Featuring, for the
first and probably only time ever, my own running order. Because why not, it’s
that kind of year: a 1956/1964 for the modern era.
01 Ireland
B: “They said you’re almost perfect but you talk too much” is fitting for a
set of lyrics that tend to get lost in a jumble in the verses, while “Try to
dumb it down a little, make sure that you’re in the middle / Rock it all you
want but make it pop enough!” makes me wonder
whether the entire undertaking was meant to be ironic given how MOR it ended up.
A: Not the sort of
thing you’d expect to come out of Nashville (unless that’s where Katy Perry’s
from?) (or lived about 10 years ago?). “We wanted something uptempo and triumphant, which centres around
overcoming your difficulties in life and getting back up again” is unintentionally on point given the only live versions we got of it were dogged by strained vocals. Not
sure about the “fresh, fun vision that encapsulates a modern Ireland” bit either – the
drag and pull on the synths makes it feel like the song’s being dredged up from
the past, and the way it ends it’s like three minutes of it struggling to swim
up to the light and then being cut off just as it’s about to break the surface.
Lesley’s vocals aren’t terrible but I still prefer the instrumental, which has
a pleasing drive to it.
02 Belarus
B: “Ой, ты мама, ой нашто мне той, каго не выбірала?” makes it sound like
this is the belated follow-up to the ham-fisted Belarusian entry from 2006.
Needless to say this is poetry by comparison – arguably never more so than in
the evocative opening line, “Заплятала восень ясну косамі
ды распляла”, which somehow captures both the entire mood of the piece and the
late glow of an Indian summer roundabout these parts.
A: Crackle! Echo! Ethereal backing vocals! Great harmonies, too, which
get lost in the mix in the normal version. I’d not really thought about it
before, but the music does a good job of setting the scene the lyrics then
narrate, particularly in the opening verse and chorus. It’s certainly more
nuanced than I realised, and displays a mix of [electronic] influences.
03 Russia
B: Little Big tell us that they came up with the idea for this
song in February during a vacation with the whole crew, which I can only
assume involved a song camp with Aqua somewhere in Spain. The rhythm of “All
you have to do is to be ready for some action now” makes for an effective hook,
but honestly, the rest – connotations aside – could pass for a children’s song.
A: This isn’t half-bad when it ploughs its faux-Latino furrow musically.
There are some cute touches to the composition, like the dinging bell, which
only really pop out at you when you strip the thing of its vocals, but they
(and everything else) tip it over into territory that’s tongue-in-cheek at
best, piss-take at worst. And even as one of the year’s shortest songs it still
manages to outstay its welcome by some considerable distance. Judging by the
music video, they would have made it fun enough in three-minute doses to wipe the floor with most of the competition in the televote, but I
doubt the juries would have fallen for it en masse. Thankfully.
04 Slovenia
B: These lyrics are rather impenetrable,
suggesting anything from a straightforward ballad about a rocky relationship to
an impassioned commentary on the refugee crisis, or possibly climate change. Or
both. Or neither. “Ti… dobro veš / Da od besed do dejanj / Najdaljša je pot”
covers a multitude of sins.
A: Ana’s jazz vocals are a match for her favourite genre but feel a bit shoehorned into this, which is much more in the soul genre she was trained in. She wants to take people to unexpected places with her music, her bio tells us, but I’m not sure she achieves that here. The strings carry it, giving it the swell and surge it needs to
match the story it’s telling in a way that the dripping-tap effect manifestly
fails to. It’s at its most stirring in the bridge and final chorus, but on the
whole I find it a bit pompous and dull – an impression which the booming
heraldry towards the end doesn’t do anything to overturn.
05 Sweden
B: Loulou Lamotte sounds like a drag name. “Damn right!” sounds like an
affectation. That said, it does serve to momentarily spice up a set of lyrics
that’s serviceable but in which everything’s been said before (often verbatim).
A: Echoingly empty in places, just like last year. Oddly structured,
too, with the A-chorus slamming the brakes on things before the B-chorus kicks
in, particularly in the middle of the song. The house piano works well in
combination with the vocals and lyrics, but there isn’t much else to write home
about in a piece of music that once again pushes all the right buttons but
still ends up feeling sparse and soulless. Which is pretty much par for the
course with the Swedish entries of late.
06 Lithuania
B: Hats off to Vaidotas for not allowing his dreams to be shat on by
the cult of youth, and all power to him in doing what he can to be a better man,
but I’m sorry, ‘fire-desire’ just doesn’t cut it.
A: There are some great percussion effects hidden underneath the main
music line here which you’ll likely only notice if you listen to the
instrumental. It’s really well arranged on the whole, knowing when to layer it
on and also when to strip it back. There’s less than a handful of bars towards
the beginning where the piano… well, I don’t really know how to put it;
harmonises with itself, I suppose. Overall, it’s a much more involved and
effective composition than I’ve ever really given it credit for. That said, I
prefer it without the vocals, and I still don’t think it would have done as
well as most people seem to think.
07 Australia
B: In naming (and to some extent modelling) yourself after a 16th-century
philosopher you’re all but inviting people to label you as overweening and
pretentious, especially when your song opens with a line about texting. And yet
it has its share of keen observations and great lines, including “You
thought I was elastic / But maybe I’m just made of glass” and “Every time that
I try to explain it / You think that your pain is more important / And the
hardest thing is that I don’t wanna give you up”.
A: “Montaigne creates music that has a thrilling waywardness, baroque pomp and storm-the-stage energy” – all the hallmarks are there in this song, albeit to varying degrees. It’s another one whose head’s being
held under water musically, at least at first. It works much better here
because of what the lyrics are saying, and the fact that when it reaches the
surface there’s a storm raging is just right, too. The multi-tracked harmonies,
each of them different, are brilliant. The song as a whole is less than the sum
of its parts though, however impressive they are: the second verse drags, and
the chorus doesn’t pop or pull enough at any point to have the impact it needs.
Still of a level of quality the juries would undoubtedly have responded to,
nevertheless (assuming they weren’t put off by the theatrical interpretation). Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci now account for 66% of Australia’s entries at Eurovision, incidentally.
08 North Macedonia
B: Insert AbFab pun about a Vasil waiting to be filled. I like the
nascent passion in these lyrics.
A: Like Australia, the chorus here feels quite flat and mechanical
compared to the verses, which in terms of what’s bubbling underneath are more
nuanced, more interesting and more in line with the lyrics. The subtle ethnic
touches add some sparkle as things proceed, but the percussion-heavy ending has
always left me unsatisfied even though it’s both earned and required from the
point of view of the narrative. Vasil’s vocals are great throughout,
demonstrating both range and subtlety.
09 Norway
B: Norwegian pop credentials aplenty here. Ulrikke comes across in her
Eurovision.tv profile as work-focussed, which perhaps finds its way into the
song and her delivery of it (that knitted brow!). I quite like the irony-free
knowingness of how pathetic the situation is that’s painted by the lyrics,
especially in lines like “Why do I think it’s okay / Not being me ’cause of
you?”
A: Modern, minimalist and unabashedly Scandinavian, in this case in a
good way. As impressive as the rest of the composition is – Ulrikke’s favourite
bit, the counterintuitive and brilliant middle eight in particular – it’s all
about the vocals, whose arrangement is great. Nothing else this year puts the
singer’s voice so obviously front and centre, which works anyway, but also
because of what the song’s saying.
10 Ukraine
B: Describing the narrative here as a “story about a strong girl
who falls in love and realises that she is no longer taken seriously [but whose]
power helps her turn the tables and handle the situation with dignity” builds it up in a
way that the lyrics themselves don’t really do justice to, at least as
translated into English, since the dilemma it paints is lukewarm at best.
Pretty picture though, with a preponderance of plaiting and twining in the
Eastern Slavic entries this year (“Назбирала квіточок /
Заплітала в віночок”). Such pastoral scenes are notable for their absence in the
countries’ English-language entries.
A: OK, yes, Kateryna’s vocals are as much of a focal point here as
Ulrikke’s, but they don’t carry the thing to quite the same extent: they’re
impossible to ignore, but there’s a lot more going on in the music that vies
for your attention at the same time. Strip the song of its main vocals – which
I’m happy to do, since the style doesn’t do much for me – and the substrate
throws up all sorts that’s worth sifting through. The panpipey-piccolo thing
that punctuates the track feels particularly appropriate given that it’s called
The Nightingale. (Go_A are said to boast a “rich musical arsenal [that includes] such traditional Ukrainian
instruments as the sopilka, frilka, floyara, telynka, trembita and drymba”, and if only I knew
what any of them were, or better yet sounded like, I could namedrop rather than
just make do with descriptions like the aforementioned “panpipey-piccolo
thing”. Alas.)
11 Israel
B: The joy of being able to quote a line that looks like “ፍቅር ልቤ , እወድሃለሁ,ና ወደ እኔ” in a Eurovision
entry! Mind you, I’m having Ktheju tokës flashbacks with the awkward-to-English-speaking-ears stress on the
schwas in the Amharic title.
A: Like the lyrics, which are unremarkable but relentlessly upbeat, the
music here is all about celebration and diversity. From the Doron Medalie
stable it hews closer to Golden Boy in tone, but there are hints of Toy
in its intent. The drop into the piano-and-synths chorus, which caught me out
first time round, is the best bit of the whole thing. It ain’t winning any
awards, but it’s not unaccomplished, and is three minutes of unfettered joy.
12 Malta
B: Quite a string of successes to her name for one so young, although
given the way she’s already presenting herself – or more likely being presented – to the public, perhaps it’s made 17-going-on-47 Destiny old before her time.
A: Another example of composing by committee, and you can tell. (The
soul and gospel overtones are very much of a piece with Nobody But You,
not surprisingly given the song’s pedigree, but the whole thing does feel
rather more Cesár Sampson-Austrian
than Destiny Chukunyere-Maltese.) Until the happy-clappy choir chorus kicks in,
that opening stretch, without the vocals, sounds like a funeral dirge, which is
really not what a song like this should start out life sounding like. There’s
an almost indecipherable line running through the chorus, tremulous and
tentative like someone girding their loins to poke their finger into a fire,
which I think is strings. It feels vaguely appropriate for half the lyrics and
is the only really interesting thing about the arrangement, which is
professional but unexciting. I don’t even think it’s that good a showcase for
Destiny’s vocals.
13 Belgium
B: I’m all for ditching false modesty, but the clearly self-penned bio
of the band on Eurovision.tv is the polar opposite of humblebragging. From
claiming that “the golden pipes of Luka Cruysberghs… have elevated Callier’s
compositions to aural perfection” to describing Release Me as a “sweeping, majestic ballad” –
one offering a treatise on “elegiac acceptance” no less – “that only
Hooverphonic seems to be able to craft time and time again”, it’s an
ego-stroking tutorial par excellence. And yet to be fair to Callier, he’s not
wrong when he says that the band’s oeuvre “[blurs] the lines between symphonic soundscapes and
highly infectious pop tunes”, at least where this song is concerned. It’s no Arcade, but its
end point is more or less the same.
A: For a piece of music that takes almost a minute to do anything other
than drag its heels, this is surprisingly effective overall. The strings are
glorious in and of themselves, but also for subverting expectations every now
and then, and the final minute is a triumph. Luka’s vocals do indeed complement
the whole thing beautifully.
14 Cyprus
B: If Sandro’s philosophy is that music must be authentic, it’s ironic
that he and his American and German roots* were conscripted for Cyprus with a
song penned by an Italian-Australian*. That’s the modern music industry for you,
I suppose. “Anybody tow me back home” is nice shorthand for the feeling of
being cast adrift that’s so often said to accompany depression.
A: I can see why this failed to strike a chord with most people, but
it’s because it’s so discordant that I love it, since it feels perfectly
attuned to the lyrics. As does the fact that the vocal and musical arrangements
exist separately of each for so much of the time. The unexpected intricacy of
the strings paired with the driving, incessant bass through which the vocals
echo and spiral… What can I say? Works for me.
*among others
15 Croatia
B: Yet more autumnal intertwining, through a Western Slavic prism this
time. Certainly fits the mould. Nice use of metaphor.
A: Solid, if unassuming. The chorus has always felt a bit pedestrian to
me, and I’ve never really liked the way it kind of kicks in halfway through
itself the first time. The song feels like it could have been written in the
mid-’90s and would have sounded exactly the same, which is no doubt why it won
Dora. Effortlessly sexy Damir’s vocals are just right for it.
16 Romania
B: “Roxen’s musical aura is like a spell that creates a whole new world.” Said aura here
being a drunken stupor. Still, it does what it claims to – the lyrics go
hand-in-glove with the music in an atmospheric depiction of alcohol-assuaged
dysfunction. The punning title works surprisingly well in context, but I’m not
sure the rest of the words make sense, even within their own logic. But if
there’s any song where that’s excusable, it’s this one.
A: There’s something appropriately ethereal about this, a composition
in large swathes of which almost nothing happens. And yet it chooses its means
and its moments very smartly: as a piece of music it’s fascinating to
listen to. Roxen’s affected and imperfect delivery taints it slightly – as I
remarked the first time I heard it, she
deploys that increasingly prevalent faux accent that sees words like ‘hurt’
become ‘hoyt’ and ‘dark’ become ‘doik’ whilst retaining an inability to produce
the long vowel sounds in words like ‘dream’ – but all told it’s a
classy entry.
17 Azerbaijan
B: Every time I’ve seen Efendi ‘out of character’ (which, admittedly,
is not many times) I’ve had no idea who she is. Perhaps that attests to the
strength of the central concept of the entry – which is the Eurovision
equivalent of a Marvel superhero film, after all. It even has an info-dump
mid-lyrics, of which the best bit, by some considerable distance, is the
bridge.
A: Musically, too. The rest is an exercise in eclecticism that falls
flat as often as not, and it doesn’t help that the verses are about three notes
on a loop for what feels like forever. That said, it all fits together better
than its constituent parts suggest it should, and I get its appeal. I just
don’t share in it. I find the ending so annoying that every time I listen to the song I’m glad when it comes to an end. Given that the lyrics blur the lines of
sexuality, I wonder whether they would have played to that in the performance.
(I’m surprised that bit even made it into an Azeri entry, to be honest.)
18 Austria
B: The opening line here hints at a level of meaning that the rest of
the lyrics fail to deliver, convincingly at least. I think the message is that
if you cut yourself off from others you’re also cutting yourself off from who
you really are, but the closing “I’m all alone” muddies the waters. Answers on
the back of a postcard, please.
A: Bucking the trend as I did with Cyprus, I liked this from the off. I
still do. It doesn’t do anything we haven’t heard before, but it captures the
feel of what it’s emulating so authentically that it transcends homage. Not
that that makes it any more worthy necessarily, but for me at least it makes it
one of the year’s most consistent and effective compositions. Vincent’s voice suits
it down to the ground as well. All that said, it strikes me as the kind of
thing about 95% of whose final points tally would have come from the juries.
19 Serbia
B: I’m not surprised that nepotism’s responsible for one-third of
Hurricane: I’m surprised it’s not responsible for more. It probably explains
why the group formed on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, too. Daddy’s
money and all that. “Kaži mi hvala što sam te volela” is a great line in what
is essentially one big feminist flipping of the finger…
A: …but it’s all rather undermined by the Spearmint Rhino packaging. The
wrong-footing of the percussion in the chorus goes with what the lyrics are
saying (which is a lot, in the literal sense: it feels like they’re trampling
one another underfoot at times in a mad rush to get out) but creates a
disconnect where it should anchor the whole thing. Then again, it’s the only
genuinely interesting aspect of the song musically, so, you know, take what
you can get.
20 Estonia
B: Disingenuously claiming full ownership of this song’s composition
can’t hide the fingerprints of Uku’s cack-handed co-conspirators. The bio
insists it was inspired by musical theatre, as if it wasn’t awful enough to
begin with it. If so, I’ve no idea which maligned and short-lived production it
took its cue from. The lyrics show odd flashes of competence (“How can you know how a star looks / If you’ve never looked at the sky /
I couldn’t have told you what blue is / Till I looked into your eyes”), but these prove
to be from the gun they shoot themselves in the foot with in naff lines like “How
wonderful was the awakening”.
A: In any case, the lyrics become so mangled by the music they’re set
to that any positive effect they might have had is rendered void. I suppose we
should be grateful for the fact that the song reins itself in for almost a full
minute before succumbing to its own self-importance. Thereafter it’s bland
bombast all the way. There’s a decent melody in there, in the chorus at least,
but it’s pretty basic stuff. Which fits the Uku Suviste template, of course –
someone whose belief in his own talent has never been shaken by the mediocrity
it always results in.
21 Poland
B: I would never have picked dusky-eyed Alicja as being just 17 from
her national final performance, in which she sounded (and [was] certainly
dressed) like someone twice her age, but the crimped hair in her press photos
makes her tender years much more obvious. As, indeed, do these lyrics: she
didn’t write them, but they tick all the School Strike for Climate Change
boxes. A bit flowery in parts, they mean well, and lines like “Used to be a
tower so tall / Now we’re holding up crumbling walls” hit the mark more
effectively than the ashes-to-ashes and moth-to-flame clichés.
A: You’d be forgiven for thinking the composers here were auditioning
for Bond theme duties. If they were, they ought to have upped the oomph
at the end, in both the original version – which leaves itself little room for
a big finale, struck by the curse of the three-minute rule – and the final version, which simply peters out to nothing, both after a lovely,
lilting interlude. The rest of it is quite nice though, measured in the verses
(where there’s some fine harp) and more expressive in the chorus. The overall
result is classy but unbalanced.
22 San Marino
B: Freaky! is about “the freedom of living
thoughtlessly”, apparently. Senhit is said to combine her
African roots with Italian style and European electro-pop attitude, and while it’s true
that such roots have never been more on display at Eurovision, with Angola, Ethiopia,
Madagascar and Eritrea all represented via the Czech, Israeli, Danish and Sammarinese
entries this year, the latter has nothing
in the way of true African flavour. Then again, anything as adventurous
as that was undoubtedly out of the question if drinks on rooftops, kisses in
the dark and dancing round late at night in the park qualify as freaky. Senhit
must have lived a sheltered existence.
A: There’s none of the natural ebullience here that you find in Feker
libi either. Instead it’s Serhat-brand dated disco (in whose honour I
assume Senhit added the ‘h’ to her name) that’s fine for what it is but gets
less and less interesting as it goes along. It’s only really the pared-back
bits of the verses – or whatever they are – that stand out. When I first heard
it, and more importantly saw it, I said it looked like something Tyra Banks would do as a curveball
semi-final challenge on America’s Next
Top Model just to write off the cost of making a video, and I assume the
live performance would have been just as cringeworthy. A long three
minutes, all told.
23 Greece
B: Canny of ERT to go for the Dutch-Greek crossover, and obvious in
hindsight why the producers [would have] stuck her on first in the second semi.
“There’s no wonder it takes a woman / To be a hero…” gets the nod for its play
on words, and the remark about saving humanity on zero hours couldn’t be better
timed under the circumstances. The rest is pretty meh.
A: Given the choice of Stefania was no coincidence, you have to wonder
whether the song being co-written by someone calling themselves Arcade was
either. For his part, Dimίtris
Kontόpoulos is capable of at least marginally better, so if they stick with the
same team for 2021 I hope he delivers something more super than this. The video
nailed the tone of the song more than the song itself, which feels vaguely
threatening and is saddled with a B-chorus that sounds like it’s whinging the
whole time.
24 Czech Republic
B: This doesn’t say much that hasn’t been said before on overcoming
adversity or growing pains, but it certainly feels authentic, and I admire it
for its unresentful resilience. “I don’t care if they don’t like me” is a
difficult but very healthy attitude to adopt. I love that Benny’s music
producers are called The Glowsticks (“led by Osama Verse-Atile”) and that they
get namechecked in the song.
A: I have a lot of time for something this ingenuous, but I’ll admit
that the instrumental version sounds like it’s from a national tourism campaign
video. A very well-produced one, but still. Layer on Benny’s vocals and it
becomes much more personable, and super-likeable. In all probability it was
doomed at Eurovision, but the mere fact it was down to take part, coming from
somewhere as seemingly unlikely as the Czech Republic, is amazing.
25 Moldova
B: The ubiquitous Sharon Vaughn makes her third appearance here in
tandem with Dimίtris
Kontόpoulos, this time joined once again – *shudder* – by Philip Kirkorov. And
since in doing so they’re offering themselves up for comparison, I’d say this
is a better proposition than What Love Is.
It certainly presents a more interesting take on the same subject. I rather
like the twinning of “I don’t wanna be with you / I don’t wanna be without
you”.
A: It’s better than Loca, too, but then it would have to work
hard not to be. Its echoing qualities set it in the same stable as the Estonian
entry, but it’s lifted and set apart by its ethnic touches. The instrumental
version is notably more muted and in a lower key than the official studio
version, and not as interesting or immediate – so if that’s what they were
planning to use on stage in Rotterdam, I think they (or we) dodged a bullet.
26 Iceland
B: The Eurovision.tv bio reads like a twee version of Hatari’s
manifesto from last year, and I’m not sure it strikes the right note. It
certainly sets out its stall though, and the tweeness chimes with the song
itself, which is unironically Eurovision’s 21st-century equivalent
of Save Your Kisses for Me. “Though hard to define / As if the stars
have started to align / We are bound together / Now and forever / And I will
never let you go” straddles the line between charming and cloying but stays on
the right side of it.
A: Everything at the push of a button! Certainly makes it stand out in
this field. It’s also infectiously positive, in which it’s not alone but has
the edge over its rivals. Really interesting tracking and harmonies in the
backing vocals, and Daði’s voice remains as smooth as ever.
27 Georgia
B: Oh, I see they’ve stylised the title within the lyrics as a hashtag.
I suppose that works, given what they’re saying. Tornike’s other half is
clearly looking for schizophrenia in a partner, and if they don’t find it,
they’re sure as hell going to engender it. It’s all rather plaintive and
pathetic, in a good way.
A: Alas, it’s all but fatally undermined by the execution. While the
lyrics work well enough (or at least don’t seem quite as daft) on paper,
they’re exaggerated to such an extent when sung that it’s hard to take the
message seriously, however loudly it’s being shouted at you. The music
underneath it is restrained in comparison, with some interesting flourishes to
it that only emerge in isolation. The late introduction of the brass works
particularly well. The song as a whole is unorthodox in the way that most
Georgian entries have been, but as a composition it shows that Tornike is
definitely skilled as a song-writer, so it’ll be interesting to see what he
comes up with for next year. Hopefully something that showcases his talents rather
than distracting from them.
28 Switzerland
B: Gjon seems very switched-on if his write-up is anything to go by,
which is one you read and nod at for actually reflecting what you see and hear
in the entry. It mentions joy, sadness and melancholy, and all three are there
in Répondez-moi. The influences he cites can also be detected
in him and the song, which politically is very much of its time: “Pourquoi je suis / Ici étranger / Là-bas étranger” is a question a lot of émigrés must ask
themselves.
A: Take off the vocals here and the whole first minute-and-a-bit sounds
like incidental music from some Oscar-nominated film score, existing within a
range of a handful of notes and even fewer musical components. It makes for an
arresting opening with or without Gjon’s input, but add him into the mix and it’s
utterly absorbing. The higher he goes and the more percussive the arrangement
turns the less magical it becomes, but only marginally. The Swiss have really
upped their game in the last couple of years, and I’m convinced this would have
been a successive top-five finish for them.
29 Armenia
B: If Greece picking Stefania for Rotterdam is any indication, I guess
they’ll be calling on Ms Manoukian should Armenia ever take the trophy. Unless
they baulk at her aggressive post-feminism, if that’s what’s on display here in
lines like “And of course / Hurt me”. Or is it meant to be irony? It’s hard to
know quite what the lyrics are saying, since they seem simultaneously
misogynistic and misandrist, masochistic and vulnerable. Mind you, they’re
flawed anyway in aiming for fierce but throwing in banalities like “I think I
got a juice”.
A: Ugh, trap. Athena’s not doing much actual singing here, is she. I
hadn’t realised from the studio version that the “father’s creamy bone” bit (or
whatever it is) was quite so full-on belly dance. It’s the only element of
either the instrumental or vocal versions that roused me to comment, although
fair dos, as much as I dislike the genre and this example of it, it is at least
well produced.
30 Finland
B: As a song about world-weariness and feelings of inadequacy, Looking
Back is something of a spiritual successor to Look Away, since it
also wallows in a nostalgia for the way things used to be (“Now it’s too late
to save / All the seasons have changed”). In its way it’s as woebegone as Take
Me As I Am, and yet there’s a wistfulness to it that’s more attractive.
A: Even knowing this was coming up I momentarily forgot what it was,
which perhaps says something. Sure, I was listening to the instrumental
version, so it was deprived of the vocals that would otherwise have made it
obvious, but even so – it is rather self-effacing. That makes it a
perfect match for Aksel, but wouldn’t have done much for its chances on the ESC
stage. Which is a pity, because for all its diffidence it’s actually pretty
good, building nicely throughout to its last few pensive bars. It’s very much a
radio song, but I mean that in the nicest possible way.
31 Portugal
B: “Mas a vida levou / O melhor que eu tinha em mim… / Eu não era assim / Mas
agora tenho medo de sentir” – so young and so jaded! Or possibly scarred. Either way it feels
like the song would have been better suited to a singer with more experience
under their belt.
A: I can never bring myself to find more favourably of this than I do.
In theory it should tick all my boxes, what with the piano and strings and
fluttery vocals, but it’s a bit too much like hard work. And not just hard work,
but hard work of the annoying kind that never really amounts to anything. It’s
like all the parts of it are doing what they should but it never manages to
coalesce. There’s a sort of Schrödinger’s lightness of touch to it that’s both
there and not there, and as a result it just ends up feeling inconsequential.
32 Latvia
B: “Samanta describes her voice as a God-given talent that needs to be heard
on the big stage. Anyone lucky enough to witness her live performances would
find it impossible to disagree.” *Raises hand* “Samanta wants to show Europe
and the world that Latvia is not a small country to be underestimated.” Yeah, not sure this
is the best way to go about it. But “Still Breathing offers a strong message of
female empowerment and is an ode to women who are held to unrealistically high
standards”, so kudos for that at least, even if they’re not Aminata’s finest
moment. “[Samanta’s] love of Eurovision runs deep: in 2019, the singer wrote her
graduating paper based on an analysis of the national selections for the
Eurovision Song Contest in Latvia and Lithuania.” Such an anorak! Adorable.
A: “I’m still breeding, I’m still breeding!” There’s definitely
something about that this feels… intensively farmed. It’s dull and repetitive,
and I can’t be doing with it.
33 Albania
B: There are a lot of dysfunctional relationships being picked apart
this year. That it took three people to do so here seems unlikely, but okay. The
description on Wikipedia is loltastic: “The song makes lyrically [sic]
reference to Arilena’s hopeless desire to overcome deep and perplexing
emotions.”
A: She has a great voice, but pairing it with this sort of song feels
as unimaginative as the song itself, which lays it on so thick at times it
almost physically repels you. (That could be the Macedonian influence, of
course.) There are some nice touches to the vocal arrangement which are the
only true moments of subtlety in a sledgehammer three minutes I’m always
relieved to reach the end of.
34 Bulgaria
B: In today’s edition of Handy Hints, you’ll never go wrong with this
ESC life hack: Unsure whether the artist or act whose song you’re listening to
is from Eastern Europe? Simply check out their name – if it’s entirely
upper-case, they’re almost certainly from a Slavic-speaking country that was
once behind the Iron Curtain. In this case it’s VICTORIA, laying bare yet
another disastrous relationship. This one’s more nuanced. It’s quietly
impressive the way lines like “I’ve got this dirt inside me / I’ve got some
space to grow” and “Your lies burn like sugar in my wounds / So I have sweet
bruises” go against expectations, both linguistically and narratively.
A: On closer inspection, this is way more Disney than it sounds at
first and makes for an odd combination of words and music. But perhaps that’s
the point, with the innocence and mellifluousness of the composition (and
Victoria’s vocals) serving as a juxtaposition to the far darker story being
told in the lyrics. Most people wouldn’t notice the incongruence anyway, and it
works regardless, so I guess it’s a moot point. By rights it should test my
patience, but the end result is effective enough to offset any misgivings.
35 Denmark
B: Ben & Tan’s bio claims it was simply meant to be that they
would join forces as a charismatic duo, but the sentence works just as well
without the word ‘charismatic’ in it. Better, arguably, or at least more
accurately, since their live outings haven’t showcased much chemistry between
them – Tan is sultry but shifty-eyed, and Ben just seems a bit gormless. Still,
had they managed to ignite some sort of spark in Rotterdam it surely would have
worked for them, and no doubt their dream (“to have everyone at
Eurovision shouting ‘yes’ back at us”) would have come true. And helped them on their way to a decent
result. “I think my heart is beating me to death” is a great play on words.
A: More than fit for purpose as anthems go, even though it never really
does any more than what it says on the tin, and possibly the only song this
year that would have benefitted from audience interaction.
36 France
B: My reading of this is that it’s a gay man regretting never telling
his straight bestie (q.v. ‘ally’) that he was in love with him, and now it’s
too late, possibly because said bestie is dead (“Tout ce qu’on s’est jamais
dit / Revient me hanter jour et nuit”). I mean it’s probably not that at all, but hey, it makes an
otherwise fairly unexciting set of lyrics more interesting. Plus, it’s Tom
Leeb. Allow a man his fantasies.
A: I suppose when you put a song through a mincing machine it’s
inevitable you end up with processed sausage. Bland in the way that many
Swedish cast-offs are, the original nevertheless still feels more organic in
its intent to me than the acoustic, boeuffed-up reimagining they clearly felt
would be more representative of their own country on the Eurovision stage.
Padding out the French content also undermines the sense of the chorus being
Tom speaking the words out loud that he’s monologuing to himself in his head.
Not that it matters much, since whichever version they opted for would have
been left propping up the lower right-hand side of the scoreboard.**
37 Spain
B: Out of all this year’s entries, the lack of an ESC performance is
most keenly felt for Universo, since it’s robbed us of the chance that “Perdóname… / Por apagar mi voz / Para evitar ser el culpable / De lo que
soy” might have become
embarrassingly appropriate.
A: **Almost certainly alongside this, which serves no purpose
whatsoever. The irritating voice, the alienating language and the wall-to-wall
beigeness of it all would have made anything other than last place an
accomplishment. It’s not the worst song of the year, but then it doesn’t have
to be in order to qualify as the most useless.
38 United Kingdom
B: Two divers facing imminent death from drowning seems an unlikely
starting point for a love song, but this
one wrings what romance there is to be had out of it. It’s like sucking marrow
from a bone. WTF kind of diver lets their oxygen tank get so low anyway? And
why don’t they just swim for the surface? Have they both got their legs stuck
in a giant clam or something? James and his mates really ought to have thought
these things through before so carelessly employing the metaphor.
A: There’s no argument that a Brit
Award-winning and Grammy-nominated songwriter is a step in the right
direction for the UK, and that this song is a step up from recent efforts, but it’s
not that big of a step, and nor is it fronted by a particularly engaging
singer. It does come across as genuine though; France feels even more like it’s
been forced to be acoustic when you listen to them side by side.
Surprisingly catchy chorus for being so straightforward, and the breaks before
every ‘breath’ manage not to be completely irritating. Kudos to James as well
for simply stopping when he’s said everything he wants to.
39 Italy
B: Never was a song more perfectly poised to become the anthem of a
pandemic-imposed lockdown in a land of people who talk a lot. I’ve no doubt it
would have spoken to everyone else on the continent as well, and not merely nor
solely out of sympathy, but out of solidarity from the shared experience.
A: Ma sai che cosa penso? Che non dovrei pensare. Of all the entries
this year, this one needs the least overthinking: it has winner written all
over it, with a timeless quality and a universal appeal I’m certain would have
crossed borders the same way Italian seems to translate even to those who don’t
speak a word of the language. Self-contained and sincere but at the same time
all-encompassing and rousing, it hits you in places you never expect it to.
Even divorced of context it’s moving – I’m tearing up a little listening to it
again now. That’s just the effect it has.
40 The Netherlands
B: Arguably, and pleasingly, if presumably unintentionally, it’s the
home entry that most clearly manifests the theme of the 2020 contest in a set
of lyrics that reads like something from a confessional, even as poetry at times.
It says so much in saying so little. Stuff this unalloyed, this unembroidered,
comes along very rarely.
A: Mesmerising.
41 Germany
B: Slovenia’s got talent! Or had it, anyway, what with Ben now being a
“Berliner-by-choice”. It’s a talent that’s obviously being overlooked in the
club he’s at, since all the indications are that whoever it is he fancies isn’t
paying him the blindest bit of attention. Possibly because the pudding-bowl
haircut makes him look about 12.
A: Best uptempo entry this year, and for any number of years before
that. Everything just slots together so seamlessly, from the house intro and
subsequent drop into the chorus to the punch-the-air brass that takes things to
the next level at the two-minute mark. The retro-fitted Eurovision ending feels
unnecessary but doesn’t make the song as a whole any less compelling. Indeed,
the entries from Italy onwards here represent one of my favourite runs of consecutive
songs from any competition in the last 65 years. What a note to go out on!
And so to the points...
1 point goes to Israel
2 points go to Bulgaria
3 points go to Cyprus
4 points go to Belgium
5 points go to Iceland
6 points go to Norway
7 points go to Switzerland
8 points go to Germany
10 points go to the
Netherlands
and finally...
12 points go to...
Italy!
