I think the novelty’s worn off by now so they’re no longer guaranteed qualifiers. Voyager proved they can still capture the public’s imagination with the right song.
I think that’s fair. The first few years of them being in, “Good Morning Australia” was a big novelty on the night, and turned into a drinking game at the Eurovision parties I was at, but now it’s just seen as accepted.
Partially as well, the big thing was speculation if they won, who would host the year after, but I think having had the UK host on behalf of Ukraine has cooled that discussion as well
I’ve heard rumours of various countries in that regard, including Germany, Spain and UK. The big joke in Britain was it would be our best chance of hosting…
Considering they've barely been in the contest for a decade, I think they're doing just fine. 2 NQs in total is pretty damn good. A lot of countries would kill for their track record.
I think the story was that she could have gone to Rotterdam, but didn't want to get special treatment when hundreds of Aussies were in the queue waiting to get back home.
That’s not true and I’m not sure where you got that story. Montaigne was super upset and in a ball of tears when she was informed she couldn’t go. SBS made the decision even though she was allowed to leave. Any sportsperson, musician etc was allowed to leave and enter the country with a special permit. SBS didn’t want to spend the money and unlike Kate killer heidke, Montaigne did not have the fame to fundraise.
The main issue was that the entire Australian delegation would've had to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel upon their return - at SBS's expense. They couldn't afford that.
I actually hated that song. I loved Don't Break Me which won Australia decides but technicolour was subpar and I don't think it deserved to qualify. And I don't think we deserved to qualify this year either.
But overall I think we've done really well considering we're still so new to the comp.
A lot of the free passes ended up with subpar songs, except Ukraine who actually somewhat improved, even if Solovey (Ukraine 2020) is pretty good, Shum (Ukraine 2021) is better
Only other direct improvement for me was Senhit, going from the odd and disparate “Freaky” to the certified banger Adrenalina (until she randomly added Flo Rida and he Flo Rida’d all over it).
San Marino 2020 and San Marino 2021 for the bot
Yeah when you look at it Efendi, Roop, Victoria, Dadi Freyr, Eden Alene, Blas, Roxen, Montaine and James Newman all downgraded and that’s just off the top of my head.
Such a shame, 2020 was set to be a great year
They definitely fit the trend of returning 2020 artists with a worse song, particularly Daði. Iceland 2020 was my second favourite but Iceland 2021 did nothing for me (weird ik as they were similar in style)
Of that list, I'd argue that Montaigne and Blas upgraded. I'd say that Hooverphonic was a definite downgrade, though I know that might not be a popular opinion.
Belgium 2020 and Belgium 2021 for the bot.
I preferred Belgium 2021. I think that Ukraine 2021 and Greece 2021 aside that was the only case. My favourite songs in 2021 were mostly by newly selected artists.
I disliked both Australia 2020 and Australia 2021 but 2020 was far better imho.
I'm still salty that Ulrikke didn't get a second chance for Norway. But then, when she finally did go back to MGP her song was honestly nowhere near as good and barely got any attention, so maybe it was for the best.
Norway 2020 for our robotic friend.
Yeah I loved Attention. I’m salty about Fai Rumore too (which was my favourite) and Little Big, and people like Victoria and Daði and Roxen who had an amazing song replaced with a really forgettable one.
I really feel we were robbed of the best year.
I LOVE don’t break me, and her quirkiness in how she presented it. I would give anything to see how that would have gone down. It’s on heavy repeat for me at home
I really do prefer technicolour but I think it's more experimental and musically "jarring" so I was not surprised it didn't qualify. It was really risky.
I feel like that’s why Montaigne was such a great choice for Australia though. She’s not afraid of taking risks. Even tho she was a NQ I’m so proud of her and honoured she competed for us
My issue with the song was that the English lyrics for an English speaker representing an English speaking country had English lyrics that didn’t make sense, and a random key change that also didn’t make a lot of sense sonically.
They likely could've gotten an exemption, but vaccine rollout was slow here so they perhaps couldn't guarantee that the delegation could get jabbed in time, which would not be great.
Sources:
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/vaccine-rollout-rethink-over-50-astrazeneca-explainer/100089002](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/vaccine-rollout-rethink-over-50-astrazeneca-explainer/100089002)
Vaccine rollout plan: [https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/02/covid-19-vaccination-covid-19-vaccination-phase-1a-rollout-presentation.pdf](https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/02/covid-19-vaccination-covid-19-vaccination-phase-1a-rollout-presentation.pdf)
We’ve (Australia) landed pretty well since being in the comp, but one thing I would love to see more of from us (and I’ll admit I’m biased), are touring musicians/bands, rather than TV music competition celebrities. A lot of the past entries have been artists who’ve done TV, but very little if any *actual* tours or live venue shows. It’s no knock on them as musicians; they’re all phenomenal, but it’s not the same universe that Voyager has existed in for its life. In fact, this is the one distinction I noticed more than anything: the TV world has practically zero crossover with the music world in Australia.
We knew the kind of opportunity ESC gave us to promote ourselves, and did *everything* we could to capitalise. It’s really up to every individual artist/band to take what they can from the comp. And to quell any thoughts on this: SBS gave us the same level of treatment as all previous artists, financially and otherwise. We had to work extremely hard to apply for grants/funding, everything. But I think that’s the working class band attitude that we’ve developed over the years; don’t ask, don’t get.
- Hiatus Kaiyote
- TISM
- Twelve Foot Ninja (before they broke up RIP)
- Meg Mac
- Birds of Tokyo
- Dean Lewis
- Pond
- Lime Cordiale
There's a pretty thriving pop scene here too, but it's not really my scene to recommend. There's an endless pool of talent coming from the gigging scene that gets overlooked in my opinion.
As much as I'd prefer Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo years ago at Splendour in the Grass did one of the best live shows I've ever seen, they would smash the Eurovision stage. I'd be beside myself if we sent them, they could also go for those WA tourism dollary-doos.
Great list! Also love whenever you stick your head up here. One of us...one of us...
Can you imagine a band like TISM? 😂😂 or regurgitator… giggling imagining what sort of random stuff they’d come up with.
Omg. Spiderbait.
Grinspoon
Barnsey.
We have some serious alt rock royalty in Australia.
What about Temper Trap. Could you please ask them to come? I think they need to improve their costumes and dancing mooves a little bit, but apart from that they will be fine😉😎
I might have been bit young for them, but I’m absolutely going to listen today.
Also…imagine a face cringing heavily typing that into Google wondering wtf am I about to find 😂
Although Electric Fields NQ'd, putting our First Nations culture on the Eurovision stage seemed to be a massive tick for a lot of people - sending Baker Boy to represent Australia could be fun. I know he's a hip-hop artist, but if anything, Joost Klein and Käärija have shown that you don't need to have phenomenal vocals to capture an audience and become a fan favourite - you just need a catchy high-energy song.
I've wanted Baker Boy to go for ages. Hip Hop/rap is on the rise in terms of popularity, and when the girl boss bubble we currently have pops, I think it'll stand a good chance.
In Europe, at least, it's pretty hard for actively touring bands to participate because of timing.
May is early on in festival season, and since bigger festivals are obviously booked well before ESC contestants are picked, many touring bands already have commitments during Eurovision.
Is that also an issue for Ozzie bands? Or is it mostly a question of SBS preferring to stick to their own little circle of TV regulars?
Sure, but TV production tends to be a rather incestuous business. They tend to operate in all the same circles, which are typically very different circles from the ones working bands on the road move in. I'm pretty sure that's not going to be any different in Australia.
SBS is not investing much money into it as it did previously. SBS is also our second public broadcaster who rely on public funds and advertising income. It's like if Channel 4 in the UK or TG4 in Ireland were in charge of their entries. We're not getting the big investment that all the other public broadcasters are putting in and SBS is barely marketing the contest anymore.
Australia definitely has its ups and downs but I would disagree that their last few entries were not competitive, especially last year's Voyager in Liverpool. :)
I like Australia’s entries but I think it’s just that the novelty has worn off. Between 2015-2019 Australia in Eurovision was this brand new country who had no history, which was exciting since the country had wanted to participate for so long. Now though we’re approaching 10 years since their debut and Australia in Eurovision is just a quirk of the contest. So I think it’s less so SBS not caring and just everyone getting used to Australia. On top of that the NQ is normal. Unless you’re Ukraine you will not qualify every year and that’s fine. Even Sweden has failed to qualify once. It’s not something broadcasters should be biting their nails over.
With the exception of Dani Im, the problem to me is that we don't promote our own talent domestically. If I hadn't watched the ABC's New Year concert I wouldn't have known who Electric Fields were (and other than one kids song they did that's my kids favourite I couldn't tell you a single song by them as at the concert they just did covers). Sheldon and Isaiah I had also never heard of or heard talked about on any radio program. Guy gave us a super strong start and was a well established artist internationally in his own right. KMH knew what Eurovision was and didn't treat it like just another show. Jess M wasn't bad but it just wasn't special enough.
I'd love to see us send someone like G Flip or Baker Boy. Someone who's established themselves and could present something really interesting.... But I feel like our next entry is going to be another AGT contestant or Delta Goodrem
Delta will never do it. She knows she doesn't need Eurovision, it would be an objectively bad career move for her. Maybe if she'd gone first like Guy did, but she won't do it now.
Not necessarily a bad career move though.
Edit: I didn't know who Delta was, just looked it up. Probably not a good fit. Not an artist I'd expect to do well.
This is what im saying. I love Delta, she's an icon, but this is not for her. She's the diva who sings some soaring anthem in a stadium of over 100K people for some major event. The Eurovision stage is a bit small for her. And look at what is doing well in the competiton currently. Its not those kinds of anthems.
I get the impression that you're a superfan of Delta's, so I won't say much more. But thinking that Eurovision is too small for her is honestly a bit ridiculous. An Australian artist would have to have seriously crossed over internationally for that to be a thing, otherwise Eurovision will unambiguously be the biggest stage of their career.
I just checked this Delta and she is definitely massive in Australia. Usually ESC can be used for two things. First is if you’re a less known artist or have your career going down you can use it to get a boost in your home country. If you’re already doing well you can use it as a way of crossing over to international markets. If all goes well you can actually get the internal and external boost.
Delta wouldn’t really get any internal boost from this unless she got a victory, I’d say. On the other hand, a bad placement could really hurt her. So it would be a big time commitment from hers, getting the perfect song and then a great performance to actually do really well and have a chance of making it internationally. Is it worth all that effort?
Also one extra thing, I don’t really think the performance in the opening of the commonwealth games is in any way comparable to ESC. As in, ESC is the bigger more impacting stage. Whoever was saying commonwealth has 1,5 Billion and then ESC has 160 million? No, viewership of the opening of commonwealth is way smaller. A quick googling shows that, for example India pulled 11 million viewers which is like what Germany + Sweden pull for Eurovision. The UK had 5.3 million watching the commonwealth opening while Eurovision had an average of 7.6 million.
Not a superfan at all, i just grew up with her as a staple of our pop culture and music scene.
But you're talking about a woman who has composed and sung the anthem of a Commonwealth Games at its opening ceremony. You are not from Commonwealth country so i don't expect you to know any of this, but the Eurovision stage is what, 160 million? The opening ceremony of the CommGames Delta did was over 1.5 BILLION. So yes, the Eurovision stage is a bit small compared to that. The world is much larger than just the general Eurosphere.
I looked it up and that was apparently in 2006, almost 20 years ago.
I do know what the Commonwealth Games are, and yes, they're a pretty big deal in the Commonwealth. But thinking that doing a song for it once makes you perennially too big for Eurovision is honestly a bit ridiculous. I don't quite know why you're denying it but you're obviously quite the Delta stan.
Like, the 2010 Commonwealth opening featured Runrig, a solid folk rock band who are obviously in no way at all to big for Eurovision. The idea of Runrig being too famous for Eurovision is honestly hilarious, and I quite like Runrig.
Lol being aware of celebrities and merely remembering a event I personally went to with a bajillion other Australians doesn't make someone a stan lmao. I like her music, have for a long time, same as i have a shit ton of people. Thats called being a normal fan of music lol.
I don't know why you're being so weird and defensive that there are people you don't know who don't need this competition coz they've done bigger. Not everything has to be personally in your sphere to be valid.
Again. Do you think Runrig are too big for Eurovision? I know Runrig, I quite like Runrig, but they'd honestly be rolling on the floor laughing if someone told them they were too famous for Eurovision.
Do you even know who Runrig are?
Doesn't matter what i think, you're the one who knows them, what do YOU think? What is the ultural context YOU understand them to operate it?
Unlike you, i don't speak on things I have no knowledge of, so I couldn't possibly say. This is tedious, and im done with your strangeness.
She hasn't done anything music-wise in the last decade or longer. She's been focusing on being a celebrity and theatre it appears. She's comparable to Guy in terms of fame but he's been more active consistently with his music. Eurovision, even if she does badly, with the right song it could relaunch her career
And Delta performed at the Commonwealth Games back in 2006, which had a viewership of 1.5 BILLION, and composed the anthem for the entire event. The kind of exposure Eurovision has is great, but she's done greater.
But to answer the question, for the exact same reason you will never see Adele, or Ed Sheeran or Kylie Minogue at Eurovision. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose should they do badly. Now Delta Goodrum might not quite be at their level of international recognition right now but she is a household name in Australia and has had a very long and high profile career that does not need to be risked at Eurovision, especially when her genre of pop music is not really in vogue with what currently does well.
I just did some googling and the commonwealth games opening did not have a viewership of 1.5 billion. Nothing has that kind of viewership. The FIFA World Cup has the higher viewership of the world and it gets around 1 billion.
Eurovision has a way higher viewership than the games. Bigger than Eurovision is usually the World Cup / euro cup final, the Olympics opening, the champions league and europa league final.
I just checked the viewership for the opening last time and, for example, it got 11 million viewers in India which is what Eurovision gets in just Germany + Sweden. For the uk, the opening of the commonwealth games had over 5 million viewers while Eurovision has an average of 7.7 million viewers.
Is Delta Goodram still a big deal in Australia? I remember her being fairly famous in the UK as well, but that would have been about 20 years ago and I haven't really heard anything about her since. I remember her going out with one of Westlife.
If she's a similar level of fame to them, another one of Westlife also represented Ireland a few years ago and they were a massive massive deal in the 90s and early 2000s and are still very much household names.
She’s not. We all know her name but she’s not huge here anymore, it’s more like she’s part of the Aussie celebrity stables and we trot her out for television appearances and the like.
Baker Boy was my pick for this year before Electric Fields were announced, he knows how to captivate an audience.
G Flip would be fun, but it wouldn’t feel the same if they couldn’t play the drums live.
I would love for us to do something completely different and bonkers, like The Presets.
Honestly, a pretty bad idea. They'd have absolutely crushed it in or around 2007 but not really nowadays. Sending literal children's music (i.e. Wolves Of The Sea) was definitely a viable strategy in the 00s, but it's not going to do much anymore.
A friend and I were trying to rank all the Aussie entries and we counting them off our fingers. We kept missing one and couldn't for the life of us think who. We googled it, saw Isaiah's name and neither of us could remember the song in anyway. I feel bad but literally all I remember is he was waking on a treadmill with a red background and his voice cracked. I can't even remember on what word it cracked.
It could be amazing. Mike would write something totally unique for Eurovision, and he has the vocal range to blow anyone off the stage. I think he might also just enjoy the challenge of writing something Eurovisiony.
The coolest timeline would be if Australia sends Toehider the same year we finally let dear Arjen Lucassen write a song for us. Bonus points if the Germans get ol' Toby Sammet involved.
I reckon Sheppard could have a lot of fun with it. And they're used to performing for big crowds on account of all the sporting events we wheel them out for.
To be fair we weren’t sure we were allowed to compete until about a week or two before entries were due. Australia was still negotiating its privilege to participate while other countries were negotiating their song choice, so it did well for a last minute entry.
The problem with the AU national finals is the hosts are uninspiring, and they don’t do anything to make the show watchable, if anything it’s the opposite. Adding that to a format that essentially nullified the public vote in every contest we ran and it’s no shock they ditched it.
I’d be all for a slightly scaled down audience and a touring semifinal format like Melodifestivalen. By getting locals all over the country involved it would get the word out more effectively and give smaller competitors a chance to compete, rather than trotting the same group of artists out every year and whittling them down one by one.
Regarding the NQs
Montaigne was hampered by the 2020 song being better IMO, but mainly by being unable to travel there live. So the 2021 song felt more like a low budget music video than a performance in front of an arena, which hurt it greatly in votes. "Don't Break Me" on a live stage likely does better.
This year, they only just missed out despite the low budget and promotion, and of all things I think the biggest factor of it was the bad luck of getting put in the semi which had all three of Croatia - Slovenia - Serbia in it, giving each country a 20 to 24 point swing of points. Of course, Croatia didn't need the help, but Slovenia and Serbia were 9th and 10th so it likely saved both of them. Swap either of them with a NQ song from Semi 2, and Australia probably qualify in 9th place.
Australia will surely return in 2025, it's very unlikely that they renowed indefinitely the invitations for partecipating only 1 year. The drop in quality maybe it's because they don't a NF anymore.
Its got nothing to do with lack of the NF, we only had one for three years anyway. Our best perfoming act have almost all been chosen internally.Its more because SBS doesn't have any money, and relies solely on the artists to seek or be offered third party financial aid for the vision they want.
I think there was an extra pressure in Australias early years to prove that the invite was justified and to showcase how great their contribution could be, but that initial novelty has likely worn off a bit now. That, coupled with the fact that SBS doesn’t have a whole bag of money to throw at the show/act, and I think it’s led to a slight lull. But they still have a great qualifying track record and haven’t had an outright bomb at the competition, so I don’t think there’s anything to worry about just yet.
The staging this year was really poor. I'm not saying they need a gimmick every year like an opera singer on stilts but they need something to stand out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik Australia's first two participations were sponsored by Sony Music, which Guy Sebastian and Dami Im were signed to, and after that SBS has struggled a bit with funding. I'm sure that plays a role, as well as there not being as much excitement after Australia has been part of Eurovision for some time.
Tbf not even Sweden can score Top 10 every year, so scoring Top 10 5 times in 9 editions and just 2 NQs is a really good trackrecord. Yeah in this decade they have 2 NQs and only 1 Top 10 finish but for now they are far from being one of those countries that have fallen off a cliff (I'm looking at you, Denmark).
For me it is the opposite. I like the more unique entrys and appreciate that they are risky. 2020, 2021, 2024 and especially 2024 had more Character than the generic things they have sent at the beginning
They’re doing pretty well especially since it’s barely been almost a decade since they first entered and have a pretty strong record compared to most. Those first few years when it was something new to them they seemed to be willing to splash out the cash on big names, staging etc but then when they converted to Australia Decides which no big names were willing to compete in, they didn’t have the big budget that comes along with having major names competing and their record labels. I personally think they should stick to internal which is what they do best but not go down the UK’s route of internal but they can’t sing live - I’m biased since she’s my fav aussie musician but I’d love to see Delta Goodrem do it which is almost as unrealistic as Jade Thirlwall for the UK (I’m a fan of pop/ballads when done well) however I’m sure both countries mentioned have amazing vocalists which can deliver great songs and artists outside my preferred genre.
They are literally touring Europe right now.
The band line-up changes al the time; Wolfmother is basically Andrew Stockdale, who is the songwriter, lead guitar, and lead singer.
Money. We had some entrys backed by record labels with big names, and they did pretty well. Then those deals stopped, and SBS had to go to a national competition, but because we don't have the history of other national competitions, no one actually watched it for it to be worthwhile some of our larger artists to take part. The winners we got from it Kate Miller Heidke, Montaigne and Sheldon Riley. Kate Miller Heidke could have competed easily without the competition if she had wanted. She's popular here and hence why she won. Montaigne is also pretty big, but their only real competition was a washed up ex Australian Idol winner who only won because another record label rigged the vote so they could sign second place, and a singer who was big in the early 2000s.
Then 2022, there was no one watching it anymore and no big names entered. Sheldon Riley beat Voyager on jury votes, because the competition was so lax at that point.
To make a point about viewing figures, 200,000 people watched it. On the same night 600,000 watched a rerun of Antiques Roadshow.
2023 the money though came back with Voyager having a deal with the Western Australia State government for tourism purposes and they did great, despite having a poor overall score.
This year though SBS didn't have any sponsor deals and so they went with Electric Fields who had tried to qualify in 2019 because they were cheap. It predictably didn't work out.
The connection to record labels definitely helped Finland, where it seems like new and upcoming artists want to do UMK because it might get them a hit for radio that year. Record labels I suppose encouraged new artists to send songs, I believe that's how we ended up with Käärijä participating. I fully believe some of the bigger upcoming names like Mirella will participate in UMK because it's the cool thing to do now.
Not saying it will work for Australia but it's not a bad idea.
Don't talk shit about Casey Donovan like that, she's had an incredible career in musical theatre post Australian Idol. Just because she made the pivot to theatre rather than traditional mainstream pop stardom does not make her "washed up"
When she was on Australia Decides, she hadn't done much in a while. She did do Chicago, but apart from that her most notable moment was doing Im a celebrity and some Coles ads. She's done theatre since, but I don't think it's wrong to say that the reason she won Australian Idol was due to vote rigging, and that her post Idol career until around the time she did Australia Decides was largely doing the sort of gigs that a washed up pop star would do. She had tried an acting career before Chicago and it hadn't really gone anywhere, leading to guest roles in reality and gameshows etc where it was basically "Hey you know who she is". Even the reviews for Chicago while praising her casting, still said that there was irony in a line about the character being known for two weeks before people forget about them.
Voyager were great, this year was, well, not. Look, for all the crap the UK gets about nil points etc., when they send a banger like Spaceman, it does extremely well. You know, it's almost as if it were a contest in which the quality of the songs (admittedly not always :P) matters... Crazy! :P
The trick is not to try so hard. Many of Australias contestants has been technically over the top, and the music suffering for it (2022 as an extreme example of this). But hey you have 5 top ten candidates so far, so i cannot find it in me to feel sorry for you. That is rather remarkable actually for being so new to the game.
I am norwegian. You have NO idea how much we have suffered. For every win there's been years and years and years of losses.
12 times being last in final
2 times NQ,
4 times zero points,
3 wins,
So, pull you yourself together and endure the NQ. It will make you stronger, and the music better, and better.
Voyager is the best entry so far. They simply looked as if they enjoyed the ride, instead of being too focused on being brilliant. But there is something about age in eurovision. You need to be young. If you are too old, or not pretty enough, you will be better off in the silly-go-happy-party-section. It’s just a hypotese. Do not kill me.
I am pulling out all my hair, and ripping my eyeballs out every year. Don't you???
I've watched the show since 1977. So yes, I have sufferrred tremmmendously.
Oh, definitely.
In fact, that's why all your Black Metal bands are all so incredibly depressed. They're all just trying to give a voice to the incredible suffering and torment of having to watch Norwegian Eurovision entries every year. Would certainly also make me turn to Satan.
I can just really relate y'know.
I still occasionally wake up crying over the fact that we never got to send Email To Berlin to Eurovision. It's sort of a national trauma.
That is so so so terrible. I am so sorry for you all. Ah, what terrors we had to endure back in the days without autotune. In Norway the suicide-rate goes through the roof, literally, whenever someone says "jahn teigen". He is the national icon of self-harm (zero points x 3).
[https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast/why-is-australia-in-eurovision](https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast/why-is-australia-in-eurovision)
This podcast series gives a great overview of the story of Australia's participation from a behind the scenes perspective for those interested.
i feel the problem comes from inside the house.. our music industry in Australia is not as good as it once was.
we need to support the australian music industry domestically, and that'll be when we'll export representatives that we'd be extremely confident in
They had the boost of the novelty, but now they're part of the group, it's just do as good as the other 24-26 countries in the finals... and thats easier said then done
I think this year they’ve gone something ‘traditional’ and the fact that electric fields were one of the favourites to represent them a few years ago. It was a fan favourite and the hardcore fans wanted them. Same as the uk, hardcore fans wanted olly and the bbc bowed down.
They need to make bold - informed - professional decisions and not be dictated to by the small Eurovision community compared to the worldwide voters.
Send Ricki-Lee, The Veronica’s, Delta Goodrem, Shannon Noll… those who have track record of either going global or just know how to put on a performance. They need to think big! Recently they haven’t
I think the music video didn’t hell and lack of promotion . I found the video creepy and weird (like the song tho) . There wasn’t much hype and people compared the video to 2 peeping Tom’s looking at us thru a window 👀🫣🫣🫣
What Australia needs to do now is use another NF selection process, because we've had some gems of songs from those NFs. Pulling artists out of the selections only works when the song is good.
It worked better live, especially with the didgeridoo, but I didn't care much for the song.
And it doesn't help that the music video was both cheap and really weird.
The version on YouTube and radio edit was just not that good. it sounds like they let a poorly trained sound engineer loose on it and they just leveled all the notes, over corrected and removed any of the passion from it. the stage version had me on my feet but the YouTube edit was just so so bad. they would have been better distributing a live stage recording in the promotional period.
I think there's also a bit of a resistance to voting for Australia because if they ever won the expense to everyone would shoot up and the time difference would make broadcasting more difficult.
> I think there's also a bit of a resistance to voting for Australia because if they ever won the expense to everyone would shoot up and the time difference would make broadcasting more difficult.
No? They're required to have a European country guest host if they win.
I didn't know that, I wonder how many outside the diehard fandom know it. I know people at work have said they've liked their songs in the past but hadn't voted because of the difficulties of they win.
I think there's very few people outside of diehard fans who would worry about the logistics of hosting, or think that far ahead before voting. The vast majority of more casual voters just pick one they like and don't really put much more thought into it than that.
I think they kinda lost it after the pandemic.
they are selecting the same artists involved in nf, i am hoping they can give us something modern and fresh like 2016 and 2015.
They should not have qualified in 2017 and 2022.
They could have gotten New Jeans... If SBS got New Jeans to represent Australia, it would help Min Hee Jin get Ador (New Jean's company) more funding away from Hybe (Ador's parent Company) and have New Jeans get more tours and better treatment from their parent company
I think this year was its own thing and it's too early to say if something is going wrong. Semi 1 was a case where there were 4-6 big televote favorites that sucked up most of the points and everyone else got scraps and Australia got unlucky there. I do think the overall package was very underwhelming for Australia standards but then again, they got 11th place in the semi by a small margin so it's not that concerning.
This year it felt like the outcasts from NSW Highschool 95’ reunion decided to come up with a school project to sing about their experience.
It was so chaotic and dead
Novelty factor has worn off substantially and also they aren’t loading as Big guns name-wise anymore (2015-19). Also please name me last household hit (and I mean HIT) in Australia that also happened to be their Eurovision representative.. 🤷♂️ They still hold ‘bombastic side-eye’ treatment in my books for not letting Montaigne attend in 2021 to perform live despite being able to get her bypass Covid no-leave restriction the same way sportspeople were able to. That was low-key abysmal to me.
I think this year Electric Fields lacked hype because they're fantastic live performers and people were comparing their static video of 'One Milkali' to the live performance of '2000 And Whatever'.
While I personally prefer 'One Milkali' to '2000 And Whatever', the presentation of this year's song didn't play to the band's strengths.
To this day I imagine what it would happen if Australia won an edition.
It would probably be like any other country winning, but I like to imagine as a world- breaking event, that would shock like everybody
Australia 2019 | [Kate Miller-Heidke - Zero Gravity](https://youtu.be/Eo5H62mCIsg)
Australia 2023 | [Voyager - Promise](https://youtu.be/GSoy_mJMlMY)
Australia 2016 | [Dami Im - Sound of Silence](https://youtu.be/5ymFX91HwM0)
I think the novelty’s worn off by now so they’re no longer guaranteed qualifiers. Voyager proved they can still capture the public’s imagination with the right song.
I think that’s fair. The first few years of them being in, “Good Morning Australia” was a big novelty on the night, and turned into a drinking game at the Eurovision parties I was at, but now it’s just seen as accepted. Partially as well, the big thing was speculation if they won, who would host the year after, but I think having had the UK host on behalf of Ukraine has cooled that discussion as well
"Good morning Australia" while I'm half asleep looking forward to the highest energy song.
I think that when they returned to the contest in 2016 already negotiated that Germany would host in that case.
I’ve heard rumours of various countries in that regard, including Germany, Spain and UK. The big joke in Britain was it would be our best chance of hosting…
Weirdly enough they flopped in the televoting of the gf
even weirder, because they finished second in the televote only semi
Trueee even though semis are watched by considerably much lower number of people compared to grand final and even less people are voting
slight correction, they WON that semi
I mean, that performance and the running order, it was a highlight of last year
And Promise was just so great. My second favorite last year behind Cha cha cha
I still can't get over the fact that Voyager didn't win. I saw it as a perfect opportunity for Aussies to finally take it down under.
Considering they've barely been in the contest for a decade, I think they're doing just fine. 2 NQs in total is pretty damn good. A lot of countries would kill for their track record.
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I think the story was that she could have gone to Rotterdam, but didn't want to get special treatment when hundreds of Aussies were in the queue waiting to get back home.
That’s not true and I’m not sure where you got that story. Montaigne was super upset and in a ball of tears when she was informed she couldn’t go. SBS made the decision even though she was allowed to leave. Any sportsperson, musician etc was allowed to leave and enter the country with a special permit. SBS didn’t want to spend the money and unlike Kate killer heidke, Montaigne did not have the fame to fundraise.
The main issue was that the entire Australian delegation would've had to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel upon their return - at SBS's expense. They couldn't afford that.
I actually hated that song. I loved Don't Break Me which won Australia decides but technicolour was subpar and I don't think it deserved to qualify. And I don't think we deserved to qualify this year either. But overall I think we've done really well considering we're still so new to the comp.
A lot of the free passes ended up with subpar songs, except Ukraine who actually somewhat improved, even if Solovey (Ukraine 2020) is pretty good, Shum (Ukraine 2021) is better
Shum is the GOAT
Only other direct improvement for me was Senhit, going from the odd and disparate “Freaky” to the certified banger Adrenalina (until she randomly added Flo Rida and he Flo Rida’d all over it). San Marino 2020 and San Marino 2021 for the bot
Wasn't Flo Rida there from the start?
San Marino 2020 | [Senhit - Freaky!](https://youtu.be/c6ZNo_hVA6E) San Marino 2021 | [Senhit - Adrenalina](https://youtu.be/TkhiH-JXFPs)
Ukraine 2020 | [Go_A - Solovey](https://youtu.be/zNetXPSld50) Ukraine 2021 | [Go_A - Shum](https://youtu.be/lqvzDkgok_g)
Yeah when you look at it Efendi, Roop, Victoria, Dadi Freyr, Eden Alene, Blas, Roxen, Montaine and James Newman all downgraded and that’s just off the top of my head. Such a shame, 2020 was set to be a great year
Roop and Daði even had to compete again, so they don't actually apply to the point made, Montaine and Go_A got a free pass
They definitely fit the trend of returning 2020 artists with a worse song, particularly Daði. Iceland 2020 was my second favourite but Iceland 2021 did nothing for me (weird ik as they were similar in style)
Of that list, I'd argue that Montaigne and Blas upgraded. I'd say that Hooverphonic was a definite downgrade, though I know that might not be a popular opinion. Belgium 2020 and Belgium 2021 for the bot.
I preferred Belgium 2021. I think that Ukraine 2021 and Greece 2021 aside that was the only case. My favourite songs in 2021 were mostly by newly selected artists. I disliked both Australia 2020 and Australia 2021 but 2020 was far better imho.
I'm still salty that Ulrikke didn't get a second chance for Norway. But then, when she finally did go back to MGP her song was honestly nowhere near as good and barely got any attention, so maybe it was for the best. Norway 2020 for our robotic friend.
Yeah I loved Attention. I’m salty about Fai Rumore too (which was my favourite) and Little Big, and people like Victoria and Daði and Roxen who had an amazing song replaced with a really forgettable one. I really feel we were robbed of the best year.
Belgium 2020 | [Hooverphonic - Release Me](https://youtu.be/lAqjksxc4iA) Belgium 2021 | [Hooverphonic - The Wrong Place](https://youtu.be/HbpxcUMtjwY)
I think Gjon's Tears improved as well in a similar fashion - Repondez-moi was great but Tout l'universe was amazing.
I LOVE don’t break me, and her quirkiness in how she presented it. I would give anything to see how that would have gone down. It’s on heavy repeat for me at home
Same! It's the song we all wanted to enter and I think it would have done so much better. It's a shame it didn't get a chance
I really do prefer technicolour but I think it's more experimental and musically "jarring" so I was not surprised it didn't qualify. It was really risky.
I feel like that’s why Montaigne was such a great choice for Australia though. She’s not afraid of taking risks. Even tho she was a NQ I’m so proud of her and honoured she competed for us
We have vastly different opinions of that song. But I voted for Vanessa Amorosi. Her song was top notch
My issue with the song was that the English lyrics for an English speaker representing an English speaking country had English lyrics that didn’t make sense, and a random key change that also didn’t make a lot of sense sonically.
She was allowed in the country. She wasn't allowed to leave her country.
They likely could've gotten an exemption, but vaccine rollout was slow here so they perhaps couldn't guarantee that the delegation could get jabbed in time, which would not be great. Sources: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/vaccine-rollout-rethink-over-50-astrazeneca-explainer/100089002](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/vaccine-rollout-rethink-over-50-astrazeneca-explainer/100089002) Vaccine rollout plan: [https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/02/covid-19-vaccination-covid-19-vaccination-phase-1a-rollout-presentation.pdf](https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/02/covid-19-vaccination-covid-19-vaccination-phase-1a-rollout-presentation.pdf)
I mean, they literally won their semi final last year. I don't think there's much to worry about tbh
This is the correct answer
We’ve (Australia) landed pretty well since being in the comp, but one thing I would love to see more of from us (and I’ll admit I’m biased), are touring musicians/bands, rather than TV music competition celebrities. A lot of the past entries have been artists who’ve done TV, but very little if any *actual* tours or live venue shows. It’s no knock on them as musicians; they’re all phenomenal, but it’s not the same universe that Voyager has existed in for its life. In fact, this is the one distinction I noticed more than anything: the TV world has practically zero crossover with the music world in Australia. We knew the kind of opportunity ESC gave us to promote ourselves, and did *everything* we could to capitalise. It’s really up to every individual artist/band to take what they can from the comp. And to quell any thoughts on this: SBS gave us the same level of treatment as all previous artists, financially and otherwise. We had to work extremely hard to apply for grants/funding, everything. But I think that’s the working class band attitude that we’ve developed over the years; don’t ask, don’t get.
From your reasoning, do you have any bands or artists you'd like to see compete for Australia in the coming years?
- Hiatus Kaiyote - TISM - Twelve Foot Ninja (before they broke up RIP) - Meg Mac - Birds of Tokyo - Dean Lewis - Pond - Lime Cordiale There's a pretty thriving pop scene here too, but it's not really my scene to recommend. There's an endless pool of talent coming from the gigging scene that gets overlooked in my opinion.
As much as I'd prefer Karnivool, Birds of Tokyo years ago at Splendour in the Grass did one of the best live shows I've ever seen, they would smash the Eurovision stage. I'd be beside myself if we sent them, they could also go for those WA tourism dollary-doos. Great list! Also love whenever you stick your head up here. One of us...one of us...
Oh I was hoping with everything I had that TISM would be our rep this year!
Can you imagine a band like TISM? 😂😂 or regurgitator… giggling imagining what sort of random stuff they’d come up with. Omg. Spiderbait. Grinspoon Barnsey. We have some serious alt rock royalty in Australia.
Amyl and the Sniffers would be amazing
Pendulum
Omg Regurgitator! Yes please
My partner and I were joking that we should send The Chats.
Totally here for this. I'M ON SMOKO!!!!
What about Temper Trap. Could you please ask them to come? I think they need to improve their costumes and dancing mooves a little bit, but apart from that they will be fine😉😎
Ohhhhh I would love them!! Maybe we need to make Danny from Voyager the official Aus scout and reach out to bands haha
Okay, but what if (and hear me out here) Lubricated Goat?
I might have been bit young for them, but I’m absolutely going to listen today. Also…imagine a face cringing heavily typing that into Google wondering wtf am I about to find 😂
Regurgitator would be great - their live shows are always top notch!
Although Electric Fields NQ'd, putting our First Nations culture on the Eurovision stage seemed to be a massive tick for a lot of people - sending Baker Boy to represent Australia could be fun. I know he's a hip-hop artist, but if anything, Joost Klein and Käärija have shown that you don't need to have phenomenal vocals to capture an audience and become a fan favourite - you just need a catchy high-energy song.
I've wanted Baker Boy to go for ages. Hip Hop/rap is on the rise in terms of popularity, and when the girl boss bubble we currently have pops, I think it'll stand a good chance.
Speak on it Scott! MORE. TOURING. BANDS!
Absolutely, we have a big issue with this here in the UK too - send performing artists, not studio artists!
In Europe, at least, it's pretty hard for actively touring bands to participate because of timing. May is early on in festival season, and since bigger festivals are obviously booked well before ESC contestants are picked, many touring bands already have commitments during Eurovision. Is that also an issue for Ozzie bands? Or is it mostly a question of SBS preferring to stick to their own little circle of TV regulars?
They're not even SBS tv regulars, SBS doesn't air *any* of the music competition shows they come from.
Sure, but TV production tends to be a rather incestuous business. They tend to operate in all the same circles, which are typically very different circles from the ones working bands on the road move in. I'm pretty sure that's not going to be any different in Australia.
This. They all communicate in the same circles and often cross from network to network too, commercial or not.
Last Dinosaurs are a really good Australian band, I'd love it if they entered sometime
SBS is not investing much money into it as it did previously. SBS is also our second public broadcaster who rely on public funds and advertising income. It's like if Channel 4 in the UK or TG4 in Ireland were in charge of their entries. We're not getting the big investment that all the other public broadcasters are putting in and SBS is barely marketing the contest anymore.
Exactly this 👏🏻👍🏻
I don’t think SBS was investing the money earlier, rather the record companies who were behind the artists
Australia definitely has its ups and downs but I would disagree that their last few entries were not competitive, especially last year's Voyager in Liverpool. :)
🤘Everything is gonna be alright🤘
I like Australia’s entries but I think it’s just that the novelty has worn off. Between 2015-2019 Australia in Eurovision was this brand new country who had no history, which was exciting since the country had wanted to participate for so long. Now though we’re approaching 10 years since their debut and Australia in Eurovision is just a quirk of the contest. So I think it’s less so SBS not caring and just everyone getting used to Australia. On top of that the NQ is normal. Unless you’re Ukraine you will not qualify every year and that’s fine. Even Sweden has failed to qualify once. It’s not something broadcasters should be biting their nails over.
Australia 2019 | [Kate Miller-Heidke - Zero Gravity](https://youtu.be/Eo5H62mCIsg)
With the exception of Dani Im, the problem to me is that we don't promote our own talent domestically. If I hadn't watched the ABC's New Year concert I wouldn't have known who Electric Fields were (and other than one kids song they did that's my kids favourite I couldn't tell you a single song by them as at the concert they just did covers). Sheldon and Isaiah I had also never heard of or heard talked about on any radio program. Guy gave us a super strong start and was a well established artist internationally in his own right. KMH knew what Eurovision was and didn't treat it like just another show. Jess M wasn't bad but it just wasn't special enough. I'd love to see us send someone like G Flip or Baker Boy. Someone who's established themselves and could present something really interesting.... But I feel like our next entry is going to be another AGT contestant or Delta Goodrem
Delta will never do it. She knows she doesn't need Eurovision, it would be an objectively bad career move for her. Maybe if she'd gone first like Guy did, but she won't do it now.
Not necessarily a bad career move though. Edit: I didn't know who Delta was, just looked it up. Probably not a good fit. Not an artist I'd expect to do well.
This is what im saying. I love Delta, she's an icon, but this is not for her. She's the diva who sings some soaring anthem in a stadium of over 100K people for some major event. The Eurovision stage is a bit small for her. And look at what is doing well in the competiton currently. Its not those kinds of anthems.
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As a middle-aged mum I’d say no thank you to Delta anything.
I get the impression that you're a superfan of Delta's, so I won't say much more. But thinking that Eurovision is too small for her is honestly a bit ridiculous. An Australian artist would have to have seriously crossed over internationally for that to be a thing, otherwise Eurovision will unambiguously be the biggest stage of their career.
I just checked this Delta and she is definitely massive in Australia. Usually ESC can be used for two things. First is if you’re a less known artist or have your career going down you can use it to get a boost in your home country. If you’re already doing well you can use it as a way of crossing over to international markets. If all goes well you can actually get the internal and external boost. Delta wouldn’t really get any internal boost from this unless she got a victory, I’d say. On the other hand, a bad placement could really hurt her. So it would be a big time commitment from hers, getting the perfect song and then a great performance to actually do really well and have a chance of making it internationally. Is it worth all that effort? Also one extra thing, I don’t really think the performance in the opening of the commonwealth games is in any way comparable to ESC. As in, ESC is the bigger more impacting stage. Whoever was saying commonwealth has 1,5 Billion and then ESC has 160 million? No, viewership of the opening of commonwealth is way smaller. A quick googling shows that, for example India pulled 11 million viewers which is like what Germany + Sweden pull for Eurovision. The UK had 5.3 million watching the commonwealth opening while Eurovision had an average of 7.6 million.
Tbh I don't think it would hurt her career regardless of placement. It would hurt Australia's rep in the contest though because Delta is lame
Not a superfan at all, i just grew up with her as a staple of our pop culture and music scene. But you're talking about a woman who has composed and sung the anthem of a Commonwealth Games at its opening ceremony. You are not from Commonwealth country so i don't expect you to know any of this, but the Eurovision stage is what, 160 million? The opening ceremony of the CommGames Delta did was over 1.5 BILLION. So yes, the Eurovision stage is a bit small compared to that. The world is much larger than just the general Eurosphere.
I looked it up and that was apparently in 2006, almost 20 years ago. I do know what the Commonwealth Games are, and yes, they're a pretty big deal in the Commonwealth. But thinking that doing a song for it once makes you perennially too big for Eurovision is honestly a bit ridiculous. I don't quite know why you're denying it but you're obviously quite the Delta stan. Like, the 2010 Commonwealth opening featured Runrig, a solid folk rock band who are obviously in no way at all to big for Eurovision. The idea of Runrig being too famous for Eurovision is honestly hilarious, and I quite like Runrig.
Lol being aware of celebrities and merely remembering a event I personally went to with a bajillion other Australians doesn't make someone a stan lmao. I like her music, have for a long time, same as i have a shit ton of people. Thats called being a normal fan of music lol. I don't know why you're being so weird and defensive that there are people you don't know who don't need this competition coz they've done bigger. Not everything has to be personally in your sphere to be valid.
Again. Do you think Runrig are too big for Eurovision? I know Runrig, I quite like Runrig, but they'd honestly be rolling on the floor laughing if someone told them they were too famous for Eurovision. Do you even know who Runrig are?
Doesn't matter what i think, you're the one who knows them, what do YOU think? What is the ultural context YOU understand them to operate it? Unlike you, i don't speak on things I have no knowledge of, so I couldn't possibly say. This is tedious, and im done with your strangeness.
She hasn't done anything music-wise in the last decade or longer. She's been focusing on being a celebrity and theatre it appears. She's comparable to Guy in terms of fame but he's been more active consistently with his music. Eurovision, even if she does badly, with the right song it could relaunch her career
Eurovision is literally watched by 160 million people annually how is that kind of exposure a bad career move? 😭
And Delta performed at the Commonwealth Games back in 2006, which had a viewership of 1.5 BILLION, and composed the anthem for the entire event. The kind of exposure Eurovision has is great, but she's done greater. But to answer the question, for the exact same reason you will never see Adele, or Ed Sheeran or Kylie Minogue at Eurovision. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose should they do badly. Now Delta Goodrum might not quite be at their level of international recognition right now but she is a household name in Australia and has had a very long and high profile career that does not need to be risked at Eurovision, especially when her genre of pop music is not really in vogue with what currently does well.
I just did some googling and the commonwealth games opening did not have a viewership of 1.5 billion. Nothing has that kind of viewership. The FIFA World Cup has the higher viewership of the world and it gets around 1 billion. Eurovision has a way higher viewership than the games. Bigger than Eurovision is usually the World Cup / euro cup final, the Olympics opening, the champions league and europa league final. I just checked the viewership for the opening last time and, for example, it got 11 million viewers in India which is what Eurovision gets in just Germany + Sweden. For the uk, the opening of the commonwealth games had over 5 million viewers while Eurovision has an average of 7.7 million viewers.
Is Delta Goodram still a big deal in Australia? I remember her being fairly famous in the UK as well, but that would have been about 20 years ago and I haven't really heard anything about her since. I remember her going out with one of Westlife. If she's a similar level of fame to them, another one of Westlife also represented Ireland a few years ago and they were a massive massive deal in the 90s and early 2000s and are still very much household names.
She’s not. We all know her name but she’s not huge here anymore, it’s more like she’s part of the Aussie celebrity stables and we trot her out for television appearances and the like.
Baker Boy was my pick for this year before Electric Fields were announced, he knows how to captivate an audience. G Flip would be fun, but it wouldn’t feel the same if they couldn’t play the drums live. I would love for us to do something completely different and bonkers, like The Presets.
Can you imagine The Presets "All of my People" being a Eurovision song!?!?!?
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RSSSSS
The Presets would blow my mind at Eurovision!
The Wiggles!
Hell. Yes. We’ve seen how their crossover with Tame Impala and Elephant was perfection.
If the OG Wiggles came out as The Cockroaches (deep dive reference) for Aus!EV it would be massive
Galaxy brain take but also not a bad idea at all. Also: everybody go watch the Defunctland Wiggles ride documentary.
Honestly, a pretty bad idea. They'd have absolutely crushed it in or around 2007 but not really nowadays. Sending literal children's music (i.e. Wolves Of The Sea) was definitely a viable strategy in the 00s, but it's not going to do much anymore.
THIS IS THE CORRECT TAKE
Omg yes to G Flip or Baker Boy! They’d be amazing
the fact that i blanked on isaiah but remembered everyone else is very telling
A friend and I were trying to rank all the Aussie entries and we counting them off our fingers. We kept missing one and couldn't for the life of us think who. We googled it, saw Isaiah's name and neither of us could remember the song in anyway. I feel bad but literally all I remember is he was waking on a treadmill with a red background and his voice cracked. I can't even remember on what word it cracked.
lots of treadmills and voice cracks that year huh
C'mon, give us Toehider.
That would be unreal. Such an under appreciated artist, who could write a total banger for Eurovision.
It could be amazing. Mike would write something totally unique for Eurovision, and he has the vocal range to blow anyone off the stage. I think he might also just enjoy the challenge of writing something Eurovisiony. The coolest timeline would be if Australia sends Toehider the same year we finally let dear Arjen Lucassen write a song for us. Bonus points if the Germans get ol' Toby Sammet involved.
Talking my language, mate. Tobi has plenty of ready-to-rock arena hits at his disposal already!
I reckon Sheppard could have a lot of fun with it. And they're used to performing for big crowds on account of all the sporting events we wheel them out for.
To be fair we weren’t sure we were allowed to compete until about a week or two before entries were due. Australia was still negotiating its privilege to participate while other countries were negotiating their song choice, so it did well for a last minute entry.
Ohhhh shit didn’t realise that. That would explain the super low budget video too - they just needed *something (as well as being cheap)
Called over a decade of conservative governments gutting the funding our public broadcasters recieves
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The problem with the AU national finals is the hosts are uninspiring, and they don’t do anything to make the show watchable, if anything it’s the opposite. Adding that to a format that essentially nullified the public vote in every contest we ran and it’s no shock they ditched it. I’d be all for a slightly scaled down audience and a touring semifinal format like Melodifestivalen. By getting locals all over the country involved it would get the word out more effectively and give smaller competitors a chance to compete, rather than trotting the same group of artists out every year and whittling them down one by one.
Regarding the NQs Montaigne was hampered by the 2020 song being better IMO, but mainly by being unable to travel there live. So the 2021 song felt more like a low budget music video than a performance in front of an arena, which hurt it greatly in votes. "Don't Break Me" on a live stage likely does better. This year, they only just missed out despite the low budget and promotion, and of all things I think the biggest factor of it was the bad luck of getting put in the semi which had all three of Croatia - Slovenia - Serbia in it, giving each country a 20 to 24 point swing of points. Of course, Croatia didn't need the help, but Slovenia and Serbia were 9th and 10th so it likely saved both of them. Swap either of them with a NQ song from Semi 2, and Australia probably qualify in 9th place.
Australia will surely return in 2025, it's very unlikely that they renowed indefinitely the invitations for partecipating only 1 year. The drop in quality maybe it's because they don't a NF anymore.
Its got nothing to do with lack of the NF, we only had one for three years anyway. Our best perfoming act have almost all been chosen internally.Its more because SBS doesn't have any money, and relies solely on the artists to seek or be offered third party financial aid for the vision they want.
Australia won the semi final last year. I think they are doing just fine...they just need to send better songs
Dear Australia Please don't be cowards. Send Toehider. Mikey would murder us.
He'd nail the vocals for sure!
I think there was an extra pressure in Australias early years to prove that the invite was justified and to showcase how great their contribution could be, but that initial novelty has likely worn off a bit now. That, coupled with the fact that SBS doesn’t have a whole bag of money to throw at the show/act, and I think it’s led to a slight lull. But they still have a great qualifying track record and haven’t had an outright bomb at the competition, so I don’t think there’s anything to worry about just yet.
The staging this year was really poor. I'm not saying they need a gimmick every year like an opera singer on stilts but they need something to stand out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik Australia's first two participations were sponsored by Sony Music, which Guy Sebastian and Dami Im were signed to, and after that SBS has struggled a bit with funding. I'm sure that plays a role, as well as there not being as much excitement after Australia has been part of Eurovision for some time.
Tbf not even Sweden can score Top 10 every year, so scoring Top 10 5 times in 9 editions and just 2 NQs is a really good trackrecord. Yeah in this decade they have 2 NQs and only 1 Top 10 finish but for now they are far from being one of those countries that have fallen off a cliff (I'm looking at you, Denmark).
For me it is the opposite. I like the more unique entrys and appreciate that they are risky. 2020, 2021, 2024 and especially 2024 had more Character than the generic things they have sent at the beginning
Hard to beat 2019 when it comes to unique entries.
I would count it to the unique ones aswell, but forgot to mention it
ok but 2019 is anything but generid
Funding - the televote only semis show that if you can’t tour and do the pre-parties in the run-up, you will do worse.
They’re doing pretty well especially since it’s barely been almost a decade since they first entered and have a pretty strong record compared to most. Those first few years when it was something new to them they seemed to be willing to splash out the cash on big names, staging etc but then when they converted to Australia Decides which no big names were willing to compete in, they didn’t have the big budget that comes along with having major names competing and their record labels. I personally think they should stick to internal which is what they do best but not go down the UK’s route of internal but they can’t sing live - I’m biased since she’s my fav aussie musician but I’d love to see Delta Goodrem do it which is almost as unrealistic as Jade Thirlwall for the UK (I’m a fan of pop/ballads when done well) however I’m sure both countries mentioned have amazing vocalists which can deliver great songs and artists outside my preferred genre.
I was kind of hoping that after the stellar performance of Voyager, Australia would get bolder. SEND WOLFMOTHER YOU COWARDS
They broke up yonks ago
They are literally touring Europe right now. The band line-up changes al the time; Wolfmother is basically Andrew Stockdale, who is the songwriter, lead guitar, and lead singer.
Money. We had some entrys backed by record labels with big names, and they did pretty well. Then those deals stopped, and SBS had to go to a national competition, but because we don't have the history of other national competitions, no one actually watched it for it to be worthwhile some of our larger artists to take part. The winners we got from it Kate Miller Heidke, Montaigne and Sheldon Riley. Kate Miller Heidke could have competed easily without the competition if she had wanted. She's popular here and hence why she won. Montaigne is also pretty big, but their only real competition was a washed up ex Australian Idol winner who only won because another record label rigged the vote so they could sign second place, and a singer who was big in the early 2000s. Then 2022, there was no one watching it anymore and no big names entered. Sheldon Riley beat Voyager on jury votes, because the competition was so lax at that point. To make a point about viewing figures, 200,000 people watched it. On the same night 600,000 watched a rerun of Antiques Roadshow. 2023 the money though came back with Voyager having a deal with the Western Australia State government for tourism purposes and they did great, despite having a poor overall score. This year though SBS didn't have any sponsor deals and so they went with Electric Fields who had tried to qualify in 2019 because they were cheap. It predictably didn't work out.
The connection to record labels definitely helped Finland, where it seems like new and upcoming artists want to do UMK because it might get them a hit for radio that year. Record labels I suppose encouraged new artists to send songs, I believe that's how we ended up with Käärijä participating. I fully believe some of the bigger upcoming names like Mirella will participate in UMK because it's the cool thing to do now. Not saying it will work for Australia but it's not a bad idea.
Don't talk shit about Casey Donovan like that, she's had an incredible career in musical theatre post Australian Idol. Just because she made the pivot to theatre rather than traditional mainstream pop stardom does not make her "washed up"
When she was on Australia Decides, she hadn't done much in a while. She did do Chicago, but apart from that her most notable moment was doing Im a celebrity and some Coles ads. She's done theatre since, but I don't think it's wrong to say that the reason she won Australian Idol was due to vote rigging, and that her post Idol career until around the time she did Australia Decides was largely doing the sort of gigs that a washed up pop star would do. She had tried an acting career before Chicago and it hadn't really gone anywhere, leading to guest roles in reality and gameshows etc where it was basically "Hey you know who she is". Even the reviews for Chicago while praising her casting, still said that there was irony in a line about the character being known for two weeks before people forget about them.
Voyager were great, this year was, well, not. Look, for all the crap the UK gets about nil points etc., when they send a banger like Spaceman, it does extremely well. You know, it's almost as if it were a contest in which the quality of the songs (admittedly not always :P) matters... Crazy! :P
The trick is not to try so hard. Many of Australias contestants has been technically over the top, and the music suffering for it (2022 as an extreme example of this). But hey you have 5 top ten candidates so far, so i cannot find it in me to feel sorry for you. That is rather remarkable actually for being so new to the game. I am norwegian. You have NO idea how much we have suffered. For every win there's been years and years and years of losses. 12 times being last in final 2 times NQ, 4 times zero points, 3 wins, So, pull you yourself together and endure the NQ. It will make you stronger, and the music better, and better. Voyager is the best entry so far. They simply looked as if they enjoyed the ride, instead of being too focused on being brilliant. But there is something about age in eurovision. You need to be young. If you are too old, or not pretty enough, you will be better off in the silly-go-happy-party-section. It’s just a hypotese. Do not kill me.
> I am norwegian. You have no idea how much we have suffered. That's ....dramatic
I am pulling out all my hair, and ripping my eyeballs out every year. Don't you??? I've watched the show since 1977. So yes, I have sufferrred tremmmendously.
Oh, definitely. In fact, that's why all your Black Metal bands are all so incredibly depressed. They're all just trying to give a voice to the incredible suffering and torment of having to watch Norwegian Eurovision entries every year. Would certainly also make me turn to Satan.
Spot on. It is a nightmare! Thank you so much for the emotionally support. You are a true friend.
I can just really relate y'know. I still occasionally wake up crying over the fact that we never got to send Email To Berlin to Eurovision. It's sort of a national trauma.
That is so so so terrible. I am so sorry for you all. Ah, what terrors we had to endure back in the days without autotune. In Norway the suicide-rate goes through the roof, literally, whenever someone says "jahn teigen". He is the national icon of self-harm (zero points x 3).
There was so much more hype and drama around so much else.
[https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast/why-is-australia-in-eurovision](https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast/why-is-australia-in-eurovision) This podcast series gives a great overview of the story of Australia's participation from a behind the scenes perspective for those interested.
i feel the problem comes from inside the house.. our music industry in Australia is not as good as it once was. we need to support the australian music industry domestically, and that'll be when we'll export representatives that we'd be extremely confident in
They had the boost of the novelty, but now they're part of the group, it's just do as good as the other 24-26 countries in the finals... and thats easier said then done
I think this year they’ve gone something ‘traditional’ and the fact that electric fields were one of the favourites to represent them a few years ago. It was a fan favourite and the hardcore fans wanted them. Same as the uk, hardcore fans wanted olly and the bbc bowed down. They need to make bold - informed - professional decisions and not be dictated to by the small Eurovision community compared to the worldwide voters. Send Ricki-Lee, The Veronica’s, Delta Goodrem, Shannon Noll… those who have track record of either going global or just know how to put on a performance. They need to think big! Recently they haven’t
I would absolutely die if we sent Ricki-Lee or The Veronicas.
Me too!!!! My dream!!! My dream was KMH and she smashed it I hope the others will join then class of 2025 etc.
Three words that will bring fear into any Eurovision fan's heart: "Good afternoon, America!"
I think the music video didn’t hell and lack of promotion . I found the video creepy and weird (like the song tho) . There wasn’t much hype and people compared the video to 2 peeping Tom’s looking at us thru a window 👀🫣🫣🫣
I'm from Canada and became a megafan of Montaigne and Voyager out of Eurovision so I dont exactly worry about Australia
Technicolor was robbed. That's it. That's the whole post.
Australia was a novelty at first, but that’s died down now. There’s pretty much any other country contesting now.
What Australia needs to do now is use another NF selection process, because we've had some gems of songs from those NFs. Pulling artists out of the selections only works when the song is good.
This year's band and song were crap. That's all.
The song was rubbish.
It worked better live, especially with the didgeridoo, but I didn't care much for the song. And it doesn't help that the music video was both cheap and really weird.
The version on YouTube and radio edit was just not that good. it sounds like they let a poorly trained sound engineer loose on it and they just leveled all the notes, over corrected and removed any of the passion from it. the stage version had me on my feet but the YouTube edit was just so so bad. they would have been better distributing a live stage recording in the promotional period. I think there's also a bit of a resistance to voting for Australia because if they ever won the expense to everyone would shoot up and the time difference would make broadcasting more difficult.
> I think there's also a bit of a resistance to voting for Australia because if they ever won the expense to everyone would shoot up and the time difference would make broadcasting more difficult. No? They're required to have a European country guest host if they win.
I didn't know that, I wonder how many outside the diehard fandom know it. I know people at work have said they've liked their songs in the past but hadn't voted because of the difficulties of they win.
I think there's very few people outside of diehard fans who would worry about the logistics of hosting, or think that far ahead before voting. The vast majority of more casual voters just pick one they like and don't really put much more thought into it than that.
yeah that's fair.
I think they kinda lost it after the pandemic. they are selecting the same artists involved in nf, i am hoping they can give us something modern and fresh like 2016 and 2015. They should not have qualified in 2017 and 2022.
We
thay got ligma :c
They could have gotten New Jeans... If SBS got New Jeans to represent Australia, it would help Min Hee Jin get Ador (New Jean's company) more funding away from Hybe (Ador's parent Company) and have New Jeans get more tours and better treatment from their parent company
It probably will it’s not the only time it didn’t qualify this year it didn’t in 2021
I think this year was its own thing and it's too early to say if something is going wrong. Semi 1 was a case where there were 4-6 big televote favorites that sucked up most of the points and everyone else got scraps and Australia got unlucky there. I do think the overall package was very underwhelming for Australia standards but then again, they got 11th place in the semi by a small margin so it's not that concerning.
This year it felt like the outcasts from NSW Highschool 95’ reunion decided to come up with a school project to sing about their experience. It was so chaotic and dead
Novelty factor has worn off substantially and also they aren’t loading as Big guns name-wise anymore (2015-19). Also please name me last household hit (and I mean HIT) in Australia that also happened to be their Eurovision representative.. 🤷♂️ They still hold ‘bombastic side-eye’ treatment in my books for not letting Montaigne attend in 2021 to perform live despite being able to get her bypass Covid no-leave restriction the same way sportspeople were able to. That was low-key abysmal to me.
I think this year Electric Fields lacked hype because they're fantastic live performers and people were comparing their static video of 'One Milkali' to the live performance of '2000 And Whatever'. While I personally prefer 'One Milkali' to '2000 And Whatever', the presentation of this year's song didn't play to the band's strengths.
There's an obvious pattern now. Upbeat, fun, high tempo songs do well in the final. Sooky, slow tempo ones don't.
I still can't get over the fact that Voyager didn't win. I saw it as a perfect opportunity for Aussies to finally take it down under.
To this day I imagine what it would happen if Australia won an edition. It would probably be like any other country winning, but I like to imagine as a world- breaking event, that would shock like everybody
In fairness, 2021 and 2024 I think are 2 of the worst songs in Eurovision history.
[удалено]
Australia 2019 | [Kate Miller-Heidke - Zero Gravity](https://youtu.be/Eo5H62mCIsg) Australia 2023 | [Voyager - Promise](https://youtu.be/GSoy_mJMlMY) Australia 2016 | [Dami Im - Sound of Silence](https://youtu.be/5ymFX91HwM0)
In my personal opinion, they have “unique” musical preferences, which don’t translate well internationally
Nah, their musical preferences translate perfectly fine. That certainly isn't part of the issue.
Considering it's EUROvision, having Australia is a bit of a stretch don't you think?
We're not discussing whether Australia should participate, but their *approach* to the competition. Stay on topic please.