I’ll be honest, pop music is not my bag, but I do like to watch Eurovision each year as it is a good laugh, and every now and again there is a good song that year. Last night it was in Israel, and they put on a good show, that was until Madonna turned up and it went south faster than geese in winter. I am not a fan of hers, but I do appreciate she is an artist and a good one at that, and her field of work is extensive. To date I only like two of her songs, and no, one of them is not Vogue.
Being interviewed she seemed to lack her usual bravado, which I was surprised about, letting her guard down only once joking about the compare dumping his husband for her. Let’s face it, she loves the attention and adoration, it has made her career. Was the eye patch hiding surgery and did her lips look slightly unnatural, maybe after a cosmetic procedure? Then we witnessed the “performance”, which was quite frankly not on par with her usual gusto and ability to actually hit notes. Last night we watched a tired and out of tune performance. There could be many reasons why she sang off-key, was flat and very pitchy. But when all said and done, it was second rate and out of tune. I passed all my Royal School of Music exams, so am an authority of pitch and tone, both of which I lack LOL. Everyone has off days, even the legend Barbra Streisand has performed out of tune, and the ears do not lie.
However, Twitter seemed to be on fire with venomous gays screaming about how fantastic she was and anyone that dare say anything different then they would block them. I had mentioned that it was a pitchy and poor performance and BANG! the hate began with mentions of my throat being cut and being set of fire, followed by being quickly blocked by all the screaming queens, aka buttercups. I have very thick skin, almost rhinoceros-like, so this does not bother me. The only thing that started to hurt was the amount eye rolling I was doing causing repetitive strain injury LOL. One of the buttercups that blocked me and was doing a count of his “heroic blocking actions” is by this point starting to realise he was wrong and admitted that it was not her best performance (I have 2 twitter accounts so can see his timeline, also he has not blocked M). But his verbal attack on those of us who dared to publish the truth has quite frankly caused him to cut his nose off to spite his face. He advertised that he blocked people, then called them all the offensive names his tiny mind could muster, showing he has no backbone, lacks the understanding of free speech, or the intelligence to look outside his little bubble, not to mention getting his hearing tested. Oh, did I mention he is a 50-year-old man, very single and complains that no one wants to date him? Go figure that one out haha!
I thought Iceland’s song was really really bad. I love rock, metal and thrash, but even I thought it was an assault on the ears. Also, their political statement with the Palestine banner was in very poor taste. I had high hopes for Australia and Norway, alas that was dashed in the end. The UK as always came last, but at least he sang better than Madonna. At one point I thought Russia may just win, which would be a disaster as their human rights policy stinks. I think the highlight for me was the “Switch Song”. If you did not see it, then, let me show you.
Mr Knitter 
Great insight, I felt I was there watching madges performance. I think it’s great that although you don’t like a genre of music you appreciate talent/work etc. The troll you talk about was really funny.. 50 and very single.. Straight out of a comedy sketch!! Thanks for your blog post!
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Cheers James. I do like a variety of music including classical, goth, jazz, RnB and more, but the pop within the Eurozone is so cheesy. However, back in 2007 I loved the entry that won, Marija Šerifović from Serbia, and again Verka was brilliant. In 2014 Conchita Wurst was fantastic, and a worthy winner. My hubby M is a life long fan of Madge, and even he was horrified with the bum notes. Thanks for dropping by, hope you will pop back soon.
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I spent most of it snarking in the LSG thread. Since Logo stopped carrying the Final, I ended up watching the Swedish livestream (the YouTube stream is geoblocked here because of music licensing reasons). But I was able to do picture-in-picture and watch and post at the same time. I didn’t really pay much attention to Madonna’s performance itself, but that was because I actually had to take my dog outside during most of it. It was about on par for what I’d expect to hear coming out of a 60-year-old singer who hasn’t taken the best care of her aging voice, so the autotune on her second song was no surprise. Hatari displaying the Palestinian banner was in poor taste, as Eurovision is supposed to be a nonpolitical event, but they are a pretty outspoken political band to begin with.
I personally would’ve liked to see Italy win, as Mahmood’s song was very contemporary and personal (not to mention Italy’s been sending very good songs since returning in 2011 and has been itching for a win for a few years now), but Duncan’s song was heavily favored to win since it was released in March. And while Norway, Sweden, and North Macedonia kept the voting interesting, it was gonna be very hard to knock Duncan from the top. I liked Sweden’s song (also had a bit of a John Legend/Brian McKnight vibe), but I was completely surprised at how North Macedonia managed to do so well in the Jury vote.
The LSG Eurovision thread had one poster putting up some of the best of Graham Norton’s snark:
“And I’m sure she can repurpose that dress as a Christmas decoration!” (Albania)
“Just remember – 15 songs didn’t make it into the final and THAT DID. Be grateful.” (San Marino)
“It’s very simple staging. You can tell because he’s been upstaged by a lightbulb.” (Netherlands)
“If sisters are supposed to tell each other things, why hasn’t she told you about that thing on your shoulder?” (Germany)
I wish BBC America would pick up Eurovision in the U.S. just so I could hear Graham Norton’s snarky commentary.
Finally, I have to say I feel sorry for the UK, their songs this decade have not been great at all, and I sensed that with this year’s entry (strangely enough, co-written by John Lundvik, Sweden’s performer). The U.K. needs a song that’s either fun or ridiculously catchy, I think, to dig its way out of the bottom of the leaderboard. Same with Germany, whose female performers seem to have been cursed since Lena’s victory and top ten finish the following year.
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Graham Norton has been doing that job for what feels like forever, and I agree he can be quite funny, but sometimes he natters over whats going on and it can be rather annoying. Next year you should use a VPN to hide where you are so you can watch it. Watching Swedens face drop on the last point award was classic. Someone on Twitter said his mum was watching it and said about Madonna’s eye patch “She must have had her cataracts done, they only do one eye at a time”.
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