Eurovision 2013
First Semi-Final: May 14th, 9pm Central Europe Time (3pm EST)
Second Semi-Final: May 16th, 9pm Central Europe Time (3pm EST)
Final: May 18th, 9pm Central Europe Time (3pm EST)
Eurovision 2013 is almost here! For those of you without TV or in America, it can be watched for free on their website ESC TV. Right now, only recaps of the national competitions and previous Eurovisions are up.
This year is not quite as fun as last year, but there's a couple of good gimmicks. Dubstep has made a big entrance into Eurovision. As far as I remember, there were no dubstep songs any previous year, but this year has a couple of fully dubstep songs, one half dubstep, and a bunch of other songs with unnecessary dubstep interludes. I'm not particularly happy about this, although a couple of these songs made my list.
Here are the 10 most interesting entries. Intriguingly, two of these videos involve men being kidnapped.
10. Malta - In a world full of dubstep, one country dares to bring a ukulele
9. Romania - Wait for it...
8. France - Blues, that's what Eurovision is missing
7. Sweden - He's just so happy!
6. Switzerland - Big band, small car
5. Hungary - Video shows lyrics, which is useful if you know Hungarian
4. Greece - Fun little protest song
3. Latvia - The keytar is arguably not the most ridiculous thing in this video
2. Montenegro - Montenegrin rap is surprisingly fun
1. Finland - It's like Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock somehow got onto Eurovision
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Friday, April 05, 2013
Eurovision Winning
Eurovision is coming up soon, so it's been on my mind. I've been curious for awhile which countries have been the most successful and which have been the least successful. Of course, one could just look at number of wins, but that is skewed because countries have competed for a different number of years and there was less competition prior to 1992. Therefore, I decided to look at the predicted number of wins a country should have based on how many times it competed and the likelihood of winning each years competition. The graph below shows the results.
Click to enlarge
The graph shows the difference in actual wins versus predicted wins. So, for example, based on the number of times Portugal has competed, it should have won 2.3 times by now, but it has not, so its score is -2.3. Denmark is the closest to where it should be, having won twice against a prediction of 1.99 wins. At the other end, Ireland's predicted wins are 2.3, the same as Portugal, but has actually won 7 times. Germany has the highest predicted wins of 3.1, having competed all but once.
The next three worse scores after Portugal are Belgium, Finland, and Austria. This is interesting because these are all countries that have won before, but have been in the competition for a very long time. Finland would be in last place if they hadn't won with Lordi in 2006. The second best score goes to Luxembourg which quit participating in 1993, just as the number of participants was increasing. In fact, with the exception of Sweden, the top 7 scores belong to countries which haven't won any of the last 14 competitions. Of course, 3 of those 7 won during the infamous 1969 contest when four countries tied and there was no tie-breaking rule.
While it would be nice to see Portugal bring its score up, they have decided not to compete this year due to financial reasons. So here's hoping that Belgium wins this year.
Click to enlarge
The graph shows the difference in actual wins versus predicted wins. So, for example, based on the number of times Portugal has competed, it should have won 2.3 times by now, but it has not, so its score is -2.3. Denmark is the closest to where it should be, having won twice against a prediction of 1.99 wins. At the other end, Ireland's predicted wins are 2.3, the same as Portugal, but has actually won 7 times. Germany has the highest predicted wins of 3.1, having competed all but once.
The next three worse scores after Portugal are Belgium, Finland, and Austria. This is interesting because these are all countries that have won before, but have been in the competition for a very long time. Finland would be in last place if they hadn't won with Lordi in 2006. The second best score goes to Luxembourg which quit participating in 1993, just as the number of participants was increasing. In fact, with the exception of Sweden, the top 7 scores belong to countries which haven't won any of the last 14 competitions. Of course, 3 of those 7 won during the infamous 1969 contest when four countries tied and there was no tie-breaking rule.
While it would be nice to see Portugal bring its score up, they have decided not to compete this year due to financial reasons. So here's hoping that Belgium wins this year.
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