Erica Dakin's Blog

I’m hoping that this will be the most interesting of these three posts, because these are the 27 songs I came away with after this second listen-through, and they are the more obscure and probably surprising entries. Some of them were instant ‘how the fuck did I miss these back in 2020??’ likes, others took several days or even weeks of umming and ahhing before I decided to keep them after all. I haven’t gone back to check, but I suspect that I ranked many of these songs a lot lower than I should have, simply because they didn’t grab me as quickly as the ones I kept from my 2020 project. There’s even one that I only really added to make it to that magic number of 27, i.e. the same amount as I came away with in 2020, but I’ve not yet regretted that decision. So let’s go!

1991 – Greece – I Anixi

Yes, it’s taken until 1991 to find a song that I didn’t immediately keep, and this one is actually one that I remembered very fondly from back in 2020 and had always intended to come back to. Why I didn’t until now I don’t really know, but suffice to say that this is actually one of my favourites now. It’s pumping, dramatic, and the studio version of course doesn’t have a murdered saxophone solo. I’m still not entirely sure whether it’s meant to be called I Anixi or just Anixi (as it was listed in the contest), but this version adds the ‘I’ so I’ll stick to that. Great voice from Sophia and a great early Greek entry.

1995 – Denmark – Fra Mols til Skagen

In contrast, I did not remember this song at all, but found it surprisingly pleasant and mellow to listen to when I got to it this time. Apparently in 2020 I merely liked it, and then forgot about it, but something about it this time just tugged at me. I cannot describe it as other than mellow, which is completely down to that laid-back beat which invites you to gently bop along, and I also really like that plinking banjo riff. It’s not flashy, not in your face, it’s just lovely and mellow and I love it.

1995 – Cyprus – Sti Fotia

Another song in this year that I liked back in 2020 (though I was, apparently, not even certain about that) and then totally forgot about, and then this time it really spoke to me. (Probably saying ‘why the fuck did you only think you liked me back then?) This has lots of things I like in a song – minor key ethnic wailing and a 7/8 beat in the chorus, plus a lovely melody all throughout the song. Plus, Alexandros has nice long dark hair, which I’ve always been a sucker for.

1995 – Spain – Vuelve Conmigo

So yeah, it turns out that 1995 was actually a really good year, rather than the ‘not a bad year’ I dubbed it as in my review. Also, bizarrely enough I have now twice reviewed this song as ‘I vaguely like this’, rather than just ‘hey, this is actually pretty good’. It starts a little too much like a standard nineties song maybe, but the chorus is lovely and carries the whole song. Not one of my absolute favourites, but definitely a good song.

1996 – Turkey – Beşinci Mevsim

The benefit of doing this the second time around is that you recognise returning contestants before they returned, especially if their return was one of your absolute favourite songs of the nineties. Yes, I had totally forgotten that Şebnem Paker competed two years in a row, and while this song isn’t as stunning as next year’s Dinle, it still features Şebnem’s awesome voice, as well as another lovely melody. Add in the violin, accordion and the overall mellow quality and I have grown to absolutely adore this song.

1997 – Cyprus – Mana Mou

So many songs I only heard once, decided that ‘I really rather like this’ and then just moved on and forgot about. Maybe in this case its problem was that it was the first song of the night, to be followed immediately by Dinle, so it was simply overshadowed by how much I liked Turkey. This is an ethnic dance duet with lovely instrumentation, and I especially like the ‘dam dabadabadam’ bridge because I just love singing along to it.

1999 – Turkey – Dön Artik

Turkey were masters at sending absolute bops but with that lick of ethnicity that made them unmistakeably Turkish, and this is a prime example. I still maintain that the sound quality on the night was off – the music was too quiet for starters – but that’s why I’m picking the studio version for all of these songs. The chorus for this is especially great, working it’s way up to a nice ‘dön artik, dön artik’ crescendo.

1999 – Belgium – Like the Wind

This reminds me of nothing so much as Enya at her best – a little floaty, a little esoteric, and again I gave it a ‘quite beautiful’ back in 2020 and then totally forgot about it. I don’t have much more to say about this one, other than that I absolutely love it now.

2001 – Bosnia & Herzegovina – Hano

I called this a proto-Balkan ballad, and I stick to that assessment. The instrumentation is much more interesting than in ‘regular’ ballads, for starters, and it’s got a beautiful melody. Nino looks like he’s trying to be a (budget) Eminem or something, but the song is really rather lovely. I even don’t mind the switch to English halfway through.

2005 – Albania – Tomorrow I Go

So the live version was a bit of a shitshow, from memory, but I heard enough potential to check out the studio version and found it to be a total bop. And actually, looking back at the live version, it really wasn’t all that bad. Of course, I know the song a lot better now, so that helps. Ruslana winning in the previous year paved the way for the girlbops of the 2000s, and I’m glad I gave this one another chance, because I love it. Noooo, don’t ask me what it is in particular that I like about this one – I don’t know. Probably the chorus.

2005 – Cyprus – Ela Ela

I haven’t stuck this one in here to prove that it isn’t just girlbops I like, but you could probably be forgiven for thinking so. I suppose boybops just aren’t quite as numerous as the girl versions, but when they’re good I love them just as much as the lady versions. This one is a classic fluffy piece of nothing, but I’ll happily bounce along to it.

2005 – Serbia & Montenegro – Zauvijek Moja

Another entry from 2005, and not a bop this time. No Name look like a Balkan version of a boyband, but the song is absolutely not what we in the west would expect from that. The 7/8 beat, for starters – I doubt Westlife would even know what to do with such a beat. This is a little dramatic, a little stompy (but in the right way), and it’s got a lovely violin weaving through. Another ‘how the fuck did I miss this the first time around?’ moment.

2005 – Croatia – Vukovi Umiru Sami

And to finish off what turned out to be an exceptionally good year (for the early 2000s), there’s this wonderful waltz-ballad which has things I like in spades. There’s a bagpipe, a nice flute and waily women to offset the dramatic singer, which is especially awesome in the bridge. Great song.

2006 – Norway – Alvedansen

So when I first heard this in 2020 I apparently found it too high-pitched, which is pretty much on brand for me, but this time around there was clearly something about it that made me give it another few listens, and now I pretty much love it. Possibly because it’s another great song for just wailing along to (even if I do it an octave lower than Christine). Plus I like the violins.

2006 – North Macedonia – Ninanajna

Yeah, it’s a brainless bop. Yeah, it’s got a nonsense title. Yeah, it was pretty off-key/weak on the night, but the studio version is much better (especially this Macedonian one), and it’s just so goddamn bouncy! I love my girlbops!

2007 – Georgia – Visionary Dream

Georgia’s debut has slowly grown on me, mostly in this year. Back in 2020 I found it a little too weird and shouty to really like it, but this time around it intrigued me enough to give it a few more tries, and every time I hear this there’s something else about it that I notice and like. I love how it starts, with just those strumming string instruments, and then the orchestra comes in and for once I actually love how it sounds. Then at pretty much exactly one minute in (in this video) everything stops, and all you get is two notes before everything kicks in again for the chorus, and it gets more awesome every time I hear that bit. There’s another interesting bridge bit at 1m53 with little more than percussion, and basically this has overall just grown to be one of my absolute favourite songs of this decade. It’s absolutely magical.

2007 – Bulgaria – Water

Another big transformation between 2007/2020 (loved the music, hated the singing) and now, when I just love the whole song. I guess we can thank Go_A for getting me accustomed to white voice, and otherwise the percussion just has ‘me’ written all over it. I also love how hypnotic it is, mainly because there’s no change in the note(s) in the background. It makes it one of the more unique Eurovision entries, and it’s just awesome overall.

2008 – Serbia – Oro

Željko’s third ballad, and this is the last song I added to this list to make it complete, a mere two or three weeks ago. I’m not actually sure why it took me so long to decide that I wanted to keep it, because it really is as hauntingly beautiful as all his other ballads. Maybe it’s because this is the only one sung by a woman, but Jelena absolutely does it justice, so I guess we’ll have to put this one down to me being an idiot.

2009 – Turkey – Düm Tek Tek

Yep, this is Turkey’s third entry in this list, and it’s not even their last one. I suppose this is their attempt at repeating the success they had with Sertab Erener, but they didn’t quite make it, even if they got a respectable fourth place. Either way I just love this as yet another boppy bop of bopness, which I never realised I had a weakness for, but which weakness I’m embracing wholeheartedly.

2010 – Slovakia – Horehronie

This year is a classic example of me simply getting stuck on one song (Greece’s awesome OPA) and ignoring all the other ones, despite three of them being absolutely brilliant. This is the first one of those, and it’s a crime that it didn’t qualify, just as it’s a crime that I skipped past this in 2020 with a half-hearted ‘I rather liked it’. Sure, juries have always shafted the ethnic entries, but to qualify that atrocity from Belarus over this was shameful. I love this song, and I especially love how the super-bouncy beat drops in after the intro.

2010 – Finland – Työlki Ellää

This one is even more of a crime that it didn’t qualify (Belarus did, you fucking jury heathens!), and even more of a crime that I also skipped past this with nothing more than a ‘quite cool’. I mean, for fuck’s sake, this is the closest we’ve ever got to Värttinä being in Eurovision, and even back in 2020 I was already a massive fan of theirs. They are absolute masters at modern folk music, and this is a perfect example of their style. One thing I love about Värttinä (and by extension this song) is that they also excel at harmonies (sucker, remember?) and if you like this song I cannot recommend them enough. Seriously, check out their back catalogue, because they’re fantastic.

2010 – Turkey – We Could Be the Same

Yep, I skipped past this one too in 2010, because I really am that much of an idiot. As much as Turkish fans are obnoxiously pissed off that this didn’t win, I do understand why they’re so pissed off, because fuck, this song is good. (Just don’t go around being a twat to other people about it – yes I’m still salty about the Netherlands not winning 2014, but nothing will change the result and I’m not going to harrass Austrian fans over it.) Anyway, I’ve said it before – it’s the synthesizer that really makes this song as awesome as it is, and even without that riff it’d still be pretty fucking awesome.

2012 – Iceland – Never Forget

There’s something very compelling about this – the dramatic start, the soaring harmonies in the chorus, the awesome violin solo in the break – and I have no idea why I didn’t pick up on this back in 2020. This is everything a dramatic duet should be and I think it’s brilliant.

2012 – Moldova – Lăutar

Yes, this has the shittiest janky English lyrics you could possibly imagine, but it’s just so goddamn bouncy and cheerful that I honestly don’t give a shit. It’s also another perfect example of Moldova totally doing trumpets right and making me like them, which is quite an achievement. And that plinky instrument in the break absolutely has to be a hammered dulcimer, and anyone using a hammered dulcimer in a pop song is by definition awesome. (For a beautiful example of an instrumental number using a hammered dulcimer, check out Hangul from 2022’s Advahov Brothers.)

2013 – Bulgaria – Samo Shampioni

Yes, Cookiefonster and Krisznix managed to convince me in the end, even though it took me probably a week or three to finally decide that, yes, okay, it is actually a good song. I do think I still like Water/Voda better, but I have to admit that the bagpipe in this is pretty awesome, and of course the drumming is never going to get old. However, I still feel that they were trying to do too much on the stage during the competition, and it suffered for it.

2015 – Montenegro – Adio

And with that the quintet of Željko ballads is complete, because of course I already had the other three from back in 2020. Like Oro, this one just took a little longer to grow on me, but by now I’m wondering why, because it’s such a lovely, lovely song. Can’t really say much more than that.

2015 – Moldova – I Want Your Love

And for this one I’m picking the actual performance, because the more I see it and listen to it, the more I’m of the opinion that MOLDOVA WAS FUCKING ROBBED! This is a total banger, delivered absolutely perfectly on the night in both vocals and performance, and man, it so totally should have qualified! I blame a combination of the fact that they came first, so people either never saw them (shame on you if you don’t watch the semis from the start!) or just forgot about them, and the fact that people clearly just don’t have any fucking taste. Honestly, Greece’s drivel over this? Armenia’s super-ultra-DAF ballad over this? This song is perfect Eurovision material, and it ought to have absolutely slayed, not failed to qualify, and you’ll never convince me otherwise.

So that’s it! All the songs that I’m now regularly listening to, and I do hope that there have been a few surprises in here.

Here is where things start getting interesting, I think – this post will cover all the songs I discovered when I first did my Eurovision project back in 2020. A few of these I did already know, but I’d either forgotten about them or just hadn’t ever done anything with them until then. As with part one I will link all these songs to YouTube, either to the studio version or alternatively to a version that I like best.

1965 – Luxembourg – Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son

This is officially the oldest Eurovision song that I love enough to want to have permanent access to it. There are a few older ones that I do like (Sing Little Birdie, Are You Sure?), but I don’t like those quite enough. Anyway, I actually rediscovered this song in 2018, when I heard the news that France Gall had died (at only 70 years old), but at the time I just went ‘oh yeah, that’s a really good song’ and kinda went on with my life. The true quality of this song comes out better when you watch it in the context of the rest of 1965, because dear god that was a dire year. This song is head and shoulders above the rest, and deserves a spot as one of the most iconic Eurovision entries ever. Cookiefonster has done an absolutely awesome 8-bit version of it as part of his new Eurovision project.

1966 – Norway – Intet Er Nytt Under Solen

And this is officially the oldest Eurovision song that I’d never heard before that really slapped me around the head and screamed ‘love me!’ I was immediately intrigued by the 5/4 beat, and even though that’s very much a jazz beat, this version on the night holds back enough on the jazz that for once I don’t mind. Add to that the fact that this is a woman playing a guitar with a lovely warm voice, and I was completely sold. This is an underrated classic.

1969 – Netherlands – De Troubadour

I like to think that you will not find anyone around my age in the Netherlands who doesn’t know this song, because it’s an absolute classic, and rightly so. I’m still rather baffled that this song didn’t win 1969 outright, because while the other winners are okay, this song just has such a unique beauty and quality to it that to me it vastly outstrips the other three (especially France). It was actually a little tricky to find a good version of this, because Lenny has sung this song in so many ways over the years, but the simple version with the guitar and the orchestra remains the best. This will always remain one of the best entries my country has ever produced.

1972 – Luxembourg – Après Toi

Another rediscovery rather than a song completely new to me – for Dutchies my age this is definitely another golden oldie – and maybe its very familiarity is the reason why I like it rather than just going ‘meh, French chanson-ballad, boring’. Still, there’s something properly dramatic in all the right ways about that soaring chorus. It’s not top-tier great, but it’s great nonetheless.

1979 – Germany – Dschinghis Khan

Back in 2020 I had been forewarned about Germany 1979 – I can’t remember exactly how, but most likely by my Reddit commenters, because by the time I got to the mid-seventies I’d built up a core group of commenters. As such I was very hyped up about it, which always adds that extra layer when you’re watching a show – is it going to be as good as people say it is, or will it disappoint? Well, of course it didn’t disappoint – it actually exceeded all expectations. This is as iconic an entry as Dancing Lasha Tumbai, and just like that song it also deserves the performance on the night, because man, that guy has some dancing stamina. The most baffling thing about this is not just that it didn’t win, it’s that there were three whole songs that the juries considered better than this. One of those was French quality, so yeah okay, that could have been the Molitva to this coming second, but the other two were a hideous dirge of a song and a song utterly spoilt by lalalaing children. What an absolute crime…

1979 – Denmark – Disco Tango

Back in the days when Denmark weren’t yet annoying, and back in a year that already has one genius song, Tommy Seebach won my heart with a song that does exactly what it says on the tin, and in all the right ways. I love watching Strictly Come Dancing, and out of the ballroom dances the tango has always been my favourite, and this one absolutely seamlessly mixes it with some good old seventies disco. And that’s literally all it needs – songs don’t have to be complex to be enjoyable.

1989 – Finland – La Dolce Vita

After a ten-year drought throughout the eighties, with nothing actually good enough that I wanted to listen to it on a regular basis, Finland suddenly came out with this absolute gem of a song. Who knew that a musical number more Spanish than paella would work so well with the cadence and flow of the Finnish language? And because the juries have always shafted Finland for no apparent reason it didn’t score any higher than 7th place. It honestly deserved so much better.

1990 – Spain – Bandido

And speaking of musical numbers more Spanish than paella… This is what I expect to hear when I think of a generic Spanish song. Something with flamenco guitars, a beat you can dance to and two ladies singing in a slightly flamenco style, but not to such an extent that it hurts your ears. There’s not a lot of substance to this, but who needs substance with a super-Spanish summer hit like this?

1991 – Israel – Kan

As much as 1991 was a mess of a year, there were a couple of really standout songs, and this is one of them. Back then Israel managed to still be relatively uncontroversial and often sent in upbeat yet minor key songs that had that lick of Israeli sound to it to make them almost irresistible. I’d say this is absolutely the best example of such a song, and it’s got a wonderful soaring chorus to sing along to.

1991 – France – C’est le Dernier Qui A Parlé Qui A Raison

I will never not be upset that this tied with Sweden, and then lost due to whatever stupid tiebreaker rule they had at the time, because this song is one of the most unique entries Eurovision has ever had, and it should have massively outstripped that run-of-the-mill thing that Carola belted out into the wind machine. Honestly, I couldn’t hum Carola’s song if you put a gun to my head, while I actually remembered this song from back when it became a hit in the Netherlands in 1991. It was a definite ‘oh, that song!’ moment when she started to sing, and Amina has one of those clear, pure voices that actually make the vocal shenanigans a joy to listen to. As so often, the juries should have been collectively ashamed that they didn’t make this the winner.

1993 – Norway – Alle Mine Tankar

The very last song of 1993, a contest that I’m sure I never watched at the time. This means that I sat through 24 generally pretty boring or even downright repulsive songs, and then got (gently) slapped in the face by this gorgeous piece of fragility. With music that is little more than a gently tinkling guitar and some lovely violins, this is a slice of quiet beauty that was as lovely as it was unexpected.

1997 – Turkey – Dinle

I will repeat this until the cows come home – this is one of the best ever pre-2000 entries and without a doubt the absolute best entry of the whole 1990s. It starts with that slightly hypnotic string instrument, then the soaring flutes, then that fantastic beat, and then Şebnem comes in with that long, long, perfect note, and basically I was sold within the first twenty seconds of the song. The chorus is equally perfect, again with that soaring note moving into the groovy rhythm of the Turkish lyrics. This is Turkey at its absolute, absolute best.

1997 – Poland – Ale Jestem

I have rarely been impressed by Poland’s Eurovision contribution, but the few times when they did, they did it very, very well. This is a masterpiece in 6/8 beat with a lovely and unusual melody weaving through, and a voice that does justice to the whole package. An absolutely lovely song.

1997 – United Kingdom – Love Shine a Light

I will be very honest and say that this song is gradually growing off me, though right now it’s still at the stage where I can listen to it every once in a while. For now that soaring chorus still carries the day, because simply wailing ‘and we’re AAAAAAAAAAALLLL gonna shine a light together’ is still satisfying enough to sit through the rest of the song.

2000 – Sweden – När Vindarna Viskar Mit Namn

Yes, I know this isn’t the version that went to Eurovision, but fuck it – this is the version that I love. Not just for the fact that the Swedish version is better than the English one, but also for the fact that it’s so decidedly un-Swedish, compared to their more recent entries. And I can’t even pinpoint why I like it so much, I just do.

2003 – Belgium – Sanomi

Belgium can be very flaky, but they have also had some surprisingly good entries, and this one has to rank among the best. It’s not even so much the fact that it’s in a completely made-up language, it’s just the whole package of a song that sounds like a really good ethno-bop of a country you’ve never heard of. This particular version appears to be a new 2019 version, but it’s the one I have on my playlist so that’s the one I picked.

2004 – Belgium – 1 Life

Yes, Belgium managed to really impress me two years in a row, and with two completely different songs. I know this one totally flopped in the contest, but I don’t care because I can’t help bopping along to it whenever it pops up. The chorus is ridiculously catchy and it gives me the same vibes as Spain 1990 – a light, bouncy summer hit to really up the mood.

2004 – Serbia & Montenegro – Lane Moje

I know I watched 2004 live, because I knew Wild Dances, and somehow I just didn’t remember this absolute gem of a song. I think I’d been pre-warned about Balkan ballads in 2020 though, and Željko ballads in particular, and this one is an absolutely perfect example. It illustrates the fact that I don’t simply dislike ballads – I dislike ballads that only rely on the voice and more or less ignore the instrumentation. To me the instrumentation is just as much, if not more important to a song than the voice, so Željko is a master at perfectly accommodating my taste. I love this song and I doubt I’ll ever stop loving it.

2006 – Bosnia & Herzegovina – Lejla

Case in point – the second Željko ballad knocked me over just as much as the first one, and again I simply did not remember it from watching it back in 2006. Clearly 32-year-old me had not quite developed the exquisite taste I have now. This is the second perfect example of a gorgeous song that I’ll never tire of, and I still don’t know whether I like it better than Lane Moje or not.

2006 – Ukraine – Show Me Your Love

It turns out that 2006 was actually a pretty good year for me, because this is the second of three songs I ended up keeping. In an era when everyone and sundry chugged out girlbops to very mixed success, Ukraine managed to absolutely nail it twice in quick succession. Okay, Tina never got as far as Ruslana did, but for me this is a perfect boppy bop of bopness that I’ll belt along to every time I hear it, down to that incredible long note near the end. I don’t always have the lungs for it, though that’s more due to not taking a breath at the right time than not actually being able to do it, but that’s by the by. I genuinely adore this song.

2006 – Armenia – Without Your Love

This may just be my favourite debut entry ever (without checking what every country’s actual debut entry is). It shows that it’s not just girlbops that are fun, boybops can be equally fun when they’re done well. Again, I totally didn’t remember this song at all, but it’s doing everything exactly right for me, meaning that even the title repetitis isn’t annoying. Yes people, it is possible to repeat the title numerous times without it irritating the shit out of me! Andre is a gem and I love this song as much as the previous two.

2009 – Moldova – Hora Din Moldova

This was a great year, and not because of Mr Caterpillar Eyebrows. For this one I’ve picked the actual performance on the night, because not only does Nelly absolutely nail that wailing start, without a single dud note, I love the staging with the four super-energetic dancers and Nelly’s totally awesome purple boots. This song is just so fucking exuberant that I don’t understand how anyone can listen to this and not want to get up and dance (and it doesn’t even have to be the Hora). Also, there’s just something about the way Moldova uses trumpets that makes me actually like them. Fuck, I love this song, and it’s not even my favourite of the year.

2009 – Estonia – Rändajad

Nope, neither is this one, as much as I adore it. Very different from Moldova – much more mystical with the slightly mournful vocals and the accompanying string quartet, but my god what a fantastic composition. Gorgeous chorus, with that repeated ‘see on tee’, a gorgeous bridge with a lovely violin solo and some top tier wailing, and you basically just can’t go wrong with this song.

2009 – Armenia – Jan Jan

Back in 2020 I dubbed this ‘probably my absolute favourite song that I never knew before’, and I haven’t yet changed my mind on that. I have loved the fuck out of this song from about ten seconds into my very first listen of it. I love the slightly complicated beat. I love that it starts in English and then switches to Armenian, which is the best way to do a half-and-half song. I love the chorus, and how the melody just bounces up and down, inviting you to do the same. I love the duduks in the background giving it that ethnic flavour. Basically I just love every possible thing about this song.

2010 – Greece – OPA

For me this is kind of the proto-Alcohol is free, in that it’s exuberantly Greek and eminently singalongable. I have said it twice before, but I absolutely adore how it takes less than a minute to know exactly when to shout ‘Hey!’ and ‘Opa!’ and I absolutely have to do so every time I hear this song. Sure, it has about as much substance as candyfloss, but as I have also repeatedly said, songs don’t need to have substance to be good. And Giorgios is still pretty tasty.

2012 – Serbia – Nije Ljubav Stvar

Seriously, Željko just cannot get things wrong. Three very different songs, but all three of them with that Željko magic that makes them shine among the crap that surrounds it. Not that 2012 was a particularly crap year, but to me this is still the absolute best song it had on offer, and I like it only marginally less than Lejla and Lane Moje. This is one of those songs where I’ve (sort of) made the effort to learn the lyrics, just so I can sing along to it.

2017 – France – Requiem

And so we come to the last entry for this post, and just like Sweden 2000 it’s not the version that was at Eurovision that I’ve kept, but this proper version instead. I don’t even know why they butchered it for the actual contest, but let’s just forget about that one. I don’t really have that much more to say about this song, just that it’s another one where I really love the chorus.

Stay tuned for part three, which I personally think is the most interesting one!

So I promised a bunch of follow-up posts, starting with three which I’m calling ‘keepsies’ and which will basically concentrate on which of all the songs that I have heard over the years I love enough to have kept them permanently on my playlist. In order to do that I have to first explain why there will be three of these posts, and that is because these songs basically fall into three separate categories:

Category 1: All the songs that I loved immediately upon watching the contest at the time it happened. I’m not going to list all the ones from 2019 onwards, because a) there’s too bloody many of them and b) I’d basically end up rewriting half of my reviews of the years since then. You can simply look at my ranking for those years and know that the top X of that year made it (with the value of X being stated in that same post). That leaves all the ones before then which I’ll cover in this post – 23 in total.

Category 2: All the songs that I either discovered or (in a few cases) rediscovered during my Eurovision project when I did it in 2020. There were a total of 27 of these and I will cover them all in part two.

Category 3: All the songs that I somehow skipped over back in 2020 but have come to love during this second run. I swear this is total coincidence, but there are also 27 of them, and I will cover those in part three.

As I’m sure is abundantly clear from my reviews, the Eurovision songs that I kept immediately after watching the contest (or at least before doing my project in 2020) are few and far between, and I am probably not even accurate in my recollection, but I basically went through my list of MP3 files and listed all the Eurovision songs in a spreadsheet, then looked up the correct year for them. Like I said, I may not have got these songs exactly in the year they competed, but I definitely had them before I first had the crazy idea to sit down and listen to every single Eurovision ever. I’ll tackle them in chronological order. I’m also going to risk linking every single one of them to YouTube (studio versions where possible) – something I might regret in three years time when all the links are broken, but that’s a worry for three years from now.

1995 – Norway – Nocturne

I’m sure there were songs that I liked before 1995, but you have to remember the time. I was 21, still at university and still living with my parents. Computers most definitely existed, but I’m not sure I had my own yet, nor do I know whether we even had an internet connection at the time. It’s very likely that the only internet access I had was via university, or otherwise via my best friend (who lived 20 minutes away – I had to cycle over to her if i wanted to use the internet), but again, I’m not sure whether we already had that arrangement in place. Anyway, I do know that I was blown away by this song, but I probably didn’t get an MP3 copy of it until much, much later. Still, I’m happy enough to credit this as the oldest song that I liked right when it happened, and it’s still as close to perfect as a song can get.

1996 – Ireland – The Voice

Two years in a row where I absolutely loved the winner of Eurovision! I don’t think that’s happened again since, nor is it likely to, going by my recent list of winners. I will say that in the nearly thirty years since this came out I don’t come back to it as often as I did initially, but it’s still an absolutely stunning piece of music with an absolutely stunning voice.

2003 – Turkey – Everyway That I Can

The drought between 1996 and 2003 is most likely because I stopped watching Eurovision for a while. I genuinely don’t know exactly which years I did and didn’t see, but I think it was either 2011 or 2012 when I really got into it, mostly because I discovered that one of my best friends absolutely loved Eurovision. So anyway – another winner, because back then that was apparently all I was interested in. It’s still a decent song, but after 21 years the novelty has worn off somewhat, so it’s not one I’ll actively seek out.

2004 – Ukraine – Wild Dances

Ahh, Ruslana – I think even back then I had a bit of a crush on you, and unlike Sertab, this song has not aged at all for me. I’ll still happily wail along to the ‘shi-rikitai-shi-rikita-ne’ bits as if there is no tomorrow. I’ve always loved heavy percussion, so the really driving beat in this one is a big factor in why I like it so much. Still one of my favourite Eurovision songs ever.

2005 – Hungary – Forogj Világ

Here we have the first year where I kept more than one song, and this one was absolutely my favourite of the year. It still is even nearly twenty years later, so I think I can be pretty confident that it always will be. It definitely sounds more Irish than Ireland (aside from the incomprehensible language, of course), but I’ve always loved traditional Irish music, so it’s no surprise that I love this one so much. As an added bonus I recently rediscovered my old Livejournal, where I posted three Eurovision reviews back in the day, and this is what I said about Hungary: Starts cool! Very Irish though. Yay, sung in Hungarian. Like the blokes’ outfits and good solid black colour scheme, but don’t like her weird half trousers. Nice tapdancy bit in the middle. Good start!

2005 – Spain – Brujería

This is a song that I sort of liked when I first heard it, but was probably not entirely convinced by. At least, that’s what I conclude from my Livejournal review: Three chicks with flappy skirts, whee! Though seriously, pink and orange do NOT go together. This is kinda catchy, but what’s with the hoarse bloke in the middle? Apart from that I like, but still prefer Hungary. From that we can conclude that past me already liked girlbops, and already didn’t like rap breaks. It definitely grew on me though, and while it won’t rank in my top ten or even top twenty (noooo, I’m not going to do that, it’d be horrific), it’s still a solid song.

2005 – Greece – My Number One

And then another winner. I don’t know if my taste was more aligned to the rest of Europe back then or whether it’s just because I like so many more songs in each contest recently, but here we are. Helena is a little more like Sertab, in the sense that nearly 20 years later it’s not as fresh and exciting as it was then, but it’s still a good song. And no, as you can see from my back-then review, it wasn’t my favourite then either: Very singalongy entry. Maybe that’s why it’s the favourite to win. Dress is okay, nothing special. Not bad, but I still want Hungary to win.

2007 – Greece – Yassou Maria

Greece definitely had a really good streak (for me at least) in the early(ish) 2000s, and this one is exactly the kind of Greek entry that I love – upbeat, bouncy and unmistakeably Greek. I forgot about this song for a long, long time, and then rediscovered it when I randomly dug through my MP3 collection about six or seven years ago (some of it is organised, some of it is just random songs dumped in a folder called ‘Various’). Also, 2007 is the second of three years that I reviewed on my Livejournal, and this is what I said back then: This is the best entry so far, even if it’s a tad off-key. Very catchy (and very skimpy outfits). Yeah, I like this song. Sometimes I don’t change.

2007 – Ukraine – Dancing Lasha Tumbai

Yes, this is the live video, because for this song you have to. That’s not to say that this is not a song that you can simply listen to, but to truly appreciate it you need the visuals with it. This is actually one of those songs that totally knocks you over the first time you see it, because it’s so beyond over the top bonkers that the sheer ridiculousness of it is all you can take in. Only later do you realise that the song itself is actually really good. Want proof? This is what I said back in 2007: I have no words, I spent the first half of this song doubled up in laughter, though I have to admit it’s quite catchy. They were trying to outdo Lordi I guess? It’s got about as much substance to it as 2 Unlimited. Yegads the outfits… My current opinion is that if there is one song that absolutely embodies Eurovision in all its wonderful glory, then it’s this one. And tell me you don’t do the arm thing whenever this comes up, and I’ll call you a liar. It’s not my all-time favourite, but it’s probably the most iconic ever entry.

2007 – Romania – Liubi Liubi, I Love You

This is cheesier than a quattro formaggi pizza, but in a really endearing way. I’ve always had a soft spot for songs that gradually speed up, and a song that then also combines my interest in languages was bound to win me over, as it did back in 2007: This isn’t bad, it’s a bit Zorba the Greek-ish. I like! Not sure what to say about the looks though, are they supposed to all look like they’re from different countries? Never mind, like the song. It was never going to come even close to winning, but I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it.

2011 – Ireland – Lipstick

I’m not going to say too much about this one, because I’ve already covered most of it in my review – this is one of the few times when I listened to a song prior to the contest, because I thought it was going to be hilariously crap, and then it turned out to be unexpectedly catchy. I have no idea what Jedward are up to these days (other than attending Eurovision in excessively sequinned glittery coats), but they gave us this absolute gem, so they can do whatever they want.

2013 – Greece – Alcohol is Free

I genuinely wish we would get more ska in Eurovision, because it’s such a bouncy, cheerful genre! For me it probably helps that the most popular Dutch band in the Netherlands in the 80s was a ska band, so I’ve grown up listening to a lot of it, but this is such an exuberantly awesome song that I’m always baffled when people say ‘eh, it’s okay, I can take it or leave it’, or even say that they don’t like it at all. I mean, I get that people have different tastes, but how can you possibly not love this song? How can you not think that it’s the bestest Eurovision song ever, and that it should have won? Everything about this song is perfect, and I’ll never think otherwise.

2014 – Netherlands – Calm After the Storm

I can only repeat what I said before about this song – bear in mind that the Netherlands had had a terrible, terrible run up until the year before, but even though they qualified in 2013, I hated that song. Everything since 1975 had been, at best, palatable or, at worst, utter drivel. And then they completely knocked me over with this. I still don’t know what it is about country in Eurovision for me, but this song is just so goddamn beautiful that it astonishes me every time I hear it.

2016 – Ukraine – 1944

If any year was all about Russia vs Ukraine it was 2016, and while I think I was always slightly biased towards Jamala, in hindsight I’m even happier that it was this song that won rather than Russia. This is the ultimate example of a voice that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t like, but which has something so utterly compelling about it that it simply won me over.

2016 – Russia – You Are the Only One

If we’re talking about Dancing Lasha Tumbai being the embodiment of Eurovision, then I think this song is distilled Eurovision. If you were to cut this song, it’d bleed the Te Deum. Also, no one is ever going to beat the line ‘thunder and lightning, it’s getting exciting’. This really is the ultimate Eurovision song, also because it didn’t actually win – that’s a very Eurovision thing to happen.

2017 – Hungary – Origo

I’m not going to say too much about these later songs, because I haven’t had 20+ years to let them mature, but this is a perfect example of Hungarian ethno-pop, and even the rap is pretty damn good. And Joci was still absolutely robbed in 2019.

2017 – Armenia – Fly With Me

At the time it was my favourite of the year, which it isn’t anymore. Who knows, maybe once it’s 20 years old I won’t want to listen to this one at all anymore, but for now it’s still a good song that I enjoy listening to.

2017 – Cyprus – Gravity

Possibly the oddest song for me to have kept, because I’m pretty sure that most people don’t really think much of this song, but it’s always had something that really tugged at me, so I’ve kept it. It’s not a song I tend to seek out, but neither will I skip it when it randomly comes on.

2017 – Azerbaijan – Skeletons

Probably the first time since their debut that I genuinely liked an Azeri entry, though I’m still not really sure what to think of the weird staging they had for it. Maybe the guy with the horse’s head was meant to be a metaphor for something, but I always just figured that it was a weird way of making people remember the song. Either way I still like it.

2018 – Moldova – My Lucky Day

A classic catchy Moldovan entry with fun staging, which is still enjoyable even without the staging. With the trumpets it actually reminds me a little of Lautar, which is also a Moldovan entry and which I also love (I’ll cover it in part three). Moldova at its best.

2018 – Denmark – Higher Ground

A surprisingly non-annoying entry from Denmark which has just the right amount of drama and stompiness to transport me to a viking ship somewhere and only think of the romantic things about vikings and not the plundering side. Possibly my favourite ever Danish entry.

2018 – Serbia – Nova Deca

A perfect cross between a waily Balkan ballad and a pacy dance song. It never fails to captivate me when it comes on.

2018 – Israel – Toy

I’m sure Netta annoys a lot of people, and I can definitely see why she would, and I will also honestly say that this is the kind of song that probably won’t stand the 20-year test, but for now I still think it’s a fun song with silly chicken noises.

And just to recap why I’m not covering any songs from 2019 onwards: there’s 88 of them that I’ve kept. That’s how good Eurovision is these days.

And just like that I’m at the end of my second Eurovision journey – from here on I will simply review each year after it has happened. And oh, what a fucking year to end on… I want to say that it all started off innocuous enough, but of course there was controversy right from the moment that Israel confirmed their participation, despite the 7th October attacks. I’ll get into that controversy when I review Israel, but it made for an uncomfortable pre-season, not to mention an uncomfortable Eurovision week. Then there was the controversy around the disqualification of the Netherlands, which I will get into when I review them.

I tried to watch this year as if it had been any other year, more or less pretending that neither controversy ever happened, and I will admit that for both semi-finals that worked pretty well. Both shows were pretty par for the course – the full shitshow didn’t start until after the second semi-final. So to cover the usual bits – the Swedes are excellent hosts, and that’s something I don’t think anyone can deny. Petra is still a legend, but Malin was a good counterpart and did not look put out by the fact that Petra was clearly the audience’s favourite. The jokes were all genuinely funny, and honestly, people should stop trying to emulate that style of hosting, because no one is ever likely to do it better than Sweden. The postcards were pretty low-budget, but I liked them nonetheless – it was a nice idea to feature two of the country’s previous songs, though of course I disagreed with many of the choices. I did agree with many of the others, but I’m not going to go into that because it’d take too much time.

There were 37 competing countries – the same number as 2023, but with a swap-out. Romania did not participate, and instead we saw the return, after 31 years, of Luxembourg. I hope this now means they are here to stay again. Then there was also the big change of having the Big Five and winner perform in the semis, which I had been saying for years should happen. I think it’s a brilliant change, and I hope it stays forever. Lastly, this is the first year with a non-binary artist competing, and we even got two! For me personally, aside from the shitshow parts, this was a really good year again – my entire top 17 made it onto my playlist. So let’s just dive right in, shall we?

SEMI-FINAL 1

We have opening acts this year, and for this one it was Eleni Foureira coming back to sing Fuego, wearing little more than some strategically placed sequins. She’s followed by Eric Saade singing Popular while wearing a keffiyeh around his arm. The fact that the EBU apologised for this afterwards was probably the first ‘oh, for fuck’s sake’ moment of the contest, because (for me at least) it was a total Barbra Streisand effect. I’d never even noticed the damn thing before they apologised for it. Also, the dude has Palestinian heritage, so he was perfectly entitled to wear it. Anyway, as if two opening acts wasn’t enough we also get Chanel reprising SloMo in another shitty outfit. Warning: I’ll have a lot to say about all the shitty outfits this year.

(1. Cyprus, 2. Serbia, 3. Lithuania, 4. Ireland and 5. Ukraine – qualified for the final)

6. Poland – The Tower – Luna – Contest ranking: 12th (30th) – My ranking: 29th

First of all, Joost wears those giant shoulderpads better, and I really don’t see the point of wearing a giant PVC coat for all of three seconds before it’s ripped off. The song itself is okay, but her singing is extremely underwhelming and the staging is way too busy. Why two towers plus three human rooks/towers when the song is called ‘The Tower’ (singular)? I don’t dislike this song, but it’s just very underwhelming.

(7. Croatia – qualified for the final)

8. Iceland – Scared of Heights – Hera Björk – Contest ranking: 15th (37th) – My ranking: 30th

Hera is a lovely person – incredibly positive despite basically coming rock bottom this year, but there’s a reason she came rock bottom, because this is a ridiculously generic feel-good anthem. An anthem-by-numbers, if you will. It’s okay to listen to while it happens, but there’s just nothing special about this whatsoever, though I do like her sparkly fringy outfit.

(9. Slovenia and 10. Finland – qualified for the final)

11. Moldova – In the Middle – Natalia Barbu – Contest ranking: 13th (31st) – My ranking: 28th

Ahh, if it isn’t the winner of the Cliff Richard sorest loser of 2024 award! I honestly don’t mind this song too much – it’s a little ballady but not obnoxiously so, and it’s got a decently hummable chorus, but al the ridiculous nonsense she came out with after not qualifying just made me laugh. Her initial complaint was that all the qualifiers were ‘political’ (in the semi that didn’t have Israel in it!) and her subsequent comments were something around devil-worshipping and half-naked costumes. The latter is especially rich coming from someone who wore a dress that showed at least half her tits to the world in general, so maybe she should just have accepted that people didn’t like the song enough to vote for it? I know I didn’t.

12. Azerbaijan – Özünlə Apar – Fahree feat. Ilkin Dovlatov – Contest ranking: 14th (36th) – My ranking: 15th

I actually really like this song, though it did take a while for it to grow on me. With that in mind it doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t qualify – the very fact that it’s a grower is the first reason. The second reason is the staging, which totally doesn’t suit this dance-ballad-with-ethnic-groove song. The stupid futuristic suits are a total mismatch, I have no idea what the giant head and hands are meant to add, and Fahree and Ilkin totally ignore each other, not just on stage but at any other point when you see them. Very nice song (I love Ilkin’s wailing in there), but it just didn’t cut it live.

13. Australia – One Milkali (One Blood) – Electric Fields – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 32nd

Another totally unsurprising NQ. It’s a pretty standard pop/dance song, and just having one line in an aboriginal language doesn’t automatically make it good. I also find the million-nillion thing rather annoying, and the biggest crime is having a didgeridoo in there for a mere three seconds rather than all throughout the song. I mean, I have Finnish songs that have more didgeridoo in it than this! It’s not terrible, just incredibly disappointing.

(14. Portugal and 15. Luxembourg – qualified for the final)

So after that we get the usual mix of interval act and filler, and while the filler was nice enough, an interval act of Johnny Logan singing Euphoria was never going to go down all that well with me, given that I neither like Johnny Logan nor Euphoria all that much. Same with Benjamin Ingrosso – I can take him or leave him really.

SEMI-FINAL 2

Less of an opening act for this one – we just get a skit of Malin and Petra singing Tattoo with lyrics about how they have to host Eurovision, which is pretty funny.

1. Malta – Loop – Sarah Bonnici – Contest ranking: 16th (35th) – My ranking: 22nd

Oh look, another over-choreographed girl-bop that’s hoping to be the next Fuego or SloMo, but which instead is the next, um… I’m trying to think of failed girl-bops here, but that in itself is probably telling enough. She’s being thrown around far too much, and while the song is nice enough, it’s just missing that je ne sais quois. It’s trying too hard without being good enough.

2. Albania – Titan – Besa – Contest ranking: 15th (34th) – My ranking: 26th

Argh, Albania has the death slot again. This is more in the style of Sekret than Karma or Duje, but this year it has nothing in there that makes me love it. It’s too ballady, too aaahiyaahiyaah-y and not ethnic-waily enough. I don’t hate it, but I certainly don’t love it.

(3. Greece and 4. Switzerland – qualified for the final)

5. Czechia – Pedestal – Aiko – Contest ranking: 11th (28th) – My ranking: 11th

Although it’s a very different song, my relationship with this one was very similar to Azerbaijan, in that I didn’t think too much of it at first, but it’s really grown on me since then. It’s an indie guitar song, which normally means it doesn’t go much above ‘meh’ for me, but I absolutely love the chorus here. The way she works herself up to that ‘PUT. MY. SELF. ON A PEDESTAL! works really well. The only thing I don’t like is that argument part, but overall this is a really good song, and it’s a shame that it didn’t qualify, even if I thought it was deserved on the night.

(6. Austria – qualified for the final)

7. Denmark – Sand – Saba – Contest ranking: 12th (29th) – My ranking: 31st

The way I feel about this song is very similar to Iceland – an anthem-by-numbers, though Hera is a much better singer. The staging is a little boring too, plus it makes me feel gritty. There’s just not much more than a lot of shouting of SAAAAAND! and I’m not impressed.

(8. Armenia and 9. Latvia – qualified for the final)

10. San Marino – 11:11 – Megara – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 27th

There are some things to like about this – it’s a good, rocking guitar song and I like the flamenco guitar break, but I find the singing style of the main singer a little annoying, with that half-talking, half-whiny, half-singing stuff (and yes, I know that’s three halves). I also dislike that aggressively goth-with-pink look, and the whole staging is messy. Overall I just never liked it enough to keep.

(11. Georgia – qualified for the final)

12. Belgium – Before the Party’s Over – Mustii – Contest ranking: 13th (32nd) – My ranking: 13th

Another song that I wasn’t at all impressed with on the night. The stage is full of microphones, yet you can barely hear him sing, and what you do hear is a little shaky, bordering on off-key. But of course, after the semi I switched to the studio version, and that one is absolutely fab. It’s a total power ballad that ends really loud, but for once it fucking works for me, and I love that repeated ‘before the party is over’ at the end. So yeah, another one that deserved to NQ based on the performance, but which I’ve grown to love since then.

(13. Estonia, 14. Israel, 15. Norway and 16. Netherlands – qualified for the final)

The show is followed by two interval acts – the first one is just another ‘previous contestant medley’ except they’ve turned it into karaoke, but the second one is ‘We Just Love Eurovision Too Much’ which is a classic Swedish musical comedy number that both sends up Sweden in a self-deprecating manner and draws in Käärijä to perform Cha Cha Cha. I loved it. It’s pretty hilarious anyway to say Finnish hosting would be a bunch of moomins dancing to Ievan Polkka, because it’s not outside the realms of possibility.

Here is Cookiefonster’s review of the semi-finals.

And from here onwards is when it all went tits up. It started with the Italian broadcaster RAI ‘accidentally’ publishing the televote results after the second semi-final. I put that in quotation marks, because as much as I’d like to believe in the incompetence of RAI, I’m certain that they did this deliberately as a warning to show the rest of Europe that Israel got nearly 40% of the vote. The next thing was that on Friday all sorts of rumours were starting to go around about something that had happened with Joost Klein backstage. And they were definitely rumours, because at no point during all of Friday did the EBU bother to put out any kind of statement about what was actually happening. The only official statement was to say that the ‘rest of the world’ vote, which had been due to open 24 hours before the final, was indefinitely delayed. In the end it wasn’t opened until after the official announcement that the Netherlands had been disqualified. The lack of communication from the EBU about everything was absolutely shameful in itself, and that’s not even touching on the disqualification itself. But I’m kind of getting ahead of myself here, so let’s just get to the…

GRAND FINAL

I actually rather liked the opening – Björn Skifs singing Hooked on a Feeling. I never actually knew that song before Guardians of the Galaxy, but it’s a total banger and I love that ooga-chaka ooga-chaka start of it, so that was good. What I don’t like is opening the vote at the start of the show. I’d much rather have a short voting window, because it means that you pretty much have to watch the show to know when to vote – I’ll get to why that’s important in a moment. Anyway, the flag parade is flaggy and parady, and omfg Olly, could you find a bigger UK flag? I like the slightly distressed look of it, but dude, you could curtain an entire house with that thing.

1. Sweden – Unforgettable – Marcus & Martinus – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 17th

So for some reason Sweden this year are represented by Norwegian identical twins who barely look old enough to compete in Junior Eurovision, never mind the adult version. The song is a predictably slick and classic Swedish entry (which looks like a music video on stage), and this year it falls on the ‘yes, I like this one, dammit’ side of the ‘oh god it’s so Swedish‘ coin. I like that repeating ascending synth riff in the background and the chorus is pretty catchy, even if the whole ‘sheeee’s unforgeddable’ pronunciation gets on my tits a little bit. (Please note that I’m not a big fan of the – mostly American – habit of pronouncing voiceless consonants as voiced when they’re in between vowels. Think of the difference between Captain Picard saying ‘resistance is futile’ and Seven of Nine saying ‘resistance is feudal’.) Anyway, I do like it, even though it’s very Swedish.

2. Ukraine – Teresa & Maria – Alyona Alyona & Jerry Heil – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 16th

As always with a song that has rap in it, I like this one despite the rap rather than because of it. It’s not my favourite Ukrainian song ever, but it’s got a lovely chorus, and I would also like to commend Jerry for wearing an actual dress rather than falling for the catsuit/swimsuit craze that seems to be all the rage these days. Not that that would have fitted this song at all, but I’m just saying.

3. Germany – Always on the Run – Isaak – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 25th

Isaak looks like a very nice chap, and he’s got a really good voice, but this is one of those ‘whoh-oh I’ve got it so tough but I’ll grit my teeth and stick it out’ kind of songs, and I find them a little boring. I’m genuinely surprised that this did as well as it did, because it certainly wasn’t anything that I was going to vote for.

4. Luxembourg – Fighter – Tali – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 9th

I’m really happy that Luxembourg is back, and this song is a lovely boppy bop of bopness that seamlessly mixes French and English and has a really catchy chorus, especially the latter part of it with that descending melody. Welcome back, I love this one!

5. Netherlands – Europapa – Joost Klein – Contest ranking: disqualified – My ranking: 1st

Ahh, here we go. I’ve been mulling over this rant for months now, but I’m probably still going to forget half of it because it’s all too disjointed in my head. Anyway, I’m not going to review the song here – I already did that back in March. This is going to be the rant about the disqualification, because seriously EBU, what the actual fuck was that about? To recap for those of you who have been living under a rock, here’s what happened. After Joost’s semi-final performance he was confronted backstage by a female camera operator who tried to film him as he was coming off stage and going to the green room. Joost did not want to be filmed at that point, repeatedly asked her to stop, and when she did not do so, he ‘made a threatening gesture’ towards her and she ended up reporting him. Again the quotation marks, because to this date it’s still not 100% clear what actually happened. Most people assume that he pushed the camera away (without touching the woman), she dropped it and it broke. Something to that effect at least.

Now here’s the deal: the Dutch broadcaster, AVROTROS, maintains that there was an agreement in place, stating that Joost would not be filmed just after coming off stage. (The EBU are adamant that this was not the case, but I’m going to put this down to miscommunication or something, because I have no reason to believe that AVROTROS were lying about this. Why would they?) Bear in mind that this song is in many ways a tribute to his dead parents, especially his dad, and you could bloody well see from the semi-final performance just how emotional he was at the end of it. I know he comes across as a jokester, and sometimes as a bit of an arsehole, and I’m pretty sure that he can be both, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he was mentally in absolutely no state to be filmed, and that should have been respected. So what he did was not right, but as far as I’m concerned the camerawoman was just as much as fault as he was, and to disqualify the Netherlands as a whole over it, rather than just him as the artist, was absolutely disproportionate. Personally I don’t even think that he as an artist should have been disqualified.

But that’s not even the whole of it, because this decision was not made until the afternoon of the Saturday, and before then there was virtually no communication whatsoever from the EBU about what the fuck was going on. All everyone knew was that the Netherlands were barred from the rehearsals, and then from the jury show, and then still from the Saturday rehearsals, because of ‘some incident’ with ‘a camerawoman’. The inclusion of her gender basically meant that people were immediately assuming sexual assault of some kind, and the EBU should have at the very least shut down those kind of rumours immediately. From statements after the final announcement of the DQ it’s become apparent that AVROTROS were in talks with the EBU pretty much non-stop all throughout the Friday and Saturday morning, offering all sorts of alternative solutions including a public apology to the camerawoman, but the EBU were adamant that there was no other option than to disqualify the whole entry. Apparently at some point there was even some indication that the whole country would just be voided, including not being able to vote in the final, but that at least never happened.

And still that’s not the worst of it, because while the EBU were being so fucking adamant that the incident could not be tolerated, there were all sorts of other rumours going around about other, equally intrusive incidents that no one appeared to bat an eyelid over. I’ll get to that in the next song’s review.

So here we were – the first ever disqualification of a song after it had already qualified for the final. Not just that – an absolute fan favourite that would have raked in the televote points. And I haven’t really touched on it in my review of Europapa, but you honestly cannot imagine how fucking stoked my country was about this song. I don’t even live in the Netherlands and I still caught the vibe of how fucking proud most people were of this most European of all songs representing our little country. And honestly? I really don’t think anyone (including me) was expecting it to win, because it’s not the kind of song that juries vote for. But you know what? I didn’t give a shit about that, and neither did most other people – we just wanted him to go out on stage, give Europe some happy hardcore and fulfill his childhood dream, and then come somewhere in the top ten or maybe even top five range. And all of that was fucking taken away from him, and us, because of something that the police basically dismissed as a non-event several months later. Yes, he got to perform in the semi, but it’s not the fucking same, is it? And clearly I’m not the only one who felt that way, because the Netherlands refused to announce their own jury votes (good for them), Käärijä pulled out as the Finnish spokesperson (good for him), as did Alessandra for Norway (though I think that was more about the overall shitshowness of the contest). Oh, and Martin Österdahl got booed every time he showed his smug fucking face. And not just a few boos, no, this was a whole fucking field of cows drowning out whatever he was trying to say. Take that, Mr Face of the EBU!

And the thing is, I’m so fucking pissed off about this, and about the next song, that I’ve even come up with a conspiracy theory. I’m an intelligent woman, and I loathe conspiracy theories, but this one is just plausible enough that I can’t help but wonder whether it’s true. Remember how RAI disclosed the Italian semi-final televote, and Israel absolutely raked in the votes? I wonder if the EBU panicked and feared that Israel might win the contest, which they might with a high enough televote score, especially if the rest of the televote was divided between other favourites. Favourites such as Croatia and the Netherlands. So a totally trivial incident was blown up out of all proportions just so they could disqualify the Netherlands and concentrate more of the televote points on the remaining favourites. Tell me that it doesn’t sound just plausible enough to be true.

So the aftermath at least has been sort of positive – Joost has gone absolutely stellar, so his career hasn’t suffered. AVROTROS have been pushing and pushing for reforms and better protection for the artists during the contest, and the EBU have announced several measures to address this. We’ll have to see whether they’re going to work, but it’s placated AVROTROS enough that they have agreed to participate in 2025. And for those of you who thought that them withdrawing was just an empty threat – I can assure you that it wasn’t. And I’m glad that Joost has decided not to participate for the Netherlands next year, because I really do think we need to see whether the EBU puts their money where their mouth is and actually enforces those new rules. Maybe he can try again in a few years, but let’s face it – Europapa is one of those songs that is absolute Eurovision gold and can’t really be replicated.

One last thing – I sincerely hope that that camerawoman isn’t (or hasn’t been) ousted, because whatever my feelings are over how she behaved and reacted, no one deserves the kind of internet rage, venom and death threats that this has attracted. Sometimes I really hate the Internet.

6. Israel – Hurricane – Eden Golan – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: disqualified

Well, at least both controversies are right after each other, so I can get them out of the way. And here too I’m probably going to forget half of it, but let’s go.

Let me start by saying that the attack of the 7th of October was atrocious and evil, and I’m never going to dispute that to anyone. And I’d like to keep politics out of this particular rant, but let’s face it, that’s going to be as impossible as the EBU trying to keep it out of the contest this year. I don’t want to go into the whole geopolitical situation in the Middle East, because that’s way above my pay grade, but you don’t need a degree in Middle-Eastern studies to know that the whole situation around Israel and the Palestinians is not nearly as black and white as, ooh, let’s say the war between Russia and Ukraine. See, in that conflict it’s very easy to know who the good guys and bad guys are. The problem is that, to Israel, their situation is just as black and white, and they simply refuse to even acknowledge that virtually no one else feels the same way – certainly not most European countries. I don’t know whether they’re just genuinely that tone deaf, or whether they simply have no humility whatsoever, and cannot conceive of them being wrong about anything. I suspect it’s the latter.

So yeah, the October attack happened and things went to shit, but Israel still announced it would participate in Eurovision. And the thing is, if they’d said ‘hey guys, sorry, we’ve got more important things to worry about right now than a silly singing competition, so we’ll skip this year’, then literally no one would have thought any the worse of them. They’d have said ‘understandable, good luck with it’ and that would have been it. But no, Israel insisted that they would participate, presumably because they thought they would pull a Ukraine 2022. Many countries weren’t happy with this, but the EBU insisted on its non-political stance and refused to ban them from competing. And you know, I do understand why they didn’t, even if I don’t agree with it. The EBU has always insisted on its non-political stance, even at times when things clearly were, and banning Israel would have had the unpleasant side-effect of probably being called antisemitic, given that Israel has a nasty habit of labeling any criticism of what it does as antisemitism. (This could be a whole rant in and of itself, because criticising Israel and/or its government is totally legitimate and is not antisemitism, but I have no time to go further into that.)

So anyway, Israel were going to compete, and submitted a song called October Rain, which was clearly about the attack. The EBU obviously said ‘uh no – no politics, remember?’ and rejected it. And that could have been it! It could have been a very gracious escape clause for both sides. Israel could have gone ‘welp, we tried but we’re not going to compromise on the lyrics’, the EBU would have gone ‘okay, in that case you no competey’ and both sides would have saved face. But no, then the Israeli government got involved and made them change the lyrics, so here we have Hurricane. Which is totally not about the 7 October attack guys, honest. Except it is, because I’m sure that some Israeli statement at some point said that they couldn’t possibly sing about anything else, because it’s all anyone in Israel could think about, and how could anyone possibly expect them to do something else?

Um, my dudes, Ukraine has been at war for three contests already, and they’ve managed to avoid sending songs that are too obviously about the war. They’re also a lot more humble about the whole thing, and are just grateful for any support they receive, rather than feeling that it’s their due, which is how Israel comes across. Israel did not seem to consider the general feeling in Europe about their conflict (despite there being very obvious examples on display everywhere), never mind what it would mean for the security situation around Eurovision. From several sources (including Cookiefonster) came the report that Malmö was crawling with police and had even borrowed police officers from neighbouring countries, which really did not improve the atmosphere. Eden herself had to basically stay in her hotel room whenever she was not rehearsing or performing, which is not right, but it was the reality. It basically made the contest all about them, which I’m sure is what they wanted (because it suits their massive victim complex), but not what everyone else wanted.

And that’s not all. Several delegations showed their support for Palestinians in various ways, all of which were banned by the EBU. This included Bambie Thug’s ogham script on their face which apparently read ‘free Palestine’. It’s another example of the Barbra Streisand effect, since if they’d just left it then only the few people who read Bambie’s statement (or whoever it was who broke the news) would have known about it, because who the fuck can read ogham script anyway? Portugal’s Palestinian nail polish stopped their performance from being uploaded to YouTube after the semi, until their broadcaster complained about it. And all the while during Eurovision week the Israeli delegation were going around backstage, allegedly being arseholes. I say allegedly, because while there are plenty of reports of them being arseholes and harrassing people, and reports of complaints to the EBU about them by various delegations of other countries, nothing was ever done about it. Which makes Joost’s disqualification even more ridiculous – double standards much, EBU?

And then of course there is the whole voting shenanigans. As I said, the Italian semi-final televote result showed that around 40% of the vote had gone to Israel. They later claimed it was an incomplete vote, but it wasn’t far off in the end. And then you couldn’t watch anything on YouTube on Friday or Saturday without getting an advert to ‘vote for song #6’, as sponsored by the Israeli government. Plus there was a campaign by several pan-European right-wing arseholes on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) to also vote for Israel, just to piss off the ‘gay woke lefties’ who like Eurovision. I’m talking people like Geert fucking Wilders and Tommy fucking Robinson here. And I’m going to spell it out for the Israeli people here: don’t think for a fucking moment that people like them don’t hate you. They do. They just hate muslims even more than they hate you. And this is why I’m against a voting window that spans the whole contest, because it allowed arseholes like them to drum up fake support without having to watch the contest, or giving a shit about it, and in fact hating it and trying to disrupt it.

Look, I’m not saying that all the votes for Israel were political. No, wait, they probably were, but some of them were anti-Palestine political rather than pro-Israel political. And of course, you cannot vote against a country, only for it, so the only recourse for everyone who did not agree with Israel’s participation was to vote for other countries, of which there were 24 to choose from. And that in itself pisses me off, because I was also terrified of Israel possibly winning, so I mostly concentrated my votes on Croatia as the most likely televote winner. Under normal circumstances I would have spread out my votes a lot more among the other songs that I liked, but I was too scared to do so. And while I can only speak for myself, I cannot imagine that many others didn’t feel the same way.

On the night things were a shitshow as well, because many people in the arena booed Israel’s performance, but the EBU did not want to show that, so they used so-called ‘anti-booing technology’ (basically fake applause) to drown it out. It didn’t fully work, because I can still hear the boos.

Anyway, here’s my solution to this whole particular shitshow. Make it a rule that countries involved in an active military conflict can participate, but they cannot host if they win. That already takes away a lot of the pressure, because it was very apparent that the EBU were terrified of Israel winning (and then insisting on hosting) – rightly so, because I genuinely feel that it would have killed the contest. Second rule: stop banning political things when it’s obvious that it’s too big to not filter through – just make it a rule that says yes, you can show your support for a certain cause, but then you also have to deal with people’s opinions of it. Meaning that if you get booed for it, just fucking take it. Third rule: no fucking sponsored adverts to vote for a particular country. And I do mean any country. There have been campaigns in previous years for other countries, and I didn’t like them either. It’s a massive disadvantage to the poorer countries who cannot afford such campaigns. Fourth rule: bring the voting window back to 15, or at most 30 minutes.

Oh, the song? It’s a fucking ballad and it shouldn’t have been here, so I’ve disqualified it.

And the last thing I’ll say is that I genuinely hope that the conflict in the Middle-East will be resolved soon, for all the people involved, be they Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese or whatever other group in that area.

7. Lithuania – Luktelk – Silvester Belt – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 10th

In a way this is a little Swedish as well, in the sense that it’s a pacy pop song with slick stage visuals that look a little like a music video, but of course Sweden would never sing in their own language like Silvester does here. Regardless, this is another boppy song and I really like it, though I don’t like the epilepsy-inducing flashing staging, nor do I know why his backing dancers are all dressed like Kenny from South Park.

8. Spain – Zorra – Nebulossa – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 21st

It actually took me quite a while to decide whether I liked this enough to keep or not, and in the end it was a no, for various reasons. To start with, in sound this is basically a fairly cheesy eighties synthesizer song, which doesn’t have to be bad, but in the studio version especially her singing has no power behind it whatsoever. She almost sounds like she’s whispering it, and it started to piss me off after a while. She sounds better in this live version, but I’m not impressed with the whole look of it. I’m always a little sad to see a fifty-something woman with obvious botoxing, because it amplifies the whole idea that women aren’t allowed to look old. The camerawork is crap, because the moment when the backing dancers rip off their suits so they’re left in those hideous PVC thong-nappies happens off-camera, which is stupid. Oh, and the less said about those PVC thong-nappies, the better. I get that having over-sexualised guys on stage suits the theme of the song (read Cookiefonster’s review if you don’t know what the theme is), but that doesn’t mean I have to like their outfits. Overall this just feels like a bunch of fifty-somethings desperately trying to relive their wild youth in the eighties, and it feels a little sad.

9. Estonia – (Nendest) Narkootikumidest Ei Tea Me (Küll) Midagi – 5miinust & Puuluup – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 8th

I was pretty surprised that this made it to the final, because they were quite hideously off-key in the semi, their staging is a little boring and their suits even more so. They’re better here though, and I do actually love this song. It’s bouncy and it’s great to wail along to that ‘hooooooooooyeaaaaaaahhh!’ bit. I also absolutely love the fact that they didn’t end with a ‘thank you, Europe’ but a ‘you’re welcome, Europe’, plus a ‘dankjewel’ for the Dutch viewers, because apparently they were mates with Joost and were absolutely not impressed that he was disqualified.

10. Ireland – Doomsday Blue – Bambie Thug – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 36th

I have massive respect for Ireland’s entry this year, even if I absolutely hate it. It’s choreographed to perfection and it’s so bonkers out there that it couldn’t possibly do anything other than do well. In some aspects this reminds me a little of Nine Inch Nails, but I just can’t with the screaming bits. Respect for Bambie’s commitment to it – apparently they had a screaming coach – but I just hate it. Totally not for me, but well done on finally bringing something completely different. And I did have to laugh at all the various people who lost their shit over it. I think some British rag was saying something along the lines of ‘wtf Ireland, how can you disrespect Johnny Logan’s legacy like that’, which goes to show that they didn’t do their homework, because Johnny was one of this song’s biggest supporters.

11. Latvia – Hollow – Dons – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 34th

Another one where I was surprised that it made it to the final, because this is total DAF ballad territory for me. Sure, good voice, blah blah. And what on earth is the deal with that shiny blue breastplate? Dreadfully dull, sorry.

12. Greece – Zari – Marina Satti – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 35th

I’ve tried to like this, I really have, but I just can’t. I hate her high register singing. I hate that ‘duh duh duh’ noise, plus all the times when there’s a noise that sounds like a sampled voice being played on a synthesizer. I hate her stupid binbag skirt. Just about the only thing I like about this is that it’s a lot more Greek than their most recent entries, but as a song I pretty much hate everything about it.

13. United Kingdom – Dizzy – Olly Alexander – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 23rd

Oh, we had such high hopes for Olly… Not a newbie performer, but someone with some experience now trying to kick off his solo career. And they had to completely ruin it with overambitious staging that even the gays in the audience found too gay and which left him too breathless to sing properly. The song itself isn’t brilliant either – it basically sounds like a shitty Pet Shop Boys B-side, bringing the UK back to being too mediocre to stand out in any way.

And then we get what feels like an interval act stuffed in the middle of the songs. I do wonder whether it was meant to be, and instead they shoved it in this advert slot to stop half of Europe from seeing it? It’s Linda Woodruff doing her skit, which is actually still funny, but which then segues into the most awkwardly inappropriate song ever. Honestly, doing a song about how sexy Martin Österdahl is when everyone keeps booing him as soon as he opens his mouth is… something. If they’d done a song about how welcoming and tolerant Russians are to foreigners it would not have been more awkward than this thing. I seriously wonder what reception Martin is going to get in 2025.

14. Norway – Ulveham – Gåte – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 6th

And here we come to the most baffling result of the night, because how the actual fuck did this come last with only 16 points? This song is nothing short of awesome. Yes, it’s quite hard rock, but it’s also very symphonic, and if anything can make me like hard rock then it’s making it symphonic. Lead singer Gunnhild is brilliant, and I sincerely hope that this result doesn’t discourage Norway from sending something like this in future. From the televote side I can sort of understand why no one wanted to vote for anything other than a firm fan favourite, but why did the juries only give this 12 points? For shame.

15. Italy – La Noia – Angelina Mango – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 12th

Seriously, why the fuck is everyone in catsuits this year? What happened to a nice dress with a nice floaty skirt? There’s way too much emphasis on dance breaks these days. Anyway, the song I actually like a lot. It’s nice for Italy not to give us a whiny boy-ballad for a change, because girl-bops are far more likely to go down well with me. It’s by no means my favourite of the night, but I do like it a lot.

16. Serbia – Ramonda – Teya Dora – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 24th

As ballads go, this one isn’t the worst I’ve ever heard. She’s a little croony, but not obnoxiously so, and she wears a dress, yay! I think this is actually my favourite outfit of the night – I’ve always had a soft spot for that raggedy look. All that said, this isn’t one of those ballads that I inexplicably love, it’s just one that I don’t hate.

17. Finland – No Rules! – Windows95man – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 4th

I think this song gets a lot of flak for being cheesy, but I don’t give a shit. I know I’ve been saying that a song should work for the audience as well as the viewers on TV, but in this case I’m making an exception, because this staging is fucking hilarious, with all those strategically placed props to hide the fact that he’s ‘naked’ and Donald Ducking it out on stage. But aside from that this is actually also just a fucking awesome song. It’s a pacey dance song, and Henri is one of those exceptions who makes the falsetto work, because that guy can fucking sing. Basically, this song is a lot better than many people give it credit for, and I love it.

18. Portugal – Grito – Iolanda – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 18th

The whole Iberian peninsula caused me some headaches this year, because just like Spain it took me quite a while to decide whether I liked this one enough to keep it. In the end it became a no, and I’m not sure that I can really say why. Iolanda has a very good voice, and she sings this very, very well, but I think in the end that endlessly repeated ‘ainda arde’ just got too much for me.

19. Armenia – Jako – Ladaniva – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 2nd

OMG people! Armenia sent an ethno-bop that didn’t get shafted by the juries! And I don’t even really know why, unless it’s because Jaklyn fucking owns that stage, and sings it like a boss. I have honestly not seen anyone have this much unbridled fun on stage since Nelly Ciobana in 2009. And of course I love the song – how could I not? It couldn’t be more up my street unless it lived here. Yeah, maybe it doesn’t entirely go anywhere, but it’s just too much fun to be anything other than completely awesome.

20. Cyprus – Liar – Silia Kapsis – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 7th

Yeah, Cyprus are still trying to replicate their Fuego success, but on this occasion I’m quite happy with the effort. It isn’t brilliant, but it’s boppy and catchy, and sometimes I really don’t need more than that. I don’t like her sparkly sports bra and sweatpants outfit, and yeah, of course it’s over-choreographed, but meh.

21. Switzerland – The Code – Nemo – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 5th

Back when things hadn’t yet gone totally tits-up, I was categorising this year’s Eurovision entries for my colleagues at work, and I basically couldn’t categorise this one because it’s totally unique. It has a bit of everything, and the quality of all the bits is the very highest. Nemo does some pretty acrobatic stuff on that giant microwave platform, but they manage to hit every note perfectly despite all that, and it basically has ‘winner’ written all over it – not because it was written to win but simply because it’s that fucking good. No, it’s not my winner, and it would have been awesome for Croatia to get their first ever win, but I have absolutely no problem with Nemo taking the top spot, because they deserve it. Oh, and take note, Sheldon Riley – this is how you write a song about being different without being obnoxious about it.

22. Slovenia – Veronika – Raiven – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 19th

There are some seriously questionable outfits tonight, and if it hadn’t been for Greece’s binbag, this would be my Barbara Dex of the night. Why on earth have an outfit that makes you look like you were dipped in used engine oil with some blacklight stickers over your nipples and a pair of blacklight knickers? The song itself is okay, and she sings it well, but it was never one that spoke to me enough to keep it.

23. Croatia – Rim Tim Tagi Dim – Baby Lasagna – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 3rd

In many ways this is the Cha Cha Cha of 2024. It’s a similar sort of song, with hard rock influences and a similar sort of ‘young men’s problems’ kind of theme. I don’t love it quite as much as I love Cha Cha Cha, but it’s still a great song and I love going ‘who-oh’ after every ‘there’s no going back’. I also love the lace-themed staging, especially all the doilies on the drum kit. A very well-deserved second place for Croatia.

24. Georgia – Firefighter – Nutsa Buzaladze – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 20th

Another decent song, with a few little ethnic twists thrown in, but it’s also another one that didn’t have anything that made me want to keep it. Decent, but no more.

25. France – Mon Amour – Slimane – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 33rd

Slimane can sing, there’s no doubt about that, but once I got past that I realised that I actually find this song a little whiny, especially the ‘je t’aime’ parts. It’s just too ballady-whiny for me, and of course I’ve never been a fan of that whole ‘volume = quality’ school of thinking.

26. Austria – We Will Rave – Kaleen – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 14th

And we get a nice dance/rave song to finish us off. Kaleen’s singing is questionable at best, and she has another outfit that I absolutely hate, but the song is nice, brainless fun.

The skit about reuniting Abba which then turns out to be Alcazar is fecking hilarious, especially when Petra says ‘give them a bottle of wine and they’ll reunite!’ I love that so many of the artists this year weren’t afraid to send themselves up. I know people were bitching about the Abbatars, but honestly, were they actually expecting Abba themselves? They’ve always been adamant about not reuniting, so why anyone thought they’d change their mind just because it’s Eurovision is beyond me.

What is also beyond me is why Carola is dressed in nothing but a tacky gold raincoat in the next interval act, but Petra’s postcard is comedy genius.

Loreen’s song (the one before it segues into a weird rendition of tattoo) is actually pretty good, but her abs of steel routine is rather baffling. Why have they tied her down on what looks like the most uncomfortable barstool in existence?

So, as always in this second round of watching the contests, I’ve skipped the voting sequence, though I did stick around until the part where Martin Österdahl got booed. I will give it to him though – he coped with it well, and I think I’ve seen an interview with him from several months after where they asked him about it, and he said something like ‘hey, I’m the face of the EBU, so it’s part of my job’, which I can actually respect him for. It still doesn’t mean that I agree with any of the decisions the EBU made this year though.

I did watch the televote sequence, and I’m sure that the massive cheer that Ukraine got when their points were announced were as much for them as for the fact that it put them above Israel, meaning that Israel were not going to win this year, which was a huge relief for everyone. And of course lots of respect for Nemo, as the first non-binary winner of Eurovision.

So that’s it! I’ve got my rants out, and now we’ll have to see what the 2025 season will bring. I’m not done posting yet – I have two posts planned around my ‘keepsies’, though I’m not sure when I’ll put those out, and then I’m planning a series of posts on how much I like each participating country, statistically speaking. You’ll see what I mean when I get to that. My keepsies might come out before Christmas, or they might not, but nothing else will – I’m definitely having a Christmas break.

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 7 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014, 2024)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 2 (1989, 2023)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 5 (2004, 2007, 2016,2020, 2021)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)Moldova – 1 (2022)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 68.

It was unsurprising that the EBU decided it was not going to be safe enough for Ukraine to host the 2023 contest, given that Russian missiles have ranged all over the country, so instead runner-up the United Kingdom stepped in to do the hosting duties. Whether it really was because the UK came second or whether it was another case of the UK just going ‘ooh, pick me pick me’ like they did so many times before I don’t know, but Liverpool it was, and I must say that they did a pretty fantastic job. It was nice to actually have a full set of competent hosts, rather than just one or two who carry the whole thing, and Hannah Waddingham is almost as much of a legend as Petra Mede. I’m sure she had the lead female role when my husband and I went to see the musical Spamalot many years ago, and she was fab then.

I personally think the production did a great job of mixing the UK and Ukraine together as hosts, including in the postcards, which had a scene in Ukraine, then in the UK, then in the participating country, with something tying the three together. The artist featured in their home country’s section, making a nice full picture overall.

The number of participating countries dropped to 37 – Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia dropped out. There were no nil pointers this year (at least not in the final), but there were definitely some questionable results being doled out. On a personal level this was another pretty good year for me, though not quite to the dizzy heights of 2022 – my entire top 14 this year has made it onto my playlist.

SEMI-FINAL 1

The opening sequence does a nice job of explaining that Liverpool is hosting on behalf of Ukraine, though I’m never a big fan of involving children. Host Julia sings us a rocky opening song in a dress that doesn’t move, but I can’t really remember the last time that I actually liked a dress worn by any of the hosts, so that’s par for the course really.

(1. Norway – qualified for the final)

2. Malta – Dance (Our Own Party) – The Busker – Contest ranking: 15th (35th) – My ranking: 27th

This is not a bad song, really – it’s got decent staging and visuals to illustrate a song about social anxiety – but while it’s not bad overall, it’s one of those songs that just doesn’t wow me enough to love it, plus I’m not a big fan of the saxophone riffs in there. Very middling.

(3. Serbia – qualified for the final)

4. Latvia – Aijā – Sudden Lights – Contest ranking: 11th (28th) – My ranking: 16th

This is quite an interesting song, with that very odd but compelling beat, but unfortunately just being interesting isn’t enough for me. Again, I don’t dislike it, but neither do I like it enough to keep. Apologies to my commenter who loves this song, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

(5. Portugal – qualified for the final)

6. Ireland – We Are One – Wild Youth – Contest ranking: 12th (31st) – My ranking: 36th

Dude, what’s with the shitty Elvis suit? And the mumbling singing? And this shitty anthem-style pop song? And ohmyfuckinggod, the suit is bad enough, but it’s also giving him a moose-knuckle that’s absolutely impossible to ignore once you’ve seen it. This doesn’t even make it close to mediocre, especially with that stupid ‘hold the beat and go even more anthemic’ ending. This is a complete and utter bag of shite.

(7. Croatia, 8. Switzerland, 9. Israel, 10. Moldova and 11. Sweden – qualified for the final)

12. Azerbaijan – Tell Me More – TuralTuranX – Contest ranking: 14th (34th) – My ranking: 29th

This is one of those classic indie-guitar-boyband-like songs where some of it is nice enough, but the fast-talk singing bits are pretty annoying. It’s also either incredibly reminiscent of something else I’ve heard, or it’s reminiscent of itself because it really isn’t all that long ago that I first saw this contest. Either way it’s just a bit too guitar-twee with some tousled good look identical twins to increase the appeal, which doesn’t work for me.

(13. Czechia – qualified for the final)

14. Netherlands – Burning Daylight – Mia Nicolai & Dion Cooper – Contest ranking: 13th (32nd) – My ranking: 19th

It seems that for the past ten years the Netherlands have either sent country or a sad-girl/boy/duo ballad, and I suppose it had to go wrong some time. Mia and Dion have a few vocal hiccups here and there, and they were tinkering with the song almost all the way up to the contest, meaning that they had little time to properly practice together. Still, with all that I don’t think this is a disaster – it’s definitely got a few things going for it, not least some nice harmonies. Maybe it might have qualified if it had ended up in the second (weaker) semi, but who knows. All I know is that it actually took me quite a while before I decided that no, it’s not good enough for my playlist.

(15. Finland – qualified for the final)

For an interval act we get two women in absolutely ridiculous dresses (honestly, three miles of shapeless orange tulle does not a good dress make!) murdering their way through Ordinary World, which is normally a beautiful song. Or wait, I think Alyosha’s dress may have been okay, but Rita Ora came after that, and hers absolutely wasn’t. Anyway, I did like the history of Ukraine in Eurovision as narrated by Graham Norton, because it had some respectful snark in there. I also liked Måns and Filomena doing the Q or NQ game (and embarrassingly I didn’t actually know all the answers, shame on me!)

SEMI-FINAL 2

Was there an opening act? I made no notes, so if there was it left no impression.

1. Denmark – Breaking My Heart – Reiley – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 33rd

Oh, more of that vocoder shit (thank you Cookiefonster for identifying that for me – go read his semi-final review). Based on the times I’ve heard it, I think I hate it. Either that or the use of it so far has been absolute shit. I guess Denmark are basically just back to being annoying.

(2. Armenia – qualified for the final)

3. Romania – D.G.T. (Off and On) – Theodor Andrei – Contest ranking: 15th (36th) – My ranking: 30th

This appears to be a slightly rockier version of Me and My Guitar, except the second half goes full into conventional rock song territory. Theodor has a good rock voice, but I find the shouts and grunts on the backing track both distracting and annoying, and it’s just not my kind of song.

(4. Estonia, 5. Belgium and 6. Cyprus – qualified for the final)

7. Iceland – Power – Diljá – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 26th

This song has two things really going against it for me: the phrase ‘you have no power over me’ is totally and irrevocably tied to the film Labyrinth, and the p-p-p-p-power bit in the chorus makes me think of nothing so much as the British ‘p-p-p-pick up a p-p-p-penguin’ advert. Add to that the fact that it’s all a little over-dramatic on top of that drum & bass beat and all I can really do is toss it onto the mediocre pile.

8. Greece – What They Say – Victor Vernicos – Contest ranking: 13th (30th) – My ranking: 34th

Yeah okay, this one is pretty shit. The melody, what there is of it, is terrible. That constant bass-drum doof-doof-doofing is seriously getting on my tits, and on top of that it’s one of those ‘whoah-oh my life is so hard’ kinda songs, and I can’t really work out why his life is so hard other than that he has, apparently, too much on his plate. I’m pretty close to hating this one.

(9. Poland and 10. Slovenia – qualified for the final)

11. Georgia – Echo – Iru – Contest ranking: 12th (29th) – My ranking: 14th

We’ve got a classic Georgian entry here – a little weird, a little unusual, definitely not mainstream and not really something that appeals to the general public. Personally I was on the fence about it for a long, long time, but eventually it grew on me and I actually really like it now. I like how it starts with the waily chorus, and the interesting vocal shenanigans she gets up to, and live she pulls it all off pretty well. I didn’t lament its non-qualification at the time, but by now I think this is an underrated gem.

12. San Marino – Like an Animal – Piqued Jacks – Contest ranking: 16th (37th) – My ranking: 37th

Honestly, what is it with San Marino and shitty songs? The music is boring, the singing barely comes up to mediocre and the lyrics are pretty rage-inducing. There is absolutely nothing to like about this pile of horse-crap and it totally deserved no points whatsoever.

(13. Austria, 14. Albania, 15. Lithuania and 16. Australia – qualified for the final)

The Ukrainian music medley had some nice bits in it, and the drag queen act was okay. Kids going backstage – meh.

GRAND FINAL

We’ve got a pretty good opening act going on here – a long rendition of Stefania with lots of guest artists, going into a flag parade with actual flags. woot! And they got in all the really good Ukrainian entries (except Ruslana) to cameo for it. I loved seeing Go_A there singing Shum! And it was also nice to see Graham Norton join the hosting team, even if it meant that he couldn’t commentate on the first and last couple of songs. We got Mel Giedroyc covering for him though, and she’s also pretty hilarious. Not that I listened to that this time around – I’ve been doing this second rewatch mostly without commentary.

1. Austria – Who the Hell is Edgar? – Teya & Salena – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 4th

This song is a great opener to get the crowd going, even if it meant the ladies got shafted a little and ended only 15th. They honestly deserved much better than that, because this is a total banger of a song. It’s fast, catchy and even has harmonies, and they actually sang it well, in my opinion. The choral chorus leading up to that poe-poe-poe-poe repetition is genius, and basically this song is just fucking great. People claim it also didn’t do well because the staging lacked oomph, but I don’t think it was that bad. Whatever, I love this song, regardless of where it ended.

2. Portugal – Ai Coração – Mimicat – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 8th

Portugal follows that with a kind of musical theatre song that’s just as exuberant and fun but in a totally different way. This has a great chorus to sing along to, and even the slow section works. Another great song, and she sang it a lot better than she did in the semi. She also deserved much better than 23rd.

3. Switzerland – Watergun – Remo Forrer – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 24th

The ballads this year haven’t really worked for me, so I guess it’s back to normal. Yes, this one has a lovely piano intro, but at the start he sings a little too low to sound right, and he goes a little whiny in the chorus. I also really dislike his weird shiny trousers and equally weird half-see-through jacket. Basically, I only really like the piano.

4. Poland – Solo – Blanka – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 10th

I really don’t know what the deal was with everyone taking the mickey out of how she pronounces ‘baby’, because this is clearly a total rip-off of the way Britney Spears sings in Hit Me Baby One More Time. And this is not a bad thing, because that song is great, and so is this one (and let me clarify once more that I am not actually a Britney Spears fan, I just really like HMBOMT, okay?) This has a nice groovy beat, a nice catchy chorus that you can sing along to (there’s a lot of singing along this year) and a nice ‘fuck you, I’m better off without you’ message. Yeah, it has a totally unnecessary dance break, but that doesn’t exist in the studio version, so I don’t care.

5. Serbia – Samo Mi Se Spava – Luke Black – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 32nd

Luke totally looks like a pretentious arsehole, and I’m unreasonably annoyed by his seeming inability to close his mouth. All throughout the postcard he’s got this weird artsy pout going on, and it’s immediately biasing me against him. Not that it was necessary, because the song does that all by itself anyway. He’s dreadfully off-key at the start, and the whole thing is just a pretentious piece of crap which I really, really dislike.

6. France – Évidemment – La Zarra – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 5th

Another song I really like, and which I expected to do much better than it actually did. It’s a perfect combination of a classic French chanson with a great dance song, and she sings it very well. I have no idea why they stuck her on a pillar (especially since she apparently is afraid of heights), but this is just another total banger, of the super-classy variety.

7. Cyprus – Break a Broken Heart – Andrew Lambrou – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 18th

Another ballad that doesn’t quite do it for me. The music is okay (it feels like an 8/4 beat to me, which I like), but I’m not a fan of that falsetto wailing in the chorus. He does it well, but it’s just not for me. Not bad overall, just not good enough.

8. Spain – Eaea – Blanca Paloma – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 28th

So Spain are trying again to win us over with classical flamenco singing, and I will give them this: it’s better than Quien Maneja Mi Barca. But let’s face it, that’s hardly an achievement, given how much of an assault on the ears that one was. And actually, this isn’t as bad as I remembered it. The harmonies don’t sound quite so dissonant this time around, so it’s not going straight to the bottom of the pile. All that said, it’s still an awful lot of eaeaaaaeaaaaing, and anyone who genuinely thought that this was going to do well was deluding themselves. Vocally it’s very impressive, but accessible it absolutely isn’t. I predicted zero televote points for it back in 2023, and I was almost right (they got 5).

9. Sweden – Tattoo – Loreen – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 13th

I didn’t want Sweden to win again, but if they had to, then this isn’t all that bad a song to do it with. To start with, I actually like it a lot better than Euphoria, because that song just never did much for me. This one I like enough to have kept it, though I can’t really articulate what it is that I like about it. What I don’t like at all is her outfit – bad design and a very boring colour – nor am I a big fan of that giant toastie-maker staging. She does give it her all, and she seems like a nice person.

10. Albania – Duje – Albina & Familja Kelmendi – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 3rd

Ahh, another ultra-waily ethnic entry like only Albania can bring, and long may they continue to bring them, because this one is fabulous. it’s absolutely on a par with Ktheju Tokës and Karma, and it’s another song that just gets better the more I hear it. Albina gives it her absolute wailiest all, and she’s fucking amazing. Please, Albania, bring us more of these kind of songs, because you absolutely excel at them. And fuck the jury philistines who just don’t want to vote for ethno-bops.

11. Italy – Due Vite – Marco Mengoni – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 22nd

Marco looks like the love-child of Conchita and Måns, and his song is a pretty classic Italian ballad-like thing that doesn’t work for me, meaning that (as usual) I’m baffled that this came fourth. For me it’s the very definition of middling.

12. Estonia – Bridges – Alika – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 25th

Another ballad with a lovely piano entry, and I think I could possibly like it if Alika didn’t have that incredibly irritating way of dragging out the word ‘brrrrrrriiiiiiiidgeeeees’ every time she sings it. I can’t get past that, at all, so below the middle it goes.

13. Finland – Cha Cha Cha – Käärijä – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 1st

Should this have won? Oh, absolutely. Do I get why it didn’t? Well, yes and no. I can see why the juries ranked Sweden higher, because vocally Loreen is most definitely stronger. What the juries just don’t get, however, is that sometimes it doesn’t matter if the vocals aren’t perfect. Also, it’s only in the melodic parts that he’s a little weak – the growly parts are absolutely on point, and the whole song and performance are absolutely worthy of a first place. I’m just reminded again of 1991 where the winner could have been an absolutely unique and unusual song, but where they went with classic boring Swedo-pop instead. Tattoo is a good song, but it will never, ever be as iconic as Cha Cha Cha, and the juries ought to have realised that and judged it accordingly. Still, at least we as fans all know that this is the song everyone will most remember from 2023, and at least Finland didn’t have to host the shitshow that 2024 turned out to be. And as usual Cookiefonster does a much better job of explaining this song.

14. Czechia – My Sister’s Crown – Vesna – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 12th

This is pretty much a song in the vein of Russian Woman and Stefania – I tolerate the rap bits because the harmony bits are gorgeous, and here too they sing it better than in the semi. I hate their pink outfits, but I very much like the song.

15. Australia – Promise – Voyager – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 9th

Omg, Australia has sent a song that I actually like! I love the whole chorus, and it’s yet another song that’s great for singing along to. Just a great rock song, and I love it.

16. Belgium – Because of You – Gustaph – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 15th

I absolutely love Gustaph’s energy and enthusiasm. I’m less convinced by the baggy pink chaps, but Belgium have never been the kings of fashion of course, and it does suit him. The song is a fabulously upbeat cross between Madonna’s Vogue and a gospel song, and as such I can totally see how it ended so high, while at the same time saying that this is not a song I would ever keep. I can still groove along to it while it’s playing though – well done Belgium!

17. Armenia – Future Lover – Brunette – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 23rd

I really love her dress – I love that stitched together look – but I can’t say the same for the song. It’s all too much in the high registers for me in the quiet bits, and when it goes to the faster bits it’s too rappy. This one is not for me, at all.

18. Moldova – Soarele și Luna – Pasha Parfeni – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 2nd

Welcome back Pasha! I loved your 2012 entry despite its janky lyrics, but it’s good that this time you’ve decided to keep it in your own language. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that I adore this song, because it’s a total ethno-bop. Of course it was never going to go anywhere, because juries fucking hate ethno-bops, but at least I can happily wail along to it whenever it pops up on my playlist. I also love his carpet coat and the car-wash fringy trousers of the guy with the flute.

19. Ukraine – Heart of Steel – Tvorchi – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 20th

This is not my kind of song because I’m just not a big fan of R&B. I think for its genre it’s a good song? It’s just not for me. I did have to laugh at Alesha doing her chat with the auto-qualifiers and announcing these guys as ‘Tah-voor-chey’ (sorry, that’s the closest approximation I can give as to how she pronounced it). I don’t mean to make fun of someone’s inability to speak another language, but come on, Alesha, you could have tried a little harder than that!

20. Norway – Queen of Kings – Alessandra – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 7th

I think this year is all about the bops, because this is another total Boppy McBopface. And again, vocally much better than she was in the semi. Everyone is really upping their game tonight! I haven’t really got anything specific that I can point to for liking this song, I just really do, even if I hate her outfit.

21. Germany – Blood & Glitter – Lord of the Lost – Contest ranking: 26th – My ranking: 31st

I feel for Germany this year, I really do. Finally they give us something other than bland, radio-friendly pop, and no one could be bothered to chuck a few points at them to say ‘hey, well done for trying something different this year’. I mean, I wasn’t going to, because it’s hard rock and I don’t like that, but there’s got to be some metalheads around Europe who could have helped out. And even if I don’t like this at all, I was so happy to finally see something different, and I was totally expecting them to at least get to the left side of the scoreboard. It’s a damn shame – they deserved much better than last place, even if this isn’t for me.

22. Lithuania – Stay – Monika Linkytė – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 21st

For some reason this sounds like something that belongs in the Lion King, but not one of the fun songs like Hakuna Matata – this is one of the inspirational ballads that you have to sit through to get back to the interesting bits, and there’s nothing inspiring in it for me.

23. Israel – Unicorn – Noa Kirel – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 11th

This is a prime example of someone looking at Spain 2022 and going ‘hey, that looks like a winning formula’ and giving us something similar, and I’m pissed off that the juries fell for it, because as far as I’m concerned this song really isn’t as good as it thinks it is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bop and I like it, at least up to the ‘you wanna see me dance?’ bit, because no, actually, I don’t want to see you dance. Especially since what she actually does is some stage gymnastics which I wouldn’t consider to be dancing, but maybe that’s just me. So yes, I do like this song, but it’s incredibly overrated and should never have come third.

24. Slovenia – Carpe Diem – Joker Out – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 17th

This is a pretty middling indie-guitar song that I’m happy enough to listen to while it’s on, but which I’ll never like enough to keep. I’m also really not impressed with his shiny pink trousers.

25. Croatia – Mama ŠČ! – Let 3 – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 35th

Croatia totally forgot rule number 1 of joke entries, which is that the song itself must be worth listening to. This song is a giant pile of absolutely steaming shit, no matter how tongue-in-cheek and clever you intend for it to be. The start is monotonous and crap, the transition into the chorus is a hot fucking mess and the chorus itself is also shit. Anyone who actually likes this song is completely and utterly wrong.

26. United Kingdom – I Wrote a Song – Mae Muller – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 6th

You know what? This song fucking slaps. Yes, Mae’s live vocals are pretty weak, but I only ever keep the studio version anyway, and this is just another boppy bop of bopness with an awesome chorus to belt along to, and I unashamedly love it.

As usual with the interminably long voting window we get an interminable slew of interval acts, but these are actually mostly okay. Sam Ryder I still don’t get, but he’s an engaging performer and a good singer. The previous contestants singing UK hits is an interesting idea, it’s just a shame that many of them are really shitty renditions. Still, it was lovely to see Duncan Laurence actually get his chance to perform in the Grand Final that he missed in 2021, and You Never Walk Alone is a song with special significance for Liverpool. I think he did it justice.

Another very good contest with a string of bops for me to add to my playlist. And I swear that I’m not just all about the bops – I might do a post with a list of my favourite (non-Eurovision) slow songs to prove that it’s not just the lack of speed that makes me hate a song. And now I only have one year to go! And oh, will I have a lot to say about 2024…

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 2 (1989, 2023)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 5 (2004, 2007, 2016,2020, 2021)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)Moldova – 1 (2022)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 67.

I’m purely basing that title on the fact that I took away a staggering eighteen songs from this year. Not just that, aside from the top two, which are definitely my top two, and the bottom three or so (of those eighteen), everything in between is more or less interchangeable in how much I like them. I’ve given them a ranking, but that might have ended up different if I’d done this next week in a slightly different mood.

And it’s not just the good songs – at the bottom end I have about eight songs that I either severely dislike or actively hate, and it will be nice to have a good rant about those. I’ve complained before about songs where I just haven’t really got any reaction, meaning I have very little to say, so there’s relatively little of that here as well.

Anyway, we’re in Torino, Italia, and as hosts I think they did a pretty decent job. Let’s face it, it would have been a herculean effort to do worse than their previous stint as hosts, but I do think they felt they had a point to prove. The hosts were capable, they didn’t try too hard to be funny (and occasionally they actually were), so my only real gripe is about the interminable voting-section-filled-with-interval-acts-and-filler, and I’m reasonably sure that’s down to the EBU, not the local host. But seriously, EBU, can we please get back to a 15-minute voting window? We only get 20 votes anyway – if you can’t get those done in 15 minutes then stuff you.

Contestant-wise, Armenia and Montenegro returned. And of course the really big thing this year was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EBU initially tried to pull their usual ‘Eurovision is non-political’ schtick, but after several countries threatened to pull out if Russia was allowed to participate, the EBU banned them. The Russian broadcaster immediately left the EBU in a ‘well, we didn’t want to be part of your stupid club anyway’ reaction, so that’s that for Russia, leaving this year with a nice round 40 participants. There was another big thing, which was another attempt at cheating by Azerbaijan. They roped in five other countries (Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino) to ensure they would all vote for each other, but the EBU caught on and voided all their jury votes, replacing them with aggregates. At this point I really feel that they should also have banned Azerbaijan from participating for a given number of years (maybe one for every fucking time they’ve cheated?), but I guess we can’t ever expect the EBU to ban anyone unless other countries literally threaten to withdraw.

There were no (combined) nil points this year, yay! There were a few nil points among the televotes, with one of those particularly amusing (but we’ll get to that, of course!) The postcards were nice – Italy is a gorgeous country, and I found it interesting that all the footage was taken by drone (makes sense, since the mascot was a drone). I missed my beloved Lago Maggiore, but I did see Orta San Giulio, which is in the next lake over, so there was one location at least that I’ve personally visited. Oh, and Rome (oops, how can I forget my honeymoon in Rome?) Lastly I should also say that my rankings for the past couple of years have been completely based on the studio version of the song. This becomes quite relevant in this year… Oh, and of course because the winner last year was a Big 5 country, there are only 25 songs in the final.

SEMI-FINAL 1

For the first time in a while there’s a fairly long opening act, but I appear not to have taken notes on it, and without that I cannot remember what it was, so clearly it wasn’t all that amazing.

1. Albania – Sekret – Ronela Hajati – Contest ranking: 12th (30th) – My ranking: 11th

I like this song, I really do, but this live performance was a bit of a car crash. Ronela’s vocals absolutely suck – she’s terribly off-key and she has difficulty with the low notes, and no amount of half-naked dancers and helicopter hair is going to rescue such a terrible vocal performance. Aside from that I found the choreography a tad messy as well, and I really don’t think much of her baby-pink outfit either. From memory she was really pissed off at not having qualified, but all I can say is sorry, love, but as much as I like this song, you absolutely did not deserve to qualify on that performance.

2. Latvia – Eat Your Salad – Citi Zēni – Contest ranking: 14th (32nd) – My ranking: 35th

So I’m going to say it – Latvia absolutely was not robbed. Louder for the people in the back: this piece of shit song absolutely deserved not to qualify. There, I’ve said it. It’s a shitty disco song that shoves its virtue signalling down your throat while trying to make out that they’re all edgy by doing so. The lead singer comes across as someone who thinks he’s god’s gift to women, and that first line of the song totally proves that. Oh, and when the EBU requires you to change a lyric because it’s rude, then you change that lyric. You don’t go ‘hurhurhur, we’ll get around that by letting the audience sing it, aren’t we clever?’ I genuinely hate everything about this song and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

(3. Lithuania and 4. Switzerland – qualified for the final)

5. Slovenia – Disko – LPS – Contest ranking: 17th (40th) – My ranking: 26th

What is it this year with the obsession with second-rate disco songs? Disco can always be a little take it or leave it with me anyway, and there is absolutely nothing special about this song whatsoever. It’s just very forgettable disco with an annoying dissonant brass section and an annoying slow-down section. I absolutely won’t miss this one in the final.

(6. Ukraine – qualified for the final)

7. Bulgaria – Intention – Intelligent Music Project – Contest ranking: 16th (38th) – My ranking: 25th

Then again, a song doesn’t have to be disco to be mediocre… This is a pleasant enough rock song, but again there is nothing that stands out about it. Nice enough while I’m listening to it, but I won’t remember this at all later.

(8. Netherlands, 9. Moldova and 10. Portugal – qualified for the final)

11. Croatia – Guilty Pleasure – Mia Dimšić – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 16th

I find this a quiet, ballady sort of pop song much in the same vein as the Netherlands or Portugal, so I’m a little surprised that this one didn’t make it to the final. Maybe three of those was just too much? I do agree that it’s the weakest of those three, but I still enjoy it very much. It’s a lovely mellow song with nice guitars.

12. Denmark – The Show – Reddi – Contest ranking: 13th (31st) – My ranking: 22nd

This one starts off as an ultra-dull ballad, but thankfully it segues into a pretty decent rock song. It’s got a nice, fast beat and some decent guitar work, but overall it doesn’t go much beyond pleasant for me. Okay, but not nearly good enough to keep. (The title, however, randomly reminded me of another song called The Show, though I needed my brother to help me remember who the band was. This is nothing whatsoever to do with Eurovision, it’s just a random song I remembered.)

13. Austria – Halo – Lumix feat. Pia Maria – Contest ranking: 15th (36th) – My ranking: 21st

I like the circular light thing on stage, and the song is a decent, fast pace dance thing, but Pia’s vocals are very shaky, and it doesn’t really have anything that makes it good enough to be able to ignore that. Another one for the ‘pleasant but not great’ pile.

(14. Iceland, 15. Greece, 16. Norway and 17. Armenia – qualified for the final)

The dance interval act would definitely have had me grooving along if I’d been in the arena, it was nice. Diodato, however, I could have done without, given that I never thought much of his song anyway. And I swear that the Netherlands ALWAYS gets called ninth or last these days.

SEMI-FINAL 2

This opening number was better – some nice dancey stuff to precede the hosts and housekeeping.

(1. Finland – qualified for the final)

2. Israel – I.M. – Michael Ben David – Contest ranking: 13th (29th) – My ranking: 33rd

Musically this is quite a catchy dance number, but the way Michael sings is beyond annoying, plus he’s one of the biggest cocks to ever have disgraced Eurovision. He went around trying to hog all the attention, grabbed microphones away from people, tried kissing people without their consent, threw a hissy fit when he wasn’t allowed in the qualifiers press conference (because, you know, he didn’t qualify) and was all-around just far too full of himself. If this had been sung by anyone else I might have liked it, but he’s just too fucking annoying, and I can’t get past that.

(3. Serbia and 4. Azerbaijan – qualified for the final)

5. Georgia – Lock Me In – Circus Mircus – Contest ranking: 18th (39th) – My ranking: 15th

You know, I do get why this didn’t qualify, because it’s weird and quirky and incredibly niche, but I don’t get why it didn’t get even a little bit of love. Honestly, people, 22 points? That said, I don’t remember whether I voted for it, so maybe I don’t have the right to reproach anyone. So anyway, it’s a fucking shame, because this song is total quirky genius. It’s funky, and there’s something incredibly fun about that super-monotonous run-up to the chorus. Plus I still find it childishly hilarious to mishear them as singing ‘fuck me sideways’. This song is weird and wonderful – I love their steampunk aesthetic – and I fucking love it. Cookiefonster loves this one too, but he’s very wrong about several other songs, despite thinking he’s right.

6. Malta – I Am What I Am – Emma Muscat – Contest ranking: 16th (35th) – My ranking: 32nd

Emma sounds very off-key and she’s wearing one of last year’s discarded chandelier dresses. She also does that incredibly annoying thing of playing the piano for all of twenty seconds before abandoning it. That’s a fucking grand piano, Emma – do you have any idea how heavy those fuckers are? And you’re making the poor stage-hands lug it on stage for your twenty seconds of pretend-playing? Shame on you. Anyway, I’m never a big fan of these inspirational anthems anyway, and this one is far too off-key to change my mind.

7. San Marino – Stripper – Achille Lauro – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 34th

You know, I thought we were more than a decade past the contestants not being able to sing, but San Marino must not have got the memo. They’ve assaulted my ears with Serhat, and now with this shitty excuse for a singer. Much like Israel this isn’t too bad musically, but vocally it’s a complete bag of shite, and the over-the-top stage show (honestly, a bucking bronco?) doesn’t change one bit of that.

(8. Australia – qualified for the final)

9. Cyprus – Ela – Andromache – Contest ranking: 12th (28th) – My ranking: 18th

This is a very similar situation to Albania in that I like this song, but the live performance left an awful lot to be desired. Andromache isn’t off-key, like Ronela was – her problem is that she’s ridiculously out of breath even though she’s barely moving. I don’t know if she’s just got really bad breathing technique or what, but it’s impossible not to notice how out of breath she is in places. Nice song, terrible performance.

10. Ireland – That’s Rich – Brooke – Contest ranking: 15th (34th) – My ranking: 20th

Brooke also has vocal troubles, and I’m sure that contributed to her NQ. This is actually a pretty catchy pop song, but she’s a very weak singer, plus that whiny-singy bit in the bridge is pretty annoying. Another musically decent but vocally disappointing song.

11. North Macedonia – Circles – Andrea – Contest ranking: 11th (26th) – My ranking: 30th

Once I get to the Final you’ll see that this year has several ballads that I actually love, but this isn’t one of them – I can’t click with this one at all. I don’t mind low-register singing, but I don’t like it here, and I just don’t like this song at all.

(12. Estonia, 13. Romania and 14. Poland – qualified for the final)

15. Montenegro – Breathe – Vladana – Contest ranking: 17th (37th) – My ranking: 28th

Um, why is she wearing a sattelite dish on her back? This is the most baffling outfit of the night. The song itself brings me back into ‘I really don’t care either way’ territory. She’s got a decent voice, but I will never, ever remember this song.

(16. Belgium, 17. Sweden and 18. Czech Republic – qualified for the final)

It’s a little weird for the interval act to feature a cover of a song that’s nothing to do with Eurovision, but it was nice because Fragile is actually a lovely song. I didn’t know the other one, nor do I care. Il Volo coming back with Grande Amore was okay – I like that song much better than Fai Rumore, so in that sense it was better than SF1.

GRAND FINAL

I’m guessing that politics really were too big to ignore even for Eurovision, so the contest opens with a rendition of Give Peace a Chance. Then host Laura sings some song, but all I remember thinking is ‘thank god she doesn’t have that ‘I’ve just come out of the shower’ hair today’. The flag parage is flag-parady, blah blah. On to the songs.

1. Czech Republic – Lights Off – We Are Domi – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 13th

There was a dearth of (non-contender) girlbops this year, so the producers were forced to pick something else for the opening slot, and the Czechs were it. This is actually a really good effort that I like a lot, but I’m struggling to pinpoint why this one is really good when Austria wasn’t (aside from the vocals of course). All I can say is that I really like this one, and it deserved much better than 22nd place.

2. Romania – Llámame – Wrs – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 9th

The Romanians really have a thing for singing in Spanish, don’t they? Not that I’m complaining, because this is a perfect, lighthearted summer hit to bop along to as you’re sipping margaritas on a sunny beach somewhere. I’m not convinced by Wrs’ pvc trousers and gigantic belt, but you’ll always hear me sing along to the ‘hola mi bebebe’ part. I love this one.

3. Portugal – Saudade, Saudade – Maro – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 4th

Fun fact: this is my husband’s all-time favourite Eurovision song. And while it doesn’t quite attain those lofty heights for me, I do really love this song. Yes, despite the fact that it’s a ballad with cry-singing. It’s just a really mellow song with a lovely melody and lovely harmonies. And I have to mention that one of the reasons why my husband loves this song so much is because Maro simultaneously looks like she’s having the time of her life and also can’t believe that she actually is where she is. Great song.

4. Finland – Jezebel – The Rasmus – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 24th

Finland revert to type by providing a rock song, and I can’t say that it’s doing much for me. I really don’t have anything to say about this one – I don’t hate it, but I’ll happily never listen to it again.

5. Switzerland – Boys Do Cry – Marius Bear – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 39th

So the last time I did this project was in 2020, and since then I’ve just reviewed the subsequent years as they happened. In that sense it’s quite enlightening to now watch these recent contests again in quick succession, because it’s made me realise that this is basically just a male version of Bulgaria 2021. It’s got the whole kaboodle – annoying croon-cry singing, ultra-slow, ultra-dull music and some sort of profound message. Okay, I do appreciate the message that men should be allowed to show emotions, because that’s absolutely true, but fuck me if this isn’t the perfect mixture of dull and annoying to deliver it in. And clearly Europe thought the same, because he got all of zero points from the televote, ha!

6. France – Fulenn – Alvan & Ahez – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 2nd

Oh dear, France… Let me start by saying that I LOVE LOVE LOVE this song, but much like Albania and Cyprus, the live performance was terrible. The ladies are most definitely off-key, there’s waaaay too much going on on the stage, and it’s basically just a hot mess. Thankfully I only ever keep the studio version anyway, and have I mentioned that I fucking love this song? This is my Shum for this year – a perfect mixture of EBM and ethnic. I love that it’s in Breton. I love the monotonous ‘lalalalala’ bit before the ‘dañsal a ran gant an diaoul ha para’ drops, and I love how the beat stops during that bit before coming back stronger. Deserved or not, it’s a shame it didn’t do well, because it’ll probably mean that France won’t try anything this unusual again for a while.

7. Norway – Give That Wolf a Banana – Subwoolfer – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 10th

A joke entry from Norway, but I have no problem with joke entries if they’re good songs underneath, and this one is a total bop. I also love the lyrics, especially the ‘is that blood or saliva dripping off your chin?’. It’s by no means the best song of the night, but I love it nonetheless.

8. Armenia – Snap – Rosa Linn – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 27th

Is this the song that became a Tiktok sensation? Good for her, but for me there’s way too much ahahahaaaing going on. I could live with that if the rest of the song clicked with me, but it just doesn’t, so the ahahahaaas do nothing but annoy me. Not for me, thanks.

9. Italy – Brividi – Mahmood & Blanco – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 37th

Seriously, what do people like about this three minutes of utter torture? I’ve never really liked Mahmood’s voice anyway – there’s something shrill about it that grates on me. Add to that Blanco in his sparkly pyjama and that first, most definitely off-key and very whiny ‘brividiiii’ and not even the occasional harmony can salvage this. Fuck, I hate this song.

10. Spain – SloMo – Chanel – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 8th

Thankfully Spain come to the rescue with what is really the only girlbop this year. (And is it just me, or are there always at least two Big 5 countries right after each other in the final?) And what a bop it is! I don’t have a huge amount to say about it, except that I love the descending melody that ends in the ‘it’s like a video in slo-mo’. I do find it a little overchoreographed, but there’s no denying the quality of that dance break. It’s just a shame that everyone and their grandmother have since tried to replicate the whole ‘girlbop with dance break’ success, and it’s getting rather tiring by now. Still, a very good song and a deserved third place for Spain.

11. Netherlands – De Diepte – S10 – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 14th

Erica likes another ballad, sound the alarm! Ahwooga, ahwooga! Honestly, I don’t know what it is about the more recent Eurovision ballads that I like so many of them, but here’s another one that by rights I should hate, but love instead. Yes, this is a total sadgirl cry-ballad, but there’s just something about that ‘oohoooo, aaahaaa’ that invites wailing along and connecting with your inner sadgirl. I absolutely hate her outfit, but the song is great.

12. Ukraine – Stefania – Kalush Orchestra – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 17th

I don’t think there was ever any doubt that Ukraine were going to win this year, and I’m glad that the song has enough quality to it that it deserved it musically as well as politically. For me personally this is very much a song like Russian Woman last year, where I sit through the rap to get to the lovely chorus (though I do think Oleh is an exceptional rapper), so while I do like this song, it’s nowhere near being my personal favourite of the year. That said, I have absolutely no problems whatsoever with this being a political win. In fact, I’m very, very glad that Europe showed its solidarity with Ukraine and propelled them to a very convincing win. The only thing I might have wished for is that it had been Go_A competing this year, because I just love the fuck out of them, but this will do.

13. Germany – Rockstars – Malik Harris – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 31st

So, let’s start by discussing the giant German cock-up of 2022, which is the rejection of Electric Callboy. They were up for it, and could have competed for Germany with Pump It, and they would have fucking slayed.* Yes, the lyrics would have required some, ahem, cleaning up, but I’m sure they could have come up with something. But noooo, Germany considered the song ‘not radio-friendly’, so they didn’t even let them enter the national selection. Instead we’ve got this bland and (I suppose) radio-friendly piece of nothing with an annoying spoken word section which predictably came dead last because it’s just too fucking bland to do better.

*I actually find Pump It a little too hardcore, but We Got The Moves is fucking genius and I had it on constant replay for about three days when I first discovered it. Also, the video is almost as good (and hilarious) as Hypnodancer.

14. Lithuania – Sentimentai – Monika Liu – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 3rd

I really dislike Monika’s mother-of-all-bowl-haircuts, but I love her sleek and slinky dress, and the song is an absolute stunner. It’s mellow and groovy, it’s another song with a lovely melody and lovely harmonies, and it’s just overall a lovely song. It’s Cookiefonster’s favourite of this year, and as usual he gives a much better lowdown of why it’s so good.

15. Azerbaijan – Fade to Black – Nadir Rustamli – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 29th

Dull ballad time. Too gravelly-croony, with nothing musically to grab my attention. I also think it’s pretty cheap to repeat their mirroring staging trick from back whenever it was (can’t be arsed to go and find out) when they had the dude in the glass box. This is just total DAF for me.

16. Belgium – Miss You – Jérémie Makiese – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 23rd

I can’t say I like this one much either. I suppose it’s a decent R&B song, and it’s got some nice orchestral touches, but it’s just not my kind of song.

17. Greece – Die Together – Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 38th

First off, this is the absolute dowdiest, most hideous dress I’ve ever had the misfortune to clap eyes on, and it’s my Barbara Dex of the fucking decade, maybe even millennium. Fuck, that dress is ugly – it’s like they’ve plucked her straight out of some ultra-Christian all-girl convent school. The song isn’t much better either – that ‘singing’ at the beginning is downright ugly, and I don’t know what that fucking effect is that they’re adding to it – dissonant backing singers? Whatever it is, I hate it. This is a fuck-ugly ballad in a fuck-ugly dress and I sincerely hope I never have to hear it again. I wish Greece went back to sounding Greek. (And funnily enough, when I said the same in my Reddit post I got one commenter take some real offense at that and going off on a rant which ended in them claiming that I’d have ranked this a lot higher if it’d been any other country. Erm, mate, you’ve clearly not been following my other posts, have you? I would hate this song regardless of who sent it because it’s a fugly ballad.)

18. Iceland – Með Hækkandi Sól – Systur – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 6th

This one, however, I was never not going to like. Country in Eurovision is somehow still completely irresistible to me, and this one is a beautiful example. There’s so many mellow, really lovely songs this year! This is just an endless joy of harmonies, twangy guitars and sighs of ‘þei þei’, and I’m so glad it qualified, because I really didn’t think that Europe would go for this. Okay, they ended really low, but they made it to the final, woo!

19. Moldova – Trenulețul – Zdob și Zdub & Advahov Brothers – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 1st

I swear that this is the absolute best running order slot in the entire history of Eurovision. The six songs before it were all slow and/or quiet, and then this folksy party banger completely brought the house down. Back in 2022 I was totally expecting to hate this, given my history with Zdob și Zdub’s songs, and that rock-song guitar start certainly didn’t make me change my mind. But then the Advahov brothers kick in with their violin and accordion, and the beat changed to the party polka beat, and I was completely and utterly sold. This is the banger to end all bangers, and I love absolutely everything about it. Special love goes to the Advahov’s funky black and white suits, which are awesome. I’m so fucking glad it came second in the televote, because they absolutely deserved it after that insulting 14 points from the jury who, as I said before, wouldn’t recognise a good song if it shoved an accordion up their arse. There’s just one thing that still baffles me about this song – the title apparently translates to ‘the train’, but if you translate that back into Romanian you get ‘trenul’, so what does the ‘ețul’ bit mean?? I want to knoooooow!

20. Sweden – Hold Me Closer – Cornelia Jakobs – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 36th

Argh, and this is such a letdown after that! Another fucking boring croony song with that fucking annoying cursive singing style. Even if she didn’t sing like that I would find nothing interesting or memorable about this song, so I’m once again baffled as to why the fuck it came fourth. I fucking hate this fucker. Oh, but I do like her sparkly fringy top.

21. Australia – Not the Same – Sheldon Riley – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 40th

Double argh, now I have to sit through this fucker as well. Listen mate, I’m really sorry that you had such a hard time as an autistic boy, but there’s only so many times I can liten to you singing ‘I’M NOT THE SAAAME NOOO’ before I’m literally ready to go out and kill someone. This genuinely is three minutes of absolute fucking torture, and again I had to let out a gleeful cackle when he only got two televote points.

22. United Kingdom – Space Man – Sam Ryder – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 19th

And here we have Sam Ryder, the human labrador. I mean, this guy is the loveliest man possible, always positive and a fantastic ambassador for the UK this year, but this song does absolutely nothing for me. I’m really happy that the UK finally came close to winning again for a change, but I honestly don’t get what’s so great about this song, other than that he has a fantastic voice and is a really good performer.

23. Poland – River – Ochman – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 7th

So this is basically a power ballad (with dance elements?) that veers dangerously close to opera territory, but it’s another song that I absolutely love the fuck out of. I honestly don’t know why, it’s just loud and waily in all the right ways.

24. Serbia – In Corpore Sano – Konstrakta – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 12th

This is a great piece of performance art, and a pretty funky, quirky song on top of that. It works its way perfectly to that really catchy ‘biti zdrava’ chorus, and overall it’s a very good song. So many this year!

25. Estonia – Hope – Stefan – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 5th

And thankfully we finish on another great song – more country, woo! This one sounds like it came straight from the soundtrack of a Western film, and it’s even got a ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ warble in there. I love the whistling, I love the twangy guitar, I love the melody – I just love this song. His singing definitely suffers from him strutting around so much, but I don’t care – this song is great.

Urgh, and then we get another interminable slog of interval acts, because what Eurovision really needed was a longer voting window. Let’s see – Måneskin’s new song is actually pretty okay. It’s lovely seeing Gigliola Cinquetti again, and Non Ho l’Eta keeps growing on me the more I hear it. The Mika-medley has way too much falsetto in it for me to like it. If there was anything else I’ve forgotten it.

So yeah, I think this was a great year – not without its duds and gripes, but my top two are songs I fucking adore (and which could just as easily be the other way around), my three to fifteen are also pretty much interchangeable, and I never have to worry about the rest ever again.

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 1 (1989)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 5 (2004, 2007, 2016,2020, 2021)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)Moldova – 1 (2022)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 66. We’re officially down to a third!

After a year out, Rotterdam finally got its chance to put on a show, but everything was still very much affected by the coronavirus. Social distancing was still a thing, so the audience was limited (3.5k only – unimaginably low in modern days), and if I remember right they had to present evidence of a negative covid test on entry. Australians basically could not travel, so were not physically present. Iceland could not perform live due to one of their band members testing positive, so rehearsal footage had to be used. Duncan Laurence also tested positive, so could not perform live in the final. I would obviously have liked to attend, but it just was not possible with the limited audience numbers – I’m pretty sure no tickets even went on sale, because they were simply distributed among people who had bought tickets for 2020. Either that or they were only available to locals – I can’t quite remember.

Despite all that, the contest almost felt normal. The audience were brilliant, providing enough noise that it didn’t feel like there were significantly fewer people than in previous years. I especially liked the massive booing they produced when the UK got double zero points, followed by a massive cheer for James when he stood up. It was, however, a little weird, after 2024, to hear them cheer for Martin Österdahl.

Anyway, I think my country hosted the contest well, given all the restrictions. Four hosts is still too many though – I’d have kept it to either Chantal and Nikkie, or maybe Chantal and Edsilia. I personally don’t think that Jan Smit added anything whatsoever to the line-up. I will say though – much as I’m used to tall people, fuck me Nikkie is tall! I know she’s trans, so she’s pretty much got the size of a Dutch man, but it was funny how she towered over everyone else. She’s great though, and I loved watching all her Looklab interviews with all the contestants at the time. The one with Jendrik from Germany was particularly hilarious.

I also liked the postcards this year. Social distancing and travel restrictions meant no ‘on location’ videos, so instead the producers put an empty house frame in picturesque locations, then filled that digitally with things important to the contestant, plus a little video the contestants had made at home. It was nicely worked, and I liked seeing the things to represent the contestants. (Except Moldova, which just continued the sugar theme, and I’m totally going to blame Kirkorov for that.) I’m still a little sad though that my hometown wasn’t featured, especially given that both Amsterdam and Rotterdam got multiple videos. My hometown is beautiful, and it deserved a spot.

So, numbers… There were 39 competing countries, compared to 2020. Armenia dropped out due to the Nagorno-Karabakh war (at least we were spared another Athena abomination) and Belarus got disqualified, basically for being Putin simps and sending a too political song. Given how ridiculously lenient the EBU are with their ‘too political’ rules, I can only imagine just how political Belarus must have been to actually get disqualified. They have not returned since, of course, because Lukashenko is just as much of a cunt as Putin is. There were a record four countries with zero audience points, with the UK scoring a historic double zero, as mentioned before. Personally this was another very good year for me – my entire top 14 are all songs that I kept.

SEMI-FINAL 1

Thankfully there’s not too much faffing around – there’s the traditional opening film with scenes of the host country, a short performance by Duncan Laurence, the usual housekeeping (including a ‘yay, we’re back!’) and then we’re straight into the songs.

(1. Lithuania – qualified for the final)

2. Slovenia – Amen – Ana Soklič – Contest ranking: 13th (32nd) – My ranking: 34th

Returner: Yes, worse.

Ana is back with another ballad, this one with a little more added gospel. As a result it still bores me to tears, and due to my general inability to appreciate ballads I had real difficulty trying to figure out whether this was better or worse than Voda. Interestingly I’ve just noticed that I gave her 34th place in 2020 as well, so clearly there is very little in it. She’s still wearing half a bedsheet, and I’m actually rather baffled that a song with this many hallelujahs is called Amen. Another one for the DAF pile, I’m afraid.

(3. Russia and 4. Sweden – qualified for the final)

5. Australia – Technicolour – Montaigne – Contest ranking: 14th (34th) – My ranking: 30th

Returner: Yes, better.

Before anyone gets excited about the ‘better’ tag, bear in mind that Australia was my last but one in 2020, so the bar to clear here was little more than a threshold. So, the good stuff: she no longer looks like a clown, and I sort of like her technicolour hair. The song itself is just a lot more palatable overall. The bad stuff: she still employs that annoying cry-singing technique, despite the song being a lot more upbeat, and the lyrics feel messy in relation to the melody, like they don’t quite fit the number of notes in there. I felt for her, stuck down under away from the excitement, but even if she’d been in Rotterdam I don’t think this would have qualified. Interesting fact: with this NQ we’re now left with Ukraine as the only country to always have qualified for the final. Long may they hold that record.

6. North Macedonia – Here I Stand – Vasil – Contest ranking: 15th (35th) – My ranking: 35th

Returner: Yes, much, much worse.

Oh Vasil, what are you doing to me? Last year you gave me the bop to end all bops, my second favourite song of the year, and now you give me this DAFest of the DAF ballads? From the lyrics this feels like the male version of Proud, but not even the disco-ball shirt can lift this above yawn territory.

7. Ireland – Maps – Lesley Roy – Contest ranking: 16th (37th) – My ranking: 31st

Returner: Yes, worse.

So, here’s a tip for participating countries: if your staging requires an extended chat by the hosts, and even more chat after the postcard has finished, then your staging is too complicated. Honestly, this was pretty ridiculous, plus I dislike staging that only really works for the home audience. As important as the live broadcast is, you do also have quite a lot of people watching it from the arena, so don’t exclude them from your performance. This is basically a bit of a disaster from start to finish. Lesley sounds out of breath right from the start, and the song just isn’t special enough to lift itself above that. It’s just an average, out of breath pop song with shitty staging.

(8. Cyprus and 9. Norway – qualified for the final)

10. Croatia – Tick-Tock – Albina – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 25th

Returner: No.

I’m not sure why Damir didn’t return for Croatia (I don’t follow national selections), but instead of a surprisingly likeable ballad we get an over-choreographed girlbop that doesn’t have anything in it to spark my interest. It’s not really bad, it just doesn’t have anything special to make me love it, plus Albina sounds a little flat in the power notes. Very middling.

(11. Belgium and 12. Israel – qualified for the final)

13. Romania – Amnesia – Roxen – Contest ranking: 12th (29th) – My ranking: 37th

Returner: Yes, worse.

This is actually the same story as Slovenia – the song is very similar to Alcohol You, and I’ve given it exactly the same ranking. I do think this one is worse because live she sounds nasal as well as breathy, and aside from a couple of words here and there I literally can’t understand a word of what she’s mumbling. She’s also off-key on a few occasions, and I hate her doll’s dress outfit. I just hate this, period.

(14. Azerbaijan, 15. Ukraine and 16. Malta – qualified for the final)

For interval acts we get The Power of Water, which is basically just another Eurovision entry but without the six-person stage limit. The look-back from past winners, however, is quite nice. I did have to laugh at Måns admission that he wants to come back every year forever, given that by now it’s a bit of a meme that he gets defrosted for the show each year.

SEMI-FINAL 2

Another snappy opening sequence, with a decent song-and-breakdance act to warm us up.

(1. San Marino – qualified for the final)

2. Estonia – The Lucky One – Uku Suviste – Contest ranking: 13th (31st) – My ranking: 28th

Returner: Yes, better.

Uku’s song for this year is less ballady and more poppy, but I find it a little Swedo-boybandy, and overall I can’t say it’s doing much for me. Not at all hateful, just very meh. So yes, it’s slightly better than last year, but as with Australia that’s really not saying much.

3. Czech Republic – Omaga – Benny Cristo – Contest ranking: 15th (36th) – My ranking: 32nd

Returner: Yes, worse.

Much as I didn’t think the Caribbean element in Benny’s song last year was as good as Israel’s, I’m missing it here. It might have lifted this very average pop song a little higher, and the ‘oh my god’ bits are downright annoying. Very much worse than last year.

(4. Greece – qualified for the final)

5. Austria – Amen – Vincent Bueno – Contest ranking: 12th (30th) – My ranking: 33rd

Returner: Yes, worse.

The second of the Amens this year. Neither made it, and where Slovenia didn’t have enough amens, this one has too many. Last year’s song at least had the decency to step away from the balladyness after the first third, but this one stays far too stompy and ballady, and all the amens get on my tits very quickly, so I dislike this one a lot more than his 2020 song.

6. Poland – The Ride – Rafał – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 26th

Returner: No.

This is a pretty nothing song. I really don’t have much to say about it – it’s just an ‘it’s there’ pop song that I’ll never, ever remember.

(7. Moldova, 8. Iceland and 9. Serbia – qualified for the final)

10. Georgia – You – Tornike Kipiani – Contest ranking: 16th (38th) – My ranking: 36th

Returner: Yes, worse.

Last year Tornike had a powerful song that suited his slightly gravelly voice much better than this super-slow, super-dull ballad. It doesn’t help that this has barely any staging to speak of, and nothing to elevate it, and to me he looks uncomfortable singing this. I don’t think he’d have qualified last year, but he’d have stood a better chance than with this piece of drivel.

(11. Albania, 12. Portugal, 13. Bulgaria and 14. Finland – qualified for the final)

15. Latvia – The Moon is Rising – Samanta Tina – Contest ranking: 17th (39th) – My ranking: 39th

Returner: Yes, worse. Oh god, so much worse.

Given how much of a piece of shit Samanta’s song was last year, it’s actually quite impressive that this one is at least three times worse. It’s impossible to decide what the worst part of this abomination is – that fucking annoying uh-uh-uh noise that goes through the whole thing, the total absence of any recognisable melody, her over-dramatic delivery, the stupid crown hands… Let’s bury this deep in the Eurovision archives and never speak of it again. And if this review wasn’t ranty enough for you, go read Cookiefonster’s review, because he hates this song even more than I do.

(16. Switzerland – qualified for the final)

17. Denmark – Øve os på hinanden – Fyr og Flamme – Contest ranking: 11th (28th) – My ranking: 24th

Returner: No.

I remember lots of people being either devastated or incredibly salty when this didn’t qualify, but to me it sounds like a cross between an extremely average eighties song and an S-Club 7 B-side. I’m sure it’s a very sincere effort, and yay for it being in Danish, but it’s about 35 years out of date and not special enough to rise above that. Not bad, just incredibly mediocre and dated.

The main interval act was basically ballet by a guy in an amazing skirt and a person (couldn’t determine gender) on a bicycle (plus a load of extra dancers). It was pretty cool, actually. There were also more winners looking back (still nice). I think this year did a very good job of weeding out the crap from the good stuff – my highest ranking NQ is Denmark. I’m not saying the final won’t have crappy songs, but I’m not mourning any of the NQs here.

GRAND FINAL

Again we have a nice and tight opening – just the opening film, a flag parade with DJ and the usual housekeeping stuff.

1. Cyprus – El Diablo – Elena Tsagrinou – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 21st

Returner: No.

Oh, quelle surprise, Eurovision opens with a girlbop. And quelle surprise, it’s a Cypriot one, because they’re still trying to replicate their success with Fuego. This one is a very half-baked Fuego clone, and although I like a girlbop as much as the next person, they can be very hit and miss, and this one is definitely a miss. It’s not hateful, but it’s not special either, and I do dislike that lo-la-lo-la-loca bit. Elena also introduces us to the outfit theme of the night, which is wearable chandeliers. Okay, that’s a little harsh – I actually quite like this one with the fringy skirt, but there’s quite a few white, crystal-encrusted outfits tonight. Anyway, very middling.

2. Albania – Karma – Anxhela Peristeri – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 3rd

Returner: No.

Quelle surprise, Albania got the death slot. And quelle surprise, it’s buried what is an absolutely gorgeous song – another super-dramatic ballad like Ktheju Tokës was, and this one is almost as good. Anxhela also wears a sparkly chandelier, but while I don’t like this one as much as Cyprus’ one, the song is miles better. It’s dramatic in all the right ways, with some beautiful instrumentation, and Albania are basically proving that when they get it right, they get it very, very right. It’s a crime that this wasn’t even top 20.

3. Israel – Set Me Free – Eden Alene – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 16th

Returner: Yes, worse.

Taken on its own this is a nice, catchy pop song, well sung and enjoyable. But Eden is, of course, a returner, and given how fecking awesome Feker Libi was, this one disappoints. It’s missing that perfect mixture of two genres, and I’m also not a fan of Eden’s raincoat-without-trousers outfit. It’s even worse when the raincoat comes off and she’s wearing nothing but what looks like some fancy tangled-up bits of string. Plus I also don’t like that Mariah Carey dog-whistle singing at the end, so while overall this is enjoyable enough, it’s a big step down from 2020.

4. Belgium – The Wrong Place – Hooverphonic – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 9th

Returner: Yes, better.

I was very surprised that this qualified. I didn’t think it would click with the bigger Eurovision public, but I’m very glad that it did, because I love this song. It’s classy, no fuss, and you can just groove along to it. I also love Geike’s sparkly little black dress. It’s a tough call whether this is better or worse than Release Me, because not only are they very different musically, they also got a different singer. I’m actually wondering how they managed their back catalog with Luka and Geike, because to me it sounds like they have very different vocal ranges. I think I like this one a hair better, but there’s not much in it. (And again, I’ve ranked them 9th in both years, so that fits.)

5. Russia – Russian Woman – Manizha – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 14th

Returner: No.

So, this is Russia’s last ever Eurovision entry (can’t see that changing anytime soon), and I’m very glad it was Manizha, who manages to simultaneously bring the most and least Russian song you can imagine. I’ve said before that the best I can do with rap is tolerate it, and only if the rest of the song is worth it, and this is one of those songs. I really don’t like the rap parts, but the chorus is so hauntingly beautiful that I’ve kept it despite the rap. Go Manizha, I hope you’re surviving okay out there somewhere in Russia.

6. Malta – Je Me Casse – Destiny – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 13th

Returner: Yes, better.

So, don’t get me wrong, I like this song, but at some point someone online described it as ‘Toy without the chicken noises’, and ever since then I’ve not been able to ignore that comparison. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t like Toy as much as I did when it first came out, and so the same with this one. Still, it’s better than her inspirational pop ballad of last year, so that’s good. Destiny also has the third chandelier dress of the night, and while hers is okay, I (predictably) hate the hot pink outfits of the backing dancers.

7. Portugal – Love Is On My Side – The Black Mamba – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 29th

Returner: No.

This song is not for me, I’m afraid. It’s classy, no doubt about it, and objectively speaking it’s a good blues (?) song, but it’s just not anything I would voluntarily listen to. They do look exactly like I would expect a band singing this song to look like, and that’s a compliment.

8. Serbia – Loco Loco – Hurricane – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 7th

Returner: Yes, better.

Many countries sent the same artists with the same style of song, and so too Serbia. Do I mind? Hell no, this is another total Boppy McBopface, and I love it. I remember that the Hurricane ladies were practicing this while running on a treadmill, and it shows – there’s not a single out of breath part, despite the enthusiastic choreography. And speaking of which, to me this choreography is perfect – it’s neither too much nor too little. So yeah, just as last year I was bopping along singing ‘hasta la vista baby’, this year I’m bopping along going ‘hajde budi loco locoooo!’ and I’m loving it.

9. United Kingdom – Embers – James Newman – Contest ranking: 26th – My ranking: 20th

Returner: Yes, better.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, poor James… Did he deserve to get no points at all? No, but what do you expect with such a super-generic pop song? And what were they thinking with those giant trumpets on stage? It’s such a classic example of a middle of the road UK entry – no one will hate this, but no one will love it either, me included. I felt for him when the double zero was revealed, but he took it like a champ. I do also like this song better than My Last Breath, but both are just frightfully mediocre.

10. Greece – Last Dance – Stefania – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 15th

Returner: Yes, worse.

I rather like her sparkly purple catsuit, mainly because it’s an absolutely lovely shade of purple. I’m less impressed with the staging, which apparently looked really daft if you were in the arena, and the song is pretty middling. Another one that’s a little too generic for me to either love or hate it.

11. Switzerland – Tout l’Univers – Gjon’s Tears – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 2nd

Returner: Yes, better.

Switzerland managed to strike gold twice. Répondez-moi was a gorgeous ballad, and while this one is too, it has that little bit extra that makes it extraordinary, musically. Add to that Gjon’s pitch perfect voice and it’s no surprise that he came third. It’s actually better than last year, which is impressive given that last year was awesome. Sorry, this review is a little short, but I just don’t have much more to say. Read Cookiefonster’s review to get a full breakdown why this song is so great.

12. Iceland – 10 Years – Daði og Gagnamagnið – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 6th

Returner: Yes. Um, better?

Poor, poor Iceland… Finally they’re in with a winning chance and the contest got cancelled, and then on their second try they couldn’t perform because one of their band members got covid. I don’t know if that’s what cost them the victory, but I do believe that the competition was just insanely strong this year. As to whether which of their two entries I like better, I’m still not entirely sure. I really like them both, and they both have that same seventies disco vibe, but if I had to pick which one I’d rather listen to, I’m still not sure. My ranking says this one, since last year I ranked them 7th, but I’m just not sure.

13. Spain – Voy a Quedarme – Blas Cantó – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 27th

Returner: Yes, better.

Look, I know he sings in Spanish. I can hear that he sings in Spanish, but he still sounds Italian somehow. Maybe it’s something in his voice? He still has that same whiny singing style, but at least this one doesn’t have the annoying uni-universo chorus, so it’s slightly better than his previous effort. That said, bits of the chorus sound exactly like the ‘ahahahaaaa’ bit from Arcade, and overall I still don’t like it, so meh.

14. Moldova – Sugar – Natalia Gordienko – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 5th

Returner: Yes, better.

Ah, thank god, the last of the Kirkorov songs that I am reluctantly forced to love. Natalia has the last (and best) of the chandelier dresses, and a very similar bop to Serbia. She also has a slightly breathy style of singing, but she only does it when the lyrics ask for it, which makes it a lot more acceptable. This also has just enough choreography to make it fun rather than too much, and overall I just love bopping along to this. Definitely better than last year, even if I loved that one too. People always complain about the long note at the end, but I don’t mind it – she pulls it off, so good on her.

15. Germany – I Don’t Feel Hate – Jendrik – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 23rd

Returner: No.

Cookiefonster hates this song, but I really don’t mind it too much. Yes, it’s saccharine and relentlessly perky, but Jendrik is just such a lovely guy that I can’t be annoyed by it. I don’t like the style changes it has, so that’s one thing, but other than that I just don’t mind this song, even if I don’t like it nearly enough to keep it. I also find the woman in the hand suit hilarious, mainly because she was following him around everwhere and had to keep one arm up all the time to avoid inadvertently flipping people the bird. Basically, I think this song gets a lot of flak that it doesn’t really deserve.

16. Finland – Dark Side – Blind Channel – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 23rd

Returner: No.

A very respectable sixth place in a year when I might have expected the whole hard rock vote to have gone to Italy. And (surprisingly) I don’t actually mind this one too much – there’s no vomit-singing, which always helps, plus it’s got a nice synthesizer riff repeating in the background. Not one to keep, but a lot more palatable than most hard rock songs for me.

17. Bulgaria – Growing Up is Getting Old – Victoria – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 38th

Returner: Yes, worse.

Sometimes, like with Latvia, it’s quite easy to determine which of two songs that I hate, I hate the most. Here it’s a little more difficult, because both of Victoria’s songs are hideous, overly breathy crybaby songs that I hate the fuck out of. I also hate her outfit – it looks like a pair of pyjamas. And actually, I think this one has the edge because of that fucking annoying ending where she puts a full stop after every syllable yet you still can’t hear what she’s singing other than grow. ing. up. is. get. ting. old. Fuck I hate this song.

18. Lithuania – Discoteque – The Roop – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 8th

Returner: Yes, worse.

Much like Iceland, Lithuania stood a real chance of winning last year, or at least of coming within the top five. That they didn’t this time is simply because this song, as fun and boppy as it is, simply isn’t as good as On Fire was. Don’t get me wrong – I really like this one. It’s mellow, and I love that ascending ‘dance alone’ in the chorus, but On Fire was just so, so much better. Still, lovely to see them in the top ten.

19. Ukraine – Shum – Go_A – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 1st

Returner: Yes, better.

Ahh, the song of the night for me. If I loved Solovey, then I want to marry Shum and have its babies. Like I said in my 2020 review, Go_A are that perfect combination of ethnic and EDM that’s so up my street that it’s bought a house there and taken up permanent residence. This song is sheer genius, a perfect combination of great singing, a lovely sopilka melody, a great dance beat underneath, with the whole tied together with fantastic staging. Plus I love love love how it speeds up. Actually, for me this is the song of the decade, and I’m so glad it got second place in the televote. I don’t know why it got shafted by the juries, but clearly they wouldn’t know a great song if it shoved a sopilka up their arse.

20. France – Voilà – Barbara Pravi – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 12th

Returner: No.

Hey, have we established that these recent contests are full of songs that I should hate but don’t? Well, here’s another one. This is the Frenchest of the French chansons you could possibly imagine, and normally I can appreciate the class, but still say they’re not my thing. This one I somehow really like. I was totally expecting all those voilàs to get on my tits after a while, but three years later they still haven’t, and I don’t even mind her overly emotional singing. She maybe puts it on a little too much live, but the studio version is a little more restrained, so I don’t mind it here where she’s performing for an audience. The only thing I hate about this is her outfit – sheesh, that corset thing is atrocious.

21. Azerbaijan – Mata Hari – Efendi – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 10th

Returner: Yes, worse.

This is very much a story like Lithuania – I like this song, but it’s not a patch on Cleopatra. This is the fake rolex you buy off a shady guy on the street, while Cleopatra was the real deal. I also hate the outfits – Efendi’s is shit, and the backing singers are just wearing stuff out of the Anne Summers catalogue. Yes, I like the song, but it’s disappointing overall, compared to last year.

22. Norway – Fallen Angel – Tix – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 19th

Returner: No.

I’m glad they didn’t send that boring bint from last year, but unfortunately this isn’t much better. Tix seems like a lovely guy, but this is the blandest boyband song ever performed by one boy in a fur coat with some angel wings glued on. It’s as relentlessly average as the UK, and I have no idea why it got so many more points.

23. Netherlands – Birth of a New Age – Jeangu Macrooy – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 18th

Returner: Yes, better.

While this is definitely a better song than Grow, it’s still way too gospely for my liking, and that constant repetition of ‘your rhythm is rebellion’ gets annoying very quickly. That said, I think it deserved more than 11 points, and I’m still pissed off that everyone was referring to this as ‘the broccoli song’, which is a shitty way to disrespect Jeangu’s Sranan Tongo language heritage.

24. Italy – Zitti e Buoni – Måneskin – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 22nd

Returner: No.

Less hard rock and more classic rock than Finland, and I can definitely see why this won. They’ve got great stage presence, and I like their coordinated outfits. Still, overall this isn’t something I want to keep, because I’m just not much of a rock chick.

25. Sweden – Voices – Tusse – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 11th

Returner: No.

Another classic Swedish entry, and as hit and miss as they often are with me, this one is a hit. Not an ‘omg I love this’ hit, but a ‘yes, this is pleasant enough that I can voluntarily listen to it’ hit. It’s just a shame that Tusse is of the school of ‘squatting = emotion’ way of singing, because it makes his performance rather annoying.

26. San Marino – Adrenalina – Senhit – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 4th

Returner: Yes, so, so much better.

This has got to be the biggest glow-up of them all this year. Given how much I hated (and still hate) Freaky, I was very pleasantly surprised by this one, because it’s a total bop. I could do without Flo Rida in there (because you know, rap), but I don’t mind him really. I do remember that the UK pre-Eurovision stuff was all ‘omg they’ve got Flo Rida in there’ and I kept going ‘who?’ but meh. I was expecting this to do much better with the public, but there you go.

The Music Binds Us interval act was very interval-acty – it was okay. Nikkie’s Eurovision Tutorials reaches its conclusion (having also featured in the semis), and I found them pretty Dutch, in that they were maybe a little too on the nose to be polite, but hey.

The Rock the Roof section was basically just a ‘previous winners’ rehash, but it was nice to see some older winners in there – essential given how long ago it was that the Netherlands won previously. Teach In are definitely looking old, but they’re still rocking it. Sandra Kim sounds a lot less annoying with an adult voice, and I’m glad that she’s learned that it’s ‘la vie’. Lenny Kuhr is still a legend, though I didn’t like this arrangement of De Troubadour. Helena Paparizou still has it too, and Lordi obviously look the same.

No live performance for Duncan, and I like the human countdown, but dear god they need to reduce the voting window again. You can only vote twenty times anyway, so I don’t see the point of more than fifteen minutes to vote.

Overall a really good contest – let’s see how Italy do next year!

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 1 (1989)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 5 (2004, 2007, 2016,2020, 2021)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 65.

This was never going to have a different title, of course. With how weird and depressing all of 2020 turned out to be, this was still one of the bigger shocks for me. This contest, which at that point had been going on uninterrupted for 64 years, was cancelled. Yes, pretty much everything was cancelled in 2020, but I remember wondering whether there really couldn’t be some way for it to go ahead. Play the songs like they did in the Eurovision Song Celebration programmes and let people vote anyway. Let the artists perform from their own countries, or basically just anything to not have this unprecedented break in the contest. But I guess the first option wasn’t acceptable because Eurovision is meant to be live, and the second would just have been a broadcasting (near) impossibility. It was another disappointment because this was the first time that the contest would be held in my home country within my conscious memory (I won’t say living memory, since I was alive in 1976, but I was two at the time, so Eurovision wasn’t very big on my horizon yet). I was absolutely planning to get tickets somehow, and stay with my family to go and see it. Rotterdam is only 15 minutes away (by train) from my hometown, so it couldn’t have been better, really. But of course, it wasn’t to be.

One positive thing any fan can take away from this year is that you can always hope/claim/pretend that your favourite song would have, if not won, then at least done well. No lamentations about undeserved non-qualifications (or rants about baffling qualifications, for that matter). Another thing I have personally taken away from this year is fourteen (14!) songs that I kept. Mostly bops (duh), but I hope some of them will surprise people. And yes, just to be clear about that – it’s the songs I have ranked 1 to 14.

Anyway, there would have been the same number of countries as in 2019, but with two swap-outs: Bulgaria and Ukraine returned, and Hungary and Montenegro left. Hungary of course won’t return until they finally manage to get rid of über-cunt Orban, but for Montenegro it’s mostly a money problem, I believe.

So, no official rankings this year, of course, just my own. I might see if I can put some personal predictions down for which songs would/might/would not have qualified, but I am of course notoriously crap at judging whether a ballad is good or bad, so they’re probably going to be more based on unfounded hope than any logical reasoning. I’ve ordered the songs as they appeared in the Song Celebrations, so basically each semi-final with their three auto-qualifiers at the end. I will also discuss the ‘interval acts’ that we got after every fifth song, but I’ll do that at the end of each semi.

SEMI-FINAL 1

I must say that I neither know nor like that too-perky presenter, because she’s, well, too perky. I mean, it didn’t need to have the ‘omg everyone is dying’ gravitas of a daily government press conference, but she came across as forced-perky rather than natural-perky.

1. Sweden – Move – The Mamas – My ranking: 25th

So Sweden have lost a mama somewhere along the way, and have given them worse outfits. Seriously, the less said about the left mama’s outfit, the better. I’m not actually even sure whether these three mamas are the same as last year, nor do I particularly care, since the song is far too gospely for my liking. I am also incredibly disappointed that three women who can undeniably sing don’t give us a single bit of proper harmony in this song. It leaves me completely cold – I don’t love it, I don’t hate it, it just is.

2. Belarus – Da Vidna – VAL – My ranking: 18th

I don’t know why the main singer is wearing a Swarovski wig, nor can I decide whether I think it’s funky or lame. I’m leaning towards the latter a bit, but I’m still not sure. The song itself is a bit in the middle – a decent enough slow-ish dance effort, which I didn’t like enough to keep, but did actually remember. This is not necessarily a good thing – I remembered several songs from this year because they were absolutely hideous – but here it meant that it was catchy enough to stick, just not catchy enough to keep.

3. Australia – Don’t Break Me – Montaigne – My ranking: 40th

And here we have a prime example of a song that I remembered for all the wrong reasons. She sings like she’s about to burst into tears, and no, that is not a good sound for a song, even if it’s possibly the point. I also hate her stupid outfit, with that neck-tutu. Together with the blue hair and the apple-cheeks it makes her look like a clown. Again, this may have been the point, but if so, dear god, why? What the fuck has it got to do with the song? And if it wasn’t the point, then DON’T FUCKING MAKE YOUR PERFORMER LOOK LIKE A FUCKING CLOWN! Honestly, I could probably rant on for another five minutes about how much I hate this fucking song, but I’m not going to waste any more time on it.

4. North Macedonia – You – Vasil – My ranking: 2nd

Ahh, a lovely palate-cleanser. This is the first song with a music video rather than a live performance, and it’s no more than so-so. Like many people pointed out at the time, given that Vasil is gay it’s a bit weird to have him dancing with a woman, but maybe we can’t expect too much yet from North Macedonia. Anyway, I love love love this song! I love how it starts, with only those deep synthesizer tones and his singing. Then when the beat fully kicks in it turns out that this is an absolute banger of a song, and I think I loved it pretty much from the very first time I heard it. I had three songs this year with less than a hair between them in ranking, and this is obviously the first. My absolute favourite part is the big ‘tooniiiiiiiiiiight – give it to me give it to me’ near the end. Yep, I love this song as much as I hate Australia’s. Probably more, actually.

5. Slovenia – Voda – Ana Soklič – My ranking: 34th

Ana is wearing some sort of outfit made out of bedsheets and sings what is to me a pretty bog standard ballad. It’s all dramatic gestures, long drawn-out notes and a lot of nothing music, because god forbid you should have something interesting to accompany your chosen voice. I’m not convinced that she’s always in key, outside of those long vooooodaaaaaas, and given that I don’t speak Slovenian and therefore can only recognise ‘voda’ as water, I’m baffled as to what is so special about water that you need to sing an ode to it (and no, I don’t bother with looking up lyrics). It’s basically just DAF.

6. Lithuania – On Fire – The Roop – My ranking: 6th

Another music video rather than live performance, and another absolute banger of a song. Again, it has a great start, with that harmonious ‘oohoohoohoooo’ to drop us into the first verse. Actually, the chorus itself also has a lovely harmony in it, and Vaidotas’ voice has a really likeable quality to it – it just sounds warm and pleasant. To top it all off they have a silly dance that the audience could totally have participated in, so I reckon that this would have done pretty well overall. I definitely love it to bits.

7. Ireland – Story of My Life – Lesley Roy – My ranking: 22nd

Another music video, and an attempt at being a banger, but for me this one fell short. It just sounds a little too ‘standard pop song’ for me, and there are no lovely little surprises to hook me and reel me in like North Macedonia and Lithuania did. I do also actively dislike that nananana bit in the chorus that sounds like someone going ‘neener neener’. Definitely one for the mediocre pile.

8. Russia – Uno – Little Big – My ranking: 3rd

At the time of watching this (remember, I always go in fresh), this was the absolute best music video I had seen in probably at least five years. They actually beat that very shortly afterwards with Hypnodancer (I nearly died laughing the first time I watched that one), but that’s by the by. This is also, yet again, an absolute banger, and this one is bonkers in the best possible way. This is absolutely the best joke entry since Dancing Lasha Tumbai, which makes it a little ironic given that this is Russia. This is also number two of my ‘top three that might as well share first place except I can’t do that so I’m forced to go through the agony of ranking them’. The flapping legs with the flares made me burst out laughing the first time they did it, and the way they creepily stare into the camera as they do the hand gestures over that synth riff is also weirdly hilarious. There will always be the mystery of who they’d have dropped for the live performance, of course. Ilya and Sonya are the main vocalists, so they stay. Keyboard guy and black lipstick/mouth guy made up the rest of Little Big (at the time), so I presume they couldn’t be dropped either. Fat dance dude is pretty essential to the performance, so he’s a no, leaving us with pink shirt guy (the main singer of The Hatters and a good friend of Ilya) and the dark-haired woman, who is the lead singer of Leningrad. My money would have been on her, but that would definitely have left a gap, so I suppose it’s just as well that we never found out. I’ll finish by saying RIP fat dance dude (Dmitriy Krasilov), who died a year ago, only 29 years old.

9. Belgium – Release Me – Hooverphonic – My ranking: 9th

This is very much a sadgirl cryballad, and as such I should hate the fuck out of it, but this manages to be one of those ballads that hits all the right spots with me, and instead I absolutely love it. A lot of that is due to Luka’s pitch perfect vocals, which manage to have a cry-quality to them without being annoying. The music reminds me very much of Portishead at their best (something like Glory Box), and overall this is just a lovely, lovely song that I’ll never tire of.

10. Malta – All of My Love – Destiny – My ranking: 24th

Another music video, and this one starts like a motivational poster-calendar, with all those pseudo-inspirational phrases.* Destiny is the new Chiara, and her voice is undoubtedly really good, but the song is for me very much like the Mamas – an inspirational gospely pop song that leaves me absolutely cold. My biggest dilemma here is whether to put her above or below the Mamas. Above, I think – it’s essentially the same song, but the Mamas had worse outfits.

*I used to have a de-motivational calendar, which was much more fun. My favourite one had the slogan ‘It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn’t take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face’.

11. Croatia – Divlji Vjetre – Damir Kedžo – My ranking: 11th

This is another ballady song of ultimate drama that you might expect me to hate, except I don’t. I don’t love it as much as I love some other entries this year, but there’s just something about this song that speaks to me. In this case I’m afraid that I cannot articulate it, so you’ll just have to accept my gut feeling here.

12. Azerbaijan – Cleopatra – Efendi – My ranking: 4th

Omg so many bangers this year! This one stands out because the chorus is fucking genius – that ‘and it sounds like this’ going into that Buddhist chant, then the incredibly singalongable ‘lalalala’ bit had me sold from the first time I heard it. I also loved one of the comments underneath the official music video on YouTube: Producer: Efendi, how many costume changes do you want? Efendi: Yes. Anyway, in any other year this might have been my winner, but there were just some insanely good songs this year, making it no higher than fourth. I still love the absolute fuck out of this one.

13. Cyprus – Running – Sandro – My ranking: 32nd

I didn’t remember this one at all until I got to the chorus, and then I remembered why I didn’t keep it, because that chorus is fucking annoying. To me this is Cyprus trying to be Sweden and sort of succeeding and failing at the same time. It hangs between ‘meh’ and ‘please shut the fuck up’.

14. Norway – Attention – Ulrikke – My ranking: 33rd

So this looks like a national final performance, and while Ulrikke’s dress is in a nice style, I hate the hideous gold glittery fabric. Gold is never a good choice with me, really. The song itself is a ballad, and this time not of the kind that keeps my attention (see what I did there?) There’s a violin and cello on stage, but apart from right at the start you don’t even hear them, and overall this is just classic DAF ballad territory.

15. Israel – Feker Libi – Eden Alene – My ranking: 8th

Yet another banger! I love this song because it manages to sound both Caribbean and Hebrew, without losing any of its banginess, and because it manages a change in beat/tempo near the end that actually works. This is a total party song and I love it.

16. Romania – Alcohol You – Roxen – My ranking: 37th

Janky lyrics? Check. Weird pronunciation? Check. Actually quite clever pun for the chorus? Um, I wasn’t expecting that one, to be honest. It doesn’t redeem the song though, which is a whiny ballad by a Billie Eilish sound-a-like, and while I hadn’t heard any Billie Eilish songs back in 2020, I’ve by now established that Billie really isn’t my thing, so I hate this one.

17. Ukraine – Solovey – Go_A – My ranking: 1st

So, originally this took a while to grow on me, mainly because of Kate’s white voice singing. I absolutely loved the melody and the music from the word go, especially the start with the sopilka playing that nightingale melody. The studio version is what really made me adore this song, because Kate’s vocals are a little shaky in this live version, and on the studio version she’s much, much stronger. She must have learned so much between 2020 and 2021, given how fucking awesome they were in 2021 (sorry, spoiler), but regardless of this performance this is my number one song of this year, plus I have very much grown accustomed to white voice over the past four years. This is exactly the combination of folk and electronic music that is 100% up my street, and I love how overall clever this song actually is. It’s not got stupid lyrics – this tells a story, and it does it in bloody sonnet format! Kate’s dress is a little too out there for me, but other than that I could not adore this song any more if I tried.

So, when I said that there is only one band in Eurovision history that I’ve ever listened to more songs by, this is the band. Okay, I wasn’t entirely telling the truth, because I kind of forgot about Little Big when I said that (I’ve listened to a lot of Little Big songs as well, and love quite a few of them), but Go_A are the one outfit for whom I’ve yet to find a song that I don’t like. Kalyna is awesome and poignant. Zhalmenina is a fucking banger, and Dumala possibly even more so (with a really cool video to boot). The only reason I’m not mentioning Shum is because I’ll have plenty to say about that next year.

18. Italy – Fai Rumore – Diodato – My ranking: 31st

A pretty classic Italian ballad with a far too shouty chorus for me to ever like it.

19. Germany – Violent Thing – Ben Dolic – My ranking: 14th

This is one of the weirdest songs I’ve ever had to deal with, because every time I hear it I expect to absolutely hate it, and somehow I never do. I mean, I’ve had songs before where all the individual elements are things that I hate, yet somehow they work, but this song is different in the sense that I keep feeling that way rather than just getting over the feeling of ‘I should hate this’ after the first time and just accepting that I like it. This is basically the weirdest reluctant banger I’ve ever come across, and even four years down the line I’m still convinced that at some point I’m going to hate this song, yet I still like it.

20. Netherlands – Grow – Jeangu Macrooy – My ranking: 27th

This is a super understated ballad thing, and it’s absolutely not a song for me, especially when it goes gospely near the end.

So, predictions, let’s see. Russia would have absolutely won this semi-final, or at least the televote. Guaranteed qualifiers are Sweden (because they’re Sweden), Lithuania (because banger), Azerbaijan (because also banger) and Israel (yep, banger). Pretty guaranteed non-qualifiers are Australia (because hideous), Ireland (just too mediocre) and I think Cyprus (because not Sweden enough). After that it gets tricky for me. Ukraine has never not qualified, but they didn’t yet have the momentum they had in 2021 and I think this song is quite niche, so maybe this could have been their first NQ. That said, they were last on the night, so recency bias might have put them in spot 8-10, so I’ll say Q. Between the ballads of Slovenia, Belgium, Norway and Romania I suppose at least one or two would have qualified, and I like to think that Belgium would have been one of them. I’m going to say that bootleg Billie would have beaten off the other two. That leaves Belarus, which I think is NQ because it was too early in the show and just doesn’t hit quite hard enough. North Macedonia might have either just made it, or just lost out, because it was also quite early on in the show. Plus, I may adore it, but I know very few others who agree with me. (Cookiefonster does agree with me, thankfully.) Malta could have made it, but there is a chance that all the gospel votes would have gone to Sweden instead, and Croatia is in much the same boat as Belarus – it doesn’t quite have the staying power in this insanely competitive semi. I’m going to pretend that the last two Qs were North Macedonia and Croatia, simply because I like them better.

As for the automatic qualifiers, Italy would have done really well (because they’re Italy). Germany maybe middling? I’m not sure. Netherlands would have come dead last, unless the UK beat them to it again. There’s just no way that song would have done well.

For the inbetweeny bits, the ‘switch your song to a different genre’ is an interesting concept. Australia makes me hate the song even more. Germany I have no idea what he was trying to do. Lithuania had a nice go on an Elvis impersonation. Da Vidna in bluegrass style was inspired, but Divlji Vjetre as a dance entry just makes it ridiculously mediocre.

It was interesting to see the artist’s top three Eurovision songs, just to see their tastes. Ana from Slovenia has no taste by picking Suus as her favourite, though her other two choices surprised me. The Mamas’ choices were boring but unsurprising. I’m disappointed that Go_A picked two Swedish winners, but at least they also picked Ruslana. Lesley Roy is also boring by picking two Irish winners. Vasil was the most interesting one, picking two pretty obscure songs, and choosing Bandido as his favourite – nice one!

The YouTubers reacting to some of the songs was meh, nothing more.

SEMI-FINAL 2

1. Greece – Supergirl – Stefania – My ranking: 13th

I liked this enough to put it on my playlist, but it’s not anywhere near being one of my favourites this year. I’m not entirely sure what it is that I like about this, it’s just a song that I enjoy listening to. The accompanying music video is ridiculous though – she has superpowers that she clearly keeps hidden, except she reveals herself because some bint slips on a banana and is about to fall on her arse? I mean, they could at least have made it a threat of falling down some marble staircase or something – at least that has the potential to dash your brains out. This is just silly. I will forgive her for saving the kitty in the tree (because kitty!), but that’s still a stupid thing to do, because anyone who has ever tried to get a cat off something high will know that they claw you to shreds while you’re plucking them off.

2. Estonia – What Love Is – Uku Suviste – My ranking: 26th

This is nothing more than a pretty standard ballad to me. Good voice, but meh.

3. Austria – Alive – Vincent Bueno – My ranking: 17th

Vincent tried to trick me into thinking that this was another ballad, but then it went all upbeat and dance/disco. It’s not too bad once it gets to that, but there’s not enough here to make me want to listen to this again.

4. Moldova – Prison – Natalia Gordienko – My ranking: 12th

This is a ballad, right? I’m pretty sure this classifies as a ballad, but I actually like this one enough that I kept it. It’s got just enough unusual things going on, plus some nice dramatic wailing. I also like the unusual chorus, with that rising crescendo, and this is also another song that manages to make the tempo/beat change at the end work. Damn you Kirkorov for producing another good song.

5. San Marino – Freaky! – Senhit – My ranking: 23rd

Two years in a row now, San Marino! Two years of me hating your song! Although I have to admit that I don’t hate it quite as much as I did four years ago. The music is a nice, uptempo disco song (definitely better than that mediocre thing from Serhat last year), but I just can’t abide it whenever she sings ‘freaky freaky freaky’ – it literally makes me want to punch someone.

6. Czech Republic – Kemama – Benny Cristo – My ranking: 16th

It’s funny how there are often two songs in a year that try out the same unusual style, and inevitably one of them is much better than the other. So with this song – it’s got a nice Caribbean feel to it, but Israel did it so much better… This is just a decent Caribbean party song without anything to really elevate it. It’s nice to see a minority culture represented here though.

7. Serbia – Hasta La Vista – Hurricane – My ranking: 10th

Essentially this is Fuego in triplicate, and in Serbian. There’s a predictable amount of twisty dancing in skimpy outfits and an awful lot of hair-flicking, but you know what? I think this song is another absolute banger. It doesn’t require any brains, it just requires you to bop along as you wail ‘hasta la vista baby’ at the top of your lungs.

8. Poland – Empires – Alicja – My ranking: 20th

This has a lovely violin/piano combination at the start, and overall this feels like a bond-style ballad. Yep, there’s the dramatic chorus, with the drop back to quiet verses after it. Bond-ballads I find generally a little more palatable, so as ballads go this one isn’t bad.

9. Iceland – Think About Things – Daði og Gagnamagnið – My ranking: 7th

I can totally see why everyone said this would be the year when Iceland finally won, because this is a ridiculously catchy song with a very sweet message. I certainly would have considered them a worthy winner if it had come to that, even if it’s not even in my personal top five. Sorry, I just had six songs that I liked better…

10. Switzerland – Répondez-moi – Gjon’s Tears – My ranking: 5th

This being one of them. This is a work of art. Gjon’s voice is so pure, and the whole thing is a masterpiece of an understated ballad. Yes, it’s another song that by rights I ought to hate, but I can’t – this song is simply too beautiful to hate.

11. Denmark – Yes – Ben & Tan – My ranking: 36th

After two years of trying to redeem themselves, Denmark are back to their old, super-annoying self. The verses aren’t too bad here (the only reason this isn’t ranked completely rock bottom), but the chorus annoys the everliving fuck out of me. It’s not just the ‘say yes’ bit, though that’s absolutely the most annoying part of it, it’s just the whole fucking chorus. So, decent harmonious verses notwithstanding, this goes onto the ‘fucking hell this song is fucking annoying’ pile.

12. Albania – Fall From the Sky – Arilena Ara – My ranking: 30th

An overly croony-voiced, overly dramatic power ballad with too many long, drawn-out notes, bleh.

13. Finland – Looking Back – Aksel – My ranking: 28th

Another boring ballad, with super-boring staging.

14. Armenia – Chains on You – Athena Manoukian – My ranking: 41st

Oh, fuckety fuck fuck fuck, this bint manages to be croony, breathy and vaguely nasal all at the same time, and it makes me unreasonably angry. The melody in the verses would be okay without that insufferable singing style, and when she drops the annoying singing style for the chorus it turns out to be literally hideous. And the thing is, whenever she doesn’t use all those fucking annoying tropes, she can really sing, so why not make her sing something nice? This song was three minutes of literal torture, and I wanted to murder someone at the end of it. It’s hard to say who hates this song more – Cookiefonster or me.

15. Portugal – Medo de Sentir – Elisa – My ranking: 35th

Elisa wears a terrible, terrible outfit for a slow (possibly fado?) song that’s too Portuguese and ballady for me to ever like it. They also sound very flat – not a great effort.

16. Georgia – Take Me As I Am – Tornike Kipiani – My ranking: 15th

This is a very gravel-shouty song, but despite that it has a certain kind of charm about it. It’s got that patented Georgian quirk in there somewhere. I’m actually quite enjoying listening to this while it’s on, but I know I’m unlikely to want to put it on again.

17. Bulgaria – Tears Getting Sober – Victoria – My ranking: 38th

Another Billie Eilish sound-a-like, with another too croony-breathy understated ballad. As far as I’m concerned this is pretty much interchangeable with Romania.

18. Latvia – Still Breathing – Samanta Tina – My ranking: 39th

So, this started off as a slightly (slightly) more palatable version of Armenia, but when it gets to the point where it sounds like someone is farting into a microphone I’m instantly back at the point where I actively want to kill someone, preferably the songwriters. The video also freaks me out, for reasons I cannot articulate. Also, is Samanta wearing all those giant hats to hide the fact that she’s botoxed to the gills?

19. France – Mon Alliée (The Best in Me) – Tom Leeb – My ranking: 19th

I don’t know why I like women with guitars, but men with guitars tend to leave me cold. This is yet another quiet guitar ballad, except it has a very annoying ‘you are you are you are’ chorus, and a super-predictable song structure, so it’s half DAF, half annoying.

20. United Kingdom – My Last Breath – James Newman – My ranking: 21st

Oh yeah, this video has Wim ‘ice man’ Hof in it. The song is pretty average, but that gap before every ‘breath’ he sings is pretty annoying, so it sits at about Ireland level.

21. Spain – Universo – Blas Cantó – My ranking: 29th

Spain closes off the evening by keeping up the annoyance level. The chorus is whiny and too high, and I can’t say much more than that I really dislike this song. Also, for some reason it sounds like he’s singing in Italian rather than Spanish, I don’t know why.

Inbetweeny bits – how would the songs sound if they were sung in their own language? Well, this came after song five, so it would have helped if I’d actually heard the songs already. This was one problem with these programmes – they were useless to people coming in fresh, like I did at the time.

Of the artists singing songs at home I liked acoustic Keiino best – that song still sounds great in acoustic version. Jamala went too over the top with Arcade, which was a shame.

Then we’re visiting artists at home, and omg, Gjon has a signed record by Ivan Rebroff! That man was a legend. James Newman speaks English, but I bet not a single foreigner could understand a word of what he was saying. Also, learn to crisp your bacon, mate! Senhit is cute, with her pet dog. Tom Leeb sounds remarkably American for a Frenchman.

Lastly, more YouTuber reactions, muh. Though I must say it was funny how most of the positive comments on Armenia were on the looks, not the song.

Predictions… Oh god, this semi was so ridiculously weak compared to the first one… I mean, there’s always a strong and a weak semi, but the discrepancy this year was beyond ridiculous. Let’s see, I think Iceland would have won this semi, by a long shot, but the only other obvious qualifyer is Switzerland. I think Greece, Austria, Serbia and Poland would also have made it. Obvious non-qualifiers are Finland (too boring), Portugal (also too boring) and Georgia (too Georgia). I’m on the fence about Moldova, San Marino and Czech Republic – of the three I think Moldova had the best chance, but Czechia didn’t have to try and fight Israel, so might also have made it, and San Marino did manage to qualify with a much worse song last year, so you never know. Estonia is too boring for me, but between them, Albania and Bulgaria I suppose at least one of them would have made it – most likely bootleg Billie #2. That leaves us with the trio of atrocities that’s Denmark, Armenia and Latvia, and while I hate their everliving guts, there’s always someone out there without taste who does like these songs, so one of them might have made it through to torment me in the final.

None of the automatic qualifiers would have made any kind of dent in the scoring – the bottom four this year would basically have been France, Spain, UK and Netherlands, in that order.

So yeah, a great year for me, with plenty to love and also a couple of nice ranty-hate entries.

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 1 (1989)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 4 (2004, 2007, 2016, 2020)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)

Actual winners that I agree with: N/A this year.

I could have called this one ‘the year with the worst ever interval act’, but let’s be counter to my usual nature and be positive rather than negative for a change.

For me, 2019 was a bit of a turning point in Eurovision. I know it may not seem like it when you read my blog, but I have always loved Eurovision. Up until 2019 I loved it despite the abundance of shitty entries that I hated or that left me cold, and because of the one or two (or maybe even three, in a really good year) that I would really love. In fact, I would have already considered 2017 and 2018 to be exceptional years, because I came away with four songs from each at the time of the contest. Prior to that I had never liked more than three songs enough to keep them. And then enter 2019, where my final tally was eleven songs. A quarter of all the songs were good enough for me to actually put them on my playlist. In fact, it was the first year where I bought the official Eurovision album (in MP3 format – I’m not a complete luddite).

Something else I should probably explain – I like to own things. I do not have a Spotify account where I stream music – every song I have liked enough in Eurovision I have gone out and bought as an MP3 from Amazon and then downloaded onto my own PC. Only where the songs were not available have I ripped them from YouTube, but the basic fact is that they live on my hard drive, and I play them through my PC via WinAmp. And what I play on that is my Everything playlist – basically one massive dump of all the songs I love enough to have playing whenever I’m doing something, be that work or play or whatever. This dump also lives on my MP3 player (yes, I do still use one of those as well, mainly on the bus to work), and right now the total count of songs stands at just shy of 900. That’s not all Eurovision, obviously.

So anyway, when I say something like ‘this one has made it onto my playlist’ that is the playlist I’m talking about. And ever since 2019 I have bought the Eurovision album, made a temporary playlist after the contest is over, then played it on repeat for several days. Each song that I got bored of listening to would get deleted – some after just one listen, some after a few days when I’d get to the point of mmmno, I don’t actually like it all that much. Bear in mind that I always go into Eurovision fresh – I do not listen to any of the songs beforehand (with a few notable exceptions, but I really prefer not to). For me, pre-Eurovision is seeing everyone else get hyped up about certain entries, then deciding on semi-final night whether they were right to be hyped or not, then two frantic days of playing the songs to death before the final. My husband will probably state that I go a little crazy in Eurovision week.

So anyway, this just serves as a background to why 2019 was a bloody amazing year, as far as I was concerned. Never before had Eurovision been this good, and I bloody well loved it. Held in Tel Aviv, Israel, and I’m not going to go into the controversy around that (we’ll get plenty of that in 2024). There were a total of 41 participating countries – Bulgaria and Ukraine dropped out.

Aside from this being a good year, it was also a very weird year, with some truly baffling voting going on. Some of it makes perfect sense, some has really left me scratching my head. Yes, Eurovision is unpredictable, but there were some fucking weird choices this year. At least there were no nil pointers, with even the bottom entry still getting double-digit points (just).

As hosts I found Israel to be a bit of a mixed bag. The hosts themselves were decent enough (though again, why four? Four really is too much), but the interval acts were very hit and miss (more on that later) and there were far. too. many. of. them. By the time we got to Madonna I was ready to go back in time and just shoo them all on just to get to the fucking voting. Do we really need a half-hour voting window, or however fucking long it was? Just give people 15 minutes like before and have done with it. The postcards I did like – the usual ‘contestant in pretty locations’ schtick, but with the added twist of getting them to dance. Except when they obviously didn’t want to – several of them were just standing amidst the accompanying dancers – but that’s fine, they clearly accommodated the wishes of the contestants themselves, and that’s good.

SEMI-FINAL 1

To open the show we get a reprise of Toy, but thankfully there’s not too much faffing around after that.

(1. Cyprus – qualified for the final)

2. Montenegro – Heaven – D mol – Contest ranking: 16th (38th) – My ranking: 31st

Oh no, an ensemble song. A ballady ensemble song, at that, and despite there being six of them it appears to be entirely devoid of harmonies. There’s a vaguely nice violin in there somewhere, but it’s pretty shit overall.

3. Finland – Look Away – Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman – Contest ranking: 17th (39th) – My ranking: 29th

This isn’t too bad, but it’s absolutely not memorable. Also, why do his trousers look like he’s been standing in a vat of black paint? It does slide down into title repetitis, so a deserved NQ.

4. Poland – Fire of Love (Pali Się) – Tulia – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 36th

Wow, Poland doing white voice? That’s a first. Unfortunately the song itself is really not very nice. The melody is weird, the instrumentation is boring and the whole thing is basically a lesson in how to not do an ethnic entry. Frankly, the white voice is the least objectionable thing about it.

(5. Slovenia and 6. Czech Republic – qualified for the final)

7. Hungary – Az én Apám – Joci Pápai – Contest ranking: 12th (28th) – My ranking: 3rd

And here we have the first baffling thing of the night: HOW THE FUCK DID THIS NOT QUALIFY OVER SOME OF THE OBVIOUS SHIT THAT DID? (I’m going to do a lot of shouting in this year, be prepared.) Hungary were absolutely done dirty here. Origo was a beautiful song, and this one is even fucking better because it doesn’t have a rap session halfway through. The melody is gorgeous, the accompanying music equally so, and it’s got a lovely nananana chorus to nanana along with. How the FUCK did this not qualify, you European philistines? How did this even end below the screechy Polish ladies? Europe fucking sucks sometimes. And before you ask, I couldn’t do anything here – the UK could only vote in the second semi, or I’d have voted the fuck out of this one. Cookiefonster agrees – this is actually his favourite song of 2019. Oh, and this is the last we’ve seen from Hungary to date, because they haven’t returned since the country went all Russia-la-la. All I’ll say is this: Orban, you’re a fucking cunt.

(8. Belarus and 9. Serbia – qualified for the final)

10. Belgium – Wake Up – Eliot – Contest ranking: 13th (32nd) – My ranking: 37th

If there’s one thing I know when I see taiko drums on stage, it’s that I’m going to be disappointed by their usage, and Belgium absolutely deliver on that. Aside from that this guy can’t sing for toffee, and his song sounds incredibly flat. Everything is at exactly the same level, and that level is DAF. I’d even rather listen to the Polish waifs than to this hideous drivel.

11. Georgia – Keep On Going – Oto Nemsadze – Contest ranking: 14th (34th) – My ranking: 14th

Oto looks like he’s Joci’s brother in topknots. And as ethnic entries go, this one is much better than Poland. It’s dramatic, a little gravelly, it has better music (with one of those flutes that might be a zurna, except I don’t know if that name is exclusive to Azerbaijan). To top it all off we get a Georgian barbershop quintet, and it’s all pretty damn rousing. I can definitely see why it didn’t qualify – I don’t want to keep it either – but it’s a damn good ethno-effort.

(12. Australia, 13. Iceland and 14. Estonia – qualified for the final)

15. Portugal – Telemóveis – Conan Osíris – Contest ranking: 15th (35th) – My ranking: 40th

Oh god, I remember this one – plastic beard, weird body-popping dancing and a freakishly weird and hideous song that makes you wonder what in all holy hells Portugal were smoking this year. How the fuck did this not come dead last?

(16. Greece and 17. San Marino – qua… oh god, I can’t actually make myself type it)

‘Only the best songs make it to the final’, one of the hosts proclaims, to which I say ‘ha! do they fuck!’ I am genuinely baffled at some of the songs that made it through while Hungary didn’t even almost make it. For an interval act we get Dana International singing some sort of inspiring but very dull song, but the three-minute Eurovision splice/medley was actually pretty cool.

SEMI-FINAL 2

No opening act, so straight to the songs we go.

1. Armenia – Walking Out – Srbuk – Contest ranking: 16th (37th) – My ranking: 34th

This is some kind of dance ballad that gets quite shouty in the chorus and otherwise leaves me quite cold. I don’t hate it (apart from the really shouty stuff at the end), but I’ll quite happily never hear this again.

2. Ireland – 22 – Sarah McTernan – Contest ranking: 18th (41st) – My ranking: 27th

I’d call this a pretty average pop song, and I’m not really sure why it came absolute dead last. It’s decent enough, if in no way outstanding.

3. Moldova – Stay – Anna Odobescu – Contest ranking: 12th (30th) – My ranking: 33rd

I wonder if this is the same sand artist as Ukraine had a couple of years ago? She’s good, but the song is just a dull power ballad.

(4. Switzerland – qualified for the final)

5. Latvia – That Night – Carousel – Contest ranking: 15th (36th) – My ranking: 15th

I quite like the music here, with that mellow almost-brush-beat (he’s whacking rather than brushing with the brush), but unfortunately I find her whohoho-oh-oh bit in the chorus a little annoying, so while I can appreciate the mellow vibe, it stops somewhat short of good.

6. Romania – On a Sunday – Ester Peony – Contest ranking: 13th (31st) – My ranking: 26th

Ester sounds like she’s been taking English lessons from Lena, given the way she pronounces ‘Sunday’. Musically I sort of like this, even if it’s a little stompy, but there’s too much eyh-eyh-eyhing and basically just too much annoying singing for me to like it overall.

(7. Denmark and 8. Sweden – qualified for the final)

9. Austria – Limits – Paenda – Contest ranking: 17th (40th) – My ranking: 38th

Paenda is one of those super-fragile singers, like Lithuania last year. Everything is too breathy, too high in register, and that elongated you-hoohoohoooo chorus manages to be more annoying than evertyhing else in the song combined. I really hate this one.

10. Croatia – The Dream – Roko – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 25th

This is a power ballad, but it has a decent melody in there somewhere, so I don’t find it quite as dull as I normally might. I mean, it’s still dull, and that stuff with the angel wings is just so much faffing around, but the melody is okay.

(11. Malta – qualified for the final)

12. Lithuania – Run With the Lions – Jurij Veklenko – Contest ranking: 11th (29th) – My ranking: 30th

Okay, this title is fucking stupid, because if you run with lions you’re going to get eaten. And does he actually sing ‘love can’t get catched’? Owait, after several repeats it turns out he sings ‘caged’, but by that point I’m already beyond annoyed by this drivelly piece of shit that goes too much into the high registers. I sincerely hope that I’ll have forgotten what this sounds like tomorrow.

(13. Russia, 14. Albania, 15. Norway, 16. Netherlands, 17. North Macedonia and 18. Azerbaijan – qualified for the final)

Phew, that was a big run of qualifiers! Definitely the better of the semi-finals. For the interval act we get a song by a group of disabled musicians, which is all very lofty but doesn’t stop it from being completely meh. The ‘mentalist’ was very shouty, but the second song splice/medley was very good again.

GRAND FINAL

After a silly opening sequence with Netta supposedly flying a plane into Tel Aviv we get the flag parade, with flag-spinners that don’t work very well. How about you just give them, I don’t know, a flag?

1. Malta – Chameleon – Michela – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 7th

Michela is young but very confident, and as an opener this is a really good girl-bop to get us going. I like the synth riff that the song starts on, and how the verse drops into the chorus with that same riff. I also like how you can happily sing along with the chorus. Very good effort from Malta.

2. Albania – Ktheju Tokës – Jonida Maliqi – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 2nd

Poor Albania gets shoved into the death slot again, when this song deserved SO MUCH BETTER! It’s a little mysterious, and properly waily in all the right ways. It strikes the exact right balance between modern music and ethnic elements that was sorely lacking in Poland’s entry. It has a beautiful melody and good, no-frills staging. This is also one of those songs that just gets better the more you hear it – it’s probably my favourite ever Albanian entry, and it deserved a much, much better place than 17th.

3. Czech Republic – Friend of a Friend – Lake Malawi – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 28th

For me this is the first dud of the night. It starts off okay enough – just a regular pop song – but then there’s that annoying spoken bit (DON’T TALK IN SONGS, ARGH) in that overly exaggerated accent, going into a rather annoyingly repetitive chorus, even though I get that the repetitiveness is the whole point of it. I really don’t like this one, and for me it’s the first in a list of WHY THE FUCK DID THIS QUALIFY OVER HUNGARY?

4. Germany – Sister – Sisters – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 24th

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the ridiculousness of calling yourself Sisters and then having a song called Sister? I haven’t seen anything this daft since the song Talk Talk by the band Talk Talk from their album Talk Talk (good song btw). Anyway, the best thing I can say about this song is that they’ve put some harmonies in (but the Dutch sisters did it better in 2017) and that it’s a decent message to give. Otherwise I can’t say I like it much, and dear god ladies, stop doing fucking squats to the beat of the music on stage! I’m getting tired just fucking watching you. This wasn’t second-from-last-place bad, but it wasn’t great either.

5. Russia – Scream – Sergey Lazarev – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 11th

Sergey is back with the same old boyish charm, but a much inferior song. I rather liked this when I first heard it, but over time I’ve mostly grown off it again. The lyrics are actually too janky even for me, and on repeated hearing I’ve realised that the only bit I really like is the ‘not so silent and innocent’ bridge bit where the music drops away and all you hear is the beat. I still don’t hate this song, but these days whenever it pops up on my playlist I usually skip it and go to the next song, unless I’m really in the mood for this one.

6. Denmark – Love Is Forever – Leonora – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 10th

I’m sorry to say that this song has followed a pretty similar journey as Scream. I really liked it when I first heard it, and I do still like it, but I’ve also grown off it since then. In this case it isn’t down to janky lyrics, because they’re not – they even manage to incorporate several other languages in the right way – but I think over the years the overly saccharine quality has just got too much for me and my black, bitchy heart, so I often skip this one as well.

7. San Marino – Say Na Na Na – Serhat – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 41st

I’ve got some real beef with Europe here, because HOW THE FUCK DID THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE QUALIFY OVER HUNGARY??? Serhat couldn’t sing in 2016 and he still can’t fucking sing now. And frankly, even if he could sing (and let me repeat, he fucking can’t), this is nothing but a shitty run of the mill disco song with an inane nanana chorus. WHY DID PEOPLE PICK THIS FUCKING NANANA CHORUS OVER HUNGARY’S MUCH LOVELIER NANANA CHORUS??? And I don’t want to fucking see any Serhat apologists in the comments – if you actually think this garbage deserved a place in the final you can bloody well keep your comments to yourselves. Oh, and he (still) looks like a total sleazebag who should probably be on the sex offenders register. Sorry, but he does.

8. North Macedonia – Proud – Tamara Todevska – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 32nd

Yay, we’re finally done with that bloody FYR Macedonia malarkey – the country has a proper name now! The song, however, is a standard jury-bait ballad that bores me to tears. Yes, she sings it well, but that’s never stopped me from hating songs like this.

9. Sweden – Too Late for Love – John Lundvik – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 23rd

Is Sweden just full of smug motherfuckers? This guy also looks pretty fucking smug to me (although apparently I didn’t think so in 2020). The song is a predictably slick piece of Swedo-pop, but the addition of the Mamas in the background makes it far too gospelly for my liking, so rather than the reluctant high ranking they often manage, this ends up somewhere below the middle for me. (And I must say, I loved his face when they revealed that Sweden only got 93 televote points. Take that, smug motherfucker!)

10. Slovenia – Sebi – Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 13th

My short semi-final note says ‘oh god, these two annoying fuckers’, and honestly, my hatred of these two is pretty visceral. I have always hated it when the performers just stare into each other’s eyes, but there’s something even more infuriating about the way Zala looks at Gašper. She reminds me of a dog looking at its owner, with that doggy air of being desperate for validation. I was half expecting Gašper to pat her on the head at the end with a ‘good girl’ and a doggy treat. Even in the postcard she’s looking at him like she can’t do anything without him. So on that level I absolutely hate this song. That said, however, I literally couldn’t bear watching these two during the semi-final, and I discovered that when I’m just listening to this song and not watching the performance, it’s not actually half bad. A little lacking in power, but musically pretty okay. So I’ll very, very grudgingly rank this song on the song alone, and not on how much I absolutely detest watching them.

11. Cyprus – Replay – Tamta – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 6th

Ever since Fuego, Cyprus have been sending pretty much nothing but girlbops, to varied success, but honestly? I like this one much better than Fuego. I said that Fuego just didn’t click with me, but this one absolutely does. I love the ‘that’s when you call me, that’s when you call me yeah’ bit. I love how the song drops into that ultra-stompy chorus, and I absolutely adore the bridge where the music almost drops away. I do hate her outfit though – it looks like she fell through a chandelier into a pair of waders while covered in superglue.

12. Netherlands – Arcade – Duncan Laurence – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 12th

Let me start by saying that I was absolutely stoked that my country finally won again after such a long drought, and it was very exciting going into a contest where we were a favourite to win, especially because that often means nothing in Eurovision. When it comes to the song, however, I must say that at its most basic level it’s just a sadboy power ballad that happens to have some interesting bits that make me indifferent to it rather than hating it. He sings it very, very well – not a note out of place (and better than in the semi, I think), and the chorus is more interesting than in most ballads, but when it really comes down to it this just isn’t my kind of song.

13. Greece – Better Love – Katerine Duska – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 39th

And here we have number three of the WHY THE FUCK DID THIS QUALIFY OVER HUNGARY??? entries. Katerine sings in a hideously annoying nasal way that makes it absolutely impossible to hear what she’s singing. Everything just sounds like ‘honk honk honk’ like there’s a flock of geese on stage rather than a bunch of women in annoyingly frilly, wafty costumes. Aside from that the chorus is annoying all by itself, and the whole thing degenerates into an atrocious, nasal, repetitive mess that I sincerely hope I will never have to listen to again. Repeat after me, people: WHY THE FUCK DID THIS QUALIFY OVER HUNGARY?? I think Cookiefonster hates this one even more than I do.

14. Israel – Home – Kobi Marimi – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 35th

An overly dramatically sung ballad, and I really can’t think of anything more to say about it.

15. Norway – Spirit in the Sky – Keiino – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 1st

Did I say I was going to do a lot of shouting about this year? Here’s another one: NORWAY WERE FUCKING ROBBED BY THE JURIES. I never get what it is that the juries are looking for (other than ‘must come from Sweden’) – to me this is a well-constructed pop song made awesome with the addition of a traditionally ethnic element in Fred’s jojking. Honestly, the moment I heard that Norway were bringing a jojker to Eurovision I was already excited, and when I heard the song for the first time I was a total convert to Team Keiino. I don’t just love this as a good, upbeat pop song with a great melody – that break where Fred gives us that proper jojk crescendo genuinely gives me goosebumps. I haven’t had this clear a personal winner since the Common Linnets in 2014, and that 40 points from the jury vote is a complete fucking insult.

16. United Kingdom – Bigger Than Us – Michael Rice – Contest ranking: 26th – My ranking: 22nd

Dude, did you really have to look like they just plucked you off the street somewhere? Yeah, he sounds a little better than your average punter, but this is yet another quintessentially bland UK entry that was never going to go anywhere.

17. Iceland – Hatrið Mun Sigra – Hatari – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 4th

I think we’ve hit peak staging in Eurovision this year, as demonstrated by exhibit A here. This is bonkers in all the right ways, but also completely in support of the song, and the song is pretty fucking awesome. No, I’m not normally a fan of that shouty singing style that’s also prevalent in heavy metal, but it suits the harsh, industrial quality of the music, and it gives an amazing contrast with that really melodic chorus. Which I also shouldn’t like because it’s sung in falsetto, but somehow I do. It’s the perfect example of a song that I should hate, but which I totally love instead. The best thing about the S&M staging is that gimp with the hammer on top of the ball thing, bashing out the beat. Iceland really knocked it out of the park this year.

18. Estonia – Storm – Victor Crone – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 21st

Example number four of WHY THE FUCK DID THIS QUALIFY OVER HUNGARY??? It’s a dull guitar pop song with an annoying chorus, and Victor can’t sing, though I will admit that he doesn’t sound nearly as off-key here as he did in the semi-final.

19. Belarus – Like It – Zena – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 9th

Girlbop number three, very close in style to Cyprus, and to me almost as enjoyable. I just like how this is put together, and I like the tamtararam bits. It’s not deep, it’s not profound, it’s just something to mindlessly bop along to, which I quite happily do whenever it comes along on my playlist. It’s another terrible outfit though.

20. Azerbaijan – Truth – Chingiz – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 20th

Swedo-pop song number three tonight, though I think that this is probably the best of the three, also as far as staging is concerned. The ‘shut up’ bit of the chorus is pretty annoying, but overall I can listen to this without wanting to throw a brick at my screen.

21. France – Roi – Bilal Hassani – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 19th

Looking at Bilal it doesn’t surprise me that since 2019 he has come out as genderqueer and is comfortable with being referred to as both he or she. I may be about as straight as they come, but I’m glad that Eurovision is a platform where LGBTQ+ people feel comfortable. The song itself is a bit meh – I really don’t have much to say about it.

22. Italy – Soldi – Mahmood – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 18th

Another one of those songs that I never really understood the hype about. The chorus is the best thing about the whole song, and I do like that ‘clap clap’ bit, but otherwise it leaves me as cold as France.

23. Serbia – Kruna – Nevena Božović – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 17th

As ballads go this one has quite a lovely melody, but unfortunately for the chorus Nevena is definitely a student of the school of volume = quality. It’s also one of those songs that gets louder and louder towards the end, and I really wish that it didn’t. Not entirely hateful, just a little overloud.

24. Switzerland – She Got Me – Luca Hänni – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 5th

You know, there’s at least three guys here tonight who look like they could be brothers – this guy, Duncan Laurence and Chingiz. Anyway, Switzerland in good entry shocker! Yes, it’s total Swedo-pop, especially in the staging, which actually looks very similar to Sweden last year, but it’s properly catchy, especially the chorus. My favourite bit is where he goes ‘all the girls go’ and everyone answers with ‘whoohoohohoohoh’, and then the same for the boys, and for everyone. This is the boy-bop to end all boy-bops and I love it.

25. Australia – Zero Gravity – Kate Miller-Heidke – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 16th

And here is peak Eurovision staging exhibit B. Honestly, I don’t think anyone will ever beat this for bonkers-level, inventiveness or just sheer Eurovision-ness. And the fun thing is also that back in 2020 my Reddit commenters came to the rescue about all the questions I had about this staging: Did they have those poles made locally? If so, did they just mosey on up to an ironmonger and go ‘hi, we need three super-bendy poles with a really heavy/secure base’? (I don’t even know how they secured them.) Alternatively, did they come with them from Oz? If so, was that just outsized baggage or did they have to answer lots of questions at customs? Did they climb onto those poles before or after they were wheeled (pushed? pulled? heaved?) onto the stage?

“To answer your question. Kate and her dementors were wheeled on stage on the poles they were swinging on. The company they worked with were Strange Fruit, a Melbourne based company, so they had to pay a lot to get them over to Europe. Kate even had to do crowdfunding because everything was so expensive.”

Anyway, the song itself has its moments – I sort of like the bits where she goes ‘zehehehehero grahahahahavity’, but unfortunately she then spoils it by going full soprano, which is never going to go down well with me. It’s not so bad that I never want to hear this again, but it’s too popera to be for me. Absolutely brilliant staging though.

26. Spain – La Venda – Miki – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 8th

And here’s some more shouting: SPAIN WERE FUCKING ROBBED! How the fuck did this score so low? It’s a super-Spanish sounding, ridiculously upbeat song with a very singalongable chorus, and it should have been top ten at least.

Urgh, and then we get to the interminable slog of interval acts. The switcheroo thing with former contestants singing each other’s songs is actually pretty good, except for the fact that it ends with fucking Hallelujah, which is still a dreary dirge of a song. Then there’s a pretty Israel-ethnic sounding ensemble song, which is okay. Then there’s an interview with Madonna, then with some American guy that I’ve never heard of, who clearly doesn’t have a clue about Eurovision. And then there’s Netta singing Nana Banana, which falls into the ‘former contestant sings meh new single’ bucket. By this point I just want them to get a fucking move on with the voting, but nooo, we have now come to what everyone (coughcough) has been waiting for all night (coughcough).

So, here are my thoughts on Madonna being in Eurovision: she absolutely does not belong there, and Israel were pretty fucking tone-deaf in thinking that it was a good idea to get her in. I know I’m not speaking for all Eurovision fans, but the last thing I want to see in Eurovision is a mega-big American pop star, because that’s not what Eurovision is about. So it’s bad enough that she’s even there, but then there’s the performance itself, and dear god it was dire. She sounds hideously flat, because let’s face it, Madonna’s reputation has always been built on her performances, not her ability to sing – she’s mediocre at best. And then she sings together with that other dude, and that’s autotuned to death, so that’s even less impressive. This really is the worst Eurovision interval act ever, and I hope future winners have learned to just go back to doing Eurovision stuff, and leave America out of it.

This was a good year – I have lots of songs I love, and also plenty of songs to really hate on, which is just as satisfying. And remember, no Serhat apologists!

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 5 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995, 2019)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 1 (1989)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 3 (2004, 2007, 2016)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 64.

Yes, we’re in Lisboa, Portugal, and for some reason the Portuguese thought that four hosts was the ideal number. Spoiler: it’s not, especially since Filomena pretty much carried the entire thing on her own. The other three were completely interchangeable for me. The interval acts were also rather disappointing, because everyone tries to be funny these days, and they usually fail. Otherwise I was fine with their hosting, and I rather liked the postcards. They gave the impression that Portugal is littered with dimension doors, which rather tickled me. It was also nice to see that a few of them were filmed on the Azores, and being able to go ‘I’ve been there! I’ve done that!’

There were 43 competing countries – one more than the previous year because Russia returned, but more on that later. There were no nil pointers – even the bottom spot in the final got 39 points, which is of course a number that the UK could only dream about in the next few years.

Hmm, let’s see, have I missed anything? Don’t think so, so on to the songs!

SEMI-FINAL 1

There’s no opening act or anything, just a montage of Portuguese shots with too many close-ups, which is repeated for all three shows, which I found a bit boring.

1. Azerbaijan – X My Heart – Aisel – Contest ranking: 11th (29th) – My ranking: 29th

Did she just sing ‘heaven knows we are, made for sex we are?’ Probably not, but that’s what it sounded like to me. I don’t like her outfit – when the wind machine hits it, all you really see is that bathing suit she’s wearing underneath the net curtains, and it’s not a good look. The whole song is a rather average inspirational dance anthem which is probably not about sex, but I can’t hear what she’s actually singing, nor do I care much.

2. Iceland – Our Choice – Ari Ólafsson – Contest ranking: 19th (43rd) – My ranking: 34th

Iceland scored only 15 points with this, and even though it isn’t my last place, I can’t say I disagree with that score. It’s a very dull inspirational ballad with an impressive five backing singers. Impressive, because you can barely hear them, despite there being five of them. All they do is ooohooohooooing anyway, and then Ari assaults our ears with an absolutely ear-splitting shriek that I wish I’d never heard. Obviously I don’t like this one at all.

(3. Albania – qualified for the final)

4. Belgium – A Matter of Time – Sennek – Contest ranking: 12th (31st) – My ranking: 14th

You know, this isn’t half bad. It’s got a nice mellow beat in the verses, and it’s overall a nice, quiet pop song. It goes a little overboard in the choruses, but other than that it’s quite pleasant to listen to. Terrible dress though – Belgium really seem determined to keep the memory of Barbara Dex alive.

(5. Czech Republic, 6. Lithuania and 7. Israel – qualified for the final)

8. Belarus – Forever – Alekseev – Contest ranking: 16th (36th) – My ranking: 39th

I can literally not understand a word he’s mumbling until he hits the chorus, and then it’s something about love and you will be mine forever, or some such drivel. There’s some pratting about with a rose, but overall it’s just a dull, mumbly ballad until he turns around and appears to be some sort of zombie with roses growing out of his back. Despite all that it’s still interminably dull.

(9. Estonia and 10. Bulgaria – qualified for the final)

11. FYR Macedonia – Lost and Found – Eye Cue – Contest ranking: 18th (41st) – My ranking – 41st

This starts off as a ballad, then very unexpectedly turns into reggae. That bit was nice, but they go back to being ballady, and then it’s suddenly a pop song, as if they suddenly realised they were all playing the wrong song. Except then it goes back to being reggae. This is basically three songs frankensteined together – two bad ones and one nice reggae song. Honestly, the reggae bits were nice, but the rest is just an unholy monstrosity.

12. Croatia – Crazy – Franka – Contest ranking: 17th (38th) – My ranking: 8th

Oh, I actually remember this one, it’s the one that reminds me of Stop by Sam Brown. It’s got that same 6/8 beat, the same drums, and overall I kind of like this one. Not enough to keep, but for me it stood out from the rest. I’m not convinced by that dress though – not my thing.

(13. Austria – qualified for the final)

14. Greece – Onirou Mou – Yianna Terzi – Contest ranking: 14th (33rd) – My ranking: 7th

This feels a little like a Balkan ballad in Greek. Not that I’d recognise Greek, to be fair, but you know what I mean. It’s actually quite lovely, even if Yianna’s singing is a little shaky here and there. Why didn’t this qualify?

(15. Finland – qualified for the final)

16. Armenia – Qami – Sevak Khanagyan – Contest ranking: 15th (35th) – My ranking: 35th

A very sincerely sung but ultimately rather dull power ballad, and I find his half-a-bag outfit a little weird.

17. Switzerland – Stones – Zibbz – Contest ranking: 13th (32nd) – My ranking: 24th

The Swiss are having a pretty shitty run at the moment, aren’t they? How many times have they not qualified now? And I’m not surprised this didn’t either – it’s one of those radio pop songs that I don’t mind listening to, but will have totally forgotten in ten minutes time.

(18. Ireland and 19. Cyprus – qualified for the final)

The first interval act is a reprise of Amar Pelos Dois by some of the competing artists from 2017, and given that I hate the song, I wasn’t impressed here either. The Planet Portugal skit is disappointingly unfunny.

SEMI-FINAL 2

(1. Norway – qualified for the final)

2. Romania – Goodbye – The Humans – Contest ranking: 11th (27th) – My ranking: 31st

This is a dull rock ballad, and that’s all I have to say about it.

(3. Serbia – qualified for the final)

4. San Marino – Who We Are – Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening – Contest ranking: 17th (40th) – My ranking: 23rd

Christ, what a horrible dress. The song is another one of those inspiring dance anthems, but with added rap and a bunch of cutesy robots on stage. Not terrible, but terribly forgettable.

(5. Denmark – qualified for the final)

6. Russia – I Won’t Break – Julia Samoylova – Contest ranking: 15th (37th) – My ranking: 37th

So this is who Russia tried to send in 2017, but who was banned from entering Ukraine. This was of course entirely intentional on Russia’s part so they could play the victim, and this year’s effort pretty much continues that theme. Stage-wise Julia is stuck on top of some kind of volcano thing, which is pretty symbolic for someone who was sacrificed on the altar of the pity gods. Look at this poor wheelchair-bound woman, singing a rousing song about how she won’t break! It’s basically just a DAF ballad, and this time the public weren’t tricked.

(7. Moldova, 8. Netherlands and 9. Australia – qualified for the final)

10. Georgia – For You – Ethno-Jazz Band Iriao – Contest ranking: 18th (42nd) – My ranking: 13th

After reading the name of the band I was quietly dreading this, but while it has an incredibly jazzy intro, it gets progressively less jazzy, and it also has some absolutely gorgeous harmonies in there. I’ll never want to keep this, but I was unexpectedly charmed by it.

11. Poland – Light Me Up – Gromee feat. Lukas Meijer – Contest ranking: 14th (34th) – My ranking: 28th

These people are dressed like rockstars, but they sing a very average dance song. Absolutely nothing special.

12. Malta – Taboo – Christabelle – Contest ranking: 13th (29th) – My ranking: 25th

Another average dance entry, or maybe a dance ballad. One for the middling pile.

(13. Hungary – qualified for the final)

14. Latvia – Funny Girl – Laura Rizzotto – Contest ranking: 12th (28th) – My ranking: 12th

This one reminds me a little bit of Love Injected – a dramatic ballad with a slow accompanying beat. It’s nothing to keep, but it’s definitely more interesting than the other ballads so far. Cookiefonster really loves this one and thinks it was robbed. I wouldn’t go quite so far myself, but I can see where he’s coming from.

(15. Sweden – qualified for the final)

16. Montenegro – Inje – Vanja Radovanović – Contest ranking: 16th (39th) – My ranking: 11th

What on earth is that suit? It’s horrifically sparkly and it looks like it started to melt just as they were about to finish it, so it sags on one side. The song is a decent attempt at a Balkan ballad, but it’s not blowing me away.

(17. Slovenia and 18. Ukraine – qualified for the final)

For interval acts we get yet another medley of old Eurovision songs, and another desperately unfunny Planet Portugal skit.

GRAND FINAL

This time there is an opening act, and it’s two absolutely beautiful Fado songs – Sou da Fado and Barco Negro. Why can’t Portugal send songs like this to Eurovision? Then there’s the by now customary flag parade and host introductions, and into the final we go.

1. Ukraine – Under the Ladder – Mélovin – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 10th

Mélovin emerges from his piano like a vampire from a coffin, which I’m sure was the whole point. I find his one eye with the freaky contact lens to be, well, a little freaky, but I guess that’s also the point. I’d say the staging here is better than the song, which isn’t bad, just not particularly interesting. I’d call it Sweden-like – well-produced and slick, but a little soulless.

2. Spain – Tu Canción – Amaia & Alfred – Contest ranking: 23rd – My ranking: 30th

I guess it’s been a while since we had two people being annoyingly soppy on stage, but at least these two do acknowledge that the audience also exists, so I’ll begrudgingly let them off. What I will not let them off for is this boring piano duet ballad, even if they do stick a few nice harmonies in it. Too soppy, too DAF.

3. Slovenia – Hvala, ne! – Lea Sirk – Contest ranking: 22nd – My ranking: 20th

To start with, that outfit is the absolute Barbara Dex of the night, because what the actual fuck is that see-through bag thing she’s wearing? It’s truly terrible. The song I’m not sure about either. I don’t even know what to classify this as. It’s sort of dancey, sort of rappy? Whatever. I hate that long break near the end where everything just stops so they can do some shouting at the audience, and while this is more interesting than ballad soup, I can’t say that I like it much overall.

4. Lithuania – When We’re Old – Ieva Zasimauskaitė – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 36th

The only positive thing I can say about this ultra-DAF ballad is that she doesn’t have an annoyingly croony way of singing (at least not until the end), which is totally what I would have expected for this. She’s actually got a pretty good voice, but I am totally falling asleep here.

5. Austria – Nobody But You – Cesár Sampson – Contest ranking: 3rd – My ranking: 19th

Another good voice, but there’s something a little gospely about this, especially in the backing singers, and I have a deep-rooted aversion to gospel, so I don’t really like this one much, despite the catchy chorus. One for the middling pile.

6. Estonia – La Forza – Elina Nechayeva – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 43rd

I’m glad that Eurovision has got to a stage where most contestants can actually sing, but a popera song still has to be amazingly special for me to ever, ever like it, and this one isn’t. Nice effect with the dress though.

7. Norway – That’s How You Write a Song – Alexander Rybak – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 40th

Alexander Rybak is back, eyebrows and all, to prove to us that lightning very rarely strikes twice. He’s nicked Måns’ augmented reality trick to play imaginary instruments, then launches into a pretty shitty pop song with a chorus that does nothing but annoy the fuck out of me. Step one, believe in it and sing it all night long, step two, just roll with it, that’s how you write a song? No, that’s how you sing a song maybe, but it’s absolutely not how you write one.* Also, this is Alexander Rybak, and he doesn’t get a violin out until two minutes into the song, only to then screech some screechy bits without any discernable melody? The one thing he won the contest with previously, and you go ‘nah, he doesn’t need a violin, really’. I really hate this song, and I’m also very baffled that it came first in its semi-final, but only 15th overall.

*Unless you maybe are the underpants gnomes from South Park.

8. Portugal – O Jardim – Cláudia Pascoal – Contest ranking: 26th – My ranking: 32nd

Another minimalist and understated ballad, but somehow not quite as dull as Lithuania. Don’t ask me why, I’m purely going on feeling here. She does go too croony near the end, and I’m never sure what the point is of having two people if one of them doesn’t come in until halfway through the song.

9. United Kingdom – Storm – SuRie – Contest ranking: 24th – My ranking: 18th

Another uninspiring entry from the UK, and I really don’t have much to say about it. I don’t hate listening to it, but it’s such a cliché UK entry… And annoyingly the official Eurovision YouTube channel has edited out the stage invasion by using footage from another show, so I don’t even have that to entertain me. I do remember that she dealt with it like a trooper, so kudos to her for that.

10. Serbia – Nova Deca – Sanja Ilić & Balkanika – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 2nd

Ahh, now we’re talking. A start that’s waily in all the right ways (with a nice flute to accompany it), an impressively tall, bearded bald dude giving us proper Balkan ballad vibes, and then it transitions into a really good ethno-dance entry. It’s not quite a bop – it’s too minor key and waily for that – but I’ve loved this song ever since I first heard it back in 2018. And the European philistines let it come 19th, the heathens…

11. Germany – You Let Me Walk Alone – Michael Schulte – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 33rd

Fourth? Really? I found this pretty dull. It’s the third minimalist entry of the night, and it leaves me completely cold. I have no idea what he’s actually trying to tell us with the lyrics, nor do I particularly care. All I have to care about is where to rank this among all the other dull, middling entries. Cookiefonster is quite proud of this German entry, so I can only apologise for finding it boring.

12. Albania – Mall – Eugent Bushpepa – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 27th

Omg, Albania haven’t sent a solo woman! Call the press! The song starts off as a half-decent rock entry, but it’s very shouty in the chorus and only gets progressively more shouty further on, ending up completely screechy near the end, so the whole thing is just one big downward curve, like some vertical drop rollercoaster but without the fun.

13. France – Mercy – Madame Monsieur – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 26th

I would say that this is just as uninspiring as the UK. Dancey, bland and bordering on title repetitis.

14. Czech Republic – Lie to Me – Mikolas Josef – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 21st

Like Slovenia I find this song very hard to classify, and like Slovenia I find it interesting without liking it much. I really hate that trumpet riff, so even if I loved the rest I’d have a hard time getting beyond that. The whole thing actually reminds me a bit of Rhythm Inside, but it’s just not a song for me. Well done on the best Czech result ever though!

15. Denmark – Higher Ground – Rasmussen – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 1st

Denmark finally step away from their annoying pop and immediately deliver a song that is fucking awesome. It’s stompy in exactly the right way, and it somehow manages to transport you onto a viking longship with the wind in your hair and a foreign coast on the horizon. The lyrics are a teensy bit inane, but this is such a great song that I’ll gladly forgive them for it. It builds to a lovely rousing end, and is basically just perfect in every way. Awesome song.

16. Australia – We Got Love – Jessica Mauboy – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 16th

This will just have to be another one to go on the mediocre dance/pop pile, because it doesn’t do anything to me emotionally.

17. Finland – Monsters – Saara Aalto – Contest ranking: 25th – My ranking: 17th

Another decent-but-not-amazing dance entry. Good message, decent staging, but ultimately middling. I did have to laugh at her postcard, where they got her to play golf, because she really had a look on her face that said ‘what the actual fuck am I doing here?’

18. Bulgaria – Bones – Equinox – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 15th

There was some nice wailing at the start of this song, but then it all became a little middling. This is like one of those ensemble pop songs where everyone gets their twenty seconds, though this one isn’t terrible for all that. Maybe slightly above middling for that truly epic wailing at the end.

19. Moldova – My Lucky Day – DoReDoS – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 3rd

Moldova bring the fun, as they so often do. This is a properly bouncy, upbeat song with gimmicky but nifty staging. I have said it several times before – Kirkorov is a fucking cunt, but he sure knows how to write a song. I absolutely adore this one.

20. Sweden – Dance You Off – Benjamin Ingrosso – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 22nd

There’s not much I like about Sweden this year. I don’t like his falsetto singing. I don’t like the staging, and the music is the usual slick but soulless pop. All I can say is that this guy at least doesn’t look like an overly smug motherfucker.

21. Hungary – Viszlát Nyár – AWS – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 42nd

Second from last, with my apologies to all you hard rock/heavy metal fans out there, which I am absolutely not. I cannot judge this as a song – I don’t know if this is good or bad, I just know that this is completely not any kind of music I like.

22. Israel – Toy – Netta – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 4th

When I first heard this back in 2018 my initial reaction was ‘what the fuck is this??’, but it very quickly grew on me, and by the time we got to the final I was totally on team Netta rather than team Eleni, so I was happy enough with her win (when it became clear that it really was between Israel and Cyprus). I have since grown off it a bit again, but I do still like it. It’s just bonkers in all the right ways, with those chicken noises, and it’s a good female empowerment song. Also, Netta did a collaboration with Little Big with a hilarious video, so she’s alright in my books.

23. Netherlands – Outlaw in ‘Em – Waylon – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 5th

Waylon is back, sans Ilse this time, but with another country song, this one as American as they come. So American that he even sings it in an American accent. I’m not saying these as bad things – I still have a soft spot for country, and this one actually reminds me a little of Wanted: Dead or Alive, which is a pretty good song. I’m not keeping this one, but I do like it.

24. Ireland – Together – Ryan O’Shaughnessy – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 38th

I thought we weren’t going to reward Ireland anymore for sending DAF ballads? Was it the frolicking gay couple on stage that made this qualify? It can’t have been his hideous falsetto chorus, bleh.

25. Cyprus – Fuego – Eleni Foureira – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 6th

Like I said, I was never on team Eleni. Yes, I normally love girl-bops, but for some reason Fuego has never really clicked with me. It’s the full package – good stage choreography, iconic outfit, catchy song with very catchy chorus, but it just doesn’t really do it for me. I don’t dislike it, but I’ve never felt the urge to stick it on my playlist, which is always my ultimate decider. I’ve also never been a fan of stage routines that are obviously 100% choreographed, even though Eleni deals with it very well. I do feel sorry for Cyprus for coming so close to finally winning and then missing out.

26. Italy – Non Mi Avete Fatto Niente – Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 9th

This is quite an interesting peace song, mainly because they’re projecting the lines of the lyrics in lots of different languages, meaning I was actually watching the whole thing (normally I’m doing something on the side and only watching with half an eye) to see how many of them I could read/understand. Overall it’s not a bad song either – again not one I’d want to keep, but very much in the top end of the bunch. Not a bad finish to the night.

The first interval act is a very disjointed medley of various songs (about Lisbon, I think?), and I can’t say that it gripped me. The ‘history’ of Portugal in Eurovision mainly made me realise how Salvador Sobral-less the contest has been so far, but on cue he suddenly shows up and sings a song that I don’t like, but don’t hate as much as Amar Pelos Dois. Except he then sings that again with some dude that I guess no one outside Portugal has ever heard of, who is apparently ‘bringing real music to Eurovision’. I’ve just re-read my Reddit review, and there I compared this kind of snobbery to the people who scoff at Fantasy and Romance as literary genres, because only Literary Fiction is worth reading, or something like that. Well, I’m an avid reader and Literary Fiction bores me to tears! I love Fantasy, Science Fiction and Romance, and fuck you if you think that Terry Pratchett isn’t a literary genius just because he wrote Fantasy. In the end I’m actually quite gleeful that Salvador had to present the trophy to Netta, who I’m sure had exactly the kind of song that he seems to scoff at.

Anyway, a pretty decent year overall, but it’s definitely the last of the mediocre years, because from 2019 onwards Eurovision suddenly became absolutely awesome as far as song quality goes (it was always awesome already for other reasons). I’m looking forward to those last few years! (Well, except 2024, but we’ll get to that…)

My list of winners:

Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)Belgium – 3 (1957, 1999, 2003)Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)Monaco – 1 (1960)Netherlands – 6 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975, 1998, 2014)Denmark – 2 (1963, 2018)Norway – 4 (1966, 1985, 1993, 1995)Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)France – 5 (1970, 1976, 1977, 1991, 1992)Sweden – 2 (1974, 2000)Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)Ireland – 4 (1980, 1994, 1996, 2011)Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)Turkey – 2 (1984, 1997)Cyprus – 1 (1986)Finland – 1 (1989)Bosnia & Herzegovina – 2 (2001, 2006)Latvia – 1 (2002)Ukraine – 3 (2004, 2007, 2016)Hungary – 2 (2005, 2017)Portugal – 1 (2008)Armenia – 1 (2009)Greece – 2 (2010, 2013)Serbia – 1 (2012)Montenegro – 1 (2015)

Actual winners that I agree with: 22 out of 63.