u/rainmaker818

Just a write up of the contest as a participant.

So after 400 plus entries for the group stage of the AI song contest, modeled somewhat on the real Eurovision song contest, the initial voting round ended with artists from various nations learning if they would advance to the grand final or bow out. Here are some of my thoughts as a participant and jury member.

The voting system

Was used to rank entries, and consisted of a voting weight of 48% coming from Jury votes, 48% from official votes and 4% from free votes. This meant that artists trying to game the votes by spamming thousands of free votes or get others to do the same, would not spam their way to a win, due to a low voting weight using this method. The voting system wasn't perfect but worked well enough for something being tried for the first time.

Competition format

The competition structure was based around the nation versus nation model used in the actual Eurovision song contest. Of course it was not an exact 1:1 copy as a reasonable amount of adaptation was needed to make it work as an online only format.

The first or semi-final stage saw entries categoried into nation groups. So for example, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland etc. Due to a high number of entries in some of the groups, such as Russia and the UK, they were divided into 2 or 3 additional groups, to have a block of 20-25 entries each. This also meant however that some nations had more than one entry heading into the finals.

There could of course be better ways to handle the group phase of the competition, which might be sorted out for the next one, with participant feedback helping to shape future competitions.

Songs needed to be created in the respective official language(s) used in the participating nations. So French for France, German for Germany, English for UK etc. Though some nations such as Switzerland that have multiple official languages, could allow songs in French, German or Italian.

Quality of the entries

I was greatly impressed by the quality and creativity of many of the songs that were submitted. The usual impression of AI generated music, is that tracks are usually uncreative, unoriginal and full of cliché lyrics, but many songs were doing something unique, whether it was an interesting instrumental arrangement, unique singing style, well thought out lyrics or a combination of all three. Clearly some thought had gone into the compositions.

Sure there were some obviously low effort entries, but I found on the whole, many songs were top tier, and clearly had a good amount of effort and time going into their creation.

Overall experience

A lot of fun! It was great to actually compete with other AI music creators. I felt that due to thein competitive nature of the competition, I felt compelled to really think my way through the creative process and try and hook up what I feel would be a track that could match up with with the other submissions, which would be at a high level.

The organisers did a decent job with putting it all together. Yes one can definitely gripe about some of the negatives, but all in all and with all things considered, it was a great experience and opportunity for creators to showcase, connect, and sample AI assisted musical compositions that weren't just the typical prompt and share stuff.

Would highly recommend AI music creators to enter contests like these, as it's an opportunity to participate in community driven competition, which gives you a platform on which to showcase your work. It isn't easy for AI creators to get this kind of attention in the wider music landscape.

Did anyone here make it to the final? Not too long now to find out the overall winner.

https://eurorevision.eu/

Preview show (All finalists)

https://eurorevision.eu/previews

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