The Eurovision 2018 national juries were packed with former Eurovision stars and some well known faces from the national finals. Before they had to sing, but last week it was their time to vote!
From Austria’s Nathan Trent and Latvia’s Aminata to Eurovision winners Emmelie de Forest and Niamh Kavanagh, these former competitors most definitely count as musical experts. Here’s a quick look at how they voted.
Austria‘s Eurovision entrant in 2017, Nathan Trent was moved by Germany’s Michael Schulte, and awarded him his twelve points. Serbia’s Balkanika were his least favourite act, and he preferred Eleni’s “Fuego” to Netta’s “Toy”, as he placed them second and third respectively.
Laura Tesoro, Belgium‘s Eurovision 2016 star, ranked Austria first, The Netherlands second and Albania third. Tom Dice, Belgium’s Eurovision 2010 singer, also put Austria and The Netherlands in the top two spots, though he ranked Albania just 13th, instead putting Germany in third. She put Hungary last. He opted for Portugal.
Denmark‘s Emmelie de Forest also placed Germany first, but she put Ukraine’s Mélovin last. The 2013 winner seemed to disagree sharply with her fellow Danish jurors, who included former DMGP contestant Bryan Rice. For example, she placed Spain’s Alfred and Amaia 21st when all the others put them in fourth or fifth place, and the other way round with the UK’s SuRie, who she placed sixth while her mates put the “Storm” singer rather low on the table.
How did she rate the Eurovision winner who was competing? Well, Emmelie got behind Alexander Rybak, placing him sixth in the semifinal, and ninth in the grand final.
Germany brought an old glory on board for their jury. Mary Roos, who placed 3rd in 1972 and 13th in 1984, sat on the jury. Her favourite on the final was Sweden’s Benjamin Ingrosso. She placed Finland’s Saara Aalto last and had “Toy” down in 16th place.
The other Eurovision winner taking part in the juries was Ireland‘s Niamh Kavanagh, who put Germany in first place and Hungary in last.
The Eurovision 1993 winner, who returned in 2010, placed Netta fifth in the final, while Eleni Foureira was her third favourite. The “It’s for you” singer put Portugal’s “O jardim” in fourth.
Latvia‘s Aminata Savadogo also injected a lot of love into Sweden, placing Benjamin Ingrosso first in the final and the semifinal. Aminata had the UK’s SuRie last and Spain’s Almaia second last.
Malta‘s jury also contained a 2015 alum: Amber. The “Warrior” felt the fuego, and placed Eleni Foureira first in the final, while she placed Netta fourth behind Madame Monsieur and Meta & Moro. Her last place went to Serbia’s Balkanika.
Moldova‘s jury contained their Eurovision 2014 representative Cristina Scarlat. We just hope this job didn’t make her rip out her hair extensions as she did in Copenhagen. In the final, her favourite was Estonia’s Elina Nechayeva, while Finland’s Saara Aalto received her 25th place vote.
As for her Eurovision 2014 pals, Cristina did send them some love, placing Australia’s Jessica Mauboy eighth and The Netherlands’ Waylon fifth.
Montenegro‘s Nina Zizic also joined the Igranka in the jury room and she placed neighbourging Serbia first in the final. Her last place went to Hungary’s AWS, while she put Cyprus’ Eleni Foureira 24th.
Norway‘s 2007 entrant Guri Schanke was part of the Norwegian jury. Back in Helsinki, Guri wanted you to come dance with her, but during this year’s jury show all she wanted was to dance you off, as Sweden’s Benjamin Ingrosso was her favourite. Hungary’s AWS, on the other hand, were her least favourite act and she placed them 25th.
We don’t know what Poland‘s jury colour was, but we’re certain that Michal Szpak was on it.
Poland’s 2016 representative placed Austria’s Cesár Sampson first, while he had Cyprus and Israel as low as 8th and 12th respectively. Michal placed Moldova’s Doredos last, just like the rest of the Polish Jury.
Portugal‘s jury included their 1993 representative and 2018 FdC contestant Anabela, whose first place went to Albania’s Eugent Bushpepa.
She wasn’t really feeling the winner Israel, who she placed 13th, or the runner-up Cyprus, who she put in 10th place. Her least favourite act was, just like all of Portugal (and Poland’s) jury, Moldova.
Serbia‘s Bojana Stamenov had Israel in first place in the final. She who sang “Beauty never lies” for her home country in 2015, ranked Lithuania’s Ieva Zasimauskaite last. Curiously, Norway’s Alexander Rybak was her second favourite.
Who do you agree with most? How would you have ranked the acts if you had been part of your country’s jury? And who would you like to see in the juries next year? Tell us in the comments section below!
So many putting Hungary last but they were the best this year?
Bojana our there: “Let’s just rank Israeli overweighted lady with a song against evil men first (nothing against Netta winning though) and Lithuania with completely opposite package last”. WTF? I bet she was hurted with sweetness and happiness of Ieva act, no other explanation. You shouldn’t go to judge if you’re so unsound. Sweden first of some is so meeh also.
Well, my favourite before the contest was Israel and after it, I changed my mind and prefered Estonia. Tastes change, darling
They should judge songs based on quality, not rank them according to their personal taste,
Multiple personality troll:
We KNOW it is you with all these fake names. You are the only one spending all your day here and your posts have the same tone. Btw replying to yourself is just creepy dude. Can wiwibloggs get his IP and ban him? Moderators?
Shouldn’t feed the trolls, but he is sucking the joy of this forum
Hahahahahaaa!!! Great one, bro!
I think she just didn’t want to look unprofessional by giving the 1st place to her favourite song. If that is the case, then she really is unprofessional lol.
Who did she vote for? I am too lazy to look it up lol
every body vote like a crazy people, nobody wants oe new styles or clasic music, the reult was the convination of mathematics pure maatematics
The jury is actually supervised and if irregularities are found, a jury might be disqualified.
Maybe she had a change of heart
Proof of that? Can you point us to some facts please?
Do you have any proof for that? How do you know that EVERYONE’S favourites were Estonia and Albania?
I knew that old Eurovision stars were on the juries and I knew that the juries favor their neighbors, but somehow I’d never made the connection that some of my favorite Eurovision artists were the ones behind the political voting. That’s a pretty depressing thought. You would think they of all people would be most open to songs from other parts of Europe after meeting artists from those places…
It’s not political voting though, is it?! It’s based on the music culture in those regions.
Aaah the juries… one step ahead, and then four backwards.
Lol, I just saw that Mariette put Albania last in her ranking. No wonder why her songs are so meh, they make me feel like I’m watching a plastic bag drifting through the sky.
The fact that a lot of them placed Hungary at last makes me believe they are sissy and they feminine ears couldn’t handle the passion.
This is the first time I”ve ever heard someone called a sissy for NOT liking screamo music.
Get it right, is not screamo but heavy metal. And it’s got harmony and a great message. Sadly Europe is captured by some feminist movement and pro gay nonsense (and idon’t have anything against gay people). Juries are still awarding pop anthems good points but crushing new genres and styles. And before someone calls out Finland’s victory, they were doing heavy rock while playing a character, AWS was real and didn’t needed the flash and nishness that comes with it.
Get over it. albania was crap
I think the juries should be made to give a reason as to why they vote the way they do. For example give Hungary 12 points because etc etc etc. That way songs with actual musical value get what they deserve for it.
What, so we’re going to sit through the night to hear every jury member defend their decision? Maybe all the public who vote should also have to elaborate on their choice.
Well, the spokesperson can defend the choices. And also, just think about the fact that Sweden won’t be getting points they don’t deserve if we make the juries give a reason for their votes.
It is the public that really needs to do some explaining. Each year they do some crazy things, though this years is one of the worst in awhile.
Wouldn’t it be better if the judges also based their opinion on the final show? Because their judgement is based on a different show where some entries might have done better or worse. And, as I gather from the comments, that can actually make the difference if you are ranked high or low and also differ substantiantly from what the public saw. Having said that, I also would suggest to start with the televoting results and than continue with the jury votes as I think this might increase the suspense.
Well, as we all know Eurovision Song Contest is not a fair game, and not at all about the song or performance. It’s more or less luck.. and personal preference. To me the most notable songs/performances in this year competition were MALL (Eugent Bushpepa) and FOREVER (Alekseev). These are the songs I would buy on iTunes. These are artists I would pay to see them live in concerts. Whoever remembers the Austrian song? or the Swedish one? lol Average songs and performers. I don’t even want to comment about the winning chicken song. lol And please don’t bother to tell… Read more »
Lol, Swedens and Austrias songs are a thousand times better than Albanias mess
Nope. Just nope.
What? Absolute nonsense, while Albania was amazing Belarus had a very wtf performance ( no idea why you call out Moldova) also Czech republic was awesome no doubt the guy can sing and perform at the same time, Austria was superb and magical (even if they were not the people’s choice), Sweden’s performance I can hardly point a flaw in it. And Australia that was awful… yes Albania was great but when tallied against other entries it goes mid table (even getting a fairly decent position you are still butthurt… please)
Same
Most juries did not like Denmark. Interesting.
Why do some countries put radio hosts as juries? genuine question.
Basically because they know what is on the radio. What people ask them to play.
I disagree with all of them. Israel should have been last across the board.
shame it wasn’t eh Mark? Shame you’re not on the Jury of your country!
I disagree with all of them. Israel should have been last, across the board.
Unfortunately your voice does not matter! Disagree al you want.
Im shocked Bojana had Toy first.
Is anyone else shocked?
Why are you shocked!? They have similar style in music..
You’d actually have to be mentally deficient to not catch the sarcasm there.
Maybe you are not as clear in your meaning then you think you are ?
I thought it was a genuine question as well, ,so dont need to be that ugly and rude.
Thanks for proving my point.
Dont make a fool out of yourself. Your socalled sarcastic comment didnt come across as sarcastic at all… so dont name call others for pointing that out.
If someone makes a blatantly obvious observation saying they’re shocked, then asked if anyone else is shocked, there is a 99% chance they’re being sarcastic.
Now, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, but take this as a lesson well learned, kiddo. I’m sure your mother loves you and you’re a super special spiffy person.
Best of luck!
The only lesson to be learned there is how to write actually sarcastic comments and it should be learned by you. No one understood your sarcasm and calling others ‘mentally deficient’ is actually very rude as well.
Case and point: I’m “shocked” at Pollaski’s rudeness. 🙂 There’s your supposed 1% non-sarcasm (which in Europe is probably closer to 80%).
Boyana was Netta’s prequel
Bojana was a troll act, unlike Netta.
This show is not ready for a metal/hardcore band. All juries have prejudice against this genre, they see it as ‘noise’, nothing else.
Time to be honest with ourselves. That was screamo. Screamo always deserves to fail
They are not fair to other musical genres. Period
Well, as a metal fan myself (especially European metal), Hungary’s song was screamo, not metal (a notorious genre which is so ten years ago, btw). Last actual metal band to take part was Lordi, and they won (as they should have, they were great and “easy on the ears”).
Well, i was talking about bands in general but hungarys band is post-hardcore, accordingly to AWS.
I think it’s mostly a matter of music trends. I agree that in general, the odds of a non-poppish act to win nowadays are not very high, but not just jury-wise, in my opinion. 🙂
lOL Lordi wouldnt stand a chance in todays Eurovision. You can bet on it.
You might be right, since metal is not trending nowadays as it used to, but overall, it was super catchy, and musically speaking, more complex and original than other recent “hardcore” entries.
THANK YOU.
Someone else gets it.
Yes Portugal!!! You did a good job overall and at the end you even vote as everyone should’ve voted. Of course Albania should’ve been first. His vocals were beyond perfection. In the other hand we can’t say the same thing about Israel so WELL DONE PORTUGAL!!!! #standingovation
You do realize it is not a competition about voices ? I agree Eugent should win it, but although I love the song, I can understand people placed it a bit lower then first place.
Eurovision isn’t a competirion about voices but about songs and stagings, what I call “packs”. While I love Eugent’s song, I think that Toy was a better one and so did the juries
Conchita giving austria second place. not biased at all lol She was in the spanish jury.
What if I told you that not every women named Conchita is Conchita Wurst
oh dear…my bad xD nvm
i wonder why the hell you though a person from Austria will take part of the spanish jury lol…
Not sure if youre joking or not but Conchita is a common Spanish name. It’s probably not that Conchita
Well, that escalated quickly!
Up until now I didn’t believe envy could play a role in the results. But if many of the juries were “washed up celebrities” it would be no surprise for me. Otherwise how can you explain Saara Aalto’s 25th place? From a singing perspective, she was flawless. Although I liked Benjamin’s and Caesár’s performances, their vocals and songs were very average.
Saara Aalto sang very well on the SF1 evening, but on the Grand Final her performance was very pitchy because she was unable to control her nervousness. As for Benjamin Ingrosso, either he was lipsyncing or the Holy Ghost sang that chorus on his behalf. Cesár Sampson always sang very well, even though he isn’t an outstanding singer & wasn’t amongst the best singers on contest.
People are still being jealous and moaning about Austria and Sweden lol
As far as I’m concerned, Austria deserved its placing.
You know all vocals are live, the music tape they use have NO vocals on them.
The Juries vote in the special jury show a day before the grand finale, so they see other performances then we as the public do.
Wasn’t Laura Tesoro a judge too?
WHERE IS MAJA KEUC/AMAYA?!?!?!
She wasn’t in the Slovenian jury, she was only their spokesperson. 🙂
Ahhh I miss the daily videos from William and the Wiwi Team. And its been less than a week since the finals?!!?! #PED
Amateurs.
Lithuania last? A joke!
Yeah, that entry was a joke.
actually Lithuania had one of the most beautifull songs this year
That wasn’t even a song!
I had her last. She sounded terrible.
Norway’s jury also included Hanne Haugsand who represented Norway in Stockholm 2000 with the group Charmed.
This year’s Eurovision was full of good entries, which made the juries and televote results differ considerably. That’s why we see the some of the jury votes above beiing all over the place.
Thanks to all those people who put Moldova last, I love you!
This was even more crazy than 2011 voting. I think this year all of the songs were “even”. No one was bad but no one had that winner written over them either. So of course the voting would be all over since no one stood out enough to run away with it
Next year the voting will probably be more stable
Yeah, that was a good comparision. This time I was very surprised at times with both juries and public, didn’t feel either voting.
Really wonder about Italy, a favorite this year. The Italian jury rated all the other favorites really low, unlike all the other countries. Just a lack of taste or pure calculation?
I would say a difference in taste than “lack of taste”. Remember Italy gave Loreen and Euphoria nil points?
Why so civilised Denis?… Oh yes, because this it is your “civilised” alias, unlike Davve/Sara/Hate Portugal…
You spend too much time botheing about other people Really?.lol
And you bullying other people. Good that you are busy with that and at least do not join a Nazi group, for which you obviously have tendencies.
You seem to be obsessed over me. Mention me even when I haven’t posted anything!
Dan is Dan, obviously not me! Don’t know if I should be worried over your obsession with me!
Isn’t it nice to have a taste of your medicine?!…
They gave points to Portugal and Bulgraria in 2017, when they had a bigger chance of winning than this year. I think it was just a difference in taste
Define “really low”. I think their placement of Cyprus and Israel is actually decently high. Knowing a bit about the Italian music scene you’d probably think they scored better than expected.
Our jury is tasteless. We all know that.
How all these people putting Hungary last?? Like excuuuse me bish? This is a music contest; use your ears and eyes. Keep your taste out of it. Only thing redeeming this for me is Emmelie de Forest being such a thotslayer. “Let’s put Almaia low and SuRie high” yaaaas she gets it!
Live @ the Arena AWS were electrifying & the audience enjoyed their performance very much…
This year was a fairly open year lots of decent songs and good performances but very few great ones. Had a feeling the jury scores would be all over the place. But look at the countries down the bottom, they even had pretty decent scores. Problem was no one country really had the complete package a few came close but nothing was screaming im winning this bloody thing.
The juries voted so randomly as always. They need to be provided a table where they give a score out of 10 to song content, vocal performance and stage performance, sum up the votes, and rank based on that. And such votes must be published. They can’t keep voting based on personal taste like the public!
I sent a mail to multiple people on the EBU saying the same thing. Probably lies somewhere in their spam.
We need the juries for sure but some results are just too suspicious. The German jury always seems to find a equal first place. Nicole already said last year, that all the jury members sat around one table and could discuss the songs. I think that’s very problematic and there must be another way for the Jurors to judge the entries.
For my taste the jurys didnt vote as i thought all the time, but they are still 100% better then the televoters who in some cases have voted for the same countries in their top 2 the last 5 years,
Examples: Albania have Greece and Macedonia in the top. Greece have Cyprus and Albania in the top. Serbia have Montenegro and Hungary in the top. Almost exactly for the last 5 years. So NO 100% televoting again please.
Those are just isolated cases due to strong minorities living in those countries, or immigration. In the end televote is more representative of who the people want as a winner, see Israel which won despite having no one who votes for them regularly. Juries are useless.
Both are far from perfect but together they represent somehow balanced result. 100% of any of them is just a mess
100% agree with you, Danny.
I agee with Danny to:)
same with the juries!greek judges placed higher all their neighbours and the songs that fokas evangelinos choreographed(no hate to greeks, just the case)
Same case!juries are not fair either,so what is the point of having them?
and as it is mentioned above israel won without having a lot of “friends”
The greek public is not that fair either in that case. They have voted for the same since 1998. The jury change 🙂
Emmelie definitely votes For the uk because she lives there
Do they listen to the songs the first time on stage or is it possible for the jury members to study the lyrics before?
Question: do the juries even do researches of the songs before or just rank them by their initial impression/liking? If the latter, then ofc it has it’s influence, because most likely they vote by their personal taste, which I find it so wrong. It’s beyond me that some put Italy and Hungary dead last, how dare you even do that, their lyrics are so good, it just looks like they didn’t even bother to dive deeply to actually know their r e a l values. So what that it’s not your favorite genre, it must be looked beyond that. Also… Read more »
Finally someone speaks it out loud. Scrapping the juries won‘t help anything without a backing plan because televotings would go back to results in the 00‘s.
But I also agree that some of the juries results are really strange and tragic, for example it seems like they just judge for the music, I believe this is the only reason, why most of them placed Hungary near bottom.
Televoting patterns have decreased since the 00s. For example see Armenia last year.
Why do you think all of the people in Polands and Portugals jurys placed Moldova last in the final? I dont think Moldova was the worst and odd that 10 people in 2 jurys did it. Maybe they dont like Philip Kirkorov?
Moldova was overrated
Yes i think that to but i just meant 10 whole jurys did it:)
I think the jury in PL and PT did’t know who Philip Kirkorov is. I reckon they just did listen to lyric and music
probably…they just didn´t like that entry…portuguese jury usually hate that kind of entry
The song reminds of 1990’s, it was the only song that felt that dated, people want fresh songs!
Actually Sebia’s also was dated to the 00’s, but the vocals were nicer.
Cyprus is also an outdated song that somehow managed to do well #Justsayin
I don’t see how the jury is selected in a way that can help musical quality (whatever that is!). Just because you sang a song at Eurovision meaning you may have a good voice (or not) or can compose a song (or not) does not mean you have the musical ability, experience or understanding to judge a song. And even that is stretching it because no one can be completely objective as far as judging art is concerned. It all sounds a bit pretentious to me.
They are music professionals
Former Eurovision stars Tom Dice and Laura Tesoro were also jury members for Belgium this year. If I remember correctly, they both placed Austria first.
Why are Laura and Bojana amateurs?
Not really related (only slightly), but what were they thinking putting Serbia and Montenegro, Romania and Moldova, Greece and Cyprus in the same semis?
They always do a draw from a group so it happens sometime if they are in the same pot 🙂
Why wouldn’t they?
Interesting article! seems like most of the jury are swayed by the running order. I noticed that most of those songs that performed earlier were ranked very low in their lists except Norway and Estonia.
Yeah like televoters are uneffected by the running order
Austria was also early in the running order
eheheh the portuguese jury destroyed Norway, Denmark and Moldova
I’m REALLY not quite able to comprehend how Saara Aalto didn’t do better with the juries. It was bad enough not seeing her get any points on the night but to know jury members were ranking her LAST? I don’t buy it.
The only chance for Saara was the televote…but performing after the interval was terrible for her…also she bring a circus with her. She is such a great singer and performer she don+t need that.
She was amazing at Lithuanian internal selection….
She have one of the wort jury performances, very out of tune sadly. I have heard that from many bloggs. In televoting there was so many better original songs so i think she just got lost.
that make sense…her performance at the semi final was better… In the grand final she was out of tune at least twice :/
Ah, I’ll need to check it out.
Anabela serving taste.
There are lots of pop musicians in the jury this year. Salvador is shooketh.
Your sub title name is discusting and youre antisametic.
God! What an obsession with Salvador… I guess you have fallen in love and in denial…