Thread by @kitlovelace

Every year the British public seems astonished – just ASTONISHED – that we keep landing on our face in #Eurovision but there's a very simple reason for it. It's not politics. It's not petty rivalry. It's not Brexit. It's the music. We're doing it all wrong – and I can prove it...

Every year, when Eurovision rolls around, we fall under this weird national delusion that it is 1982 and the Eurovision Song Contest is all about who has got the brightest frock, the swingin'-est beat and the best wink to camera. It is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It's changed.

The sort of song that wins the Eurovision Song Contest these days is a very different beast to the sort that won in 1974, or 1988, or even 1999. I've crunched the numbers of every Eurovision winner (and last place loser) of the 21st century and this is what I found...

1/ KEY, TONALITY AND PITCH
Modern Eurovision winners aren't the bright, happy, clap-along pop songs people always assume that they are. In fact, most winners in the last 20 years have been written in a minor key... #Eurovision

Moreover, there are three keys in particular that have done disproportionately well in recent contests. Although there are 24 possible keys to choose from, D minor, G minor and A minor have all won three times each since 2000. All are punching well above their weight #Eurovision

2/ KEY CHANGES
Once a staple of the competition (and the one thing that everyone ALWAYS mentions, every year) there hasn't actually been a winner that's used a key change in the last ten years. Only two songs of the final 26 this year use them: Denmark and Hungary. #Eurovision

If you are going to use a key change (and I really wouldn't recommend it) you are best keeping it discreet. A semitone or two, but no more. The bigger it is, the more chance you have of losing your way and falling out of tune... #Eurovision

c/f Nathalie Sorce in 2000 who tried to do a SIX SEMITONE* KEY CHANGE and absolutely fucked it...
#Eurovision
*A six semitone interval is known as 'diabolus in musica' (a.k.a. The Devil In Music) because it's so deeply unpleasant.

3/ TEMPO
This is the beat of the song; the speed at which you'd tap your foot along to it. There's no 'winning' tempo as such (the speed of winners has a huge span. with big gaps), but there are some definite ones to avoid: 128bpm and 85bpm.
#Eurovision

Every year this decade, the song that came in last place has either been in 127/8bpm or 84/5bpm. They are poison. Avoid, avoid, avoid. #Eurovision

SIDE NOTE–There's an interesting thing about 128bpm, which is this:
Eurovision songs have an upper limit of 3 minutes.
3 minutes of a 128bpm beat gives you exactly 96 bars.
96 is divisible by 2,3,4,6,8,12,16 – all of which are the building block of pop music phrasing #Eurovision

So you'd think it would work perfectly as a template, right? Set your tempo at 128bpm, then you can mix and match 4-bar, 8-bar and 12-bar phrases until you've got a song that works, and it will end after three minutes exactly. But, for some reason, Eurovision HATES IT #Eurovision

It's deeply weird. It should be a secret little musical masterstroke. Instead, it kills song's chances dead. In 2016, Sergey Lazrov was the hot favourite to win. Yet his song was in 128bpm and he lost to a trip-hop song about Stalinst war-crimes. There is no explaining it. AVOID.

4/ TIME SIGNATURE
Not usually an issue, but as a 3/4 song won last year for the first time in over 20 years, it's worth bringing up. 4/4 is by far your best shot at winning. Experimenting with outré counts is something you can do in your jam sessions. Just play the hits here.

5/ LYRICS
Eurovision lyrics are uniformly bullshit, so there's no point wasting time making them good. However, there are certain keywords that crop up time and time again. Darkness/bad weather are GOOD; light/sunshine are BAD. And don't call anyone 'Baby'. Ever. #Eurovision

6/ LANGUAGE
Again, not usually an issue, but this year has seen something interesting happen. Generally, since the contest relaxed the language rules in 1999 (allowing countries to sing in whatever language they want) your best bet has been to sing in English #Eurovision

This makes sense. English is widely understood, so you have a good shot of communicating your lyrics with the widest possible audience. However, this year a few countries are doing something interesting... #Eurovision

Three countries are singing bits (or all) of their song in a non-English language that isn't their own.
– Estonia sings in Italian.
– Denmark sings phrases of Icelandic.
– Cyprus's hook is in Spanish.
A pretty canny move that we in the business call SHAMELESS FUCKING PANDERING.

6b/ NATION OF BIRTH
Similarly, if your entrant was born in a different European country to the one they represent, you can probably soak up a few votes from their homeland.
– Norway's Alex Rybak was born in Belarus
– Cyrpus's Eleni Foureira was born in Albania (lives in Greece)

7/ SWEDISH INFLUENCE
Getting a Swede in to write your song is a great way to boost your chances. In the last ten years, Swedes have been responsible (in whole, or in part) for 50 of the 257 songs to make the Saturday final. F I F T Y. 5x more songs than they entered themselves.

And of those 50 songs written by Swedes, half of them finished in the top ten... #Eurovision

8/ STAGE PERFORMANCE
This isn't musical, per se, but it's important to make sure that the people you invite on stage (maximum of six) don't do anything to jeopardise your chances. This is what winners (and losers) have done since 2000 #Eurovision

9/ THE DRAW
Also not musical, but has a huge effect on the final result. This is how your draw on the night affects your chances. Green marks the winning entry; pink marks the last place... #Eurovision

WITH ALL OF THIS IN MIND: Throughout tonight's show I will be scoring each entry out of 50 as to how closely it maps the musical elements of a model winner. THIS IS NOT TO PREDICT THEIR CHANCES OF SUCCESS; MERELY TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT *IS* LIKE A MODERN ENTRY #Eurovision

Ready? Here we go...

PS Go and download the full guide that I wrote here. It's got a lot more jokes and a lot less theory in it... popbitch.com/the-popbitch-g…