Note that in the new design I could not use the flags to indicate where a voter is from, so I wrote the nationality between brackets. A tip: if you are too lazy to watch the entire voting process, just press q and you will get to see the complete results immediately.
I hope you all have enjoyed the contest and I hope to see you all next year!
Hello and welcome to edition 10 of the International Song Contest. A jubilee edition! I started this tradition in 2011 by asking 11 friends to select a song from their country and have people vote for their favorites.The contest was quickly expanded 22 songs per edition when I started enjoying it to find great music by myself. And now I can't believe that this is already the 10th edition! A big thanks goes out to all of my friends and family who have made this possible by selecting songs and/or voting for their favorites. It's you guys who kept me going all this time!
I honestly believe that this 10th edition of ISC has the highest average quality of music so far. Because I worked hard for it. Really, you won't believe how many songs I have judged before coming to the list with the 22 songs below. The preliminary list of participants contained music from countries like Tuvalu, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago and Bahrain, but in the end they were deemed not good enough to share with you. Now there are only two countries making their debut in this edition: Kazakhstan and Myanmar. This makes a total of 67 countries that has participated in ISC.
Let's hope you will enjoy listening to these songs. As always there is a voting section below where I kindly ask you to vote for your favorites in Eurovision-style. Any vote is extremely appreciated. :)
Voting rules:
- Voting goes via the traditional Eurovision-system, see below. You may also vote in a personal message to me, via e-mail or via Facebook.
- You can vote for your own country and/or your own entry, as long as you promise to vote honestly. You can also ask one of your friends to vote, as long as this friend votes based on his/her own taste and not on your advice. :)
- You can vote until 18 October 6:00pm CET.
- Voting tip: personally I find it easy to rate the songs I like 1-5* while listening to the recap video and rank them afterwards based on this rating.
After the voting has ended I will publish the results on my blog and make a fancy animation of the voting process, to give the viewer the feeling that he or she is watching the results of the real Eurovision song contest. If you include your e-mailaddress, I will send you an e-mail when the final result is published.
Recap video:
Playlist:
I also made a YouTube playlist of all the songs, to make it easier for you to listen to the full version of your favorites! You can access it via this link. Voting section:
Sorry, voting is closed!
We're slowly getting ready for the 10th edition of the International Song Contest. A jubilee edition, which has a very strong line-up. To get ready for that, I decided to make a top 30 of my personal favorites from the past 9 editions of ISC. Also, I made a recap video of the top 13 favorite songs. Why a top 13? Because 30 is too much for people to still enjoy, the number 14 has no official video and a top 10 would be too few songs. :) But for the people who want to watch all songs, I did make a playlist on YouTube. For the link, see below.
And here is the list itself, including the country and the final position in the contest the song achieved:
1. Sturm und Drang - Molly The Murderer (Finland; finished 10th in ISC#6)
2. Sunrise Avenue - Hollywood Hills (Finland; finished 1st in ISC#1)
3. Red Electrick ft. MPO - Young Again (Malta; finished 2nd in ISC#7)
4. Lunatica - Who You Are (Switzerland; finished 2nd in ISC#2)
5. Michael Schulte - Carry Me Home (Germany; finished 2nd in ISC#5)
6. Haloo Helsinki! - Beibi (Finland; finished 7th in ISC#9)
7. Nik & Jay feat. Søren Huss - Ocean Of You (Denmark; finished 16th in ISC#7)
8. Paddy & The Rats - Pilgrim On The Road (Hungary; finished 5th in ISC#6)
9. Luminize - Get It Back (Croatia; finished 5th in ISC#7)
10. Eivør - Undo Your Mind (Faroe Islands; finished 8th in ISC#4)
11. Softengine - Yellow House (Finland; finished 3rd in ISC#8)
12. Kaleo - Way Down We Go (Iceland; finished 1st in ISC#8)
13. Morat - Yo Más Te Adoro (Colombia; finished 2nd in ISC#9)
14. Bobby Andonov - War Is Love (Australia; finished 7th in ISC#6)
15. Blackbyrd ft. Craig Hinds - From The Bottom Of My Heart (South Africa; finished 1st in ISC#7)
16. Sekai No Owari - Dragon Night (Japan; finished 12th in ISC#8)
17. 77 Bombay Street - Long Way (Switzerland; finished 3rd in ISC#3)
18. Mejaši - Zorica (Croatia; finished 4th in ISC#6)
19. Bryan Rice ft. Julie - Curtain Call (Denmark; finished 1st in ISC#3)
20. NRG - Mayday (South Africa; finished 5th in ISC#5)
21. Modà - La Notte (Italy; finished 15th in ISC#2)
22. Vunk ft. Antonia - Pleacă (Romania; finished 14th in ISC#5)
23. Cats On Trees, Calogero - Jimmy (France; finished 4th in ISC#7)
24. Sanna Nielsen - Empty Room (Sweden; finished 4th in ISC#3)
25. J-Mors - Ne Umirai (Belarus; finished 2nd in ISC#1)
26. Pegasus - Last Night On Earth (Switzerland; finished 6th in ISC#8)
27. Airport Impressions - Berlin (Malta; finished 3rd in ISC#6)
28. Autumn Hill - Return Policy (Canada; finished 5th in ISC#8)
29. Revolverheld - Keine Liebeslieder (Germany; finished 4th in ISC#4)
30. Negative - Won't Let Go (Finland; finished 4th in ISC#2)
Again, it had been too long since my last trip. This time I went to Georgia and Armenia: two small countries on the Caucasus. I started and ended the trip in Tbilisi. Upon arrival at the airport I met a Turkish-Iranian guy, who went to Tbilisi on a day trip without a clear plan. Since I knew what I wanted to see in the city, he was happy to spend the day with me and visit all the sights together in one day. It was fun to share memories together, such as ordering two meals per person because they were so cheap that we thought they must be small, but in fact they were super filling and we really struggled to finish everything (and failed miserably).
After one day I moved on to Yerevan in Armenia to meet my friend Maddie. I had to go so soon, because we made a deal to watch Eurovision together. We also explored the country. Below you can find the highlights.
Unreliable Armenians and a bumpy ride into Georgia
My initial plan was to go to the Georgian town of Akhaltsikhe after Armenia. According to Wikitravel there should be one minibus going there, but I couldn't find it. That would be the start of a memorable story. The night before I had made a reservation for the direct minibus to Batumi. However, when i arrived at the place there was first a misunderstanding about the price and then the bus was suddenly full. I showed the (unreliable looking) man my reservation and then he said the only English words I would hear him say all day: "5 minutes, Mercedes car". So I waited there for 40 minutes and finally the Mercedes car showed up. The man took the money I was supposed to pay to get to Batumi. I asked him if this car was going to Batumi and he seemed to say yes. But as expected, the car was only going to Tbilisi and from there I had to find my own way. A not-super-friendly and no-English-speaking other passenger showed me where to find the minibus to Batumi. After 40 minutes of waiting for it to fill up the minibus left at 3pm for the 6-hour ride to "Bhathumi", as the driver called it with his distinct Turkish accent.
The ride was bumpy. Partly due to the poor condition of Georgian roads, but also due to te fact that we got a flat tyre. That has happened to me before, but this time it was not so easy to replace the wheel: we just couldn't remove the old wheel. Our driver stopped other minibuses to try with their equipment, but nothing helped. In the end we got help from a local farmer who was passing by on his tractor. He suggested to pump up the tyre with his pump and drive to the nearest garage to get the wheel replaced. So there I was, at a garage in a small village close to the (unofficial) border with South Ossetia (Doghlauri, to be precise), waiting for some unshaved old local mechanics to fix our minibus. My way of traveling certainly takes me to extraordinary places.
Batumi: the perfect city
At 22:30 we finally arrived in Batumi. Actually it was quite good to arrive in Batumi so late, because the city is the casino city of the country and certainly has a vibrant nightlife. Which I couldn't try out unfortunately, because for some reason there were only older people staying in my hostel. But I certainly enjoyed this seaside city with its long boulevard. Batumi really is a perfect city with its coast and its nightlife.
Up next was Kutaisi, where within the hour I met several nice young people in the hostel with whom I agreed to hire a taxi the next day to visit all the highlights in the region. Much cheaper than booking a daytour! We visited two canyons, a cave and a huge abandoned hotel in a nearby village. The owner of the hostel told us that in the Soviet times workers would earn vouchers for holidays, but could not decide themselves where they wanted to go. The government decided everything and since for some reason they wanted everybody to go on holiday to this village they built 24 hotels there. After the Soviet Union collapsed, nobody wanted to go here any more and most of the hotels closed and were abandoned. As you may know, I love to explore abandoned buildings and it’s even more interesting to hear the story about why these buildings were abandoned.
The mole is active!
One of the most popular tv shows in the Netherlands is called “Wie is de mol?” (Who is the mole?), in which 10 (semi-) famous people have to complete missions to earn money for the team. However, one of them is trying to sabotage everything and it’s up to the others to find out who this is. This show always takes place in an exotic country and this year it took place in Georgia, so I could visit some of the places in which a mission took place. One of the missions was for example to re-paint the White Bridge of Kutaisi within one hour, with the help of local people who were passing by. The mission was completed and it was fun for me to see that even now on the floor of the bridge you could still see the paint drops and even a white spot where clearly a jar of paint fell over. After Kutaisi I also visited Rabati fortress in Akhaltsikhe. I wasn’t aware of this in advance, but when I was there I recognized places from tv and it turned out that this actually was the location of the final of Wie is de mol?. And as any traveler may know: it’s always nice if you visit places you have seen before on tv.
Two final day trips
After Akhaltsikhe I took the minibus back to Tbilisi. From there I had planned two daytrips: to the old towns of Mtskheta and Sighnaghi. Usually I stick to my plan, but since many people who I met in hostels and also some friends who have been to Georgia recommended me to visit Kazbegi mountain, I changed my plan for the final day and made a daytrip to Kazbegi. Even though it was a bit of a cloudy day, it was indeed a beautiful place.
Overall, it was a good trip. Let's see where I will travel next! :D
As a song contest-fanatic, of course I have listened to all the Eurovision entries and ranked them already by now. Here's my top 5 of this year.
1. Hungary (AWS - Viszlát Nyár)
A surprise number 1 this year perhaps. It has been since 2006 since I last had a song in a foreign language in my top 3, but I guess for this song you don't need to understand the lyrics to appreciate it. I have been told that the title means "goodbye summer" and that this "summer" refers to the father of the singer who passed away. The lyrics are about how you should take care of and spend time with your loved ones, before it's too late. I bet you wouldn't have expected such nice lyrics from a metal-song, right? But as said, this song is not so much about the lyrics, it's mostly about the music. And I loved this song already since the moment I heard the awesome intro. Enjoy it, if you can enjoy this kind of music. :P
2. Belarus (Alekseev - Forever)
The national final from Belarus was the worst of all national finals. There was only one song that could win it: Forever, by the Ukrainian singer Alekseev. His live performance is "not that great" usually, but the video clip of his song is awesome. The song is a perfect combination of an Eastern European pop song from the 1990s and a modern day pop song, sung in English with a very distinct accent. This song has something special and therefore it is in second place.
3. Denmark (Rasmussen - Higher Ground)
Denmark is in my top 5 pretty much every year. After a one year break, they are back in 2018. Rasmussen is a true Scandinavian viking with a powerful voice. I hope that at Eurovision the song will be performed with a true viking ship on the background, that could give the whole performance something extra and would guarantee Rasmussen a place in the final.
4. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - Funny Girl)
Laura Rizzotto doesn't have a truly Latvian name. She was born in Rio de Janeiro and has roots in both Brazil and Latvia. She lived in the USA for a while as well, so this funny girl has a truly international background. I can't describe what I like about the song so much, it's just a quality song from a good singer. She has to perform in the strong semi-final 2 though, so I will have to wish her good luck to qualify for the final.
5. Italy (Ermal Meta e Fabrizio Moro - Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente)
For the second year in a row Italy reaches my top 5 with a song in Italian. And this year's entry couldn't be more different than the one from last year. While last year we had the "catchy" singer with a dancing monkey on the background, this year's entry is a serious song about terrorism. The title litterally means "you did nothing to me", which implies that people in the west will continue to live the way they want, despite the "inutile guerre" (useless wars) that are currently being fought. A song with a message. If the song were in English, it would have a big chance to win, but now I think it will just reach top 10 and not more.
My favorites to win the contest
Realistically speaking, none of the songs in my top 5 have a chance to win the contest. The top favorite among bookmakers is Israel: a very creative singer called Netta. She has awesome live performances without a music tape on the background, but her Eurovision song was very disappointing to me. It is creative from her to imitate a chicken on stage, but somehow I don't believe that this song will win. Just like Norwegian Alexander Rybak: he won the contest 9 years ago, made many excellent songs in the years after that, but returns to Eurovision with an average song. For sure he will get many votes from his fans, but the song is just not good enough to win. The Estonian opera singer is also standing out, so she could win it (even though I strongly dislike the song). Czech Republic may be a dangerous outsider, with an excellent modern pop song by Mikolas Josef, who already has the attitude of an international superstar. Or maybe the Netherlands has a chance, with Waylon's good country-rock song. Or perhaps it will be the Swedish Ingrosso who takes victory with his modern pop-song. There are any candidates for the win this year in my opinion. Let's see who gets it in the end!
