A lacklustre year musically, by and large, but one which reinforces that 1) however good a job the 50/50 voting does of jettisoning the dross at the semi stage, the draw in the final still plays a huge part in a song’s chances of success, relative or otherwise; and 2) performances are as capable as ever of lifting or sinking a song’s chances, however good they are to begin with. 01 Moldova
B: It goes without saying that “We have no progressive future” when we’re dressed like that. Unbending, if clumsy, these lyrics.
A: Which belie the upbeat way they’re encased, to some extent. This is not an entry to dispel the idea that Eastern Europe is at least twenty years behind the Western World: it sounds like something Guru Josh would have released as an unsuccessful follow-up to Infinity. There’s very little that’s intrinsically attractive about it, bar the harmonies.
V: Blue eyeshadow was a good idea in the ’70s, and it’s the only thing from another era about this stage act that still more or less works. Hideous. The vocals are fine but nevertheless sound rather flat.
02 Russia
B: I like the fact that this just repeats itself over and over, in much the same way as the tormented thoughts that bounce around your brain in such situations. The “What are you doing man?” interlude anchors the melodrama in a moment of reality before it spins off again in its whirlwind of emotion. Not that they probably thought about it in that much depth. Mind you, the best parodies are those that are the least distinguishable from the original.
A: Lush vocal and instrumental arrangement here, which is only something you’ll appreciate if you can surmount the sheer oddity that is the song and its purpose in life. There’s nevertheless something authentic about it, and it has one of the best final minutes of any entry this year.
V: Sounds great. If only they’d made more of the ‘photo’.
03 Estonia
B: Unlikely anthem, and largely autobiographical I’d wager.
A: What a glorious oddity. It’s a bit of a cacophany in the studio, and you can understand why most people would just be perplexed by it, but you’ve got to admire its integrity. The fact that it is what it is and does what it does without any concession to the medium it’s being broadcast in can only be a good thing for the contest, whether or not you actually like the song.
V: I was stood next to our Robin in the post office the other day. He looked like Flat Stanley with yellow hair: two metres tall and half an inch thick. Very much a performance song, this: it transforms on the stage in a way you never expect it to. But whereas they got it spot on in Eesti Laul, here they overegg it (probably from having gone through the motions so many times) and overact their socks off.
04 Slovakia
B: Not sure I get what this is all about. I’d be tempted to suggest an environmental message, given all the greenery, and the oddment in the music that is the little porpoise squee post-middle eight. But by then it’s just gone all ‘haleluja’ on us. So is it a Garden of Eden thing? Kristina herself admits “Na tráve ležím a snívam / O čom sama neviem” though, so it probably doesn’t warrant a wrinkled brow.
A: I once described this as “the song this year most likely to win the award for forgetting to actually be one”. Which is possibly a little harsh, but I stand by it. You can see where it’s going, and why it wants to go there, and what it wants to achieve in getting there, but it never does. Its minimalism is effective for what it’s saying as a song, which is why I have more time for it than some other 2010 entries, but it remains little more than some synths and percussion barely held together by a vocal arrangement of which you’ve heard everything you’re going to within the first few bars.
V: Remarkably consistent vocals from Kristina, considering she’s not a particularly good singer. The routine patently wants to be more effective than it is, but I don’t know who to atribute the blame to. The stage is rather dark again, which doesn’t help.
05 Finland
B: This one’s a bit of a head-scratcher, too, but showcases Finnish in all its agglutinative glory. Who else would or could give us lines like “Sadetta ja myrskysäätä ylle kaupungin / Reikähousupelimannille pennin lantin”? (The latter of which is the first indication lyrically of the year’s multidisciplinary datedness.) The entire fourth verse – “Mitä minä laulan kun… / Mietin miksi aina uutta laulua mä teen” – could be a scene lifted wholesale from the deflated haze of non-qualification.
A: There’s something judderingly twee and off-putting about this song, not helped by the fact that it’s being sung in one of the least attractive languages on offer in the contest. I’m not qualified to question its Finnish folk credentials – there would be very little point in doing so in any case – and I’ll happily admit that it does make me want to clap along every time I hear it, but that pull is only as strong as the desire to simultaneously punch them all in the face.
V: It’s like finding yourself in the midst of some bizarre country wedding. Glad they drafted in the slightly more attractive backing vocalists-cum-dancers. They all look and sound like they’re having fun, but I’m not convinced many of those watching would have been doing anything other than shaking their heads and frowning.
06 Latvia
B: “What for are we losing? / Only Mr God knows why.”
A: This is mesmerising musically, to such an extent that even the vocals (or at least the lyrics) tend to pass you by. I’m particularly enamoured of the way the accordion here is used so completely differently to the jolly outing it’s taken on in Työlki Ellää.
V: Mr God’s phone being out of range is not the only thing that’s off the charts here, and the explanation is entirely mundane. By rights it should be a triumph, but we all know it’s not, and we all know why: Aisha can’t sing for toffee. You might argue that this is in keeping with the naivety of the lyrics – which she milks for all its worth in her performance – but if that were the case, why is the studio version so polished?
07 Serbia
B: The assertion “Ljubiš me k’o balavica” implies at least two interesting things about Milan Stanković: that out of context, at least, he should be kissing a boy when saying it (why else make the distinction?); and that he’s kissed enough girls to be able to make the comparison in the first place. One of these seems less likely to me than the other. Even if it is just a case of personification.
A: I never thought farty synths would come as such a welcome change. Every Eurovision of late has had this kind of song, destined to finish mid-table in the final because its feelgood factor only extends to selected households beyond the Alps. Accomplished in its genre, but rather limited in scope.
V: You can dress this up any way you want, he’s still off key. Not that it really matters: it’s that kind of song. It’s also the first one to make (or be granted) full use of the possibilities of the stage and lighting, and would’ve caught the audience’s attention for that alone – never mind the queer theatre playing out on stage.
08 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: Given the rocky nature of the relationship at the heart of these lyrics – which are really rather good and much more multi-layered than they initially appear – there’s a remarkably subtle shift in tone between the studio version and live performance which changes the balance of the thing entirely: “Say just one more word” becomes “Say another word”, and suddenly Vukašin goes from being the hopeful but resigned figure of the original who will back down on the say-so of his ‘better side’ to a more forceful presence saying “we can make this work, but drop the attitude, or I’m gone”. I have no idea whether this was Dino Šaran’s intention in changing the words, but I’d like to think so.*
A: There’s stuff to like here if you pick it to pieces and sift through them, but overall it’s less than the sum of its parts. I think its biggest problem is that for a song called Thunder And Lightning it’s surprisingly backwards in coming forwards, even with the makeover. Great ending though.
V: *Since it fits the harder, more together and less compromising edge the song brandishes on stage. First and possibly only true contender for the 2010 Silk Purse/Sow’s Ear award, with some very attractive backing vocals (and vocalists) and effective lighting. I’m glad Vukašin ditched his original stance there at the end, where all through the rehearsals it looked like he was itching to pick his nose.
09 Poland
B: “Morał z tego taki jest że / Nie spodobał się rycerz jej” – hardly a moral, more a statement of the bleeding obvious. One that underscores the slight creepiness of the song generally. I don’t think we’ll be seeing The Legend of Peacock Feather in the Little Golden Book series any time soon: it’s aiming for fairytale, and more or less gets there, but it’s very dark stuff.
A: When it’s all medieval chanting and women wailing, this is great. There are also some lovely individual moments of strings, woodwind and acoustics. But Poland should have learnt from Time To Party that awkward changes in pace mid-song don’t work for them, especially when they’re structured around a largely tuneless mess they throw everything at to distract your attention from. Under any other circumstances a Eurovision entry with five key changes – count ’em! – should see us wetting ourselves. But no.
V: How… mysterious this all is. Marcin’s lush, the outfits are gorgeous and the whole thing’s a vocal triumph. But then the direction, both literally and metaphorically, gets very strange and you don’t really know what you’re meant to do with it. (I love the way he screams and jumps up and down in the green room afterwards like a kid who’s had too much sugar!)
10 Belgium
B: A set of lyrics this indulgent should irritate me, but the message is too honest and artlessly presented for me to take against it. It also surprises that something this egocentric is so accessible, as summed up in the line “There’s so much more to life”.
A: There’s an interesting parallel thing happening between this and the entry that follows it, in that essentially they’re both about the performer being self-important, and yet they never overlap. Malta’s take on it is all big strings and swirling orchestra; Belgium’s is him and his guitar: much more subdued and therefore much more palatable. And none the less accomplished for it, with beautiful acoustic and string lines that complete each other. Even the Walking In Memphis bit feels right in context.
V: The gentle orange glow suits this perfectly. Tom seems sweet and genuine; there isn’t a hint of conceit about the whole performance. The song sounds great, so it winning its semi comes as no surprise. The patented Olsen Giggle in the final is lovely.
11 Malta
B: It’s interesting (or perhaps hypocritical on my part) that I have less time for the more obvious anthem when it follows on the heels of the Belgian entry. And I think it’s because My Dream isn’t couched in the same personal terms, ironically. The intimacy which draws you in to Me And My Guitar is missing here, and the result is just… meh.
A: Meh with the requisite symphonic pretensions.
V: Meh with a seagull. That said, I was sure Thea had sung this into the final: she’s note-perfect, and does this endearing little thing whenever the opportunity presents itself of squinting her otherwise crossed eyes and giving a little smile at the end of a line. Even the pyrotechnics are effective for being so understated.
12 Albania
B: Two years in a row of mid-to-low-table results with made-to-measure English-language pop might see them change their tune on the “Don’t wanna ever go back / Never ever go back” front. (Unless that’s the point they’re making and they have no greater ambition than to keep qualifying and coming 16th in the final.)
A: In its opening 30 seconds this has all the hallmarks of something that should be really annoying for slavishly following the Europop rule book, and since it isn’t actually that good it should fall a lot shorter than it does. But there’s something about Albania doing this kind of thing, for whatever reason, that makes it work.
V: I don’t know how much it cost them to ship The Rounder Girls in from New York, but they’re worth every cent: best backing vocals of the contest. Indeed, almost the only ones heard in the final until they adjust the sound mix. Ms Pasha is more dependable vocally than her hairstyle is aesthetically, and sells the song with ease.
13 Greece
B: Politics! I wonder if “Plirosa oso hrostusa ke ta dhanika” falls into the category of ‘dream’ or ‘nightmare’. Probably both.
A: Everything I said about Serbia applies to this except ‘welcome change’ and ‘accomplished’ (and even then they were only relative terms). There’s an undeniable appeal to this for what it is, in the chorus at least, but there’s next to nothing to it.
V: This is that amazing kind of camp you only achieve when trying to prove how macho you are, but (and?) makes sense pretty much immediately. Giorgos at times looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than on stage. The singing in Greek here is less of an issue than singing in Serbian, simply because of what the song’s saying.
14 Portugal
B: There’s both a lightness of touch and a complexity to these lyrics that offset the (almost literal) hand-wringing of lines like “Gastámos as mãos / Tanto as apertámos”. It’s fairly straightforward as wretched ballads go, but it has some pertinent things to say about relationships.
A: Even without the language giving it away you’d be able to pinpoint this as the Portuguese entry without much difficulty. I’m not sure the literally plodding opening is a good idea when you’re confronted with Filipa’s vocal gymnastics (if they’re accomplished enough to be called that) within the opening bars. The way the strings carry so much of the song should see me doing cartwheels, but perhaps for the first time ever I don’t find them very attractive. The whole thing’s all too easy to overlook, really.
V: Funny how a smile, a pretty dress and some camera savvy can save you, isn’t it. The fact that it’s so pink and fluffy tends to draw your attention from the foibles of the song itself.
15 FYR Macedonia
B: “Studen kamen ti do mene si” certainly tops ‘ball and chain’ as a put-down!
A: Another solid and unassuming slice of pop rock from the Macedonians which was always going to go pfffft on the scoreboard rather than set it alight. The rap works better than you might reasonably expect it to. Neither genre though is one with a good track record at Eurovision, and this would have to have pulled off a major coup to change that.
V: Which it’s obvious within moments of this performance they were never going to. Vocally it’s great, but the choreography – which at times seems to wonder what it’s doing – and the poleless pole dancers just make the whole thing seem sleazy.
16 Belarus
B: The imagery here is rather nice as songs of its ilk go, although the third line of the chorus is crying out to be “I believe our wings will open up”. It makes a nice counterpoint to their 2009 entry (“…thinking I would never fly / Then you looked and saw my wings…”); if only it showed the same grasp of language.
A: I heartfully wait for this to do something to surprise me, every time, but it never does. Which is not to say it’s not nice in its way, but it plucks at my strings about as authentically as it does its own: given what it’s pretending to be, the fact that so much of it is synthetic is unforgivable. If fitting.
V: Is Robert Wells in cahoots with the dictatorship, or just the Russian composer? Awful accents, but that comes with the territory when it’s the Belarusian entry you’re dealing with. And fair dos to them: they get as close here to the proper pronunciation of ‘imagine’ as they’re ever likely to. If anyone had had any sense, or for that matter any say, they should have given the whole song to the Armenian one, since even when the five of them are at their best they’re still not brilliant. The wings thing works well enough, and could have been a whole lot tackier. And the stage looks lovely.
17 Iceland
B: These lyrics could have been a lot more perfunctory than they are. I rather like them. The chorus is a bit lazy.
A: As well as she intends, there’s little Hera Björk can do to lift this, the (very) poor cousin of This Is My Life. It’s many times better than the original, needless to say, but even the chorus sounds likes it’s apologising for its own shortcomings: the plinkety-plonk of the piano seems to be saying “I’m doing my best here, but it really doesn’t get any better than this”.
V: This isn’t just fat disco: it’s fat gay disco with schlager stylings and the Scandinavian touch, right down to the choreography and the arrangement (and strength) of the backing vocals. Closing the semi, looking and sounding as solid as it does and getting that level of support from the crowd, it was a shoe-in for the final. Equally, once it got there, it was always going to come down to context, and stuck in the middle with It’s All About You for company it was never likely to amount to much.
18 Lithuania
B: Now this is clever: superficially scathing and self-pitying, but ultimately tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating, and bathetic for all the right reasons. For anyone who still doesn’t get it, the clue is in the title.
A: No musical slouch, this. The layers continue: fun and brainless on the surface, poking fun at times, but underneath there’s a clever and effective arrangement.
V: They’re playing on much more than just words here. Love the backdrop. Uniformly good vocals, and I still think the routine works, although it does get a bit busy in the second verse.
19 Armenia
B: Eva’s mother must have been a barrel of laughs, what with all the embittered pontificating. “Mum, I’m hungry!” “Silence, child! Our world is cruel and wild. To make your way through cold and heat, love is all that you need… In the meantime, here: have an apricot.” It’s a slightly bemusing concept, even for an ode to the motherland – the ultimate diaspora song, really, given who it’s being sung by – but that also makes it interesting. I love the line “I’ve got an avatar of my love to keep me warm”.
A: Now this is a treat and a half if, like me, some acoustics, strings and percussion will do you. Soon retreats behind MOR ethnopop lines, and not coincidentally sounds exactly like Armenia’s debut entry, but at the same time it’s more all-encompassing than some of the stuff they’ve given us.
V: There’s way too much going on on stage here: as if two metres of Angelina Jolyerevan and her layers of make-up weren’t enough, we have to contend with an old guy smoking a super-sized cigar, a fireworks display, a bubbling water feature, a guy dancing around holding an urn and a fortune cookie that erupts into a cherry blossom tree. At least the backing vocals are good.
20 Israel
B: It’s clear from the translation on Diggiloo that the poetry of these lyrics doesn’t, well... translate. There are some very distinct concepts that just seem a bit odd in English, although I’m sure it sounds magical in Hebrew. The bridge is very powerful for being less flowery in its honesty.
A: From the off this has to work hard not to come across as overblown, and it’s only really Harel’s measured delivery of the vocals for the first couple of minutes that rein in the excesses it otherwise threatens to shower us with. And indeed I could do without the shouty ending, since there’s enough genuine emotion on display elsewhere. The orchestral arrangement, as orchestral arrangements tend to be, is captivating.
V: What funny ears Harel has. Looks like you could fry eggs on his forehead, too. Stunning lighting, by which our hero is mercilessly outshone as he overreaches himself – twice – in his big moment.
21 Denmark
B: “Da da-da da da da-daaaa-da / Da da-da da da da daaaa / Da-da da da da da daaaa-da / Da da da da-da daaaa da.”
A: The blatant ‘referencing’ this does (not to mention the rather charmless duo fronting it) means I should turn my nose up at it, but you can’t ignore that it succeeds at what it’s trying to do. It’s schlager at its most calculating and effective, and therefore least appealing.
V: Plod plod plod. The direction’s the best thing about this performance. Could two performers be any more off-putting? I don’t think we see either of them blink. I keep urging N’evergreen’s glass eye to pop out at some point as a metaphor for the fact that it doesn’t really look like he wants to be there and is just going through the paces, literally and vocally. It all gets very shouty towards the end in the final.
22 Switzerland
B: As if it wasn’t gay enough basically calling a song Golden Shower, it then drips with ‘secrets communs’ and ‘regards échangés’. Very romantic though, in every sense of the word.
A: If this was sung by a woman, or by a man who didn’t sound like one, I’m sure I’d find it far less annoying. There’s something about Mr von der Heide’s voice that simply makes me not want to listen to all three minutes of it, despite the song holding its own. The triangular balalayka thing is a nifty inclusion, albeit one that would prove to get them nowhere with the audience it was presumably meant to speak to. (By then it was only the gays and the ’80s tragics still watching.)
V: Utterly Swiss. The hair and fashion are from another era altogether, but then so’s the song. I don’t really get why the backing vocalists are there, since our Michael sings over the top of them virtually every opportunity he gets. They only come into their own at the end.
23 Sweden
B: Load of bollocks, these lyrics. They’re aiming for deep and meaningful, but are very much in the shallow end. The only point at which they come close to doing what they set out to is in the middle, with lines like “I don’t wanna win, I don’t wanna lose / I don’t wanna play, I just wanna remember / …my name”.
A: Each time I listen to this I like it more – there’s certainly much to admire in the ingenuousness of its composition. But sometimes you just have to go with first impressions, and my first impressions were that it was both a little bit dull and a little bit irritating.
V: Still, it deserved a place in the final ahead of at least a couple of other songs here on the strength of this performance, if nothing else. Red and black phasing to white makes a great colour scheme. Why do so many of the teenage girls look about 45 this year?
24 Azerbaijan
B: In the pre-contest conviction among many that the Azeris were a shoe-in for victory, people were quick to discount Drip Drop as being deserving of just about anything, and yet lyrically at least it’s an accurate depiction of a relationship that’s falling apart. One line that’s been the subject of particular derision – “You smell like lipstick again” – strikes me as being very believable as reactions to the situation go. The bridge resonates, too.
A: Without doubt the entry trying hardest this year to sound like something you might actually hear being produced in 2010, but for all that – or possibly because of it – it’s a little underwhelming. It also suffers in its final thirty seconds from having to adhere to the three-minute rule, feeling cramped and awkward. Not in a way that detracts from how obviously well produced it is, mind.
V: Eurgh, that glove. The rest of it’s alright, although Safura’s vocals are tested by the routine as much as her balance is on that staircase, and the ending’s a bit of a mess. Nice to see her smile at the end. Their choice to soften the vocals on the ‘drip drop’ bit is an interesting one. The backing vocalists look like they were left over from a Spanish entry ca 1989.
25 Ukraine
B: This has come in for a fair bit of stick ’n’ all, rather unfairly if you ask me. Alright, it doesn’t read like something a native speaker would pen, and lines like “Must you go on killing / Just to pass the time” jar a little, but the message is pertinent.
A: And as much as it makes me roll my eyes, I have more time for it and the way Alyosha delivers it than the drowsy approach taken by Anna Bergendahl. Social conscience with loads of reverb. It’s by no means a favourite, neither this year nor among Ukraine’s body of work at the contest, but I have a respect for it I doubt will shift.
V: Alyosha might write her own songs, but does she also run up her own clothes, or was her outfit cobbled together from whatever was left of the Ukrainian purse strings? It’s an unwanted distraction in what is otherwise a powerhouse performance – one that gets even better between semi and final – that looks amazing.
26 The Netherlands
B: If only the line in the second verse had remained “Of kwam het uit een café in zo’n straatje, we waren in Leningrad” the song would have been just as successfully carbon-dated by its lyrics as it is by its music.
A: Who would ever have thought, given the pedigree of the men involved and the similarities in the selection process, that the Dutch entry would end up being so much better than the British one? Not that that’s much of a yardstick. This is still wrong on just about every level bar that of the TROS board and audience who thought it was a good idea… and yet there is something about it that raises a smile, however grudging. “Het gaat niet uit m’n kop” indeed. I was hoping it would qualify and then be drawn first ahead of Spain for that full 1973 effect.
V: Colourful, isn’t it. And summed up by the look on the face of the guy playing the clockwork drummer on the street organ. I hope this doesn’t prove to be the highlight of his career in light entertainment. Sieneke is surprisingly strong.
27 Romania
B: Tut @ fire/desire/higher, although “If we get together now, we’ll burn this place down” is the perfect lead-in to the chorus.
A: Bombastic in a way that has become something of a trademark with Romanian entries, and all the better for it, given the rest of the field. It may not be very challenging, but it’s solid, it’s immediate, it has plenty of hooks and it’s playing to an audience from Iceland to Israel.
V: Paula’s semi-final hair and make-up are a TV disaster: it looks like she just got out of bed. Her vocals, needless to say, suggest otherwise, as she nails the high notes. Professional if rather static performance that’s more cohesive vocally in the final. Ovi proves to be the first of two Norwegians to take an interesting approach to their English this year.
28 Slovenia
B: Well, it makes a whole lot more sense when you know what they’re on about.
A: It’s the song that came second-last in the Yugoslav final in 1988. Quite how it managed to win the national final so overwhelmingly boggles the mind, although I suppose it has a certain charm. A bit like the Netherlands, it’s easy to sing along to (largely because it repeats the same handful of notes over and over again, particularly in the chorus), which is its saving grace. I like to strip it of its rock trappings and imagine it all in terms of Y Así polka fabulousness.
V: Credit where it’s due: as wrong as this is on most levels, it’s right on the rest.
29 Ireland
B: Without doubt the least palatable of the 2010 anthems: any set of lyrics that paints the performer as such a self-righteous saviour is going to get my back up.
A: It’s a bit churlish in Eurovision of all things to criticise songs for lack of originality, but come on, we’ve heard this kind of thing a hundred times before: you can’t help but line it up in your head against all the other anthems that sound exactly like this. The drummy bit at the start of each chorus is a mistake, adding to the excess of heralding.
V: Purple and orange never look good together, and neither does the mouldy cheese backdrop, although it seems somehow appropriate. Niamh looks like she’s strapped onto a board and is not nearly as convincing vocally as anyone might have expected her to be; from the key change to the last note she’s as flat as a tack in the semi, and doesn’t quite get the big last note either time. The whole thing comes across as a pale imitation of what Ireland would have done much better about fifteen years ago.
30 Bulgaria
B: More of a ballad than an anthem, but in any case it has the advantage over It’s For You immediately by being “Ljubovta ti go dokazva” rather than “My love proves it”. And for being so understated, given what it’s saying.
A: This builds superbly, and by the time the beat comes in you’re convinced it should be the best example of trashy pop of its kind you’ve ever heard. Then it forgets to have a chorus.
V: Something Miro could have gotten around by using it as an excuse to invoke some audience participation, getting everyone to sing along to his challenging lyrics, but alas I suspect he was more concerned about his spray tan (when he should, evidently, have been concerned about his hideous hairdo and Elvis outfit). None of the oomph of the strings is lost in the performance, thankfully. The fact that the English verse is given a completely different vocal arrangement is a boon.
31 Cyprus
B: “I hope someday you’ll spot me in the crowd / Smile and say you miss me” is lovely for being delivered without a shred of bitterness. You’d have to hope most people had been lucky enough at some point to identify with the ‘make me immortal with a kiss’ thing.
A: Those backing vocals in the first verse thrust us back into the 1970s with aplomb, offsetting the more contemporary boyband sound of Mr Lilygreen’s delivery. The whole thing, though, right down to the sentiment, is a throwback, so the vocal arrangement is just right. (And of course it also means that it fits in perfectly among the rest of the 2010 field.) The chorus does everything it can to persuade you to remain interested, and more or less does. Somehow the overall effect is to give the song a genuine emotional tug that most of its rivals lack.
V: Delightfully homespun. You just want it to do well, don’t you?
32 Croatia
B: Ouch: this has the honest precision of a self-inflicted paper cut. It’s pathetic, too, but in a good way, since ‘na licu mome piše izdaja’. The whole third verse – “Zadnjim snagama sad stojim tu pred tobom / Dušu razdiru mi bure nemira / Teže mi je riješit ovu bol sa sobom / Jer ti si prevaren a mene ubija” is a torturous triumph.
A: This pushes more of my ballad buttons than anything else on offer this year, but it’s quite clearly Molitva-light. More modern in its approach, though, and neatly self-contained, which I appreciate.
V: The new one’s an effective anchor for Neda and Pamela, who tend to let their excitement run away with them at times, but in harmony they sound great. Pity about the croaky bit. Very pretty performance, and there’s another modern touch in the choreography.
33 Georgia
B: Probably the most accessible of the anthems on offer this year (although again without the personal touch of the Belgian entry), I’ve nevertheless found myself wondering whether it isn’t a metaphor for the Georgian struggle for self-assertion in the face of Russian grandstanding. But then it was written by a bunch of Norwegians, so probably not.
A: Far more attractive a prospect than Peace Will Come, precisely because it’s not being layered on with a trowel. Despite the standard approach, there’s a welcome contemporary edge to this that sets it apart from all of the other anthems being rolled out in Oslo.
V: Waaaaaagh, not the Eurovision wink! Engrossing piece of theatre otherwise, with sparkling vocals from one and all.
34 Turkey
B: This is pretty clever in the sense that you can interpret it just about any way you want, and in that sense it’s a perfect Song for Europe. Or at least Western Europe, when you consider who the majority of countries were who didn’t give it any points.
A: It’s For Real and Deli with the excesses – and let’s be honest, much of the character – stripped back to produce something designed to appeal to a much broader swathe of Europe than most Turkish entries do. And as contrived as it inevitably comes across, it still works; just feels a little flat and lifeless in places when it should be anything but either.
V: They could be playing on a completely different stage. The lighting is just what the song needs / an epileptic’s nightmare [delete as appropriate] and the song sounds huge, although Welding Woman and her robot antics are a bit pointless. The way her helmet falls off in the semi says it all.
35 Spain
B: Enormous amounts of words, as is so often the case with the Romance languages. Lovely rhythm to them in the verses. The way the ultimatum is delivered in the lines “En tus manos tienes la occasion / Hoy decides si quererme o romperme el corazón” is great.
A: Another of the year’s many entries that transport us, unblinking and unbidden, to a bygone era. It’s rather good in its way, but with limited appeal both generally and in itself: beyond the first minute or so there’s little to hold the attention bar the way the vocals spiral out of control.
V: Which indeed they do, both times, although Daniel Diges is a consummate professional throughout The Incident. Indeed, no one even seems to notice there’s a dude in a beanie on stage with them. Makes the sudden appearance of the backing vocalist all the more exciting, especially during take two.
36 Norway
B: Although this does what it says on the tin, the effect is as dim and unreachable as the sunset behind that mountain somewhere.
A: Well, it’s the Irish entry without the associations to the Titanic soundtrack, isn’t it. Does nothing you haven’t heard before, takes forever to even do it, and then doesn’t do it any better.
V: Didrik looks pretty, but he lets the occasion get the better of him to such an extent that what little the song has to recommend it is lost beneath his nerves. It was bound to be warmly received in the Telenor arena, but it’s honestly one of the worst host entries in the contest in a long, long time. And what’s with his diction? If it were any more clipped it would be circumcised.
37 United Kingdom
B: “I can feel it coming together / … / There’s nothing left to do now / … / And we can let the future write itself” and “Anything is possible to do” (and the sheer clunkiness of the latter) are so ironically appropriate they could have discarded the rest of the lyrics and left it at that.
A: And there we were thinking the demo version trotted out on Your Country Needs You was lame: this is sub-Jason Donovan B-side, and that’s saying something. It could, and should, have been so much better; instead, shorn of Matt Aitken’s talents – without doubt the true song-writer in SAW – it’s the worst British entry in decades.
V: Ikea has become so huge it gets its own entry in Eurovision. Josh is charmingly feckless and makes a decent fist of it. The backing vocalists hit as big of a bum note as the lad himself does there at the end.
38 France
B: “Prends-moi par le côté... / La la, ça va chauffer, je sens le truc monter” is worth a titter or two. Mmm!
A: I originally had this down as “probably the worst song Eurovision has heard since Celebrate”, but the competition for that title with That Sounds Good To Me makes it too close to call. At least, unlike the UK entry, Allez Ola Olé never gets ideas above its station or claims to be anything it’s not. But you’ve still heard all you’re ever going to within the first 30 seconds.
V: It’s like Verka, but not nearly as entertaining. Great colour scheme and lighting. The shirtless backing vocalist should have been given an on-screen credit (and been centre screen a whole lot more!). Does Jesse actually sing at all?
39 Germany
B: Very neat, mixing the scientific references (which make very good lyrics in their own right: “Like a satellite, I’m in orbit all the way around you” and “…you got me / A force more powerful than gravity / It’s physics, there’s no escape”) with the down-to-earth stuff like blue undies and painting toenails.
A: Mainstream radio’s bread and butter, this. Given it’s Lena’s vocals and performance that sell the song, it’s refreshing to hear the song denuded of them and realise there’s a brilliant piece of music beneath it all that has just as much character of its own: I could listen to the instrumental version on a loop and never get tired of it.
V: For all the arguments about Lena’s accent, this is the most unaffected Germany entry – and indeed winner – in years. It’s a great song to have won the whole shebang, too, because that’s precisely what it is: just Lena and her backing vocalists on stage. No props, no gimmicks, no special effects. And it’s brilliant.
And so to the points...
1 point goes to Lithuania
2 points go to Ukraine
3 points go to Armenia
4 points go to Sweden
5 points go to Turkey
6 points go to Croatia
7 points go to Azerbaijan
8 points go to Georgia
10 points go to Belgium
and finally...
12 points go to...
Germany!!!
The wooden spoon goes to the United Kingdom.
