I feel like ever since American people have been allowed to watch Eurovision it has gone down the drain.. where is the drama? Where is the glitter? Where are the men in hamster wheels? Where are the naked women churning butter? Where is the fire?
Can't we just get to keep this for ourselves? Americans literally ruin anything they touch!
This has nothing to do with Americans, this has to do with a certain cultural hegemony within the music industry and the way the contest is set up.
From what I remember the juries were originally introduced to moderate the block voting of certain regions (the balkans always exchanging maximum points, greece and cyprus etc.), but not only does that still happen, it now also seems to be a tool for the music industry (the jury is comprised of so-called 'experts' and professionals) to preserve what they apparently perceive as the 'dignity' of eurovision, by selecting boring mainstream songs and neglecting, let's say, interesting songs because it might be embarrassing.
This year the German jury was comprised of:
Katja Ebstein, a 78 year old singer who represented Germany in Eurovision three times between 1970 and 1980.
Alina Süggeler, whose band Frida Gold is mainly known for making forgettable EDM inspired pop stuff and commercials that are thinly disguised as music videos.
Anica Russo, a pop artist who I actually don't know much about but she finished 6th (out of 8) in the national selection for this year's German entry so make of that what you will.
Arne Gosh, a music manager.
Kai Tölke, Head of Music of a German radio station.
I'm assuming it will be similar in other countries. Managers and nonthreatening mainstream pop artists who are the darlings (and clients) of said managers and the labels, but who don't even match the most successful artists in the country.
And the vote of the German jury was:
12 points: Sweden, 10 points: Estonia, 8 points: Australia, 7 points: Spain, 6 points: Norway, 5 points: Czechia, 4 points: Italy, 3 points: Serbia, 2 points: Austria, 1 point: Lithuania.
The vote of the German public was:
12 points: Finland, 10 points: Italy, 8 points: Albania, 7 points: Ukraine, 6 points: Croatia, 5 points: Norway, 4 points: Poland, 3 points: Switzerland, 2 points: Belgium, 1 point: Sweden.
As you might notice, only two countries appear in both lists, and Sweden is last in the German public vote.
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