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Americans React to A Beginner's Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest
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- Published on Jun 12, 2025
- 🎬 Greg & Lisa React - A Beginner's Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest
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Channel: @DavidBennettPiano
Video: • A Beginners Guide to t...
In today’s video, we react to a beginner’s guide to Eurovision - the over-the-top, fiercely beloved, and often politically charged song contest that brings Europe together (and sometimes divides it). From unexpected winners to the country that didn’t even want to win, this wild ride through Eurovision history left us stunned, amused, and deeply curious.
We are two Spain-based Americans learning about the world, one surprising video at a time. Whether it’s culture shock, world perspectives, or U.S. reality checks… we’re here to discover what we didn’t know we didn’t know.
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"This is probably bigger than Starsurge". Eurovision has about TWICE the audience of the Superbowl, for reference. Its the biggest annual non-sport TV event in the world.
Wtf is starsurge😂😂😂
Haha...Star Search. It was an American show. It was a talent show that was pretty famous in the 80's. ~Greg
@@cecilialeitet2794 thanks I guess
Eurovision definitely has not twice the Super Bowl audience. The grand final draws about 50 million viewers across all broadcasting channels. While the Super Bowl has like 120 million viewers, and that’s only the US figure.
@@Jtr-8447the audience of esc is probably about 200 million
This is a 'Song Contest'. It's not how 'American Idol' to find the best singer it's more about to find the best unique Song never released before. So technically it's the Olympics of Songwriters and Producers. And I am so glad that the USA is not allowed to participate. They would ruin it like many other things (Food, Tradition,,,) they try to imitade. And yes, the 2nd semifinal is today and the final is on saturday.
We'll watch it tonight. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact the final is the most important and will be even better. I myself never watch the semi finals. But enjoy ;)
😂 It is about voting out countries you don't like. Not about the singers, songs or performances.
@@OctoberOctopusM I think it's the other way around. It unites Europe more than every political thing. It's about Love, Be proud to be European and reminds us of our strong community. Divided in colors of flags but united by music.
You make it sound like live performance, charisma and vocals don't matter.
Some countries have a national selection, where the people of that country can vote for their favorite song. Others, like the Netherlands for example, choose their artist and/or song in an internal organization.
Tonight is semi final 2 and on saturday it's the grand final!
This is an older video, now Ireland and Sweden are tied with 7 wins each and also both countries have won twice with the same artist. Johnny Logan for Ireland and Loreen for Sweden.
Also this is a song contest, not a singer contest. Like he said, the artist does'nt have to be from the country they represent but at least one or more of the song writers do.
As you live in Spain, you should easily be able to watch the semi final tonight 😊
bara bada bastu!
Ooohhh I see. I don't think I caught that. Thanks for the explanation. ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact It's an easy thing to miss considering that the usual English abbreviation is Eurovision - without the song contest part of the name.
But Eurovision is technically just the name for "European co-production". There are multiple other (less well known) programmes that feature Eurovision branding. The Eurovision Debate for example, a political debate held between high ranking European politicians shortly before the European parliamentary elections. You'll also occasionally see the logo at sports broadcasts
Where was I going with this? Not sure but I hope you found this tangent at least mildly interesting.
Some rules in Eurovision.
- The song has to be an original song, not published before September the year before the contest.
- The song has to be presented to EBU before a deadline, usually in mid March
. The song cannot have an overt political message or product placement.
- The song can be max 3 min long.
- The vocals have to be live, but the music have to be pre-recorded
- You can have a total of 6 people on stage, that incudes singers, back-up singers and dancers.
- You cannot vote for your own country.
- Juries and Televote have 50% of the vote each.
"that incudes singers, back-up singers and dancers" and sometimes figure skaters and people churning butter and guys in hamster wheels and...
A couple more things about the contest rules:
- No song can exceed 3 minutes in length.
- The vocals must be live, but the music is usually partly or entirely pre-recorded. (Decades ago, songs were sung with a live orchestra because the songs were of a more melodic and traditional style.)
- A maximum of 5 people (other members, backup singers, or dancers) can accompany the singer on stage.
- You can't vote for your representative from your own country, so you won't be able to vote for Spain.
ruclips.net/video/BvVxhbCW9rw/video.htmlsi=HGFe5yIRudTAd1yN
@@ializarg The maximum is 6 to be exact
@@RikaMagic-px6bk 5 + 1 singer = 6
No more than 6 people can take part in the performance.
@@ializarg And what if there are 2 singers? Then it would be 4 + 2. Why not just say 6 people in total is the maximum
@@RikaMagic-px6bk There comment made perfect sense...just need to read properly.
@@RikaMagic-px6bk Right.
6 is the maximum.
95% of the participants are soloists, but if a quintet participates, they can bring a dancer or an acrobat, up to the maximum of six on stage.
Thanks for featuring my video 😊❤
Awesome! We love it when the creator reaches out. We do our best to give you props for creating the video. Thank you for allowing us to react to it. We hope to react to more of your videos in the future. ~Greg
You should definitely watch Eurovision this saturday! We watch it every year. This year switzerland is the host.
But for some clarification... each country that passes the semi finals is represented by a singer or band that is usually choosen by the citizens and/or a special jury.
The finale is live on TV were every country gets to perform their song. Then the viewers can call to vote for their favorite. But you can't vote for your own country. The jury usually votes before the live show. After all artists perfomed, each country (also those who didn't participate) will announce how many points they give to other countries. After the winner is anounced they will perfom again and the winning country will host the next years Eurovision Song Contest.
I love Eurovision... it's so interesting to see so many different music styles. Lots of favorit songs I have came from this contest. Even tho germany rarely gets good points. Overall tho I think the jury votes are always a little bit more political than the viewer points.
We can't wait to watch it! ~ Lisa
The votes being politically really depend on the year...in 2022 it was the public being overly political....
@@Niki91-HR True, but overall still it tends to be the jury with some exceptions of course... tho with 2022 I was happy. Felt like a statement that europe is there for Ukraine. I loved that.
Spain 🇪🇸 ruclips.net/video/_sfZ4L8pGzQ/video.htmlsi=tIb31DOSiELHjifK
@@Hodiefarlp to be fair I don’t think that the jury vote political it’s just that Germany has for many years send ( put it politely) shit songs to Eurovision I’m sorry just like Denmark sadly. This year hopefully we’ll finaly see Denmark in the finals 🤞🏻🤞🏻 ( im Danish)
The best part of Eurovision is if you're blessed with good narrators commenting the event on TV
I could totally see that. Hopefully there is someone good hosting. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
They don't mean the host. The countries usually have narrators in their local languages explaning things and also commenting.
You two should watch geography now eurovision edition. Its a bit outdated but they explain a few things there that this video did not. Not to mention its a very fun way to learn more about it when your still new to eurovision. I've watched the shows since I was a kid and I find this video to be one of the best ways to learn about the show.
This video needs an update. Sweden has now also won 7 times like Ireland and Johnny Logan is not the only winner to have won twice, Loreen won for Sweden in 2012 with Euphoria and again in 2023 with Tattoo making her the only woman to have won twice.
The use of the tie-breaker happen back in 1991 when France and Sweden ended up with the same points, so the judges had to count how many of the 12 points that each of the countries had got, that also turned out the be the same amount so they had to check how many 10 of the 10 points they got and Sweden won because the had gotten more 10 points than France.
Johnny Logan who is also known as Mr Eurovision have not only won the contest twice, he wrote the winning song Why Me for the artist Linda Martin and he also had a hand in the writting of the song Terminal 3 for Linda Martin in 1984 that came in 2nd place behind Sweden that won with 5 points difference.
and Luxembourg is back! we weren't on the infographic with flags of all the countries
The preselection for Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is the Benidorm Fest. This festival, which takes place in the city of Benidorm, serves as the Spanish preselection to determine the artist and song that will represent Spain at the ESC. This is also the case with Italy (Sanremo Music Festival), Sweden (Melodifestivalen), and others. In some countries, music editors from the participating broadcasters select the participant, e.g., the UK.
By the way, this year (2025) the Big 5 will all sing in their native language. And for the first time, 50% of all songs at the ESC will not be sung in English.
during the first years/decades, all songs HAD to be in one of the countries official languages. but to avoid unfair problems with rather unknown (not widespread) languages, or with languages that are home to several countries (eg french in france, belgium, swizzerland, luxembourg, monaco, any more?), as well as countries with several official languages (eg 3 in belgium, 4 in swizerland, they would have a free choice among them), as well as english being understood in many countries while only few have it as official language, this rule was changed and now it is completely up to all countries which language they want to use.
No es cierto eso. Los primeros años cada país cantaba en su idioma oficial. Ningún país cantaba en inglés, sólo los países cuya lengua materna era el inglés
And as far as you thought that song from the UK wasn't a 0 pointer:
The points in the ESC that one country can give are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12, going to the ten most voted countries. So a song that really hit with only one country but tanked in all others could still score a 12, but a song that consistently was on place 11 with every single country would still be at 0 points. And there will be 26 countries in the finale this year.
If you are going to watch, one thing to look out for is the divide beween jury points ("professionals" voting based on their own sense of music quality) and the public votes (mostly voting based on vibes, meme and personal taste) . 2023 was infamous for a huge divide between jury and public, with the jury forcing a win for sweden (to host in the year ABBAs famous win turned 50), while the public stood firmly behind finland, leading to heavy discussions about the jury's tendency to vote pop-centric, even if a different genre song ticks more boxes on their voting criteria list.
The biggest issue I've always seen American folk struggling with when it comes to Eurovision is the fact that the contest revolves around the song, not the artist.
The participants aren't countries per se but the national broadcasters in the European Broadcasting Union, so in a way is a contest between TV channels where each one presents a song. The singer isn't relevant (at least in theory), which is why they don't need to be tied in any way to the country they're singing for.
How each country choose their representative is very different. Some countries host national competitions (most of them), while others have a board who chooses the representative.
In the week leading up to the big finale, two semifinals are held (Tuesday and Thursday), where the ten countries with the most votes goes through to the final (Saturday). At the semifinals only the participating countries populations can vote. At the final all participating countries vote. At the final tv-votes count 50%, while a jury from each country share the other 50%. The point will be: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12. The juries must judge the stage performance and how it song tells the story of the song, but also the technical skills of the artist.
The jury president of each country will live announce which country they gave maximum points. This takes good and well an hour as more than 40 countries are put through live.
Afterwords all the televotes are announced, starting with the country who received the least points from the juries. This can change everything, as tv-voters often has a very different favorite from the juries, as the tv voters more choose on what they like.
The winning country gets the honor of hosting next year’s competition.
These kind of videos typically highlight that some countries send a bad song to not win. It can be very difficult to control unless the national tv station chooses themselves who to represent the country. Saying the big five chooses to not send a good song contradicts these same five countries many times has complained other countries don’t vote for them.
Also saying that it’s because of politics some countries swap points is also wrong. It is more because the general music traditions and preferences in some neighboring countries are alike or more similar to each other. The tv voters in these countries will be more likely to vote for something similar to their own traditions, preferences, and cultural expressions.
Wow, thank you for answering my first question. You need to create an updated version of this video. 😉 😊 This video gave a lot of fun facts though so a combo of fun facts, history and how it works would be great... especially for people who have no idea what it is. Thanks for the info! ~ Lisa
Does this mean there NEVER occur politics in the ESC and the voting? No! But it is less than often ascribed. If one country makes a very unpopular move, like invading the neighboring country, they will most likely not get many points from the tv voters, while the juries are enforced to ignore these kind of issues. If USA was participating they would most likely receive very few points from the tv voters this year despite how great a singer and performance they would have entered. The 2016 winning song from Ukraine was also a highly political song about how Russia invaded Ukraine in 1944 and performed a genoside on Ukrainian people. In 1990 multiple songs were circulating on the fall of Berlin wall and communism.
The big final is on Saturday. 21:00 CET. Melody is singing the song "Diva" for Spain.
Oh YES!!! We will be rooting for España!!
@@gregandlisareact remember, rtve is the official broadcaster !
Oooooh you have A LOT to react to from now on!! And youll have a LOT of hard core eurovision fans accompanying you on the journey!
That was a very sweet and fun reaction! Thank you!!
Thank you! Glad you liked it. Yes, we definitely have a lot to react to around Eurovision time of year. Next year will be fun. ~Greg
The selection from each country is usually (not everywhere) done by a national competition first and the winner goes to Eurovision to represent their country.
Each country have their own rules and ways to do this. In Sweden for example, as I’m Swedish, we have like 5-6 heats, where 2 gets voted to the final and 1-2 to a semi final, so it’s a month long journey to select our winner. And it’s by public voting as well as a selected International jury that gets to vote too.
The main rule is that at least one song writer comes from the country they represent, this is a song contest, which is why not all artists comes from the country they represent. In Sweden we have a Finnish group this year (KAJ) and last year it was 2 Norwegian twins. And we have had Swedish artists represent other countries in the past.
In Eurovision It’s one song per country. These days there are 2 semi finals. Semi 1 was tuesday and Semi 2 is right now. 10 from each semi final (+the big 5 countries that goes directly to the finale with last years winner) will compete in the finale on Saturday. I think it starts at 8 in Spain. You should try catch it if you are interested.
Brit here and when you said... "this is probably bigger than 'Star Search'...!?" - I spat my cup of tea all over my laptop keyboard, afterwhich I spent over 40 minutes cleaning up the mess... Thanks! - LOL 🤣🤣🤣 Anyway, YES, just a 'little' BIGGER. 🙃
If you watch it on Saturday, just prepare for it to be looong 😅 I think usually it's around 4h.
Also, in addition to the hosts (why speak English) there will also be voice over commentary in your country's own language. Personally, I don't like the German commentator because he's very German and very negative about everything, so I like to find a live stream online of the UK version which is usually commentated by Graham Norton who's much more entertaining.
You definitely watch Eurovision! It's such a good show, and you'll get to know Europe better. It was nice to watch your reaction
Glad you enjoyed it. We are watching the semi finals right now. It's great! ~Greg
The first Eurovision I saw was in 1965. Saturday will be my 59th contest😱 (it was cancelled in 2020 due to covid)
While there's the usual bizarre act this year most of the song are actually not bad this year for a change 😂
That is awesome! Not to many people can say that. Hope you enjoy the one this year. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact well, since the Eurovision Song Contest has been there for so many years, a lot of people can say that. At least all European Baby Boomers born around 1960 can say that :)
If anything, you should watch the performance of Conchita Wurst, the drag queen artist who won the 2014 ESC. It was a very controversial topic at that point... but regardless of all the pros and contras to his/her appearance... it was just a great performance and song.
Or, for another fantastic winning entry (many, me included, say: one of the best ever)... Serbia 2007. Which defies any assertion of "English dominated the early 2000s."
Could you name a single "contra" about Conchita performing..? I mean she wasn't even the first drag queen to win it looking at Dana International.
FYI: Don't be confused by the name "EUROVISION" - which is NOT becasue it is EUROPE exclusively... which is WHY any country in the worled 'COULD' take part and some DO! Many people watching often BELIEVE and are CONFUSED by thinking it's 'just' a EUROPE based song contest!?
TO CLARIFY: The "Eurovision Song Contest" is an INTERNATIONAL song competition organized by the 'European Broadcasting Union' (EBU). To participate, broadcasters must be 'EBU members'. The term "Eurovision" was FIRST coined by British journalist George Campey of the 'Evening Standard' (a British newspaper). He used the name in 1951 when writing about a 'British Broadcasting Corporation' (BBC) program being REPLAYED by Dutch television, and the term was later adopted by the 'European Broadcasting Union' (EBU) for its network. Campey's "Eurovision" then became the name for the NEW transmission NETWORK and, then later, the popular song contest.
ANYONE who is part of the 'EBU' can actually take part, but MOST countries choose NOT TO, mostly BECAUSE of the FINANCIAL COSTS involved. Also, while some countries 'outside of Europe', like Israel and Australia, are active EBU members, Japan for example, is not.
Eurovision always makes me proud to be European
the amount of times I was yelling "just look at the goddamn video!!".... But that said, its always fun to watch people getting to know ESC. Semifinals are over and finals are on saturday. For a 4 minute crash course in making a ESC-song, check out "love love peace peace"!
If you want to see more performances, you should watch The Ultimate Guide to Eurovision
We'll check that out! Thanks for the recommendation. ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact No problem!
there are many collections of songs on youtube, eg "all #1 songs from each year", "all runnerups from each year", all songs of some country (no matter which place), but there are even collections of the worst songs, etc.
imho, quite often the second place might be better than the first place, and when only watching one of thse collections you might be wondering why a nearly perfect song didn't win when it simply was a heavily contested run for the top ranks.
You need to see - no need to react to it - the "ESC Eurovision 2010 Flashmob". It was the biggest flashmob ever - through whole Europe! < even HHR Crown Princess Mette-Marit with HHR Princess Ingrid Alexandra joined in. It is very interesting to see, how other EU countries are celebrating this event. At some places the dances are shown only in the living room, but some in large cities with hundreds or thousands at one spot performing. Music connects the people! *peace
14:14 no, don't wait till they say something! It's way more interesting to hear you speculate and then learn. That is literally why I watch videos like yours. Love from the Netherlands, please keep enjoying Eurovision, it's one of the best things for intercultural exchange we have.
i recommend video What Is EUROVISION? Geography Now! they explain little more abut history of Eurovision and rules
Germany carries the last place always with grace and dignity 😌 We have lots of experience in that regard
But this year your song is great 🤩
I think we missed the first Semi Final. Hope we can see them in the final. ~Greg
Over 160 million people watch this contest
Eurovision is like sport to us. We get together with friends, everyone brings some food, we play board games, print out sheets, watch the show and rank the acts for ourselves, and then just drink and rage at the results. Most of us grew up watching the show. My first memory of it was in 1998, I watched it with my parents when I was 4, we had family friends over.
My country, Croatia, has a nationwide song competition called Dora, and the winner of it represents us at Eurovision that year.
Any artist can represent a country, they don't have to be from that country (a bit silly tbh), Celine was selected because she sang in french which is an official language of Switzerland. This year Sweden is represented by a group form its neighbour, Finland, for example.
You should react to a selection of the most legendary songs, I think you'd learn a lot about Europe
If you are going to watch the final on Saturday........ just be aware that it starts at prime time and will be several hours until it ends. So make sure you've got the time to watch. it will take the entire evening without any breaks or advertising in between.
I know! We noticed last nights show didn't have any breaks and I missed two performers. boooo! I'm so used to pausing and running to the bathroom or something. Thanks for the headsup! ~ Lisa
@@gregandlisareact my pleasure, Lisa! And may you and Greg have much fun on Saturday!
And you didn't wonder how Australia is part of Eurovision?? 🤭
OH...hahahaha! What's it doing there?! hahaha! ~ Lisa
@@gregandlisareact Australians are huge Eurovision fans. And they were invited at the 60th Eurovision to participate and it was a one time thing originally but they never left since. If they would win it would not host the next year in Australia. That would be in Europe but they love it and we love them. They really know what Eurovision means.
The same as Israel and Azerbaijan.
@@qq_02 Azerbaijan though at least.. Being in the Caucausus mountains is a transcontinental country along with Armenia. Georgia. Turkey. kazahstan etc. So they are geographically both in Europe and Asia.
@@qq_02 No Israel and Azerbaijan are regular members of the EBU just as are most North African countries that border the Mediterreanan Sea, Tunisia was a founding member.
If you want to watch the Final on Saturday, set aside 4 hours - even then, it'll probably overrun.
Wow! That is unbelievable. Sounds like it'll be fun. We'll be watching for sure. ~Greg
* Each participating country sends one song.
* How the countries pick their candidate varies, some countries have extensive multi-week long competitions while others just have a meeting with their bigger music producers and they pick some candidate like how americans react to being called for jury duty.
* The song can be at most 3min (I think there's a lower limit as well as I vaguely remember there being a very short entry one year), must be an original piece (strict rules on when it can be played publicly for the first time), can be maximum 6 people in stage and all performers must be on stage (artists, dancers and backup vocals, but you can strategically hide the singers if you want).
* Each entry gets one attempt. If something extraordinary happens they might get a second chance (one year someone from the audience jumped on stage in the middle of a performance and I believe the artist as given the option to go again, or if there's some technical melfuction with playback or glitchy microphones or something that's not the artist's fault).
* The whole Grand Finale is usually available on the Eurovision Song Contest U-tube channel, but it will likely be region-locked. However if you are in Spain you should be able to see it.
Watch the final please! Love from Greece! (Also please pause more for those of us that actually enjoy you reacting)
We are going to get drinks and everything for the show! We can't wait. And THANK YOU for saying that! 🥹🥹🥹 It means more than you know! ~ Lisa
@gregandlisareact how was the final? Did you enjoy it, or was it a bit too much?
It was awesome! Now we know what to expect. So next year we'll do a live viewing or something. ~Greg
In 2022 NBC ran The American Song Contest based on Eurovision. It have 56 songs one for each state 5 us overseas territories and one for Washington DC. The fotnat was slight different as it had qualifying round semi finals and a final. Oklahomoa won with a song called Wonderland performed by AleXa.
I think I remember that show. Although I didn't watch it. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
And some well-known names competed in it: Michael Bolton for Connecticut, Jewel for Alaska, Macy Gray for Ohio and Sisqo for Maryland.
The name "Eurovision" doesn't require a geographic location in europe, but the membership of one or several TV stations in that organisation, although it was founded as a cooperative effort to broadcast TV to many other countries (at first only a few central european countries by cable connections, later also by satellite, thus mostly those countries in range of the geostationary satellites over europe), for big events like olympics, other big events, and also the song contest. "full members" are automatically eligible to participate, and "associate members" can be invited when they are deemed "worthy", eg by always broadcasting and also promoting the ESC.
afaik, israel and some other countries from the near east and north africa are full members (but for political reasons don't participate when the other participates; search for maybe morocco decades ago), and Australia got an invitation since their TV stations were associated members and very actively supported the event. Probably the usa (at least in theory) are such an associated member through some of their tv stations, but i never heard of them broadcasting the event, having had any interest to participate, or be deemed an "enrichment" for the event.
17:07 hahahahah it was not brexit. The song was really bad😂😂😂😂
You gotta watch the entries of this year: Austria, Estonia and Sweden!
AUSTRIA!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
And of course Spain, cause they live there:
ruclips.net/video/BvVxhbCW9rw/video.htmlsi=HGFe5yIRudTAd1yN
We'll definitely watch it. Do you have a favorite? ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact I haven't listened to them all, so I can't give an opinion.
Tonight, starting at 9 p.m., the second semifinal to select the final 10 contestants will be broadcast on Spanish Television's La 2 channel.
I was quite reluctant to do the Spanish song, but I have to admit that Melodý gives it her all on stage and is a professional.
But that's the beauty of this competition: being open to surprises, new ideas, and songs you've never heard before.
And the final vote is always sooo exciting.
BTW, here is the last year's winner:
ruclips.net/video/CO_qJf-nW0k/video.htmlsi=HYEa5qFZ1sh324OE
@@gregandlisareact Albania, Portugal, Sweden, Norway and Germany are pretty great. But we'll see what happens tonight at the Semifinal 2
you have to watch this years Eurovision
Someone said it's on RUclips live, so we'll watch it for sure! ~ Lisa
It’s possible Celine Dion will perform or at least appear in tonight’s (Saturday) grand finale since Switzerland won last years contest, so it takes place in Basel, this year. It starts at 9 pm and will finish around 1 am. You can watch it on the Eurovision RUclips channel (mostly English) or since you live in Spain on rtve with Spanish commentary or maybe even find a watch party.
Of course, it's more fun if you choose one or two favorites and cheer along. Normally, we don't really watch all the songs, but listen to them briefly, rate them and if it's too scary, we switch off for a moment 😉 Everything takes a long time during the votes... But in the end it's incredibly exciting.
I heard the voting takes a while. We are going to try to vote! ~ Lisa
@@gregandlisareact You just won't be able to vote for Spain. But wait! Still, you can vote for Spain because you are not Spanish citizens. 😁 🤭
Please do watch the semi final today or final on the Saturday and leave some of your lovely reactions especially when votes come in final it can be intense.
As well one of the best Eurovision was 2021 soif you could react to top 5 or top 10 from that year you would get the best idea what Eurovision is.
Thank you for your reaction ❤
Conchita Wurst's "Rise Like a Phoenix" will forever be one of the best songs of Eurovision of all times for me!
To me that was actually one of the worst winning songs along with Sabrador, Netta, Nemo and JJ (this year)
@@SuperStreetWarrior I like JJ but Nemo wasn't my cup of tea, too! I was rooting for Greece this year!
@@SuperStreetWarrior Who is Sabrador ?
you SHOULD watch some more on the channel 😊 maybe the top 10 from a few years ?
Multiple Rounds: Jury Round, Semi Finale, Jury Round, Grand Finale.
It's the biggest song contest in the World and with around 170 Million TV-Viewers in Europe alone which is the biggest TV Event in Europe.
ESC, for many, is more about the spectacular performance and outrageous show than winning. the weirder the better.
Norway, along with Austria, has the record of four times 0 points and we are damn proud of it.
Bigger or well known artists often get lesser votes just because of their status even if the performance was flawless. The competition is meant to find new original songs, so over the years the rules changed and everybody can represent anything. Music can be playback - otherwise there would be no electronic music - but the singing has to be performed live. Back then you had to sing or partially sing in the respective country's language which shortened the list of international people taking place for different countries. Thats a reason why Celine Dion could sing French for Switzerland due to the fact French is one of the 4 languages spoken in this country.
btw : in the same year 1988 when Celine Dion won for swizzerland, also Lara Fabian sang in the song contest for luxemburg:
another canadian singer for a french speaking european country, and she got 4th place.
Both of them would have been able to start a widespread worldwide career, but the us companies decided to not split their efforts and selected Celine.
PBS aired the 1971 contest. Otherwise,The USA has shown the contest every year,except 2020,since 2016 when cable channel Logo aired just the grand final until 2018. Netflix picked up the 2019 contest,airing all three shows. They were supposed to show the 2020 contest but COVID happened and the contest was cancelled. Instead we got the Will Ferrell movie “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”. A must watch! Since 2021,streamer Peacock has been showing the contest in its entirety.
Oh, this is an older video. By now Sweden has as many wins as Ireland and like Ireland they had someone win twice. (Loreen with her songs Euphoria and Tattoo.) You should definitely watch the Grand Finale on Saturday.
Voting for so called allies is a bit of a myth. It's more about cultural ties and the kind of music that is popular in a region. The Balkan countries share a lot of similar music tastes, like some eastern European regions do too, or as the Nordics do or the Iberian Region does and that very much contrast music that's popular in the UK, France or Italy.
Also you missed the national selection for Spain if you didn't watch 'Benidorm Fest 25' where this is done. Other countries have jury selection or other festivals or a copy of the mixed jury+televote like at ESC.
Also this isn't strictly a Europe thing, but a EBU (European Broadcasting Union -which has members from the entire Mediterranean including North Africa - which explains Israel's participation, and Australia as an associate member has a special standing invitation to the ESC.)
Also for a more tongue-in-cheek musical take on the ESC "Love, love, peace, peace" is the perfect Eurovision song. (it was the interval act performed by the swedish hosts)
I actually hadn’t heard of Star Search. 244 million people watched on TV + RUclips during the Eurovision event week last year, so it’s quite big. 😁
Hope you get to watch the final tomorrow, it’s always a spectacular show. ✨
We plan on watching to final tomorrow. We watched the semi final last night and thought it was awesome! ~Greg
BTW, it is very entertaining for us Europeans watch our murican cousins be utterly confused the moment Lordi steps in the arena... "WTF is this?". We are not watching because we want to gloat, we KNOW it is really, really weird concept. It is just fun for us when people learn about Eurovision and all its utter silliness. We know we are putting huge shows that are just.. ridiculous and at the same time absolutely serious competition between nations with centuries and centuries of wars between us.
In the end, it is made to increase peace and unity, a sense of belonging and togetherness, to get to know each other more and just to have fun. It mostly achieves this, there are problems and controversies and politics, it is unavoidable but by far and large, it has been a massive success. Russia being excluded was a HUGE deal for them. So huge that they are now trying to organize a competitor for Eurovision.. So, campy, very, very silly and very serious and important.
BTW, a obscure piece of trivia: when Lordi won, Finland had to organize the show. They ordered SO many 360 degree moving lights that factories had to make them in three shifts. And they were used once, then sold and that formed the basis of moving lights and show light for the whole entertainment and show business in the country.. Suddenly we were FLOODED with high quality, once-used equipment. The production quality in live shows went up in a year. I was working back then doing larger live shows, all our lights were used in Eurovision show and we have WAY too many of them, really... We carried full backup set, just in case.. and two years before they were priced investments that you carefully used to maximize their effectiveness, and here were were.. using them mostly as color changing static PAR cans out of convenience... The biggest companies bought the Eurovision stock, the smaller ones bought the bigger ones old stock, the quality of lighting went up in about every level, just because of that one show.
Specially in smaller countries winning Eurovision is a kickstart in the entertainment field in general, huge boost that can actually become self sustaining and able to export their cultural products... So, there is incentive for the industry and artists to put their best on the line. Finland and Sweden are starting to rack in the profits now, their national competitions are internationally watched. So.. being silly can be very, very serious business.
The guy is wrong though. The winning country does not have to host Eurovision. They can choose to opt out. And another country can bid to host instead... usually the runner up. Luxembourg has won 5 times. But only hosted once. Because they lacked a sufficient venue to host.
That makes sense. Thanks for the information. ~Greg
It held over 3 rounds over 3 days (2 semi finals (all countrys execpt the host and the big 5 are split into 2sf with the top 10 in each one going into the final with switzerland and the big 5) and a final). Each country has a different way of nominating a song. Some like in the uk its chosen by a panel others like slovenia have a public contest to choose which song represents them. There will be 37 countries competing this year as montengro returns, having missed the last 2,voting rules now consist of 3 rounds a jury vote,public vote and an international vote for non competing countries who have broadcast rights with the public vote being used to split any ties. Next years edition will be the 70th eurovision. There is also a junior version for tbose 14 and under which this year will he held in Georgia
Did Cliff Richard win the Eurovision?
The 1968 Eurovision Song Contest turned out to have a nail-biting finish when the United Kingdom entry and big favourite Congratulations by Cliff Richard was beaten by just one point by Spain's Massiel.
Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
He starred in two well known films, at the time.
1961: The Young Ones
1963: Summer Holiday
He had his own Show on BBC TV in the UK, one of his guests was Olivia Newton-John, who is Australia btw.
When was the Cliff Richard show on TV?
Cliff Richard - Wikipedia
During the 1970s, Richard took part in several television shows and fronted his own show It's Cliff Richard from 1970 to 1976. It starred Olivia Newton-John, Hank Marvin and Una Stubbs, and included A Song for Europe.
18:57 they WERE a great sign of pride, sadly this year they banned all flags that arent from participating nations, so we won't see singers with pride flags anymore. It's also a response to the amount of palistian flags that are raised when Israel signs. Altough I think in the semi-finals I spotted quite few palistinian flags in the public
Really liked you comments! Here's some performances if you wanna react to iconic Eurovision moments: Australia 2019(make sure its the grandfinal!), Romania 2013, Sweden 2012
Thanks for the recommendation. ~Greg
Great reaction and Lisa is very clever! She gets easily the little details, and she is often right with her suppositions. This video is kind of messy and confusing. They talk about things that are not important like the plagiarism of 2018 and they didn’t say important things like, how countries chose their representatives or about the voting system that doesn’t allow people voting for their own country. If you guys want to experience Eurovision, you can watch the grand final next Saturday. It lasts about 4 hours but entertainment is guaranteed. Your will love it.
As a non European fan, I am very proud to say that I have been following the contest since 2002, and it has become part of my life.
„Sometimes pretty good music“ gurlll always
If you want to understand Eurovision, watch the movie with Will Ferrell. It sums it up pretty well.
The video you watched are a bit outdated, Sweden and Ireland are in a tie now, since our singer Loreen won Eurovision for the second time and we are likely to win this year with Bara bada bastu.
Hey you two,
There are several videos about the winner each year since starting the ESC, formally known as Grand Prix d'eurovision de la chanson (french).
Might be worth checking one out.
Greetings from germany,
Kev
Hi Kev! Thank you for the comment. We'll give it a look. ~Greg
You guys really need to react to Loreen (who won twice for sweden in 2012 and 2023). Her 2012 song is still one of the most well known eurovision songs up to date and is still amazing!
I dislike this guide cause it focuses more on artists that have participated rather that the history and rules of the competition
Most countries do internal contests now; in some cases the singer or group to participate is chosen by a committee without public participation. A few founding countries can automatically participate in the finals, others have to qualify in semifinals (44 countries participate, but only 26 can participate in the final). The singer presents one song which has to be original (written for the contest, published not before September of the year before the contest); it is a contest of songs rather than singers however. Céline Dion performed a song written by a Swiss songwriter (lyrics) and a Turkish-Swiss composer, and she sung it in French (at the time the song still had to be in one of the official languages of the country represented).
The winning country has to host the next contest, which can become a bit inconvenient. So there are always rumors about countries deliberately sending some underperformers - which could however only the case with countries who choose their representative by a jury, not a contest with public voting.
The official and remastered winning performance of Conchita Wurst: ruclips.net/video/xhCC_PN9UlA/video.html (it is worth it!)
Abba sung in Swedish as was required by the rules at the time. However, the winner always performs their song again. It was then they sung Waterloo in English
Ireland isnt the only country anymore whose artist won twice. Sweden did it in 2023 with Loreen as well. So since this guide is from 2022 it needs a bit of an update.
James Newman was just bad, the 0 points weren‘t because of brexit 😅
I would love to hear how you liked this year (if you saw it).
It crazy the first time you see it (and eachtime after that) and this video just is the surface of the Iceberg that is Eurovision but you still either love it (or hate it).
The first English language winner was the UK in 1967 with “Puppet on A String” by Sandie Shaw.
Did you watch the contest last weekend?
Bye the way: you have to watch the Spanish preselection (Benidorm Fest) next year. It's always a blast! 🎉
I really thought that Lordi was just three or four years ago. 😬 Oh my, it is almost 20 years! Cannot believe...time flies.
Germany won twice! This I remember very well.😂
Hope you'll enjoy your first ESC on saturday and let us know about your impressions afterwards :-)
you should be able to watch the finale on saturday either on the spanish tv channel that organizes spains part of it, or without commentary in the youtube livestream on the official Eurovision Song Contest channel.
this year is particularly confusing on the language side, as the estonian entry is in italian, the finnish entry is in german, the netherlands are singing in french and sweden is in finnish
how much it isn't a singer contest: portugal was ready to switch out the singer for his sister (and song writer) in case of a medical emergency, the year they won.
Spain is the best this year ❤
She is really good! We'll see if Spain wins. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
Sweden! The world is so screwed up so we need to find happiness and to work across the borders, like we do with our twin-brother Findland
Sweden❤Finland!!!
Eurovision voters don't care about Brexit, I can assure you about that, the song was just mediocre
Also 0 points doesn't mean that it got 0 votes - every country gives points to 10 countries, but there are 26 countries in the final, so you can't give points to everyone, therefore country A might be 11th out of 26 and still get 0 from country B just like the 25th country in their voting (because you can't vote for yourself)
Ukraine's win in 2022 was political though, only deluded people think it wasn't, without the whole war situation they would probably score a top 10 spot, but wouldn't win
If you want to watch Eurovision and see for yourself how it looks like it's happening right now : 1st semifinal was 2 days ago (you should watch couple of performances to see in full how they look like and that it really is a song contest, not a singing contest), 2nd semifinal is today (8 PM your time) and final is on saturday, also 8 PM
It is often the funniest and weirdest night of television of the year (With the odd awesome surprise along the way). I hope you can watch one live some day (Like most of the rest of the world 😁 )
for Eurovision you need to watch two mid-show act songs by hosts: What is Eurovision? (Semi-Final 2 Opening Act 2016 Eurovision Song Contest) & Love Love, Peace Peace - how to win Eurovision
If you’re still curious and have questions about the contest, I recently made an extended complete video guide and explanation on the Eurovision ✨
I absolutely LOVE Eurovision and I’ve watched every ears since the 70’s
This Tuesday was semifinal 1 and today is semifinal 2 and on Saturday is the finals.
Sadly if you see it this year it’s not the best Eurovision there’s too many songs that are not great but 2024-2023-2022 was amazing with tons of amazing songs.
I do not believe that country’s send bad songs to Eurovision just too loose as they can just not send a song and problem solved. The reason that England gets such and scores is not political but the often send really bad songs and when they finally sends a great song they will get credited as they did with the Spaceman song that should have won but Ukraine won and yes no doubt that was because all of Europe wanted to show Ukraine and Russia that we were behind and supporting Ukraine.
It’s very different how every country select the one song to enter Eurovision. Some countries just ask a singer/songwriter to produce a song other countries like Denmark and Sweden have a competition where the public get to vote for their favourite song.
Sweden in particular have the most amazing show that stretches over 6-7 weekends with really great song and performances and frie each heat a couple songs get voted to next competition and at the end they find the finale song for Eurovision and my god they are good the swedes. This year they came with a very different song than normal it’s sang in Swedish but it’s like a folks song and it’s so great I hope they win 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻 and i love the song from Estonia is fun and catchy.
You should definitely watch some of the competitions from earlier years as Eurovision is fantastic. In 2022 165mill people watched Eurovision so it’s a pretty big deal.
Yes that is definitely a pretty big deal! We will watch it this year. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
I have to criticize something here: You constantly interrupt in videos like this and ask questions that are then explained later in the videos.
Why don't you ask these questions after a video? If these questions are not explained in the video, the answers in the comment box can certainly help you.
However, it is often really exhausting to watch your videos this way, because I actually like your comments on these videos...at the END of the video.
My best friend and I are watching this live on Saturday. We don't live together, we use online telecommunication software. However, this event is not good for us to endure sober, so we have already bought alcohol, potato chips and sweets and are going to the start at 8:15pm on Saturday, the ESC runs until 1am.
We've been doing this for years and always have a lot of fun... maybe it's the alcohol we've drunk.
Hi! We understand, but part of a reaction channel is to make the content we are watching as unique and separated from the original content as possible. We have to do our best to give it a different "life." So to be compliant with YT we say what's on our minds at any given moment...and I guess that's a lot haha. Also, we never know how a video will evolve, so we say what we're thinking on the spot in hopes of getting answers from you guys.
You and your friend sound like a lot of fun! Have a drink for us on Saturday! ~ Lisa ❤️
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The last United Kingdom's winner was in 1997, Katrina Leskanich and the band Katrina and the Waves, with their song "Love Shine a Light". They secured the UK's fifth win at the contest. The song was a smash hit across Europe and remains a well-known Eurovision entry.
Katrina Leskanich is American.
you are lovely in this reaction...keep up the good work!
Thank you! Glad you like the channel. ~Greg
Thanks for conversation i don't know about this video 🎉🎉🎉
The idea that you wouldn't want to win the competition is a very common argument used by sore losers, any country would benefit from holding the competition in terms of tourism etc.
Be warned, Eurovision is a rabbit hole!
Costumes and choreographs are indeed about standing out, but there is also some kind of weird tradition of having fun with the dumb/cheap/outrageous habits of this contest in particular. It's a mix of first degree bad taste from some bands, but also a lot of satire from others, and most are some kind of in between : being willingly over the top and having fun doing so.
In fact standing out isn't even about the competition : quite some countries prefer by far sending a band just descent enough to not put the country to shame, but not too good to avoid winning cause it would mean having to pay next event's organization... and a bunch of others can't win because of some very solid collusion between some countries. For instance being Scandinavian, or from a former USSR country, helps to get votes from cultural allies, but being somehow isolated like France, Spain, Italy, makes probability to win way lower. Also being from a country with a very toxic geo-political situation doesn't help, even for a big diaspora taking this game like a serious nationalist statement (hi Israel). Most people voting take such things into account even if it has nothing to do with what the band performed. No matter what will happen on stage the competition is kind of rigged. So you don't want to stand out to win but to sell your records abroad, when it comes to competitiveness it's a promotional event more than anything else.
By the way most artists and their entourage are getting pretty high along the night, and by the end the vast majority is so Fd up no one cares much about results, except the ones in the top 3 getting crazy between two snorts. Not all bands are like that for sure, but considering many behaviors usual in this show, it would be very surprising if the majority of bands in Eurovision's history would be able to remember all they did during that night. Which by the way also explains why their performance was trippy. XD
Now also Loreen (Sweden) won twice (2012, 2023)! First woman to do so, so she now shares the throne with Johnny Logan!
17:15 - Nothing to do with Brexit as half of participating countries are NOT in the EU and on the image, the first country is Switzerland, that is not in the EU.
That video definitely wasn't the best guide for the contest and there are more helpful ones for Eurovision tbh, but it's a decent guide.
Eurovision is a really fun and diverse global event that has existed for almost 70 years now with millions of viewers from all over the world!
The second semi final takes place today and the finale is on saturday, so it would be cool if you checked it out for the first time!
Awesome! We're actually excited to check it out. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
@@gregandlisareact Did you watch it and is there a reaction to it? I'd love to see it!
Grand final today! there is a show for you to react! :)
More people watch Eurovision than the Super bowl.
Can I assume you will be getting the beers & snacks in to watch this on tv? Are you going to cheer Spain? Thats the beauty of this contest, choose your country or the song. Basically it's just a mega song/laugh event. Enjoy!
Please! Take a look to Spain songs! Channel with SloMo was Amazing! And this years song is awesome as well!
I hope you enjoy the Eurovision song contest if you decide to watch it this saturday! 👀
❤❤
We will be rooting for España!! ❤️ ~ Lisa
SloMo with Chanel is the best song Spain have ever send to Eurovision ♥️♥️♥️♥️
ruclips.net/video/_sfZ4L8pGzQ/video.htmlsi=tIb31DOSiELHjifK
I think the explanation video better works - at least for you - if you first watched a Eurovision song contest. Because half the time you don't know what is talked about.
Well we'll be watching it this weekend. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg
Greg let the video play and then everything is explained to you, the length is generally around four hours long and heats by each country decide the country’s entry. The contest starts around 8pm UK time 9pm German time which for Spain I think is the same but not 100% sure so check you TV paper and is usually broadcast by Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). I think it’s also streamed live but not sure by whom.
It was viewed by 200 million viewers last Saturday 😂❤. And I have heard that the song must have a songwriter from the country the song is representing. Sweden and Ireland has 7 wins each. And both Logan and Loreen has won the Eurovision twice each
We really just got into this year. Next year we're going to really get into and share it here on the channel. Thank you for the comment. ~Greg