I think this is also a key argument when people talk about political voting - sometimes it's just that certain places vibe with a certain sound because it's familiar to them. Must play a part in bloc voting as much as the politics does

It's not only the Balkans though, in many Mediterranean countries and even some nordic ones, this type of violin/accordeon-driven folk music is also really present so I'm actually not surprised so many countries resonated it with it at all !

I knew it was going to be incredible success or total flop, I don’t like that kind of music although I did grow up with it, I hoped it would flop but not surprised it didn’t

You’re comment was pleasant to read. It’s so noticeable (and pleasurable) when a comment is clear and concise, and has correct grammar and punctuation. Thank you…

@@JRandaII thanks! I am an English teacher after all haha

same. an actual shit show of a song. Germany, Denmark or Sweden were miles better in quality

I read somewhere that probably some shit voting happened when Azerbaijan won. Are there any serious speculations about it or is it just no one believing this song won?

Azerbaijan bought that victory. So glad their bribery were exposed in 2014 and now they barely qualify unless the juries rescues them. They always send MelFest reject and doesn't even trust their own Azeri composers to send songs in Eurovision.

@@thanospi7663 They bribe juries. That was the speculation. One example of this is Malta giving them 12 points from 2009-2013 but suddenly stopped giving them points in 2014 when it was revealed in the media that they were bribing juries and voters to vote for them. I guess we will never know the truth but it was very suspicious.

Honestly if Azerbaijan cheat one more time they should just take the win off them.

Italian here, and holy shit our humor is frustratingly hard to translate, we're always the awkward unorganized grandpas trying to be hip whenever we host.

@@no-yg3bj gesù cristo hai messo a parole esattamente quello che pensavo mentre guardavo ESC- Era esattamente how do you do, fellow kids Meno male che ci sono stati i medley di Mika e di Laura Pausini, altrimenti mi sarei sparata alle palle che non ho quando c’era cattelan col green screen

@@oddda5956 fraaaa il medley di Mika è stato il momento clou dell'intero show

@@no-yg3bj hahahahaha vi apprezzo io

A shame because listening to some of the way they interacted during the rehearsals, they were really funny together when it wasn't so tightly scripted :(

Right?? She looks INCREDIBLE

Moldova were a fantastic group - you could feel the energy through the TV - you could tell they were well seasoned artists who just loved their country, their culture and music

It's awesome to know that the arena was having as much of a blast with modlova as i did in my living room, they were truly the bombastic light that was needed this year

Absolutely loved Moldova!

Breton's UK equivalent is Welsh or Cornish, yep!

same!! And how very glad I did!

Omg! Same.

There's also a cultural difference. The folk music element doesn't tend to go down as well in the UK.

@@pajamaparty01 Though it did very well with the UK televote.

@@eurovizusayay3591 Everyone in the UK was so delighted we sent something decent for once, it was one giant party 😂 so we were all about the upbeat songs

I cant help but smile and clap along when I hear that song! It's just so fun

This is a stupid rule, if they allowed for subtitles maybe more countries would sing their song in their own language. After all, isn't diversity what Eurovision should be about?

@@sundaydriver15 They didn't want one country to have advantages over others as it happened in 90es when 5 English songs won. That's why they allowed to sing in any language you want.

has that always been a rule? if so did Italy technically violate it in 2018

@@saskiamckenna2925 EBU changes rules every year

Providing subtitles is every national broadcaster's responsibility. In many countries you can opt for your native language subtitles as Closed Captions for Eurovision. In Finland, for example, people usually have either Finnish or Swedish subtitles turned on on their tv device, and the captions automatically roll during the songs and scripted lines of the hosts if you don't manually turn them off from the tv settings. Although TV-channels are required to provide captions to non-finnish/non-swedish speaking shows as well as finnish for swedish shows and swedish for finnish, it doesn't directly apply to music and song lyrics, but people have wished to have access to that too so the translations are provided. A lot of people watch the shows subs on even though they could understand the majority of the show, not only to understand the non-english songs better, but it's also a kind of added entertainment factor because the song translations are usually purposely silly and hyperbolic here. Sort of a national inside joke. It would be pretty awfull if the whole screen was half filled with text, both english and your own language. If your country doesn't provide subtitles, go and pressure them to do something about it. EBU itself has prioritized the country's performance to be completely visible, which is why we no longer have voting information visible during the whole of the songs, only the running order placement and the performing country's name are visible as small watermarks in the corner of the screen. I bet this is also why there are no open captions on top of the show's broadcast that you can't choose to turn off from your own settings. It would also only favour fluent english speakers and not help anybody who's enlish isn't as good. I can't imagine anybody actually wanting that. That being said the ESC youtube channel providing subtitles for a lot of individual songs official videos this year is awesome. I'm sure each country has been asked for english subtitles when they've sent the final official videos to the organizers. A couple songs didn't have subtitles, which is why I'm guessing either they haven't received any from the country's broadcaster or maybe some subtitles aren't ready yet.

See I also screamed YES because a new Novympia video, but I honestly know nothing about Eurovision except Conchita Wurst was involved once I think. But I’m just gonna watch and enjoy this treat starring our GIRLS!

and the fact that every time i have urge to learn another language cuz of songs, like Icelandic and Dutch, and the fact that i found out stories behind their song brings so much life joy to me

that's very beautifully said, I agree!

Fcking love her so much. What an icon.

It also had the most intimate staging, and was the first slow song after two upbeat ones. Even though they performed 3rd which can be a bad position to perform in, I think it did them a favour as people tend to be more ‘alert’ at the start and end of Eurovision.

YES LOOOOOVE Maro! And all the kids now young folks, who trained under Jone Tremorro ❤️ Glad to see it being talked about. ;) Named my daughter after one of his proteges :3

No WAY

@@Novympia one of the very few fun facts about growing up on Long Island

Do you mean when he trudged across stage like the Loch Ness monster? I thought he was going to hit Mahmood with a water balloon.

Nerves? That wasn't his first time on stage or something.

That doesn't explain why more televotes didn't come in for them, Latvia's jury score was higher than their televote score

@@jazzycat8917 because producers stuck them in second, the deathslot, knowing that second place in the running order will limit the televoting.