed about Portugal´s entry, they said it was “sedative” 🙂
So true lol many eurofans thought it was a borderline qualifier until rehearsals. Press center was right.
As a Greek, I can completely understand why we are all almost offended by the 12p exchange with Cyprus. Yet, when it comes to televoting, there is a simple explanation. Greece and Cyprus have a common music industry, and the Eurovision songs meet huge success in both countries one month or more before entering the contest. At least the last years that Panik records are in charge of the cypriot songs. And in terms of jurors, I guess it would be considered wrong to not give the highest amount of points to the most succesful song in your country. It… Read more »
I would totally understand the televote exchange due to cultural affinity, can’t blame three televoters at all. But the *highest* points coming from the juries *every* year, that’s very unprofessional. They are there to mitigate these kinds of things not to do the opposite.
Bullshaiser
So basically Kirkorov bought televotes in many countries during the semifinal. Do you know how this could be possible?
Kirkorov just did promo tour for Sugar, but it seems it’s a bad thing nowadays.
In many countries there’re not a lot of people who vote (like Romania, Moldova, etc). In these countries if you have a couple of thousand SIM cards, you can impact the final voting results. Or if you have control of the media, you can manipulate people to vote for your act. These people don’t even need to watch Eurovision – just post a message like “Please send SMS with *xxx* text to *xxx* number” on specific social groups.
In Romania we have one of the most expensive televoting. 1.19 € per SMS. In Germany the price is 0.20, Bulgaria 0.6, Belgium 0.5. That’s why people don’t vote
Rule #1: Kirkorov doesn’t deserve to be discussed about
Rule #2: With Kirkorov everything is possible
Well if with him everything is possible, he certainly deserves to be discussed about (and done something about)
Maybe if there has to be a discussion about hook it will only be negative
“Hook”? Why did I write that?
Guess Kirkorov is Captain Hook from now on
Now I get it 🙂
I wanna point out that happened, what I predicted (and I am really proud of it): Hurricane got 12 points from Slovenia, Croatia and North Macedonia, also Austria and Switzerland and even 3 points from Germany where many ex-yu people live. I am really glad, that all those people voted.
In this case it’s not favourable neighbor-voting, it’s mainly because Hurricane are the biggest in the balkans and they are quite popular in german speaking countries too ??
As a German, I’ve never heard of them before.
I am from Croatia and I can assure you before the ESC 2021 no-one has ever heard of them here. Stop spreading non-sonse!
My friends from Slavonija have been vibing to their music for quite some time. You and your friends are not the only people in Croatia lol
Sorry to break it to you but if it was about popularity Hooverphonic would have collected WAYYY more points than the 3 they eventually got
Hooverphonic ? In a contest like eurovision? i doubt their fans even watch ESC. Their target audience is different.
in other words: almost only serbs living all over europe contributed to their 82 points. i love hurricane, but yeah.
Quite unfair if everybody else put them in the bottom 6, but ok. I loved Nevena and this thing helped her too, even if it was to a lesser extent. Sometimes it helps some acts I love (Nevena and Sanja Ilic), sometimes acts in my bottom of the final (Hurricane)
I’m probably one of a few “jury-diehard-friendly” person… What I mean is in the past years I always thank juries for being there doing there jobs and saving some good quality songs over trashy bops that are overhyped by fans. But this year, I was almost throwing my coffee table into the air when Moldova got that many points from juries. People voting this from home I can understand (not really… but understandable), but juries voting for this??? Outrageous! And we keep having the Greece/Cyprus duality and so on. Giving them points it’s ok but at least don’t give them… Read more »
Belgium’s televoting result is even more frustrating. Yes, overall quality was appreciated by the public. But then … only 3 points for Hooverphonic, yet 60 for TIX? Like … for real?
Belgium deserved soooo much better!
Belgium’s was a weird, disjointed song. Sounded like more than one song morphed together (like it was formulated). The whole Tix Eurovision romance thing probably bumped up his score.
FOR THE LAST TIME, IT’S THE SAME THING TO GIVE YOUR DOUZE POINTS TO NORWAY OR DENMARK YEAR BY YEAR WITH GIVING THEM TO CYPRUS
-.-‘ I’m not complaining about greeks in general giving votes for Cyprus from home, I totally can understand that. But juries are supposed to be neutral and judge songs by quality and Greece/Cyprus juries are being disrespectful over the years. Don’t come with Scandinavian countries do it too, no they don’t.
One thing is giving your *jury* points to the same country over and over like Greece/Cyprus do; other thing is *people* from one country giving a good amount of points to their neighbours (which is kinda understandble).
Agreed 100%, maybe I didn’t phrase it right… Greece & Cyprus are not the only ones that do that so, the Greek and Cypriot juries are definitely acting childishly but they’re not the only ones..!
I completely agree with everything. Hooverphonic are the biggest robbery of the year together with Fyr og Flamme, who deserved a spot in the final instead of Skirkorov’s Moldova
The most important thing is that the calamity has been avoided. It’s much better to have an additional couple of bombastic rock tunes next year than a dozen of new dreadful bleak ballads inspired by Voila and that Swiss song I already forgot the name of.
Destiny stan detected
Isn’t it weird that the Greek televote gave 12 points to Modolva in the semi while on the final they ranked them 21st in the televote?
Cyprus weren’t in the semi. Neither were the major televote magnets of Italy and Ukraine.
You didn’t mention the Azerbaijan’s jury vote, which was also hilarious:
12 – Russia
10 – Greece
9 – Moldova
It’s obvious that Kirkorov pulled the strings in many countries.
if you are a true eurovision fan you would know that azerbaijan normally is voting high on Greece. so what is the problem now?
No mention of Malta overhyping it’s entry, buying views, having paid adds around Europe and its jury voting an outsider. That’s bizarre dude.
What does it mean “overhyping its entry”? Every country is perfectly within their rights to hype their entry as much as possible. Where is evidence of Malta “buying views”? I am not a Malta fan, I just prefer debates with arguments.
moldova was the FRAUD of the year, no way they won the estonian televoting in the semi with finland in the competition and then got nothing from them in the final. kirkorov should be more confident in his acts, but of course his ego is just too fragile. the funny thing is, they would’ve qualified either way without all this fraudulence! still, this was nothing compared to all those jury FRAUDS… there’s no point in keeping them anymore. they fail to resolve the televote problems (which are far less now than in the 00s). poland, san marino and bulgarian juries… Read more »
And the already classic act of Grecce and Cyprus juries swapping the points. They should be out for one year to “think about things”!
That’s so f*scist of you
Why? For wanting people to vote fairly?
Oh come on, I’m against with all this points exchange going on but we don’t want ANY countries outside the competition, only Belarus until they get a proper leader
Exactly. Most rigged result ever
Maybe people just liked Moldova? Maybe they thought it is a fun and catchy song, that was staged pretty clever and that Natalia was pretty sympathetic? Maybe that could be an explanation instead of creating conspirancy theories…
Oh and I don’t think Cyprus failed to score high because Cyprus is so small, but rather because it is a straight up copy of Lady Gaga songs.
Yes, she also worked hard off stage. I noticed her doing the round of live streams, bright and bubbly. If Uke Suviste had been as friendly with the media, he might have qualified too.
Cyprus can go down in history of the worst song name. At first sight, the song lyrics are too cringe to even consider voting for.
if people liked Moldova why is it not charting in one country.
Charting is not an argument. TIX’s song has much more streams on Spotify than Efendi, Destiny and “El Diablo” singer, but he is not charting in Viral 50.
Reason why pure pop lost this year was due the fact that people have been home over a year, people want some autenticity and emotions in the songs after a shitty 2020 and almost as shitty beginning of 2021. I this case up beat pop songs etc does not really do it for the general public. Also there were too many of the same type of songs as the article mentions, and all ladies had more or less similar dresses, silver short dresses, they all looked the same. And how Sugar got a lot of points is still a mystery,… Read more »
It was the instrumental part of the song and the singer (she is gorgeous) who made Moldova´s result
“Fuego fatigue” is my description of what happened. That song did so well in 2018 and people had the idea to do something along the same lines. But it did well that year because there was nothing else like it. Next year we face the prospect of several lite-metal acts.
Wouldn’t mind more rock songs in ESC but as someone who didn’t like Finland that much this year (sorry!) I really hope we don’t get a whole bunch of mediocre rock songs.
Good point about the dress. Whoever decided to put Destiny in silver – when we already knew that Cyprus, Albania and Moldova had similar outfits – cost her points
That too, but Eleni had much more charisma than these girls.
I still don’t understand how fuego became so successful even in 2018. Maybe it was Eleni’s high energy I don’t know but that song was no different than Moldova this year when it comes to cheesiness.
Fuego was riding the latin pop wave of 2017-18 so was actually quite radio friendly
Plus, her hair matched the song title! ?
I wasn’t surprised that Moldova did well, because she beamed into the camera at every opportunity, even after dropping her microphone. Votes are picked up by acts enjoying themselves and she looked great, even if her vocal wasn’t quite up to par.
I hated the Moldovan entry – was annoyed (and shocked) it even qualified – would go as far as to call it musical trash. But to “blame” its success on Kirkov is a bit shortsighted. Andrew Lloyd Webber tried the same trick a few years ago – heavey promotion all over Europe prior to the contest and even put himself on stage on the night to help his song/artist advance.
The standard of competition was so high this year. Nearly every country brought their A game to the competition with quite a few over egging the pudding. An over saturation of female Swedish style generic pop songs worked against each other and the authentic songs shone through. Hooray! That top 10 final result is epic. So many strong and diverse songs. Originality was the order of the day and eurovision is so much better for it. There will always be a place for pop. Cyprus Fuego and Switz She got me are eurovision classics. This year the pop songs were… Read more »