Eurovision 2023

[Minoa]

This is the space to talk about the 67th Eurovision Song Contest in … Liverpool. Unfortunately, Russia is still pounding Ukraine out of desperation, but that is for the other thread.

The visual and the Semi-Final line-up was announced on 31 January 2023.

Semi-Final line-up

Stage	Semi-final 1	Semi-final 2
1st half	Croatia Ireland Latvia Malta Norway Portugal Serbia	Armenia Belgium Cyprus Denmark Estonia Greece Iceland Romania
2nd half	Azerbaijan Czech Republic Finland Israel Moldova Netherlands Sweden Switzerland	Albania Australia Austria Georgia Lithuania Poland San Marino Slovenia
Big Five +1 voters	France Germany Italy	Spain Ukraine United Kingdom

You might be wondering why Minoa suddenly became interested in Eurovision. The answer is the …

Visual identity



Sources: https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/30- ... age-design and https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/cultur ... 74496.html

It is a significant departure from the visual identities of most of the recent editions, which in my opinion were packed full of CGI and After Effects whatever. The slogan (United by Music) is interesting, and reflects how many people can like music, regardless of where it comes from. Remember Eduard Khil and O-Zone?

I think this is the first time in years where the Eurovision designers (Superunion and Starlight Creative this year) took the font seriously in a local context: it's called Penny Lane and it is not just a Beatles reference, but it is also based on cast-iron Liverpool street name signs.

However, the stage is not a big upgrade: as of now it seems to be over-dominated by blue. I think Yellow Studio needs to show how the stage will interact with the visual identity, which isn't all-blue.

Even if the BBC had all the money in the world, I think that they found a recognisable visual identity that doesn't require so many CGI and After Effects whatever. However, the stage renders need updating to show how it would work with the visual identity.

[East Plate]

Oh man... Seeing a Eurovision thread receiving this little love makes me sad...

Anyways... I feel like this year is turning up to be quite an interesting edition. So far, most of the selected songs sound quite good, and I enjoy listening to several of them. I am usually a sucker for ballads, so there is no surprise that I absolutely adore the songs from Estonia and Italy, although, if I am honest, I think that at this point Italy can literally send a barking dog and I'll love them. I do not recall having ever placed them outside my top 10 since I started following Eurovision. This year, with Marco Mengoni as their singer, I believe it is virtually impossible for them to not be my overall favourite. I've been following Marco's music for a long time now, and I am genuinely biased towards whatever he produces.

The Spanish song is truly beautiful and captivating, with a lot of cultural elements that make it a song that literally only Spain could send to the contest. Slovenia's song is very fun to watch, and also very catchy, and so is Malta's song. Latvia's song is basically made for me. I really like that type of music, and it is very similar to what I would be listening to on a daily basis. Romania, Albania, Ukraine, Belgium, Ireland and Denmark all have meh songs in my opinion, I do not dislike them, but I would not listen to them outside of Eurovision either. Norway's song is nice to listen to... once or twice. It gets annoying really fast.

Finally, Czechia's song sounds nice, and it has a nice message behind it (even if it was not exactly well received by Ukrainians from what I have seen). It is not exactly what I want to see in Eurovision, as I do not want it to become filled with pro-Ukraine songs, but I'll take it, as it is subtle enough and could be interpreted to be an average female empowerment song, rather a love letter to Ukraine. Croatia, on the other hand... I do not even know what to think of it. It is clearly a political song, and I do not think it is even trying to hide it, and it is performed by a very provoking band that wants to get a reaction from people, either positive or negative. I can't wait to see what the EBU will do with it. They disqualified Belarus in 2021 for very similar reasons, the difference being that pretty much everyone agreed that the song had to be disqualified because it was pro-Lukashenko, while now it is an anti-Putin, or at least, a pro-Ukraine song, so everyone pretty much supports their message. I really wouldn't want to be the guy in charge of things having to deal with this decision, considering the immense amount of backlash this could easily generate if dealt with incorrectly.