just the boring stuff unfortunately - I would very much welcome some real rock or metal bands

yeah, Australia was amazing last year but didn't do much on the charts, people's taste sucks really, 2015 entry was just "good" imo

I don't think the low level is a matter of Eurovision songs, there's an overall low quality in the global industry the last 3 years, just look at Billboard and UK charts, 90% of the songs are generic pop or rap crap...

According to Wikipedia;

Eligible participants include primarily Active Members (as opposed to Associate Members) of the EBU. Active members are those who are located in states that fall within the European Broadcasting Area, or are member states of the Council of Europe.^[26]

So you don't necessarily have to be on the European continent, but there can't be any American entries unless they become "active members" of EBU. I think Australia was given the exception a few years ago simply because there are a lot Europeans and the contest is very popular there.n

--

Anyway, yay, Netherlands made it to the finals!

Latvia got robbed and someone sabotaged our sound in semi final

The most likely winner (Portugal) is singing a jazzy song, not generic pop. Also I hope you don't think pop is generic by default, go to listen City Lights from Belgium, this is pop, but this is not generic at all.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbomdE81_mA

I can't help but notice that Gabbani's performances keep getting worse and worse, the YT version of Occidentali's Karma with 100M views is clearly the best performance thanks to editing and stuff but the first time he sang it at San Remo it was pretty similar, then he sang again for the San Remo finals and got noticeably worse, and now he's doing even worse at Eurovision...

Italy is great too, great production, brilliant chorus and really smart satirical lyrics, is more similar to a eurovision song but is definitely not trash.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OnRxfhbHB4

I agree, it's a simple pop song but it's certainly not bad. I like it a lot more than Bulgaria and Sweden, these songs are way too generic.

Yeah that's for sure. Bulgaria was great with the staging and his voice was perfect however to me feels really aseptic, I don't get any kind of real feelling with that performance, everything feels manufactured and too designed to win, not genuine at all.

However a Bulgarian victory is very possible, he is Russian and Russia is not on the contest this year, also the balkan countries are pretty weak this time, so he is gonna get the vote from:

- Bulgarian diaspora
- Russian diaspora
- Balkan countries
- Ex-sovietic countries

Let's hope the countries from the old Europe stop that victory because it would be a shame.

It has happened.

For the first time in history Portugal is number 1 on the bets to win Eurovision