Edurne had huge support behind her on Saturday night when she strutted out to perform ‘Amanacer’. Fans and the bookies saw her breaking the odd-year-curse and landing España a second consecutive Top 10 finish. Ultimately she didn’t move beyond her slot in the running order: 21st place with just 15 points.
“Unfair”, “disappointment” and “politics” were the three main words spreading through social media after the Spain-wreck had taken its course. It seems like the odd year curse, which puts Spain below position 20 every other year, lives on.
The online press in Spain yo-yoes from sadness to brutal criticism of the Spanish entry. At times it even picks on the Contest for being cheesy and “bland when there are no freaks taking part”.
Surprisingly, the most read newspaper in Spain has been the one with the most out-of-place impressions, sparing no mercy for either the Spanish entry or the show. An El País headline reads: “Sweden wins a freakshow-free edition of the Eurovision Song Contest”, pointing out that Spain didn’t factor despite that dress reveal and the presence of Italian stallion Giuseppe di Bella and his six-pack.
El cantante sueco Måns Zelmerlöw vence en un Eurovisión que se ha desprendido de su frikismo http://t.co/GPhlGkviQr pic.twitter.com/vpTv8fc7Hv
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) May 24, 2015
“Black daybreak in Eurovision” screamed El Mundo, adding: “Edurne gave the best she could with just the help of her dancer”. ABC echoed the same gloomy sentiment: “Cloudy daybreak for Edurne while Sweden gets the big prize”. These two influential media outlets highlight the symbolism underlying the staging, being a live version of “La Pietà” at the beginning and using a graphic element to recreate an unreal world where she talks about a past love from which she wants to break free.
Keeping on with the constructive criticism, La Vanguardia congratulated Edurne and the whole delegation for the outstanding staging and the roar from Wiener Stadthalle once she finished. But it also pointed out a few missteps, such as the cape rip-off going earlier than expected and a couple of missed notes. It ultimately concludes that “Amanecer” was overwhelmed by both Sweden and Russia, which, in its mind, were stronger songs.
Hypocrisy takes centre stage when we look at another well-known online paper, Público. “TVE couldn’t find anyone who spoke English,” it writes. The authors points out how “laaaaame” the Contest has become, and how predictable the voting was, because “12 points always go to the neighbouring country, so we are starting to countdown from 10”. Even so, she criticises Portugal for giving Spain just “3 shitty points” and feels utterly ashamed that the EBU allows both Israel and Australia to take part in Eurovision, because “it costs us money, you know?”
¿Australia e Israel en #Eurovisión? ¿Estamos de coña? Que esto nos cuesta dinero, oigan
Mi post de hoy en @publico_eshttp://t.co/FBdfTT797l— Sandra Bulos (@sandra_bulos) May 24, 2015
So-called journalists criticising Edurne’s performance over the weekend are ten a penny today, but don’t’ worry. Those who had followed the show live could see Edurne giving us her best shot and getting low reward for that.
At least we’ll always have the dress reveals to console us. No-one can take dem skills away from homegirl.
I am stunned at the responses from Spain. I could understand them if Spain were close to the top tier and lost. But they got almost NO points. Are the Spaniards suggesting that an entire continent (actually 2 continents…) colluded to give them no points?? maybe, JUST maybe, the song was too dramatic for its own good?? maybe there was nothing more than the repeating theme to wake up the crowd?
Why envy Australia and Israel??
To shame for Spain!!
And Wiwibloggs call us dutchies bad losers? #Damm
P.S. it would be interesting to see the impact of such method of calculation on the semifinal results! I have a feeling we would have had a few different finalists…
@Ferge: very interesting link! And I think that way of calculating the results would be the most accurate one, but wouldn’t be a bit complicated on the night of the contest? Somehow, though, I wish they made it like that
A lot of haters here I’m seeing.
Edurne got a 11th place in favourite songs, but the way the votes are given doesn’t help her
Check this: http://www.reddit.com/r/eurovision/comments/376uto/the_grand_final_results_had_every_country_given/
The 8 10 12 helps neighbours
Edurne’s unfair as hell outcome is the reason why I have stopped believing in this contest’s integrity and loyalty. There’s no possible way for me to work out how come could Europe humilliate her and us in such a wild and disgraceful way.
After this, Eurovision will never be the same for me.
THE RESULTS WERE SO UNFAIT FOR FRANCE,GREECE AND SPAIN FOR SURE.IF EDURNE WAS FROM RUSSIA OR SWEDEN SHE WOULD BE TOP 10.
RTVE needs to stop pleasing its own people and get their song out there. Edurne and RTVE were trying to please the Spanish people, not other Europeans. You need to promote outside of your country, not in it. The Spanish can hate the song all they want but in reality they have absolutely no influence on Spain’s final outcome on the scoreboard as you can’t vote for your own country.
Eurovision injustices happen every year, although this one was bordering on the ridiculous, you need to get over it. There was some songs that despite being much worse, got more press and had more momentum.
Spain had a great song and have had a run of 3-4 good songs in the last few years. Considering how consistently bad they used to be, they should be proud of this!
I still prefer the Croatian cape revelation from 1998 than this Madonna-almost-cape-rip-off moment but that’s just me … Wonderful song but ruined by being only in the final against songs that had had immediate success from each of their semi-finals and had not the same popular appeal than Italy had. Fans and viewers were impressed with Italy (after all Il Volo have had an international following)… only fans were impressed with Spain and that eluded many to believe in the song’s success in the voting. Vocally I don’t know if Edurne was such an impressive singer … not bad …… Read more »
The ignorance & stupidity of journalists is astounding. They should do their research before they start criticising.
In a few days, their work ends up forgotten & in the trash where it belongs.
@ ct
My friends were speechless and said this was the best performance of the night.They were not Eurofans and thought she’s gonna win.Nd as greek comentator said it was among the most beautiful we saw on the night. Actually,it was the most beautiful.
Comparing Edurne with Tanja. Please Tanja seem like an amateur compared to Edurne.
Comparing Spain with U.K this year? Just gimme a break!!!
I thought the article was about expressing our opinions about Edurne’s failure , not go crazy with the idiotic media and the mean reporters. Don’t count their opinion. Most of them spill poison about thei’r country’s contestand without even watching Eurovision. A Greek reporter said: ” Maria Elena was voiceless last night ,that’s why she did so bad. And the Spanish girl, was very beautiful ,but she couldn’t sing”. Yeah dude, that’s it. Bingo. That’s why they did badly.Idiots. And all of you saying Edurne couldn’t sing on Saturday, I think we were not watching the same show.
I thought I was alone in noticing the odd-year-curse.
The english remix version is awesomeeeeeee, amazingggggggggg!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVbJyZxK06Y
Europe i hope enjoy with that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVbJyZxK06Y
The english remix version is amazingggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Daniel
In my country many people critisize block-voting, but at the same time they encourage (even on TV! – a huge campaign) emigrants to vote for their homeland. That is such hypocrisy.
I think it was such a tough, strong year… if she had been in Eurovision last year or 2013, she could have done a lot better.
Im from spain, and all you saying that she wastn perfect, its true but not for a 21 possition, all the years the same, the true about this contest it that actually the song isnt the most important thing, welcome to the eurovision “song” contest, and you if you want continue doing the same ignoring uk, Germany, spain, france, if all we decide to dont participate any more, you can start forgetting the contest, a contest paid forma us
Okay, not bored but unenthusiastic…
It was not so strong. The dance was confusing, vocals are given to be bad, and the walking part at the chorus made her look bored on stage.
Oh please, Portugal aren’t bad neighboors! We gave 10 points to Spain and 12 for Italy by televoting, unfortunately our shity jury puts Edurne in 14º place… I’m really sad! And of course we will gladly to give good score to Spain, and especially when they sing his beautiful native language! The general jury don’t know what it is MUSIC! The people voted in Italy, not for singing Italian, but because they have a fabulous song!! But the sad jury decided to vote in a commercial shit, music too mainstream. The fact that I do not think the very special… Read more »
Spain is without doubt one of my favorite countries at Eurovision in the past few years, but this year the performance and song was not good (my 25th favorite in the final, and 37th of the 40, only ahead of Poland, Cyprus, and Finland). I can understand why France is upset with the result (Lisa definitely deserved to place higher), but to be honest Spain should be happy with 21st place after giving us THAT. Oh yes I deed! Lol
Sorry Spain, but the song was completely overrated from the very beginning, it was obvious that there was going to be disappointment. IMO the song got the placing it deserved, apart from the stylish staging, the song was basically Edurne wailing EEEAYYYYOHHH! over and over, the song was instantly forgettable. I think if Spain want to make the Top 10 again, they need to follow the model they used in 2014. Have the song in both English and Spanish.
I hate people who blame bloc voting and then blame their neighbours for not giving them many points. I thought she deserved more, though I wasn’t a fan of the song, but she sang well and the dance break was to die for.
None of the entries featuring the removal of clothing (Moldova, Serbia, Spain & Switzerland) did well
A bad song, a bad singer- simple- be graceful in your defeat like the Uk is
Spain is the hot candidate to win the prize 4 the most let down disappointing result…
Amanecer was good enough song & Edurne delivered a really fine spectacular performance…She definitely dd not deserve this place…
I feel for poor Espana..
When I read this shit in the Spanish media I always think same way: are there so many assholes in other countries or is it just my country that cannot understand how the show works?
It’s f* annoying… Year after year they write the same!
Austria didn’t win for long time and finally they send a song that won, if the song is winner it will win
This is getting ridiculous, there are 40 countries competing some countries just because they are not happy with their results they moan and moan, why participate then if you are not going to see the real world where people tastes are different, just because one country like their song they can support their contestant as much as they want but no need to make silly judgement about the result, every year we get some country score high some score low and the list is not always the same, and, spain complain about their result another about the result what do… Read more »
Spain needs to take leaf out of the UK’s book and stop blaming others for their loss. At least the UK realizes they sent a crap song and got the result they deserved. Spain’s entry was a musical mess, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Spain lashing out on everyone that took part in the event, makes them real LIKABLE let’s see how they score next year since they are so ADORABLE with their comments and bashing …. And then they get confused as to what went wrong, DEAL with it ………. There is Diaspora, there are good song performed badly, there is mediocrity with sequences and bad songs being lifted by staging !!! WHAT makes eurovision AWESOME …. Despite a good song It takes promotion, WORK, WORK and WORK again !!!!!
So learn by example and just SHUT UP !!!!
Yeah she wasn’t perfect, but she certainly deserved to finish at least a few spots higher…
Federico Llanos is the boss of the spanish delegation, by the way.
I can’t understand this lack of criticism from the spanish media. Many foreign bloggers could see it coming during the jury’s performance, It was obvious to me during the Final. Wanna blame somebody? He’s name is Federico Llanos. We got what we deserved.
Can you actually post something which isn’t about this overrated mess please.
Spain, like Germany, UK, and France, suffered because the song was performed only once. (Italy was safe with perhaps the most immediate song of the year.) It seems to be a handicap not being in the semis, ironically.
was the one saying this could go all the way after the first rehearsal, but the result in the final did not please me one bit. I was thinking of voting for her before the final, but after I’ve seen her I stuck to Italy and Belgium. The show with the dancer was a good idea but the execution was poor, her legs were flying all over the place, it was borderline embarassing. The shoes and the red cape were quite tacky and the LED was not as splendid as I thought it would be. All the friends I was… Read more »
The song was definitely NOT bad – its much better than Sweden’s winning entry but the fact is that RTVE didn’t commit enough. You can’t blame bloc voting or other things like that (Belgium and Israel’s placing proves that if you have a good song accompanied by good staging Europe will respond). As ive said in an earlier post, I blame the dance – it was too distracting. Also with the staging Edurne was trying to recreate Loreen and Tanja. Spain always picks the best songs and artists but always fails with the overall package so they can only blame… Read more »
It was an awful song and a bad performance – why are people so surprised? The BBC’s subtitles said it all: ‘loads of foreign vowel sounds’.
Loved the song, the performance and the staging. I am Spanish and for the very very first time I could picture my country winning, so this is truly disappointing for me. Nevertheless, Edurne is now being LOVED in Spain and I think this low position helped a lot. She’s in a point where if she does the right thing she could become our leading diva. The press reaction only shows how much we’ve come to love Edurne during these months and the huge disappointment from Saturday. Mix this wish successful elections for the people and the political scenario in Spain… Read more »
Pienso violar todas las leyes,los ordedenes,los ritos,los sistemas.voy a treparme a un arbol y a patear cientos de piedras,y caminar boca abajo quizas le vea el trasero a este mundo embalsamado donde todo lo que brilla apesta…quiero robarme un manojo de estrellas,pintar la luna de verde ya sol ponerle una careta.Asi,cuando me tomen de la mano y me lleven a una celda,cantare un himno al desacato,me pondre las rejas en los ojos.Y entonces quedaran encerrados los de afuera.
She did her best but the song was really bad, maybe ending 21 was unfair but didn’t deserve the top 10 either
Why are so many countries so jealous all the time.
I think she deserved this placing as even I can write a song like this.
Ie-ieeeeooo… so simple and repetitive.