Pinned
The Eurovision Song Contest crowned its first Asia champion in Bangkok on Saturday, in an event that tested whether a high-camp singing competition with an ardent fan base could appeal to audiences in a new market.
Carmelle of the Philippines was declared the winner of the inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia, beating out artists and original songs from 10 other countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. The show was live-streamed on YouTube and broadcast by television stations across the region.
Eurovision has been a fixture of the European cultural calendar since it began in 1956. Past winners include Sweden’s ABBA and the Canadian chanteuse Celine Dion, who represented Switzerland in 1988.
Asian artists have readily embraced the kitschy outfits and spectacular sets that are part of Eurovision tradition, with costumes that include traditional dress, as well as feathered capes and sequined corsets. Malaysia’s performer plans to enter the stage in a giant teardrop.
But the Eurovision format has not been tested in Asia. Fans and regional partners have expressed concern in recent weeks that budget constraints, production issues and weak audience demand could imperil the spinoff. Organizers say the contest could take time to build an audience.
“It would be profoundly arrogant to think that just because we have a heritage brand and a huge global audience for the European show, that we would walk in and demand it to be the same here,” said Martin Green, the European Broadcasting Union’s director of the Eurovision Song Contest. “Like any new thing, it needs to find its roots.”
Two previous attempts to take the competition to Asia were abandoned by the European Broadcasting Union, which owns Eurovision, and its partners in the region. A Eurovision spinoff in the United States, NBC’s American Song Contest, ran for one season in 2022.
The Asian edition kicking off on Saturday is far smaller than its European counterpart. Eurovision organizers said they were in talks with more countries to join future seasons. They include China, Japan and India, whose music industries have global reach.
“Bringing the world together through music is a fundamentally good idea,” Mr. Green said. “Europe shouldn’t keep it to itself.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
Ballads: Nine of the competition’s 11 participating countries picked performers singing about love in a wide range of styles, from ballads to a cappella hip-hop. Their choices suggest that the bombastic music often associated with victors of the European edition might not be a winning formula for Asian viewers. Read more ›
Fans: Our reporter spoke to some of the fans who traveled to Bangkok for Eurovision. Read more ›
Politics: Geopolitics have long intruded on the European edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, but they were not really a factor as the event prepared to expand into Asia. Read more ›
No shows: For a competition meant to introduce the diversity of Asian pop music to the world, the lineup for the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia has several notable absences, starting with China and India. Read more ›
As Thailand’s Mang and Daou waited to learn whether they had won, the 26-year-old Mang was shown onscreen crying as if she couldn’t take the tension. That’s the sort of emotion needed to make Eurovision’s expansion into Asia a success. Acts have to want the title. But the show will also need the big Asian nations -- India, Japan and China -- to buy in, and much could now depend on the reaction in the Philippines to Carmelle’s win. The event was far less spectacular than a typical Eurovision in Europe. It also featured far too many ballads for my taste, but it was a fun afternoon’s viewing.
Shiesam Flores, 27, a clerk from the eastern region of Bicol in the Philippines, has been watching the show at a party with her friends — and hoping that Carmelle would prevail.
“It was nerve-wracking, nail biting suspense!” she said. “But we know she would win! What a talent!”
The Philippines’ Carmelle wins the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia, pushing Thailand’s Mang and Daou into second.
Image
The crowd roared in disappointment as Malaysia got only 70 points from the public vote.
Thailand takes a massive lead thanks to the public vote, but the genius of this voting process is we won’t know whether the Philippines can overcome them until the last seconds.
Image
The public gave Beatmosphere, from Bangladesh, just 19 points. They looked surprisingly happy after getting such a low total, and it’s now confirmed they’ve come in a distant last.
Dara has brought the Eurovision Asia trophy to the stage. It’s a sparkly gold microphone.
The public vote can be brutal, as some acts rapidly learn that few viewers liked them.
The jury votes are all in, and it’s close. The Philippines is first with 93 points, Vietnam second with 83 points and Malaysia third with 82 points. We’re about to learn how many points each country’s act received from the public, starting with the current last place act, Bangladesh’s beatboxing-heavy crew Beatmosphere. It has 16 points.
One of the best parts of Eurovision is how the public’s choice is often completely diffferent from those of the juries, so don’t worry if your favorite act isn’t top of the ranking after the jury votes are all in. The Philippine’s jury, the first we’ve heard from, just gave its 12 points to Malaysia. That doesn’t mean it’ll win
Fans are decked out in flags and sequins for the first-ever Asia Eurovision here in Bangkok.
Video
Voting has closed.
The problem Eurovision has with interval acts like Jeff Satur is that their stagecraft, singing ability and melodies are often a million times better than the artists in competition. Satur, who has 1.4 million monthly listeners on Spotify and over five million Instagram fans, has dozens of camp dancers onstage and a statue of a dragon. He would have cruised to victory if he’d been in competition, especially because of his ability to hold high notes close to the range only dogs can hear.
Image
Simon Robinson, one of the fans who traveled to Bangkok for the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, said that his history with the competition is nearly as long as its seven-decade run.
He was eight years old when he first watched it with his family in Yorkshire, England, when Britain's Mary Hopkin finished in second place behind Ireland’s Dana.
“I really liked the concept of bringing Europe together after the war,” said Mr. Robinson, 63, who now lives in Melbourne, Australia. He described the contest’s annual broadcast as a social activity for his family and neighbors.
“Eurovision helped to create the European identity,” he added.
Other fans had their own motivations for traveling to see the contest’s first Asian edition.
Some are Europeans living in Asia, on the hunt for nostalgia, while others are Americans who were eager to experience their first Eurovision.
Lee Hudson, an American television executive based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said that he gets emotional when he talks about Eurovision, which he has watched since 2012.
“The only reason I know any music from European countries is because I heard them on Eurovision,” he said. “Eurovision Asia makes sense because the musical cultures are distinct.”
Mr. Hudson said he still listens to Loreen’s “Euphoria,” which won the competition for Sweden in 2012.
It was also the first Eurovision that Drew Andrea watched from his home in Sydney. A year later, he got a passport to fly to Sweden for the 2013 edition, and has attended every final since. Coming to Bangkok for Eurovision Asia was much more affordable, he said.
“Asia understands the brief — the kitschy costumes, the dance music,” he said.
His top picks among the Asian performers were the Philippines’ Carmelle and Vietnam’s Toc Tien. “I think they hit the nail on the head with the song, staging, costume and traditional elements,” he said.
Luca Cian, a professor of marketing at the University of Virginia who grew up in Italy, said that Eurovision built a global fan base by offering a shared cultural experience.
“Millions of people across Europe watch it at the same moment,” he said. “Families have watch parties with food and drinks. There are public discussions. Rituals create community.”
Carmen Chung, a British accountant, said she hijacked her family’s holiday in Bangkok to attend Eurovision Asia with her brother Garry Chung, a banker who lives in Hong Kong. “We were raised on Eurovision,” she said of their childhood in Yorkshire.
European acts, she said, tend to copy whatever style of music won the previous year. “This year, because there are no expectations, everyone has just done their own thing,” she said. She and her brother said they were rooting for Bangladesh’s Beatmosphere, a beatboxing group that will perform an a cappella love song.
Martin Green, the director of the Eurovision Song Contest, said that about half of the tickets for Saturday’s final were purchased by “super fans” from outside Asia. Organizers have kept the inaugural show modest, with 11 participating countries and a 5,000-seat venue.
Mr. Andrea said he didn’t mind the small scale.
“I’m O.K. with humble beginnings as long as it keeps growing every year,” he said.
The Thai pop star Jeff Satur, a guest performer, got the high-camp memo.
The presenters are talking to the artists in the green room and trying to get them to talk excitedly about Bulgaria, the country that will host the 2027 Eurovision Song Contest. The winner tonight might get to perform at that event. That seems to be making this show less about Asia itself than a spin-off of the main Eurovision event
Eurovision voting involves two parts. Juries representing music industry professionals from each country are allocated half the votes, and the viewing public decides the other half. To try to build tension, the show always announces the jury votes first by going live to representatives from each country who reveals their top acts. In the European edition of the contest, some of those spokespeople are celebrities, and often they try to give mini speeches or make jokes. This part of the show is always awful. You have been warned.
There are a lot of European expatriates in this crowd. That much is obvious when Bulgaria’s Dara, the winner of this year’s Eurovision, takes the stage with her winning song, “Bangaranga.” Some fans even danced along with her choreography!
Image
Zunaira Saieed
Reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Mohamad Iqbal Dzulqarnain, an Aina Abdul fan in Kuala Lumpur, said he felt her performance was better than the recording version.
… Trimmed for readability. Visit the source for the full article.
Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt