Ukraine's Jamala wins Eurovision 2016

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**Co'tor Shas**

Ukraine's Jamala has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest, held in Stockholm, Sweden.
The country scored 534 points with its song 1944, about Crimean ethnic cleansing under Josef Stalin.
Australia finished second with 511 points, while Russia - which was the favourite going into the competition - was third with 491 points.
Joe and Jake, who represented the UK with their song You're Not Alone, finished in 24th place with 62 points.
Jamala is the first ever Crimean Tatar to perform at the contest and caused controversy ahead of the show over her political song, referencing the year when Stalin deported almost all of the ethnic group from its native region of Crimea in Ukraine.
The singer had dedicated the song to her great grandmother who was forced to leave along with a quarter of a million Tatars.
It had been expected to finish in the top three but in a surprise result beat favourites Russia, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and had been angered by the song.
Collecting her award, an emotional Jamala thanked Europe for their votes, adding: "I really want peace and love to everyone."
Despite finishing 24th out of 26 acts, the UK still scored more points than it had done since 2011 when Blue competed.
Writing on Twitter, Joe and Jake said: "Regardless of the result, our main aim was to make the UK proud. We hope we did that."
Analysis - Helen Bushby, entertainment reporter in Stockholm
So Ukraine confounded the bookmakers and Eurovision commentators who had been convinced that Russia - or possibly Australia - would win.
The computer graphics behind Russia's song and the brilliance of Australia's singing weren't enough to defeat jazz artist Jamala.
She is the first ever Crimean Tatar to perform at the contest, and her song could not have been further from the usual Eurovision fare.
1944 is about the mass deportation during World War Two of the entire ethnic Tatar population from Crimea, by Soviet troops under the orders of Stalin.
Jamala dedicated the song to her great grandmother Nazylkhan, who with her five children were among a quarter of a million Tatars who packed on trains "like animals".
"I had to release their souls. Because they never came back to Ukraine," she has said.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36295168

**Ustrello**

But was it a CIA plot? /s

Good for her though, it was an interesting song.

**Yaraton**

3 days ago ukrainian media was mocking the Russian news website "Zvezda" because they posted an article saying that "Eurovision was effectively over because Pentagon and CIA have payed for Jamala to win." Isn't it funny? Of course we all US State Department spend 5 billion dollars (officially) only for "freedom and democracy" in ukraine.

**Mozzyfuzzy**

Yaraton wrote:
3 days ago ukrainian media was mocking the Russian news website "Zvezda" because they posted an article saying that "Eurovision was effectively over because Pentagon and CIA have payed for Jamala to win." Isn't it funny? Of course we all US State Department spend 5 billion dollars (officially) only for "freedom and democracy" in ukraine.

What does the outcome of a European music competition gain the US? Other than forcing Ukraine to spend money on hosting next years Eurovision.

You must realise how implausible that is....right?

**Iron_Captain**

This is surprising, to say the least. I did not really follow the contest or heard every entry, but I thought most of the other songs I heard were much better than Ukraine's. In fact, Ukraine was quite horrible. It wasn't even the song that was bad or that annoyed me (despite being obviously a propaganda piece and having a really weak intro, the rest of the song was okay), but rather the singer. She has one of the most annoying voices I have ever heard. How they ever allowed that women within 10 miles of a microphone is a miracle to me. But then again, I really did not like the Russian and Australian entries either, and everyone was saying that they were the best. So I guess my opinion on music isn't worth much ;P (not that music really matters in eurovision anyway, voting is pure politics)
In any case, I really liked the Dutch, Armenian and the Bulgarian entries. UK was horrible like usual.

The surprising thing of course is that no one thought this would happen. I read a lot of previews in Dutch newspapers (I have to deliver them, might as well read them

) and all the experts were agreeing that either Russia or Armenia had the strongest entries, while Ukraine was not even considered as having a chance. Ah well, that shows either that so-called "experts" are total nitwits or that the CIA will truly do everything to make Russia look bad.
Definitely the CIA. Or wait...
Maybe it was the FSB with a cunning plot to drive Ukraine even further to economical ruin by forcing them to waste lots of money on hosting the next Eurovision

Also, something that says a lot about Russia and Ukraine: notice that the Russian and Ukrainian juries did not give any points to each others, but the Russian and Ukrainian public gave 10 and 12 points to the other.

Voting patterns are really interesting in general. Just look at the countries gave 12 points to Russia. They are all countries that are either political friends of Russia or that have large Russian populations. Eurovision has nothing to do with music.

**Kilkrazy**

Yes, I am afraid you are right about that.

However this thread is media related so I am moving it to the media forum.

**H.B.M.C.**

The song was awful.

Australia should have won.

**Co'tor Shas**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, I am afraid you are right about that.

However this thread is media related so I am moving it to the media forum.

Oh, wasn't even aware that forum existed, sorry.

**Tannhauser42**

Iron_Captain wrote:

Voting patterns are really interesting in general. Just look at the countries gave 12 points to Russia. They are all countries that are either political friends of Russia or that have large Russian populations. Eurovision has nothing to do with music.

Eh, it's really no different than anything else that involves voting or popular support. People will always support the home team, regardless of how good they actually are.

**BrookM**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
The song was awful.

Australia should have won.

Australia should feth off, they fooled us once by trying to pretend they were Austria, but never again.

**Kilkrazy**

I watched most of the show. My favourites were Belgium and France.

Being British I couldn't vote for the UK entry but I thought it was one of the better ones, more like top 6 than bottom six. My wife wouldn't let me watch the Australian because the singer is Korean. I thought Jamal was one of the worst, along with Germany, and many of the rest were typical Euro fodder.

It's obvious from the huge leap in Jamal's ranking from the popular vote that people were voting on political motives as a "feth off Russia" message.

I don't it helps anyone that they all have to sing with more or less the same set of backing musicians. Very characterless. Look how good Justin Timberland was with his own band and singers, etc.

The Russian multimedia display was very good, but actually I thought the song was rather dull and poor, and I'm not clear why it was considered a favourite.

When you think of some of the great Eurovision songs of the past, e.g. Abba with Waterloo in 1974, who went on to major success, it becomes clear how lacklustre nearly all the modern stuff has become.

/rant.

**aldo**

Spanish "influential Eurovision bloggers" (aka hipsters with nothing better to do) said that we were going with our first song in english because "we're going for the win, not to show how pretty the Spanish language is".

Spain came in 22nd.

And if Eurovision is a popularity contest... well, I guess nobody likes us. Which isn't strange, I don't like this country I was born in either.

**Kilkrazy**

For what it's worth the UK entry came lower and we invented English.

I liked the Spanish song.

**Compel**

How many countries generally take Eurovision "seriously" or how many are like the UK, where we treat it like a combination of "X-Factor" and MST3K?

**insaniak**

Haven't actually had a chance to watch the final yet, and have only seen the first 3 or 4 songs in the 2nd Semi... so have a little catching up to do.

Enjoyed it (so far) this year, though... Although something that is a little disappointing is the trend towards fewer acts performing in their own languages, and less 'ethnic' influence in the music. It's all getting rather pop-y and samey, and quite a few acts over the last few years I suspect would have sounded considerably better if they weren't wrestling with something other than their native tongue...

**BrookM**

Compel wrote:
How many countries generally take Eurovision "seriously" or how many are like the UK, where we treat it like a combination of "X-Factor" and MST3K?

I'm not so sure how my country looks at it. We were pretty serious about it this year and last year, but a few years ago we sent in a fething barrel organ and one of the worst songs ever sung. We were thankfully shot down at the qualifying rounds, because gak man, that was embarrassing!