Putin would have done better to bomb Liverpool than bomb Ternopil.
The Swede's song was alright. But I wasn't feeling the love there. She mostly won on judge votes, because the popular vote went to that Finnish dude with the neon green water wings.
Some of the songs aren't bad. The spectacle is often a draw. You can't have American Idol or K-Pop without Eurovision influence, IMO.
It's a weird thing. Football has often been considered a proxy for war. So Eurovision was conceived after everything was smoldering after WWII as a more creative and artistic outlet of competitively expressing culture and showcasing it on a broader entertainment stage.
My first summer in Portugal, Lisbon hosted Eurovision. The main squares were packed with "ultras" decked out in the goofiest, most outlandish costumes and some real pageant throaters. I can't say I'm into that, but it looks kind of fun if that's your thing.
Getting that balance of cynicism and fun right isn't easy. Some of the better primers I've seen on it in English come from UK's PopBitch: https://popbitch.com/eurovision-2023-the-popbitch-guide/
Calling the SuperBowl Half Time "stupid fun" is a bit flattering and generous though. Yes, they get aging talent on stage. But everyone just does a rapid-fire series of 20-second clip medleys of their biggest songs. I hate that crap. Just play the f*cking song, not some short clip as if designed to avoid paying licensing fees. To me it's like the dumb clip shows that aging serial TV comedies do when they need filler for a new episode and just slap together three-minute flashbacks from prior episodes.
The SuperBowl is a spectacle that distracts from the actual football as it is. It's even worse when they layer on that crap and TV commercial hype. It's like having the worst kind of Ronaldo Insta followers come to Juve matches to care only about CR7 mugging by the pool with Georgina and the kids during the match.
The Swede's song was alright. But I wasn't feeling the love there. She mostly won on judge votes, because the popular vote went to that Finnish dude with the neon green water wings.
Some of the songs aren't bad. The spectacle is often a draw. You can't have American Idol or K-Pop without Eurovision influence, IMO.
It's a weird thing. Football has often been considered a proxy for war. So Eurovision was conceived after everything was smoldering after WWII as a more creative and artistic outlet of competitively expressing culture and showcasing it on a broader entertainment stage.
My first summer in Portugal, Lisbon hosted Eurovision. The main squares were packed with "ultras" decked out in the goofiest, most outlandish costumes and some real pageant throaters. I can't say I'm into that, but it looks kind of fun if that's your thing.
Getting that balance of cynicism and fun right isn't easy. Some of the better primers I've seen on it in English come from UK's PopBitch: https://popbitch.com/eurovision-2023-the-popbitch-guide/
Calling the SuperBowl Half Time "stupid fun" is a bit flattering and generous though. Yes, they get aging talent on stage. But everyone just does a rapid-fire series of 20-second clip medleys of their biggest songs. I hate that crap. Just play the f*cking song, not some short clip as if designed to avoid paying licensing fees. To me it's like the dumb clip shows that aging serial TV comedies do when they need filler for a new episode and just slap together three-minute flashbacks from prior episodes.
The SuperBowl is a spectacle that distracts from the actual football as it is. It's even worse when they layer on that crap and TV commercial hype. It's like having the worst kind of Ronaldo Insta followers come to Juve matches to care only about CR7 mugging by the pool with Georgina and the kids during the match.
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Their song could have been a little better, but they were weird, doing it in Croatian, and just f'ing with people.
