Tim: Well then. Odds on the bookies’ favourite, it defied nobody’s expectations whatsoever when it romped to a fairly decisive victory, giving us a second Eurovision winner in a row who’s in dire need of a comb.
Tom: And the second Eurovision winner in a row to be the bookies’ favourite — although it was a bit unpredictable before then. Hopefully that’s not a pattern: it’d be a shame if it lost all predictability.
Tim: The staging raises an interesting question, though, which was brought up by, of all people, Ana Matronic on BBC3’s coverage of the semifinal – are they cheating a bit with the spark fountains and stuff?
Tom: If they did, then so did Lordi a few years ago, with their pyrotechnic extravaganza. There’s certainly an argument that they affect the voting.
Tim: There’s no doubt that it’s a good song, and a deserving winner, but spark fountains do, to anyone who’s ever seen Idol, The Voice or The X Factor, convey ‘THIS IS THE WINNER’. It turns a good performance into an incredible one, and was seen to an even greater extent with Romania, originally one of my least favourite songs – in the stadium, the crowd’s reaction for the first couple of minutes was a basic WTF; the sparks and confetti hit, though, and suddenly people, including me, couldn’t get enough of it.
Tom: I’m also going to split from the crowd a bit here, and say that I don’t think it’s a particularly good song by Eurovision tracks: middle-of-the-road at best, easily being beaten by — for example — Malta and Belgium. I couldn’t even remember it afterwards. That’s very much my personal taste, of course.
Tim: Hmm. Nice choice with Belgium there, though I’d have to disagree with your choice of the cockney-less Frankie Cocozza there; mind you, my favourites actually ended up being Russia and Iceland so what do I know.
Back to this, though, and obviously “cheating” is a big word, and the only reason other countries didn’t have similar effects is that they didn’t ask for them, but it’s said a lot that the performance is almost as important as the song; is this taking it too far? To be honest, I kind of think it might be.
Tom: I suspect that Bonnie Tyler was missing more than a balloon drop.