The Late Late Show February 24th 2012 - Eurosong Special

NakedNNettles

tucker1971 wrote: »

RTE should be ashamed of themselves, are all their old cronies all on the JEdward payroll?
Do Jedward actually sing that song?
A farce, completely and utterly.

The country has voted and the irish people have spoken, we don't need your negatives types round here. Goodbye!..... pulls lever exit to Atlantic.

brian_t

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Whats going on here who's behind this farce?? Is there any stewards inquires on offer. I watched tonight's events at a social venue and people were very upset when the result was confirmed. This country has suffered enough humiliation in the recent history so why prolong the suffering????

You know its hard to be P.C in these situations. We as a race have been softened and accept too much. Our forefather's wouldn't have stood for this crap....

I'm a bit confused.

Are you referring to their win on the Late Late Show or their win on boards.ie poll.

mardybumbum

wil wrote: »

mardybumbum wrote: »

Denmarks entry sounds suspiciously similar to a chillout/dance track from the 90s. Can't think of the name right now.

Probably Everything but the girl - missng

I was thinking of the chorus from Seal's "Crazy".

aramush

I think ye are all forgetting that the Eurovision isn't what it once was, long gone are the days of Ireland winning with a strong ballad. No one in their right mind can take it seriously anymore, so chill people

I'd rather see us send some headcase twins who those European's love (thinking 2010) then I would some bland artist with a typical Irish eurovision song that would just get lost in Europe.

Liam Byrne

sunbabe08 wrote: »

if they win, they will be:D the money they will generate

Money doesn't make anyone a hero, and they won't generate money - they'd cost us a fortune in hosting.

But thankfully it won't happen as the joke of two plonkers who believe that Cameron Diaz / Mary hair and stupid sequinned costumes and "energy" and jumping like a 3-year-old needing to wee compensates for talent is thankfully wearing off and the novelty factor from last year will have dissipated.

Lamph

What RTE do with Eurosong is like a kick in the teeth for musicians in this country. Mentors? All that system achieved is that those 'mentors' got to choose their own songs for the contest... Talk about a blatant conflict of interest!

Most European countries have enough respect for their musicians to realise that the Eurovision is a platform for them to shine, and often have big finals involving sometimes more than 25 competing songs. Irish musicians have nearly no opportunities to get the exposure they deserve... and with eurosong -which could be a chance for them to get some national coverage...what does RTE do?

A Late Late Show special with just 5 songs...
****ing disgraceful.

This video explains it better than I can.

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

Pretty Polly

Jedward are perfect for it. They might even do better than last year.

NakedNNettles

Lamph wrote: »

Irish musicians have nearly no opportunities to get the exposure they deserve...

Jeez man! What decade are you living in?

Because there's more oppotunities than ever in the present day for musicians to get their music out there.......and you know what, its all free too!

I see you have discovered youtube, that's a start.

EllieJams

This page was so funny.

I will try to take the plunge and join in next time!

Lamph

What decade?
I'll tell you...

I live in a decade where there is no record company in Ireland, all we have are ghost branches of international ones.

A decade where new Irish music does not get played on radio.
The best a new act can hope for is to get a few plays in the ghetto that is the "Irish music show" on various stations. A show that no-one listens to except the musicians who sent in their track.

A decade where the music manager of radio stations will not take calls from a band who has sent in a song for airplay. they will not even confirm if the song has gotten play or not.

A decade where the "Best Pop" category in the IRMAs has had nothing to offer but Westlife, because it is impossible for any pop act to succeed in Ireland.

And a century in which the biggest selling single so far has been " A whole lot of lovin'" by SIX... a band that had the goodwill of the Irish public, and were neglected and abused.

This is the decade I live in... I'm assuming you think all of this is perfectly fine?

In Sweden, there is a healthy home pop scene. Artists are served well by a Eurovision selection that allows 32 songs to compete in televised semi finals. The papers write about their pop acts, the TV allows plenty of opportunities for new bands to play live, and radio station give up and coming artists REAL airplay at peak times.

That type of treatment should be every musicians right, and not just a pipe dream.

Ash.J.Williams

Lamph wrote: »

What decade?
I'll tell you...

I live in a decade where there is no record company in Ireland, all we have are ghost branches of international ones.

A decade where new Irish music does not get played on radio.
The best a new act can hope for is to get a few plays in the ghetto that is the "Irish music show" on various stations. A show that no-one listens to except the musicians who sent in their track.

A decade where the music manager of radio stations will not take calls from a band who has sent in a song for airplay. they will not even confirm if the song has gotten play or not.

A decade where the "Best Pop" category in the IRMAs has had nothing to offer but Westlife, because it is impossible for any pop act to succeed in Ireland.

And a century in which the biggest selling single so far has been " A whole lot of lovin'" by SIX... a band that had the goodwill of the Irish public, and were neglected and abused.

This is the decade I live in... I'm assuming you think all of this is perfectly fine?

In Sweden, there is a healthy home pop scene. Artists are served well by a Eurovision selection that allows 32 songs to compete in televised semi finals. The papers write about their pop acts, the TV allows plenty of opportunities for new bands to play live, and radio station give up and coming artists REAL airplay at peak times.

That type of treatment should be every musicians right, and not just a pipe dream.

Nail on the head. I'm not sure what to think about last night. As a tv show it was an abomination. Bunch of jobsworths sitting around talking through their holes. In fairness, surely we are all in agreement there wasnt a single nano second of quality music last night? I'm off now to read the entry rules to see how one enters, I presume the nations taste is decided by about 5 assholes..that first act was found on YouTube??

amdublin

EllieJams wrote: »

This page was so funny.

I will try to take the plunge and join in next time!

For sure! See you next Friday EllieJams

KeithAFC

Lamph wrote: »

What RTE do with Eurosong is like a kick in the teeth for musicians in this country. Mentors? All that system achieved is that those 'mentors' got to choose their own songs for the contest... Talk about a blatant conflict of interest!

Most European countries have enough respect for their musicians to realise that the Eurovision is a platform for them to shine, and often have big finals involving sometimes more than 25 competing songs. Irish musicians have nearly no opportunities to get the exposure they deserve... and with eurosong -which could be a chance for them to get some national coverage...what does RTE do?

A Late Late Show special with just 5 songs...
****ing disgraceful.

This video explains it better than I can.

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

That video is silly. The Eurovision song contest is just a laugh. It isn't supposed to be about producing a great piece of music. Jedward are perfect for it and they finished 8th last time. This time they will either win or come in the top 3 or 5 IMO.

They won fair and square. Some people need to accept that.

Ash.J.Williams

KeithAFC wrote: »

Lamph wrote: »

What RTE do with Eurosong is like a kick in the teeth for musicians in this country. Mentors? All that system achieved is that those 'mentors' got to choose their own songs for the contest... Talk about a blatant conflict of interest!

Most European countries have enough respect for their musicians to realise that the Eurovision is a platform for them to shine, and often have big finals involving sometimes more than 25 competing songs. Irish musicians have nearly no opportunities to get the exposure they deserve... and with eurosong -which could be a chance for them to get some national coverage...what does RTE do?

A Late Late Show special with just 5 songs...
****ing disgraceful.

This video explains it better than I can.

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

That video is silly. The Eurovision song contest is just a laugh. It isn't supposed to be about producing a great piece of music. Jedward are perfect for it and they finished 8th last time. This time they will either win or come in the top 3 or 5 IMO.

They won fair and square. Some people need to accept that.

It's too narrow minded. They need to widen their vision a bit, open up to more kinds of music. Concentrate on existing organic talent rather than the manufactured, cynical, contrived, evil, horse****e we were subjected too last night. The saddest part is jedward did win fair and square.

JonathanAnon

Heard them on with Marian today and they were great... I'm sick of people saying that they are rubbish, idiots etc etc... They are EXACTLY what Eurovision is looking for.. Young, good looking, a bit mad in the head.. I thought the funniest thing last year was when they went in to the press conference in true JEDward style..

(got to 1:10 for their entrance)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpLKzGDZ0A

How could you not laugh at them.. :pac:

Gergiev

Lamph wrote: »

In Sweden, there is a healthy home pop scene. Artists are served well by a Eurovision selection that allows 32 songs to compete in televised semi finals. The papers write about their pop acts, the TV allows plenty of opportunities for new bands to play live, and radio station give up and coming artists REAL airplay at peak times.

Lamph,

Enjoying your contributions here and agree with all you wrote.

You may be interested to know that Sweden do not allow non-Swedish songwriters/composers to write for their MelodiFest (National Song Contest).

(Although they do allow the performer to be non-Swedish, if necessary).

In contrast to our Eurosong which has been dominated by Swedish produced and written songs for the last 4 that I can recall.

(Jedward twice, Niamh Kavanagh and Black Daisy).

So while the Swedes deny outside songwriters/composers access to their Eurovision entry and therefore protect the possible valuable royalty pay-off, they export their bland power pop to any country willing to it - in this case Ireland.

wrote:

I'm off now to read the entry rules to see how one enters, I presume the nations taste is decided by about 5 assholes.

Waste of time, Ash.

The power to select the songs was vested in the mentors, 4 of whom selected songs that were either composed by themselves or on which they had added their names as songwriters.

So, if for no other reason, I'm glad that Linda Martin was on the winning side as she was the only one that took her 'duty of care' seriously and made sure there was no possible conflict of interest...

Ally Dick

One thing that I can't get my head around is how we could send Jedward for the second year in a row, after they flopped last year. The song is no better than Lipstick either. Not quite as catchy....

LizT

Ally Dick wrote: »

One thing that I can't get my head around is how we could send Jedward for the second year in a row, after they flopped last year. The song is no better than Lipstick either. Not quite as catchy....

Why oh why do people insist that Jedward performed so badly last year?

It was the best result for us since 2000!

Ash.J.Williams

lizt wrote: »

Ally Dick wrote: »

One thing that I can't get my head around is how we could send Jedward for the second year in a row, after they flopped last year. The song is no better than Lipstick either. Not quite as catchy....

Why oh why do people insist that Jedward performed so badly last year?

It was the best result for us since 2000!

No other Irish act could have topped jedward last year that is true. Not sure the whole 'sure they all know them now they'll surely win' mentality will work this year.

pixelburp

Maybe with all the talk about how Eurovision has become a vacuum for talent & a general schlock-fest, perhaps now is the time for musicians and producers alike to start a 'proper' Eurovision to promote small, independent musicians across the continent. It's obvious that Jedward and their apologists aren't going to go away, so instead of bemoaning proper artists being snubbed in favour of the freakshow acts, said artists should get together and create an anti-Eurovision, as it were. God knows there's enough talent out there to do it, and seems there's enough frustration that Eurovision has become a closed-off avenue for progression.

Bottleopener

pixelburp wrote: »

Maybe with all the talk about how Eurovision has become a vacuum for talent & a general schlock-fest, perhaps now is the time for musicians and producers alike to start a 'proper' Eurovision to promote small, independent musicians across the continent. It's obvious that Jedward and their apologists aren't going to go away, so instead of bemoaning proper artists being snubbed in favour of the freakshow acts, said artists should get together and create an anti-Eurovision, as it were. God knows there's enough talent out there to do it, and seems there's enough frustration that Eurovision has become a closed-off avenue for progression.

Estonia changed their Eurovision preselection back in 2009. They changed the idea behind it - basically instead of picking a song for eurovision, they were having a song contest for Estonian songs, and a new person took over the running of it - a person who is open to new ideas and not cliched stuff that people insist Eurovision is all about. Now they have a fantastic national final which has a mix of genres, and has actually generated a buzz amongst the indie community over in Estonia - getting some really really good entries in.

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

This, for example is taking part in the Estonian final next Saturday - it's a pretty good song from a young up and coming band. Would we ever see something like this in Ireland? Hell no - why? Because our system is too concentrated on finding a "song for Eurovision", but we're doing it completely wrong =P. What we need to do is reform the national final like Estonia did, and open up to all sorts of genres, rather than being stuck in a bubble of unoriginality and tripe.

However, sadly, with the way things are with RTE's selection process and their vision of Eurovision, I can never see that happening.

brian_t

Bottleopener wrote: »

Estonia changed their Eurovision preselection back in 2009.

However, sadly, with the way things are with RTE's selection process and their vision of Eurovision, I can never see that happening.

Estonia did well in 2009 comming 6th (Ireland failed to qualify) but since then we have done better then them.

In 2010 they came 14th in their semi-final failing to qualify.
In 2011 they came 24th in the final to our 8th.

I do agree that our selection process should change.

Skid

Ally Dick wrote: »

One thing that I can't get my head around is how we could send Jedward for the second year in a row, after they flopped last year.

A flop? Lets see ... Jedward came 8th out of 43 Countries in 2011. Ireland's best result since 2000. And they won the Marcel Bezençon Award, as voted for by every Commentator in the event.

But sure why let the facts get in the way? :rolleyes:

pixelburp

Bottleopener wrote: »

Estonia changed their Eurovision preselection back in 2009. They changed the idea behind it - basically instead of picking a song for eurovision, they were having a song contest for Estonian songs, and a new person took over the running of it - a person who is open to new ideas and not cliched stuff that people insist Eurovision is all about. Now they have a fantastic national final which has a mix of genres, and has actually generated a buzz amongst the indie community over in Estonia - getting some really really good entries in.

This, for example is taking part in the Estonian final next Saturday - it's a pretty good song from a young up and coming band. Would we ever see something like this in Ireland? Hell no - why? Because our system is too concentrated on finding a "song for Eurovision", but we're doing it completely wrong =P. What we need to do is reform the national final like Estonia did, and open up to all sorts of genres, rather than being stuck in a bubble of unoriginality and tripe.

However, sadly, with the way things are with RTE's selection process and their vision of Eurovision, I can never see that happening.

I daresay the problem is less a one of format, and more a cultural one. Estonia's history in the Eurovision (and Europe generally) would be slightly different to ours; and whereas we have slowly grown to (rightly or wrongly) perceive the competition as a postmodern, ironic celebration of europop cheese & excess - sending joke acts like Jedward or Dustin & celebrate them as some sort of triumph of p*sstakery - I'm going to guess Estonia see it as a chance to push a young country's cultural ouput to a larger audience that would simply not exist otherwise. I bet those Estonian artists would climb over themselves for that breakout chance.

What annoys me is that Ireland has a quantifiable precedent of creating talented, exciting new bands & singers that take the international market by storm. This isn't an opinion it's a fact: we punch way above our weight culturally & have an untapped market at the ready. And yet now we find ourselves championing the average & mediocre, then parceling it as glorious enthusiasm, all the while dismissing the neigh-sayers as bedgrudgers (because god forbid some of us find Jedward's act idiotic hyperactivity tiresome). We should be using Eurovision as an excuse to celebrate our talented new groups & artists, not cheer for freakshow acts

Ally Dick

Skid wrote: »

A flop? Lets see ... Jedward came 8th out of 43 Countries in 2011. Ireland's best result since 2000. And they won the Marcel Bezençon Award, as voted for by every Commentator in the event.

But sure why let the facts get in the way? :rolleyes:

Big swinging mickeys. We've won it seven times, now we're happy with eight place? Sounds like glorious failure to me. There's a misconception I feel that we have the act right, now all we need is the song. I believe the act is wrong and will never win it in a month of Sundays. I think we may not qualify this time

Skid

Ally Dick wrote: »

Big swinging mickeys. We've won it seven times, now we're happy with eight place?

Things have moved on since we were winning every year. Almost every other country now sings in English, negating one of our former key advantages. The reduced influence of the Jurys leaves us vulnerable to bloc voting. And there are far more entrants now, twice as many as there were in the 80s.

8th place was a decent achievement and far from a flop. A big improvement on recent years.

I don't think RTE's current format is going to discover a winner anytime soon, but Jedward deserve credit for their result last year.

LizT

Ally Dick wrote: »

Big swinging mickeys. We've won it seven times, now we're happy with eight place? Sounds like glorious failure to me. There's a misconception I feel that we have the act right, now all we need is the song. I believe the act is wrong and will never win it in a month of Sundays. I think we may not qualify this time

:mad::mad:

So improving on our past 10 results is not good enough? We won it in the golden years of Eurovision, before block voting and gimmicks. It was just about the voice and the song. Now it's about the production, the gimmicks etc. It's a completely different competition than when Johnny Logan, Linda Martin, Dana et al won.

We may never win it again. But given the choice between not qualifying (Black Daisy, Donna and Joe McCaul etc) and coming eight, I know which one I'd choose and I wouldn't see it as a failure.

Jedward were almost universally praised by the hosts for other countries, they were voted No.1 by Australian viewers (it was shown there the day after). I really don't understand the begrudging.

We're sticking to a successful formula (certainly more success than we've had in the eurovision in the past decade). If it doesn't work, then there's next year but let them get on the bloody stage first!

tucker1971

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Heard them on with Marian today and they were great... I'm sick of people saying that they are rubbish, idiots etc etc... They are EXACTLY what Eurovision is looking for.. Young, good looking, a bit mad in the head.. I thought the funniest thing last year was when they went in to the press conference in true JEDward style..

(got to 1:10 for their entrance)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpLKzGDZ0A

How could you not laugh at them.. :pac:

Exactly, laugh at them, not with them. Pair of clowns, the most annoying freakshow ever, controled by puppet master walsh,

Ash.J.Williams

Last year they came 8th? This year we send them again, a year older, less cutesy, the song isn't remotely interesting, catchy, or good. We will not be in the top ten.

Ally Dick

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

Last year they came 8th? This year we send them again, a year older, less cutesy, the song isn't remotely interesting, catchy, or good. We will not be in the top ten.

I have a feeling we won't get into the Saturday show this time....