2021

A contest focussed on the past, with just about everyone either staying in their 2020 comfort zone or opting for nostalgia over innovation. Anything to avoid acknowledging the present, I guess.

⁰¹ Lithuania

B: As unlikely a comparison as it may seem, Discoteque [sic] really is this year’s Fai rumore in terms of being an anthem for the lockdown generation.

A: Apart from the explosive bit post-chorus that’s the cue for the crazy dancing, this sounds surprisingly sinister when you strip it of its vocals. It’s well produced but not particularly nuanced, which perhaps explains why the juries were so lukewarm towards it.

V: The Roop are said to have “an eye for an iconic dance move or two” – for which read Tiktoktastic. There’s a sort of cognitive dissonance thing happening here in how prescriptive the core choreography is (and, via the Steadicam operator, being dragged along with it all), when what the lyrics are calling for is something random, spontaneous, individual and completely unrehearsed. It’s arguably all just a teensy bit too contrived. The Cadbury’s colour scheme and Very­-era Pet Shop Boys graphics suit the performance, and here we see the first use, to tremendous effect, of silhouette on that gloriously high-def stage.

⁰² Slovenia

B: Getting in a few songs ahead of near neighbours North Macedonia with much the same message, but less of the Got Talent backstory. “Why ya cowering in fright?” is a terrible line I hope Charlie Mason had nothing to do with. Then again, I find the whole thing a bit weird, and always have: it’s presumably meant to be stirring and anthemic, but with lyrics like “The fear’ll never go away / Might as well accept it now… / Learn to count your blessings…” they might as well have called it Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die.

A: Not much to get your teeth into here musically, at least to begin with – it faffs about for ages before deciding to do anything. The piano harmonies are nice, and the choir vocals sound like they’re being played in reverse at points. To be fair, some backwards masking would make the thing a lot more interesting. Ana’s vocals complement both the arrangement and lyrics, but in this case I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

V: She acquits herself well enough, too, but she’s most at ease when she can let rip. The generic backdrops don’t do much to lift the performance, but then the rejigged version of the song they used in Rotterdam didn’t help either, shoehorning the choir into it even more obviously while making it even more obvious they’re not there. For all the shout-outs to the crowd, that whole bit where she’s strutting out to the satellite stage is dead air. Some songs just don’t lend themselves to audience participation.

⁰³ Russia

B: You could probably argue that this is just another three minutes of hypocrisy from Russia at Eurovision, along the lines of their interminable paeans to peace, if it weren’t for the fact that Manizha herself is so clearly immersed in and a champion for the causes she shines the spotlight on in her music. In that sense, given the true face of the country it’s representing, Russian Woman is actually pretty remarkable. (Then again, I suppose the two needn’t be mutually exclusive.) The swipe at the patriarchy and gender stereotypes and the shout-out to body positivity in “Ой, красавица / Ждешь своего юнца…? / Тебе уж за 30 / Ало? Где же дети? / Ты в целом красива / Но вот бы похудеть бы” is a particular highlight.

A: Oodles of character. The instrumental version reveals that as a single composition it’s not nearly as disjointed as it comes across as at first, with some neat through-lines. It also highlights some brilliant little touches in isolation (“пыщ-пыщ!”). Manizha’s delivery is knowingly affected at times, but then that’s [partly] the point.

V: While it gets a bit busy every so often and is something of a visual overload, there’s far more to like about this performance than there is to nitpick about it. The visuals are at their least successful when flashing vacuous slogans at the audience, but then we get the elevated Terry Gilliam animation and the wall of women and any shortcomings are soon forgotten. And offsetting these powerful images we get the genius tongue-in-cheek touch that is the remote-controlled national costume, showing that as seriously as Manizha takes her message, she’s not above taking the piss in the process. And all this coming out of Russia. What’s not to love?

⁰⁴ Sweden

B: Looking at these lyrics as words on paper makes it even more obvious how mehtastically Rhymezone they all are. Sweden’s been coasting for a while now but rarely has it gotten this basic.

A: I said it when I first heard it and I’ll say it again now: bagpipes, or anything that even remotely sound like them, are never a good idea outside of a tattoo, and possibly at all. So the fact they open proceedings here doesn’t help, however swiftly and mercifully they give way to the rest of the composition. But since that means immediately dropping into the echo chamber that is the remainder of the song, it’s not much of an improvement. SVT have been furrowing a very bland groove of late, and this is arguably its epitome. Or nadir. Take your pick.

V: In that sense, Tusse’s androgyny suits it perfectly. To be fair, his voice suits the song as well. He’s more in control of it once he launches into the chorus, but he’s never quite in total command of it. Not that it ever threatens to derail the performance, and considering he’d not long had his throat sliced and diced, it seems churlish to quibble. (He’s better in the final in any case.) The song is staged as you would expect it to be, which is to say professionally but without offering much in the way of excitement, and the key change remains one of the most perfunctory in the contest’s history.

⁰⁵ Australia

B: Technicolour is clearly aiming to be the anthem everyone needed in this year’s contest (“The song became about resilience and the courage that comes from being able to be vulnerable, being able to ask for help, and knowing that in solidarity and togetherness we are stronger as people”), but its only observation that truly has something to say for itself – the frustration of everything moving along faster than you can relate to – is mired down in an otherwise trite set of lyrics in which the worst offender, in my books at least, is the ‘nasty dudes’ bit. Mind you, both bridges come across as sub-Power Puff Girls as well. It all feels very dressing-up box.

A: Golly! Those verses are actually amazing when you listen to them in isolation, and the middle eight’s not bad either. The problem, of course, is everything else. The chorus is particularly ineffectual. And if this really was “written and produced specifically with Eurovision in mind”, I can only assume they mean the key change – none of the rest of it sounds particularly like something you’d expect to hear at the contest. And even then it’s one of the worst key changes Eurovision’s ever given us. (Two in a row!) When Montaigne’s vocals are arguably the best thing about the composition overall you know you’re on a hiding to nothing, since most people seem to think she can’t sing for toffee. I don’t, but I can see where they’re coming from.

V: Montaigne’s never been more at home in the song vocally than here, but she still seems ill at ease, presumably with the choreography – elements of which work well, elements of which don’t. The same goes for the lighting: it’s a very dark set-up for a song with that title. That said, I doubt some kaleidoscopic explosion of colour would have helped. The overall package feels competent enough without making much of a mark, which can’t be blamed on them phoning it in, since the performance is integrated into the show so seamlessly that it’s only the long shot of them on the main screen at the end that betrays the fact they’re not there. It wasn’t going to get any better, and this time that simply wasn’t enough.

⁰⁶ North Macedonia

B: “Now… there’s no pretend.” This is Vasil dancing with the barman, not the girl, and is more commendable for that alone. Whether it’s commendable for anything else is another matter.

A: In keeping with pretty much everything else being rooted in the past this year, Here I Stand is straight from Vasil’s old operatic playbook rather than the pop career he claims to be forging now that he’s back in Macedonia. The orchestration is decent enough; a little workmanlike, but props to him for knocking it together either way. The subtle stretch between the pompous middle eight and abhorrent final flourish is the best bit of the whole song musically. Vasil lays it on thick with the vocals, wringing every last drop of fake emotion out of it and obliterating any sympathy you might have for it (or him) in the process.

V: Credibility killed by yet another choir invisible. But apart from that, and a couple of fleeting wobbles, Vasil does himself proud here, blowing Slovenia off the stage. Even the disco ball vest manages to not be as tacky as it ought to have been, by rights. It’s the song that remains the problem.

⁰⁷ Ireland

B: What’s with the commas in the official lyrics? The way they’re used is irritating to start with, but then they’re not used consistently anyway, so they annoy me even more. I mean if you’re going to stick one between “let, down”, “afraid, of” and “take, all”, why not go the whole hog and punctuate your chorus a la “I’ve, been sear, ching all the wrong places / I’ve, been try, ing too many faces”? Tut. The core concept here makes for a solid enough narrative, but “My soul is a map / My heart is a compass / I am the road” isn’t nearly as deep as it thinks it is.

A: If ADHD were a song, this would be it. Fidgety and agitated, bamboozled by a sensory overload, it rushes headlong without much idea of where it’s going, apart from away from where it was to start with. Which means the lyrics do and don’t fit, I suppose. Lesley’s vocals, stretched as thin as they are at the best of times, were clearly tweaked to within an inch of their lives to sound this good in studio.

V: “I couldn’t see / All the signs, all of the mistakes / Pointing one way”: last in the semi. As poorly as just about all of the ideas are executed here – and to be fair, many of them are good, and the ambition is admirable – the weakest link is and always was Lesley herself, whose vocals are teetering on the edge before she’s even made it to the end of the first line. Nothing about the performance works, and it becomes more and more uncomfortable to watch as it goes along. The generous and clearly sympathetic (or else deaf) audience give her an encouraging cheer as she stands there collapsing on the satellite stage at the end, which should be an ‘aww!’ moment but somehow only caps off what is, ultimately, a very sad spectacle.

⁰⁸ Cyprus

B: I could do without the Tex-Mex menu items here, and the whole reductive Spanish thing generally, but points for the “It’s heaven in hell with you” play-on-words.

A: Soundtrack for a dominatrix, right down to the whip-crack. And sure, it’s old hat that it owes a debt to Lady Gaga, but it really does sound like it was written with her and her vocals in mind. Uninspired then, but it works better than it should for something that feels like it was cobbled together from popsicle sticks and sticky-backed plastic on Blue Peter.

V: You’d be forgiven for thinking at times that Elena was manufactured in a vat, so it’s nice to see her come alive on stage. She’s no better than she has to be, and neither’s the choreography (apart from the neat little nod to The Exorcist), but both are good enough for qualification and finishing about halfway up the scoreboard in the final, and that was no doubt their endgame.

Addendum: [From the official bio] “Do you have any pets?” “I have a dog, Poo.” See, people? There’s the importance of punctuation and capitalisation right there – cf. “I have a dog poo”. It’s the Eurovision equivalent of helping your uncle jack off a horse.

⁰⁹ Norway

B: “I’m still not sure / What you ever saw in me” is a quietly devastating blow in a set of lyrics that sees Tix punching himself in the face over and over and over again. It takes beating yourself up to a whole new level.

A: All power to him for taking ownership of his Tourette’s, but the song itself has more than enough bathos to go round. The reverberant Nordic production is just about the only thing that gives away the fact the song wasn’t written for the likes of NSYNC twenty years ago. Peak boyband. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, he added.

V: It does mean the whole thing is overegged from the off though, and then we get this performance. Good for Eurovision clip-shows, I suppose. The school-pantomime staging somehow makes the stage itself look much smaller than it is, but that’s fitting, given how hemmed in by his own self-pity Tix is. He sounds fine throughout, which might have something to do with the fact that they’re doubling up on the vocals for the entire song of course. The whole “here’s my issue” thing – again, while worthy – does get ramped up to the point where he could justifiably call himself Schtix.

¹⁰ Croatia

B: All power to Albina for breaking free from bad loving and restraint in what is essentially one big watch-me-getting-over-you flipping of the finger, but the Croatian interlude (“vrijeme curi, gdje si više? / Usne grizem, sama jedva dišem”) confuses matters, suggesting she’s not as ready to cut him out of her life after all. Unless I’m reading it wrong and she’s actually waiting there with baited breath, poised to spring the trap.

A: Apparently Albina knew this would be the song to define her as an artist and performer. Which is unfortunate, because it never lives up to its potential. The verses get the thumbs up, but those thumbs are then dislocated by the weight of the plodding chorus, which is positively anti-Darwinian in refusing to evolve at any point. OK, it doesn’t really need to for the first two-thirds of the song, but it definitely does post-Croatian bit and has no excuse for simply repeating itself. The song needs a big finish, but it doesn’t get one, and ends up dragging itself out to what feels like far longer than three minutes.

V: Brassy in just about every sense, but if I were them I’d probably still be feeling a tiny bit hard done by that it wasn’t enough to qualify. Albina’s solid throughout (except on the long notes, which even as far back as Dora she never managed to deliver in a way that didn’t make you want to stick your fingers in your ears) and the whole thing looks pretty slick, with a great colour scheme. For some reason it feels more like an awards-show performance to me than a Eurovision entry.

P.S. I’ve no idea how they got away with that backing track, which basically just leaves Rotterdam-Albina singing along to herself on the chorus.

¹¹ Belgium

B: As the only lyrical hook in the song, “Don’t you ever dare to wear my Johnny Cash T-shirt!” comes across as a very genuine line to quote among the detritus of a regretful morning after. Subconsciously choosing something that focusses you on the very thing you’re trying to forget is a clever reflection of how conflicted the narrator is about the whole situation as well.

A: The band’s bio is all about riffing on former glory, as if that alone should be their selling point, but there’s plenty to like here in this composition. It seems much more minimalist at times than it actually is, the instrumental version showcasing a classy, layered production. The balalaika adds an appropriately tremulous touch, and Geike’s vocals are equal parts fraught, jaded and controlled.

V: A tight, dark, restrained performance that is, needless to say, very professionally delivered. It sits just the right side of static, but unavoidably shoots itself in the foot by remaining so aloof. Which suits the song, of course. The Blair Witch backdrop is an interesting choice which has much the same effect of distancing itself from the audience, despite the extreme close-up.

¹² Israel

B: Love the “2021 degrees” bit. This is fishing in the same pond as Croatia, story-wise, without being quite as assertive. I wonder if there are any political overtones to the first line in Hebrew, “חלאס עם השיגעון”, translating as “Stop the madness”. (Probably not, considering the other one apparently means “Let’s all go out!”) It would spice up a set of lyrics that are otherwise fine but fairly functional.

A: Rather like the song itself. The eastern twang to the strings and the marching band percussion are the only truly noteworthy aspects of the arrangement, apart from the cute little squib at the very end you only notice if you listen to the karaoke version. The song as a whole works better than anyone might have expected it to, without pretending it’s any better than it actually is.

V: Not only is this in direct competition with Croatia simply for inhabiting much the same musical space, but then they go and pinch their colour palette. And in this face-off it’s Eden who comes out on top for tailoring her performance to engage the audience. The whole thing feels more fun and like it’s not taking itself quite so seriously. Eden’s cheeky “Pfft, will you listen to me!” look as she [just about] pulls off the highest note in Eurovision history is the icing on the cake, although she gives Roxen a run for her money in somehow contriving to pronounce words as diverse as ‘strong’, ‘before’ and ‘do’ as though they all rhyme with ‘toy’.

¹³ Romania

B: Props for the message, but with all the references to ‘self love amnesia’, I’ve taken to thinking of the song as Fingering to Forget.

A: This is a much more interesting prospect divorced of Roxen’s vocals, since there’s a lot going on in the arrangement you just don’t pick up while she’s wittering on. The composition’s actually quite complex and absorbing, not to mention well produced.

V: Gosh, that Eurovision.tv bio bigs Roxen up in a way she was never going to live up to on stage, doesn’t it. The “labyrinth of an artist” certainly struggles to find her way in this performance, which isn’t quite the unmitigated disaster I remember it being, but still rivals Ireland in terms of how much and how consistently it makes you cringe. She only manages to pin down the vocals for a bar or two before they get away from her, and she never catches them again. The staging is trying to say something, but much of it gets lost in a sea of smoke, including the unintentionally fitting moment where Roxen is dragged across the floor like a dead weight. Romania’s been on a downward spiral for a while now, and you’d have to hope for their sake that this is as low as they go.

¹⁴ Azerbaijan

B: Efendi’s bio, according to which she “cares for two bad-mannered parrots… that are completely untrainable and swear a lot”, does more to lend her some character than either her song or performance. The only line worth highlighting in the lyrics – which Efendi[’s PR machine] goes to lolworthy lengths to append actual meaning to on her official site – is “Yalan da mən, yanan da mən, yaman da mən”, and only then because it’s in Azeri and is given the unwieldy translation “I am the liar, the one who puts the heart and soul into falsehood but in the very end the person who is accused in all troubles”.

A: Identikit pop pap, but kudos for the inclusion of the zurna* and nagara* and aspects of the yalli* for local flavour… in a song about a Dutch spy. It was brave of them to strip things back in the verses and anchor them around Efendi’s vocals.

V: And diction. The audience loves it, but this performance is just so dull. The limp, lethargic choreography remains just as lifeless in the manic bit at the end, but then I guess they didn’t want to give Efendi anything too taxing. The backdrop looks like it was made for Cleopatra (right down to the golden asp) and suggests they couldn’t be bothered coming up with anything more fitting. The whole thing is shockingly half-arsed by Azeri standards, and should have cost them. It got more or less what it deserved in the final, but the fact it got there in the first place still rankles.

*Nope, me neither

¹⁵ Ukraine

B: The folk roots are strong in this one! I bet the crowd in the arena had no idea they were going mental to the line “Sowing, sowing, sowing, sowing hemp plants” every time they sang along to “Сію, сію, сію, сію конопелечки”. I’ve no idea what an owl blowing into the water is about, but “Там у лісі на юзлісі / Сова в воду дує” certainly sounds poetic.

A: I don’t think I’d ever registered that there’s a Jew’s harp amongst this lot until I listened to the instrumental version – and what an instrumental to listen to! Kateryna’s vocals are as integral to the sound of the song as every element of the music, but without them you’re thrown into the soundscape and get to appreciate it on its own terms. And while it’ll never be my favourite thing ever, I can’t not give it the seal of approval for what it’s doing. One of the most singular things on offer this year.

V: This works in spite of the way it’s staged rather than because of it, I’d say. Pretty much all of the visual choices are questionable, from the random and sometimes distracting backdrops to the camerawork never quite capturing the energy of the thing, and from the Tim Burton Christmas window display rostrum to Kateryna looking like a dancer from a Robert Palmer video who’s been turned into a vampire channelling Rod Hull and Emu. It’s the song itself, its drive, that wins the audience over: a Pavlovian performance they lap up as it builds to one of the most satisfying climaxes of the contest.

¹⁶ Malta

B: Even the poor girl’s bio is unhealthily obsessed with victory. I wouldn’t be surprised if “je me casse” were her parting words after that televote result in the final. The lyrics are aiming for the same level of sass as Toy, but I’m not sure they ever really achieve it. And that first line of the bridge will forever be “Ladies, if you feel like farting tonight, it’s alright” to me.

A: The deconstructed Charleston vibe sets this apart and works in the song’s favour, but overall it’s less than the sum of its parts, at times feeling like little more than the showcase for Destiny’s vocals it was ultimately reshaped to serve as. The chorus is surprisingly pedestrian, and never more so than right at the end, when it should be drawing everything together but just feels flat. The song’s better on the whole than I’m probably making it sound, but not as good – or at least not as winning – as we were fooled into thinking it was.

V: Where Azerbaijan felt underdone, this feels overbaked. Destiny has the vocal chops: she doesn’t need to be exaggerating everything from the get-go. Either way, she doesn’t really live up to her reputation until the bridge, which is far and away the best bit of the performance, but even then she doesn’t quite get the big note either time. The rest of it feels forced and isn’t a whole lot of fun to watch. The striking colour scheme is an unusual choice, but it mostly works.

¹⁷ San Marino

B: Yet more unhealthy obsession here, this time in the admission “Can’t move without your eyes on me”, but I like it as a line.

A: Hardly an original observation, but how did it take 10 people to write this? I mean, stuff happens in it; it’s not under-produced. But nor is it that layered or complex, which no doubt accounts for the generally tepid response it received. Senhit’s reedy vocals do little to counteract that. Thankfully it has FloRida’s rap to big things up, which they clearly realised it needed, and which is no doubt where the money went. Decent enough, all told, and very much so by Sammarinese standards. But also just sort of… there.

V: Great opener; not quite as successful as a closer, although the Green Room is loving it. Senhit does as much as she needs to without you thinking for a moment she’s capable of anything more, so FloRida teleporting in lends some much-needed oomph. There’s quite a lot going on in the backdrop and on stage and the cameras don’t always do it justice, but all things considered it looks and sounds as good as it was ever going to.

¹⁸ Estonia

B: Ugh, so much cringe in that official bio. Not only does it scale the heights of pretentiousness (“If you were a professional wrestler, what would your entrance music be?” “Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 in C minor, Op. 67 - I. Allegro con brio”), but it ends with “Readers of renowned** Estonian magazine Kroonika voted Suviste ‘Estonia’s Sexiest Man’. Who are we to argue?” Apart from anything else, it’s their fault he won in the first place. As for the song itself, at least “I don’t need a crystal ball to make me / Realise that if I stay you’ll break me / Every sign is saying I should be gone” makes Uku’s alter-ego here more self-aware than Vincent Bueno’s a few songs later.

A: You could cut the artificial atmosphere with a knife, but good luck drawing blood from a song this anaemic.

V: He’s alright, I suppose. Next.

**LOL, ‘renowned’

¹⁹ Czech Republic

B: The pretence tucked away in the one line of Czech here (“Můžeš být u mě klidně můžem dělat jakoby”) is arguably more telling than all of the English ones combined. I’m disappointed to discover – only now as I pen this review and bother to check – that my favourite bit of the lyrics, “There ain’t no apocalypse long as you’re here on my lips”, is preceded by the line “You said you gained a few pounds”, because it makes the opening line of the chorus sound like he’s saying: you’re fat, so what? I mean, that should be a good thing, the very opposite of fat-shaming, but it just comes across kind of creepy in an I’d-still-do-you kind of way.

A: What can I say, I like it. It pops. I love the way the electric guitar in the chorus does completely its own thing but supports the vocal arrangement perfectly. Great bass, and the looped sample of crowd noise in the verses is a nice touch as well.

V: It’s interesting to read in Benny’s bio that he is “incredibly popular in his home country, packing out Prague’s O2 arena with 15,000 fans… [a] massive party [he is hoping to repeat] in 2022 when circumstances allow” after seeing him in Rotterdam, because he doesn’t come across as a natural live performer at all. He sings most of the song like he’s got peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth and struggles on what few high notes there are, while the staging looks like it’s snuck in on Uku Suviste’s coat tails from an Eesti Laul semi-final, barely qualifying as even charmingly naïve. Hopefully it was all just a glitch and his plans won’t be scuppered by the resounding nul points he received from the televote.

²⁰ Greece

B: Oh, so that’s the first line? I thought it was “My heart was born already cold”.

A: This doesn’t hit its stride until the first chorus kicks in, but from that point on it wears its retro heart on its sleeve and the whole thing works a treat. The chorus is the least interesting but also the catchiest and most ’80s thing about it.

V: I have to be honest and say I much prefer watching the videos filmed in the arena that show how this was done than watching the performance itself. Stefania discharges her vocal duties with aplomb but rarely looks like she’s enjoying herself, preoccupied perhaps with the timings and technicalities of it all. Which are logistically impressive, at least – the green screen is rubbish. I still have no idea why they went with the concept only to stick random stuff on in the background that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the choreography and was at times enough to induce vertigo. As with Azerbaijan, it’s been posited that they’d already chosen and developed the approach for their 2020 entry and so just thought: why waste it. Doesn’t excuse the graphics though.

²¹ Austria

B: That second line – the deceptively throwaway shrugging of the shoulders that is the laconic “I guess” – sets a tone of defeat from the off here in a set of lyrics that says quite a lot for giving us so little. A pleasing sense of bitterness and resentment breaks through in them to match the music taking things up a notch.

A: Going down the torturous ballad route serves this much better than the achingly dull anthems Slovenia and Macedonia opted for while fishing in much the same sort of pond, so it’s a pity it ended up just as empty-handed. The whole thing’s much more effectively constructed – the middle eight being the best of the contest in my humble opinion – and it’s beautifully arranged. Vincent’s vocals are a better match for it as well. It’s one of my favourite entries of the year, in fact.

V: The otherwise inconspicuous effect of falling rain introduced in the last 30 seconds of the studio track means they missed a trick here with the performance, cheating Vincent of his own Bryan Rice moment. But despite a more than decent rendition, even if it’s one in which go-go Gadget eyebrows hammer home the point, this falls a bit flat in the way that good songs with good performances sometimes do. Neither Vincent nor Austria have anything to be ashamed of because of it.

²² Poland

B + A: Perhaps not surprisingly, given it’s a flat-pack Swedish export with very little in the way of character either lyrically or musically, I can’t think of anything much to say about this. It’s even more of an ’80s throwback than Last Dance.

V: So much so that if the lyrics hadn’t given them the idea of running with neon as a theme, they could have gone all out and staged it as a computer game. That said, the performance we get is unexpectedly competent, given that Rafał isn’t the most naturally gifted of singers. He looks like he’s gotten his fingerless glove caught on the end of the camera there at the start and is taking forever to shake it loose, but otherwise it’s mostly alright. It gets a bonus point for having a backing vocalist who’s doing proper harmonies and is actually on stage.

²³ Moldova

B: Competent. “Come over” and “I’m over doing without you” are cleverly juxtaposed, and “Now I want only one / Sugar-sugar on my tongue” is pleasingly arch.

A: Unusual structure. The official karaoke version makes it sound as though the only plug they weren’t planning on pulling in the verses was on Natalia’s vocals, which would have been… interesting. She’s not much of a singer, after all – and she’s not singing much here anyway, relying more on breathy, come-hither delivery and, when more is unavoidably required of her, being provided with the least demanding vocal arrangement possible, which in any case is double-tracked and backed up the yin-yang. Not to mention great swathes of the song (the most effective bits, in my view) being instrumental. I mean, let’s be honest, you don’t have to be an amazing singer to hold a single note for four bars.

V: And she’s not. If Elena emerged from a mould in a plastics factory, Natalia came straight out of the Eastern European Barbie box, all poseable limbs and permanent grin, eyes unblinking. And yet this performance has none of the garish fun of the video, being all muted and mechanical Phantom Menace unfolding-droid choreography. I’m not sure there’s a single second of it that our “decorated vocalist” sings on her own, apart perhaps from the long note. The wonderfully inapt mic drop adds an inadvertent frisson of excitement to the performance in the final.

²⁴ Iceland

B: The way these lyrics are set to the rhythm of the music makes for some great hooks (“[Everything about you] I like” and “We got a good thing going” in particular) and sees lines like “I don’t wanna know what would have happened if I never had had your love” snowballing their way through and sweeping you up as they go. It’s all very cleverly matched.

A: Even more Atari in its synth verses and instrumental break than Greece or Poland, but rummaging around even further back, with more than a hint of disco in the C-chorus. Married to the timeless strings and choral vocals, they make for a polyamorous relationship that works beautifully. Daði has an amazing range to his voice, which manages to sound equally smooth in any register.

V: He replicates the studio vocals perfectly live, too. “The unique choral sounds in 10 Years are samples of vocals from a thousand different people all over the world”, and I kind of wish they’d used the little animated people to represent them. Other than that, this is a great performance in which I can find nothing to carp about: it’s fun and quirky without descending into kitsch, it looks gorgeous and the vocals across the board are flawless. It draws a massive response from the audience in the arena without Daði and friends even being there. Praise the Eurovision Jeebuz they got as far as the second rehearsals before COVID took them out of the live equation.

²⁵ Serbia

B: “To što nisi sa mnom to je tvoja mana”. Slap! As repetitive (and admittedly throwaway) as the chorus is, it’s a real earworm.

A: A surprisingly immersive experience, this: the music makes very good use of the aural space available to it. Some of that is lost once the lead vocals are layered on top, but it still adds up to a production that works on far more than one level. My only criticism of it – since on the whole I really like it – stems from a recent YouTube video I saw in which the song sped up with every ‘loco loco’: as frivolous as it was, it made me realise that the song could do with a wee bit more urgency to it.

V: Not that you notice it in the live performance. I love how the official bio emphasises Sanja and Kesnija’s [Eurovision] singing credentials before adding “Ivana is a professional dancer” :D She certainly carries the least weight in this performance, which at times is like watching ducks dance on a hot plate. Tresses flying, legs akimbo, they power their way through it to the explosive finale on the satellite stage, winning the title of Best Key Change in the Contest hands-down.

²⁶ Georgia

B: Let’s just describe these lyrics as ‘artless’ and leave it at that.

A: Tornike knows how to write a song – the music at least; his lyrics, in English anyway, never amount to much – but this largely understated number isn’t the greatest showcase of his skills. He clearly has a penchant for ramping things up in the last minute, but in this case it adds little other than volume to the song, which was never going to trouble the scoreboard in Rotterdam.

V: Even when you might reasonably expect him to take ownership of the song, he approaches it with the enthusiasm of someone doing community service. Never once does he look or sound like he wants to be there.

²⁷ Albania

B: “Zoti nuk ma fal / Bota mbi mua ra” looks like a tribal chant, although it would be a very odd one, given the meaning. Of which the lyrics clearly have plenty, and come across as elegiac. Perhaps not “God doesn’t forgive me for loving myself too much” though, which is basically another way of saying “too much of that will make you go blind”.

A: Bombast! Drums! It’s 2005 all over again. In fact it’s only the middle bit that tells you the song’s been produced any time more recently. This sort of thing hasn’t always done the business for Albania despite it being seen as a fairly safe bet for them, and that’s because beyond its ability to showcase big vocals, it’s largely impenetrable.

V: I’m glad they splashed out on some dry ice towards the end, because up to that point it looked like the planning meeting had decided there was no point wasting money on actual effects when you could just show them on the screen behind you. (That’s probably how it went anyway.) And for that matter, why waste money on choreography when you can just get the singer to throw some very basic shapes while the lights do all the work during the instrumental breaks? I suppose it lets the song speak for itself, and Anxhela sell it vocally – which she does well enough to land them in the dead space of song #2 on the Saturday night. She makes the most of it, having not been entirely on song in the semi, but then that didn’t scupper her fellow countrywoman’s chances in 2019, and does little to hinder hers here, even if in the end she only scrapes the final qualifying place.

²⁸ Portugal

B: If you didn’t know this was the story of a sex worker from Amsterdam’s Red Light district – and I didn’t until recently, when everyone else was talking about it as though this had been widely known from the very beginning – you’d be forgiven for scratching your head at lead singer Pedro Tatanka producing the line “Don’t know how I thought I’d be a queen”. But properly contextualised, the lyrics are rather a touching take on the protagonist’s lot in life. “Maybe not tonight” bursts the bubble of hope in a way that is understated and yet still crushing.

A: I wanted to describe this as ‘simple but not ineffective’, which is true but also underselling it: the arrangement and orchestration are delightful and more than merely competent. The progression of the song is also better than I initially gave it credit for, with more being enhanced and added to it as it unfolds than I noticed at first. I’m still not entirely convinced the electric guitar and naïve choral sound made for the best additions, but maybe that’s just me. The lead vocals are what they are – I like them, and technically you can’t fault him for them, but I get why they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. For me though they add to the song rather than taking away from it.

V: A gentle and genuine performance that catches the ear and eye alike. Visually it’s one of the most beautiful three minutes of the entire contest, cleverly drip-feeding you reasons to keep watching as it goes along in a way that the song itself can’t necessarily match. The final colour scheme is wonderfully warm and balanced.

²⁹ Bulgaria

B: The Tetris reference here feels very dated, but the metaphor itself is clever. The lyrics in general are effectual, and also surprisingly affecting when you consider how slappable they could have made the whole thing.

A: Ooh! Using the metronome as an instrument here gets the nod from me. The booming double bass is nicely paired with some glittery if short-lived synths as well, and the strings are very easy to get swept up in. It’s a thoughtful composition that works well, but listening to it in isolation shows how important Victoria’s vocals are to the overall impact it has.

V: Lovely swirling build to this. She looks like she’s perched on a piece of seared tuna, and her outfit is a bit penal-colony pyjamas, but the effect as a whole is undeniable. Harking back to Lisa Andreas in 2004, Victoria ever so slightly overreaches herself once or twice but in a way that somehow lifts the performance and makes it both more relatable and more believable. And she certainly exerts enough control elsewhere to assure you she’s not just winging it.

³⁰ Finland

B: Given what their own entry says, I love the fact that their favourite Eurovision song of all time is Euphoria. Then again, “Of all the dark things that keep me wasted / You’re the sweetest I’ve ever tasted” shines a tiny light in the darkness. If you want to read it that way.

A: Self-styled though this “violent pop” may be, it has clear reference points in the likes of Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park and is another of the many entries this year harking back rather than tapping into the now or looking forward. It’s good enough in and of itself to transcend homage though, with a couple of great hooks. Sticking this back to back with Bulgaria is inspired on any number of levels.

V: It delivers exactly what you expect of it, and what it needs to. Bam! Done.

³¹ Latvia

B: Unlike Efendi[’s PR machine]’s attempts to shoehorn some credible feminist invective into Mata Hari, there’s nothing spurious about Samanta’s virtue signalling here: she evidently believes in the message she’s peddling. However garbled it might be. (“You got something to say / Say it to my face!” is the only bit that really pops.)

A: Credit where it’s due – opening your song with half a minute of basically nothing but looped vocal samples is a bold move. That, the Spanish guitar and the rather shy little piano elevate the song above the tedium of the rest, the worst offender being the chorus, if that’s what the pa-ra-ra-pa-parade bit is. But even the good bits are subsumed beneath Ms Tīna’s sledgehammer vocals, making the whole thing very hard work.

V: “There have been few other Eurovision acts throughout the years with this level of commitment to their goal.” Hope it was worth it just to come last. With a dreadful performance. That was beaten by Georgia. I don’t know if she can tell she’s all over the place and just starts making it up as she goes along, but that’s what it sounds like. On the plus side, the visuals and outfits are stunning.

³² Switzerland

B: Quite a sophisticated metaphor, at least when presented in French. After the final three main lines (“Au milieu des failles et des ressacs / Nous nous retrouverons au point d’impact / Comment soigner nos coeurs qui éclatent?”), that one last repetition of the title comes across as asking another, even bigger question rather than answering the one just posed.

A: Another minimalist composition from Gjon & co. early in the piece which really focuses you on the vocals, as it should. Things then pick up from the first chorus before growing in intensity with the second and building to a very effective climax, all the while reflecting the lyrical journey the thing is going on. It’s a very smart piece of music. The falsetto feels much more organic and integral here than it does in the Spanish entry.

V: If the Swiss weren’t quids-in to win the semi before, they definitely were after the Latvian car crash (appropriately enough). There are all sorts of interesting artistic choices in the performance – not least of which being the high-waisted harlequin couture – which like any that does well for itself is one you can’t tear your gaze away from. It’s precisely choreographed in every sense, with some outstanding camerawork making it even more absorbing a presentation. Gjon is on point from the first note, makes an immediate connection with the audience and only gets more impressive as he goes along. A well-deserved jury favourite in the final.

³³ Denmark

B: “No one knows how it’s done… / Soon we’ll be two adults / You’re the woman, I’m the man… / Let’s practise on each other.” This in a song sung by two men. Who are clearly two teenage boys who’ve locked themselves in one of their bedrooms. The Danish does an effective job of disguising the innuendo (which, to be fair, it barely counts as) and it’s nice to hear the language in the contest again after all this time. I particularly like the flow and feel of the lines “På et dansegulv / Hvor hjerter svulmer op og går itu… / Vi bli’r aldrig mere levende end lige nu”.

A: “Synth supremos” Jesper and Laurits move into pastiche territory with this entry, albeit out of love for everything it embodies rather than in an attempt to satirise it. The song nails the whole early-to-mid-’80s Dansk Melodi Grand Prix winner thing, but I maintain it would feel even more authentic if they’d recorded a fully live version for Rotterdam, replete with orchestra. As a piece of music it’s no great shakes either way, but it’s fun, and the final was a [marginally, let’s not go overboard] sadder place without them in it. Not least because they were quite literally robbed of their spot in it.

V: As if the whole thing wasn’t gay enough to start with… *clap-clap*! It’s a little slice of Danish from about ESC85, right down to the backing vocalists (and their hairstyles). The vocals are much improved since the national final, as relative an achievement as that is, and so in that respect it’s as good as it was ever going to get. However, Jesper’s dance routine and his race to the satellite stage and back tip this over into piss-take territory more than perhaps he intended them to, and also have the effect of making Laurits seem like a carer keeping an eye on him while he’s on day release. That level of energy is nonetheless perfect for the closing number in the semi.

³⁴ United Kingdom

B: As metaphors go, “Down here in the ashes… there’s something glowing / Out of the embers / You and I are gonna light up the room” does the trick if you ask me.

A: Like the Czech entry, this just ticks lots of my boxes for its solid pop credentials. It’s very reminiscent of Clean Bandit’s Stronger, which I love, so it was inevitable I’d like Embers as well. There’s nothing ground-breaking about it (obviously, given the comparison I just drew) but it’s well put together: the house piano anchors the whole thing, offset by the brass, and James’ smoky vocals fit it like a glove. All things being equal, its rousing feel and clever use of hooks should make it the perfect party song.

V: Alas, it’s not. James starts out strongly but grows more haggard as each minute passes, and lumbered with that hideous outfit and a staging that screams ‘BBC Light Entertainment’, there’s nothing he can do to lift a performance that has no place foundering the way it does: the double-zero is harsh but warranted. At least he seems to have enjoyed the experience, despite everything.

³⁵ Spain

B: That opening line is like Spain-at-Eurovision bingo. The Iberian entries often come up with lyrical turns of phrase, at least to my ears, and ‘dibujo un mar de memorias en tu piel’ here can be added to the collection.

A: Stick them side by side and you see that this doesn’t progress all that differently from the Swiss entry, and yet the result is worlds apart. Well, inflatable moons apart anyway – it’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as interesting. As run-of-the-mill ballads go I’d even venture to say it’s quite good. There’s just nothing about it, not even the orchestration, that makes it stand out. Blas sounds nice enough singing it until he takes things up a pitch, in what can only be described as a clunky, signposted shift that sticks out like a sore thumb/the swollen testicles it sounds like he’s just been kneed in.

V: And that’s pretty much what it sounds like. The unannounced acapella opening leads to a moment of panic that they’ve forgotten to switch the music through so that anyone other than Blas can hear it, but it’s no improvement when we can, because the way they’ve fiddled around with it leaves it feeling bitty and unbalanced, like they were still playing with it right up until its name was emblazoned on screen. Blas himself doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with it but does a decent enough job. It’s very much making up the numbers though.

³⁶ Germany

B: It’s nice to read these lyrics for the first time and finally understand what’s pouring from Jendrik’s mouth in the middle eight: “I guess you need patronization as some kind of validation: you won't cope with the frustration that your random me-fixation is another affirmation that you're just a hateful person…” is as on-point as the rest of the message. I still like it for the fact that it’s got its own in-built troll deflector, baiting and batting them away simultaneously.

A: It’s not often the ukulele features so prominently in a song, so it’s nice it gets its moment in the spotlight here. It’s characteristic of an entry it wouldn’t be unfair to describe as eclectic. The disparate elements hang together surprisingly well, especially in combination with the lyrics, and the song as a whole is well made. Somehow though I can never quite shake off the sense that it’s taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough at the same time.

V: That feeling is compounded by the staging, which puts an important message front and centre in what to all intents and purposes is a kids’ TV performance. It’s not Celebrate levels of cringe – it’s too slick for that, and Jendrik is actually invested in it – but it’s a long three minutes. The oversized props are doing none of the auto-finalists any favours.

³⁷ France

B: Pathetic, in the best possible way. Wonderfully gauche. “Regardez-moi, ou du moins ce qu’il en reste… / Aimez-moi comme on aime un ami qui s’en va pour toujours / J’veux qu’on m’aime, parce que moi je sais pas bien aimer mes contours.” Talk about baring your soul.

A: You can hear every key being struck on the piano there at the beginning. It racks up a grand total of just six notes in its first 15 seconds, which must be some sort of record. As in the Swiss entry, this leaves it up to the vocals to do the heavy lifting at first, and like Gjon, Barbara makes it look easy. (To be fair, she rivals Natalia Gordienko at times in saying the lyrics rather than singing them, but unlike Ms Gordienko, Barbara doesn’t need to do so for the purposes of damage limitation.) Everything builds steadily from there, and the craftsmanship on display is extraordinary. In hindsight, it’s easy to see why the two French-language entries made such clear-cut jury favourites.

V: Simple and stylish, but also deliberately artificial and theatrical. You’ve no choice but to keep watching. Barbara is so deep into the performance that it’s a relief to see her finally break character and enjoy the moment.

³⁸ Netherlands

B: “Skin as rich as a starlit night” is such an evocative line to open on in a set of lyrics that hums with power and intent. The inclusion of the phrases in Sranan Tongo, and especially the meaning behind them, paints an even bigger picture.

A: Jeangu’s talents as a songwriter are on display here in a potent but minimalist composition that’s never more engrossing than when it fully embraces its roots. For much if not all of the song, his voice is just as important as any other instrument he uses, and is only rivalled in its mellifluousness by Daði Freyr’s.

V: “I own every decision,” Jeangu says of his fashion choices in a boxout in his bio, and I’m guessing that extends to everything about this performance. It’s an impassioned one with a lot to say, but also refreshingly straightforward. It feels altogether different to everything else in the final, almost as though it exists apart from it, and that perhaps explains its result. But however well or otherwise it might have scored, it does the hosts proud for showcasing something that is very Dutch and yet so much bigger at the same time.

³⁹ Italy

B: “Io ho scritto pagine e pagine, ho visto sale poi lacrime / Questi uomini macchine non scalare le rapide / Ho scritto sopra una lapide, in casa mia non c’è Dio / Ma se trovi il senso del tempo risalirai dal tuo oblio / E non c’è vento che fermi la naturale potenza / Dal punto giusto di vista, del vento senti l’ebbrezza / Con ali in cera alla schiena ricercherò quell’altezza / Se vuoi fermarmi ritenta, prova a tagliarmi la testa perché / Sono fuori di testa, ma diverso da loro.” Amazing. Everything about it. And the last two lines pretty much sum up everything about Zitti e buoni, Måneskin and Italy at Eurovision this year.

A: As solid, determined and confident a three minutes of music as you’ll find in Eurovision. It knows exactly what it’s doing from the opening bars. Course plotted, it follows it, with only the slightest and briefest of deviations in the middle eight. It’s another entry where the instrumental version – however good it may be in its own right – underscores how important the vocals are in completing the package, and here, Damiano’s do just that.

V: They nail every aspect of this performance, right down to the glam-rock look, which on anyone less committed could have come across as gimmickry. But there’s nothing put-on about this – which is what makes it such a worthy winner.

 

And so to the points...

1 point goes to Portugal

2 points go to the Netherlands

3 points go to Serbia

4 points go to Bulgaria

5 points go to Russia

6 points go to Belgium

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to France

10 points go to Switzerland

and finally...

12 points go to...

Iceland!

A pair of wooden spoons, each in the shape of half an arse, is awarded to Azerbaijan and Georgia.