#jacques houdek

[eurovision-facts]

Eurovision Fact #434:

In 2023, Croatia's Let 3 placed 13th in the Grand Final. This is the same placing Croatia's Jacques Houdek received in 2017, the last time Croatia made it to the Grand Final.

[Source]

Croatia, Eurovision.tv.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 175 - 171

175. Jurij Veklenko - “Run with the lions” Lithuania 2019

oh hai.

I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory why Jurij made it this far. Like, man, MAJOR kudos for knowing your niche and milking the shit out of those horny middle-aged eurogays <3 And to be fair, in a field of similar acts, including both Farid Mammadov and Imri Ziv, it is Jurij  who stands out as the *biggest* case of eyefuckery on this side of Teriazoume. I’d make a pun about Jurij channelling Evridiki, but Tumblr is a respectful PG-13 site now. 🤗

However, as self-explanatory as Jurij’s generous rank is, it’s almost as obvious why I can’t carry him further. “Run with the lions” is kind of a nothing song and wasn’t given a budget (I heard from a Lithuanian guy I know that LTR’s budget was €1.000 and that includes lodgings!!!), leaving Jurij to carry it by himself. Still, I can’t say this

has never failed to cheer me up. 🤗 Now imagine if Jurij returned with an actually GOOD song / a decent budget. BRING HIM BACK!!! ________________________________________________________________

174. Kristina - “Horehronie” Slovakia 2010

Yes, I actually like Max Jason Mai more than Kristina. TEE HEE. 🤭

But I think Kristina is good too, no worries! Kristina is obviously very notable in that she ALWAYS pops up in those “the 10 most listened to videos” the official channel publishes every month. And truth be told, back in the day, at the fledgling age of thirteen-going-on-twenty-one, I too was smitten by this basic bop. With it’s easy ethno rhythm and tree dancing, “Horehronie” nothing short of enjoyable.  

And then she ran into the Slovakian curse of “promising in studio, terrible live” the penance we all must bear for Tublatanka’s UNFAIR robbage (’94 juries = the WORST!!!). Oh well. 🤗

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173. Jacques Houdek - “My friend” Croatia 2017 

[2017 Review here]

Omg I’m taking out ALLL of the fanfavebeasts!! Shocking, i know!! JK, I know Jacques is disliked and rightfully so. He’s a pretty shit human. He has said some racist and homosexual things!!! (-Jeremy Collins). Liking Jacques, even ironically, always comes with the caveat that you cannot give him any rope (like the idiots that enable other “lovable” figures such as Trump, Farage and Rees-Mogg).  However, Eurovision doesn’t function like politics do and, I’m sorry, I just can’t *not* cackle at 1) Jacques convincing himself that “My Friend” is one of the most earnest, inspirational songs ever, just because it quotes Albert Einstein 2) EVERYONE, across any fanbase, universally believing that “My friend” is in fact one of the worst songs ever written. <3  It’s the same dichotomy we saw in “That’s how you write a song”, where EVERYONE is in on the joke except for the person who wrote the entry. Except, it is even more extreme here. Glorious. Of course this culminated in Jacques, delusional as delusional does, convincing himself that people genuinely liked “My friend” for the music. He then gave us an even worse song in “The dream” and I instantly stopped laughing. 🙃 But fortunately Roko fell flat on his bicentennial face as it should have and I can laugh again. That is the core of my Jacques sentiment, in a nutshell. As long as Jacques’s Eurovision schemes unfold like the average Wile. E. Coyote attempt at catching the Road Runner, as long as I can just sit back and laugh at his expense because he can’t help but fail himself, so long can I like him without any reservations. Which, fortunately enough, will be forever. 😈

Also, um that means “Lighthouse” is the highest ranked Croatian entry lmfao. What a spectacular decade. 

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172. Valentina Monetta - “Maybe” San Marino 2014

“Maybe” gets a lot of leeway from being the closing chapter in the Valentina saga and while it’s not *as* good, I still cherish it greatly. Valentina Monetta qualified for the final. Even though Serhat did too, her legacy isn’t cheapened by it, at all. And yes, I recognize that “Maybe” is kind of really boring and that’s valid. However, I don’t care? Valentina singing “Maybe... this is it, this is real and I feel this is right, finally right” in a Grand Final remains a bone-chilling moment and nobody will ever be able to take that away.  ________________________________________________________________

171. Robin Stjernberg - “You” Sweden 2013

Reason #43 why 2013 is awesome: Sweden is mortal in it. and thank fuck it is, because that makes “YOUooUUooooOOUUu” so much more enjoyable. #DownWithSwedePrivilege Not like it wasn’t to begin with. For starters, Melfest 2013 being won by a WILDCARD <3 Who barely made it in and out of Andra Chansen. <3 It’s SO INCOMPETENT, like you know, a messy “Where I Am”? It remains baffling to me that juries adored “You” so much because it really is three minutes of high-pitched screaming. Each time songwriters turn to “Strazdas” for inspiration, it truly is a blessing. 🤗

PS: by my count, there are now three remaining Swedish entries left in this ranking. Turning into this decade’s Ireland/France really made Sweden suck, huh?

[eurovisionopinions]

[red-the-blood-of-angry-men-blog]

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about Salvador Sobral’s comments towards Netta’s song recently, and I just want to post my opinion on the whole thing here:

First of all, I love Amor Pelos Dois, and I appreciate the importance of his win for Europe, and Eurovision. I think it was important for Europeans to realize it was possible to win Eurovision with a song in a native language, and without an elaborate display as shown in ‘Love, Love, Peace, Peace’. The fact that Salvador’s sister wrote it for her brother who was experiencing heart problems makes it even better in my opinion.

But Toy is just as meaningful as Amor Pelos Dois. Toy is inspired by the #Me Too movement, which has encouraged many Isreali women to come forward about sexual violence, so Netta’s song is addressing that. Both songs have a meaningful message, but they are expressed in very different ways.

While I love Salvador’s music, I believe his comments were a little inappropriate. Of course he has the right to express his opinion, but when Benjamin Ingrosso was in that reaction video criticizing the other contestants, he had to remove the video and apoogize (rightly so, because he was showing very bad sportsmanship). Salvador can have his opinion, but I don’t think he should openly slander other contestants like that. 

Finally, I disagree with his statements about ‘real music’. There are a lot of different genres of music, and which genre is better is totally in the eye of the beholder. One of the best things about Eurovision is the diversity of the music. There will be pop songs, there will be songs with lots of fireworks, there will be love ballads. But almost every artist who comes to Eurovision is a talented musician who’s put a lot of hard work into their performance, and has hopes and dreams, so I think it’s unfair to write them all off as ‘fast food music’. And Salvador has admitted that he hasn’t listened to any of the songs other than Portugal and Israel’s, so I don’t think he can fully say nothing has changed since he won. There have been many meaningful or strong songs in the past two years, we have Francesco Gabbani’s gorilla and song about human evolution, Jacques Houdek’s amazing double opera/pop singer voices, Ermal Meta and Fabrizio’s song about finding hope and coming out stronger, Michael Schulte and AWS’s emotional songs about losing their fathers, Christabelle’s song about breaking the Taboo surrounding mental health, and many more. 

Anyways, that’s my opinion on the Salvador Sobral issue, and I wish the best of luck to all the contestants tonight.

[fantasymythologyhistoryandfandom]

ok, but I think I lowkey live for the Houdek-Sobral drama

[littleballofemo]

Eurovision Song Contest 2017

[eddiemacads]

When you’re the only one who worked on the group project

[irrelevanteurovisionconfessions]