2009

Production values up the yin-yang, and artistic merit to boot. Song-wise there’s plenty to like, but I’m not sure there are many enduring classics among them.

01 Montenegro
B: “Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout all the things I’m missin’” says it all really. Although the twist in the tale is quite a clever observation of relationships that aren’t good for you, it’s still a bit lame.
A: Two has-been Germans and a Spanish schlager queen do not a successful song-writing team make. The way the vocal arrangement is so tightly interwoven with the strings in the verses is annoying, given that (i) that’s the last thing either of them should be and (ii) they’re both far more interesting in the chorus.
V: Cheesy choreography, but this is a much slicker performance than I would have expected. The swivel chair makes it look as though Andrea’s about to conduct a current-affairs show interview. Her vocals are good, but eclipsed by those of the backing vocalists, which are fabulous. I wonder why they chose to hide them from public view on such an empty stage.

02 Czech Republic
B: There’s something very right about how wrong these lyrics are, especially when paired with the intentionally hammy, low-budget preview video.
A: Lots of innovative touches if you listen for them, especially when shorn of its vocals.
V: Much of this subtlety is lost in the transition from studio to stage, unfortunately. This has much more in common with Push the Button than simply going second in its semi: its worthiness is worn away by a performance that just goes on and on, nullifying any comic appeal (which is nevertheless brilliantly captured in the stage). Surprising depth to the vocals.

03 Belgium
B: I love the transition from “he’s too fat to rock ‘n’ roll” to “he’s too dead to rock ‘n’ roll”. The lyrics as a whole are pretty clever, although certain lines jar.
A: For a genre I was never part of and have never really gotten into, this is surprisingly easy to like from the get-go. I think it’s because of the obvious but unaffected feel-good factor. Bosnia and Herzegovina & co. have tried stuff like this many times and never gotten close to its authenticity or sense of fun.
V: If Mr Ouchène was going for that tail-end-of-career Elvis look – slightly greasy and altogether unappealing – he got it just right. He does pretty well for someone who clearly had the ‘Eurovision throat’, but is outshone by the glamorous and aloof backing vocalists.

04 Belarus
B: Lines like “Guide me through this barren sky” leave themselves wide open, yet this is arguably the best set of lyrics Belarus has given us so far. There’s a genuine tug to at least some of it.
A: Carbon-dated within the first few seconds of its life. I feel only Turkey has the right and the wherewithal to produce 30-second instrumental openings to their Eurovision entries, although the furrow this etches in my brow soon turns to a grudging admiration of how together it sounds. Kind of like In My Dreams, without being anywhere near as attractive.
V: The sheeted figure being blown about by the wind machine is intriguing but doesn’t add a lot to the performance. Petr has a touch of ’80s glamour about him that only leaves me wondering what happened to the shoulder pads. Vocally he’s not as strong as I thought he would be, but the song sounds better than it has a right to. I love the cat’s eye motif.

05 Sweden
B: Are we assuming Fredrik Kempe penned the English bits and Malena Ernman the French bits? Neither offers any interest, and overall these lyrics say just as little as Hero.
A: Discard the vocals here and you realise just how empty those verses are. The chorus is a more enticing proposition, but only because of the opera. The loveliest bit – the strings – is largely lost among the pop requisites.
V: Considering the Swedes were forced to think about their stage routine this year rather than transplant it in toto from Melodifestivalen, they didn’t do a very good job of it. Neon green? Midnight blue suits against a black background? And what, if anything, ties in with the supposed ice queen theme? It only starts to look good after the key change. Performance-wise there’s little wrong with it, but it fails to whelm me in any way whatsoever. Malena enjoys herself at least. The ghost bits at the start make me think we’re about to see the Eurovision debut of the Cybermen.

06 Armenia
B: Once again the lyrics in Armenian make me wish the country would give us an entry entirely in the language. The English verses are a bit perplexing, but make more sense once the song hits its stride as a simple invocation.

A: I always find myself prepared to dismiss this, but it redeems itself every time for its drive and energy and for actually having a sense of going somewhere. The purely instrumental version is a joy. By the time the key change kicks in, everything has come together perfectly.
V: “Fixed like a tree” is a more apt description of the performance Inga & Anush put in than their assertion that they wanna dance, which makes me wonder why their otherwise flawless vocals get so breathless. I’m glad they dropped the make-up for the final that made them look cross-eyed in the semi. I love the contrast of the modern feel to the backdrop with the very traditional elements of the music (which is nevertheless itself very contemporary in places). The laser show’s a bit rubbish.

07 Andorra
B: I suppose a lot of what is being said here could be seen as a metaphor for the principality’s participation in Eurovision. You can read a lot into it, anyway. “És el moment de corregir” kind of backfired on them.
A: I’m taking it with a pinch of salt that it took five people to compose this. Great poppy feel and rhythm, but where’s the ambition? (Q.v. “Where is Andorra?”)
V: She’s obviously enjoying herself from the off, and that’s the most endearing aspect of this performance. I don’t even mind when she messes up the big note, because the rest of the time she’s fine, and gorgeous. They might have wanted to turn the wind down, given it’s as audible as the backing vocals.

08 Switzerland
B: “May I have your attention please” is a great line. Pity no one took any heed of it. In this case though I’d certainly agree that “it’s always worth a try”.
A: I might be wrong, but I still think nothing else from 2009 sounded as contemporary and charty as this, despite the fact it comes across as rather New Order. I suppose, buoyed by Deli’s success the previous year, I foolishly assumed the likes of it would go down well with televoters. Harrumph. It’s still fantastique.
V: That is without doubt the most amazing backdrop we will ever see in Eurovision. I still fail to see what’s so affected or disappointing about the performance – his voice is meant to sound like that. Works for me.

09 Turkey
B: As if it wasn’t obvious anyway, the lyrics here both read and scan like they’re trying their damnedest to do a Paparizou. “No one can kiss like you do / As if it’s your profession” is quite good.
A: The few times I’ve heard this since the final I’ve tried very, very hard to see what the juries thought was so good about it that they allowed it to finish 4th. And I still can’t: a more workmanlike composition in this bunch would be hard to find. If they were voting for it on its international hit appeal alone I might grant them some sanity, but that doesn’t make it a worthy piece of music.
V: I love the way scantily clad belly-dancing women is all anyone ever expects of Turkey and yet that’s the very reason Turkey gives for censoring its own entries. Everything about Hadise screams overreaching underachiever to me, although I’ll concede it sounds great – despite the terrible sound mix (both times), and probably because she doesn’t sing half of the choruses. The whole performance is just unconvincing.

10 Israel
B: I love the way the Hebrew, Arabic and English work so well together, and not just in terms of not sounding awkward, but in how they manage to get the same ideas across in each and still make it so poetic. It makes it much easier to forgive the propaganda it nevertheless represents.
A: Wonderful acoustics and percussion, but the Hammond keyboard still sounds a little odd in parts. Impressive overall though, in the way the music ties itself together with the lyrics.
V: As amazing as the vocals are, they don’t blend quite as well as I’d hoped. The audience is loving them, but to me there’s something of an edge to both ladies’ voices that makes it seem like a competition between them at times. The remix here manages to be simultaneously significant and subtle.

11 Bulgaria
B: “It feels so wrong.”
A: Taken in isolation, the musical score provides any number of reasons to like the song. But put them all together – and, crucially, chuck in the vocals – and it just doesn’t work.
V: So many shades of wrong you can’t even begin to distinguish them, and it simply never ends. Give the wailing one who looks a bit like Wonder Woman her own entry!

12 Iceland
B: The lyrics alone fail to elevate this above the usual ballad fare...
A: ...but pair them with a lovely and very well-balanced arrangement...
V: ...and a note-perfect performance and the whole thing is taken to a level you might never have expected it to attain: perfection. (Apart from the dress.) The last minute is Goosebump Central. I wonder whether, in Norway’s absence, it would have won.

13 FYR Macedonia
B: There’s a frankness and openness to the words here that belie the in-your-face pop-rockiness of their delivery.
A: This is evidenced by the wonderful freefall moments opening the verses. As ever, I have some trouble deciding whether the composition is accomplished or not, but whatever its musical credentials, I like it. The “yeah yeah!” bits are the undeniably super glue holding it all together.
V: I love this performance: Stefan looks effortlessly sexy, and I find it hard to believe at times that that voice is coming out of him when he looks like he barely even has to try.

14 Romania
B: “I wonder if beyond this / There could be something better” is an appropriate question for something showcasing little more than girly drinks and dancing.
A: When it came down to the big reveal at the end of the first semi, I automatically railed against Romania’s qualification – mostly because of the song itself rather than performance, and despite the fact I’d had little if anything bad to say about it prior to the night. Listening to it now for the umpteenth time only makes me realise again that it’s rather good. For what it is.

V: I’m still not sure if the pixie theme works for this kind of song, but they all look great, and the cherry-blossom effect is nice. The vocals are brilliant when you remember there’s essentially only two people delivering them.

15 Finland
B: I love the way a song called Lose Control marks the lowest point for Finland in the contest in years. Consecutive qualifications may seem like a victory of sorts, but their decline has been swift. “Is this my reality?” seems like a rhetorical question under the circumstances.
A: The Finns have a thing for doing the ’90s at Eurovision at a time when no one else is, and it’s never brought them any success. Which is not a reflection of the songs themselves necessarily; their timing, more than anything. There’s not a lot wrong with this, but as per Romania it’s a case of “such as it is”.
V: Excellent direction, and another very effective backdrop, but everything on stage looks (and sounds) a bit crap. There are moments when Karoliina Kallio bears a startling resemblance to Celine Dion.

16 Portugal
B: Easily the most romantic lyrics of the contest, and once again supremely Portuguese. The alliteration and elision somehow make them even more attractive.
A: How wonderful this is to listen to as a piece of music. It’s multi-layered and uplifting in a way that seems entirely natural.

V: Conversely, there’s always something about the way these kinds of songs are staged that makes them feel a little bit corny and forced, even though they’re neither. I’m glad Ms Varela gets to grips with her nerves during the second verse in the semi, even if her tears at the end suggests otherwise, bless her. She’s on song from the off in the final.

17 Malta
B: These lyrics sound like they should say something, but they don’t. What does “Mystify our wisdom in time” mean?
A: I do like the way the musical and vocal arrangements go off on their own tangents for almost the entire song and yet still work so well together. It’s a pity then that both the music and the lyrics strive for such import but never manage much more than trite.
V: I understand why they played with the vocal arrangement – let’s face it, how else were they going to make it more exciting? – but Chiara surprises me by overegging the pudding from the outset here. She’s as strong as ever, but for the first time fails to make that strength attractive. She clearly also has a limited routine: stand behind microphone ---> point a bit ---> Eurovision wink ---> take microphone from stand ---> wobble head ---> toddle forward. By the time we get to the final I’ve completely forgotten she forms part of the line-up.

18 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: Lines like “Nemaš sutra, nemaš danas / Lako je, kad ti pjesma srce nađe” are more than enough to tell you that there are layers and layers of meaning to this. Not that you’d expect otherwise from a song of its ilk.
A: This wins my award for the most complex and effective arrangement of the year by quite some margin. Utterly beguiling.
V: I think I get the stilted performance, and it is a performance in the truest sense of the word, but the lead singer is clearly and somewhat shockingly riddled with nerves. He manages to camouflage it with some Belinda Carlislesque vocals, but it’s indicative of a routine that isn’t as together as it should be. It’s better in the final though, and the ending still sounds tremendous.

19 Croatia
B: Some delightful if bemusing concepts in the lyrics here which are very probably cultural and/or linguistic: turning tears into cotton? I love the delicacy of “Umorne oči odmaraš / Začaraš”.
A: The return of Mr & Mrs Huljić is well worth the wait. This is another charming composition from Croatia, and puts me in mind of You Are the Only One. Apart from the obvious exception, the Balkans have been producing some outstanding percussive numbers this year.
V: They certainly made Igor Cukrov look a whole lot more shaggable than he ever used to. He has an odd voice that always sounds like it’s half a moment’s distraction from going completely off the chart, which I suppose makes it all the more remarkable that he doesn’t. Andrea is lovely, but I’m not sure she adds much to this. (But then, I wouldn’t have chosen black as the colour scheme either, and it works.) Once again someone’s left the wind machine set on ‘gale force’ rather than ‘gentle breeze’.

20 Ireland
B: You can just see the American teen choreography playing out in unlikely locations around the high school campus as you read these lyrics. “I’ve heard that oh so many times” sums up the song and story perfectly.
A: Everything that’s right about this song is largely what’s wrong with it, too. It’s hard to fault, but harder to care about.
V: Vocally a lot better than I thought it would be, but nothing screams lack of television experience louder than Sinéad’s shifty eyes. Plus it all just looks a bit meh.

21 Latvia
B: A whole lot about this song is captured in the line “Nyeprastaya eta zabava”. It’s as clever and meaningful as it is complex and challenging. I still prefer the Latvian version, Sastrēgums, which if anything has even more depth; in particular the lines “Cik tad var no dzīves atteikties?” and “Tālāk tiec vien tad kad sakustas cits”.
A: Even if I didn’t love this song, I’d still recognise its quality; most people seem to be able to do neither, sadly. Their loss.
V: Like Mr Cukrov, our Intars is looking way tastier here than I’d ever seen him before, especially if you go for the whole man-having-breakdown thing. I can understand entirely why next to no one got this, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. The hand thing remains fascinating for being so inscrutable.

22 Serbia
B: Great rhythm to the chorus here in a song whose lyrics show it to be far more than the novelty entry it’s presented as, even if it exhibits that typical Balkan economy in simply repeating itself once it gets to the halfway mark.
A: There’s a lot to like here. The bassline in particular is fab.
V: The nearest thing we get to a joke entry all year and it still has more character and more to say than all of last year’s put together. The backdrop is fantastic, as is the routine – but while I never get tired of admiring the scenery, the stage show and song soon both start to drag in a way that’s only rivalled by Aven Romale.

23 Poland
B: Sweet sentiment.
A: The composition’s a bit backward in coming forward given that one of the people behind it was called Mr Boomgaarden. The verses are very one-dimensional when you take away the vocals, but the chorus is nice. The orchestration, as it tends to be, is beautiful throughout, and by the two minute mark it’s all working together rather well.
V: Before she’s even reached the first chorus, you know Lidia won’t be putting in a performance that’ll surprise and excite, or even impress particularly. She’s by no means incompetent – some notes are very strong – but there’s just so little to it. She has one of the best dresses of the contest though. The white-gospel backing vocals are brilliant considering there are only three of them. To this day I have taken no notice whatsoever of the rhythmic gymnastics.

24 Norway
B: For all the light-and-airiness of this, the lyrics are very self-aware and paint an accurate picture of relationships.
A: This redefines what it means to be canny. The greatest strength of the song is its chameleon-like quality of coming from everywhere at once. Whether or not it’s especially good is another matter.
V: And in an instant, Poland is all but forgotten. The graphics are gorgeous, if a little too dark for me, and I still find Alexander strangely unappealing as a performer, even if I recognise the appeal he has for other people. The same goes for the song and performance, if I’m honest. I don’t begrudge it its victory at all, but I’m not sure I ever want to see or hear it again – because as good as it is, it’s still not brilliant. (Musically at least. The coordination of the dancers is amazing.)

25 Cyprus
B: The imagery in this works really well, matched with the whole little girl thing: sweet without being too sugary. I’m not sure about the logic in the lines “But believe me, it’s best to let go / Don’t just go with the flow”.
A: Not so much a piece of music as a sequence of sound effects for the better part of a minute, this is nevertheless surprisingly effective for its minimalism. In fact as an overall concept it works very well.
V: Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Cyprus honestly couldn’t have hoped for better from this performance.

26 Slovakia
B: As languages go, Slovak must be even more to the point than Estonian if it can fit a concept like ‘fly through the darkness’ into the two words leť tmou. It’s rather dark for such a powerful ballad, appropriately I suppose, but doesn’t do much to sway my view that the language is one of the clunkiest-looking and -sounding in the contest.
A: This is a striking piece of music with some bold instrumentation, but it fails to convince me in the way something like it should.
V: The sound mix here isn’t great, but it doesn’t affect the performance much. Kamil looks like he’s stumbling in having woken up in a gutter after his best friend’s wedding. Fantastic vocals, but they’re still not pretty. The art gallery effect is the first to make full use of the possibilities of the staging if you ask me.

27 Denmark
B: Many a great couplet here in lines like “I saw you beside me / You never saw me there at all” and “I never imagined I’d find you / And lose myself instead”. It’s true that the line leading into the chorus comes out every time as “I never had a picture of her nan”.
A: There is an Irish feel to this, but at the same time it could still be 100% Danish, so you’ve got to wonder how much of a hand Ronan Keating really had in it. (Did he even turn up in Moscow for the final as promised?) The guitars are great.
V: So much of this performance seems geared towards not exposing Brinck’s shortcomings, from his posture to the curtailed vocals in various lines of the chorus. His reaction upon completing the song in the final without completely fucking it up says it all. I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt after the national final, but as a performer he really isn’t very strong – which is a shame, because the song is. I see he was sitting on the Montenegrin office chair there at the beginning.

28 Slovenia
B: Six words: “Out of time, out of place”.
A: Is Andre Babić destined to become the next Ralph Siegel? If this Hooked on Classics also-ran is anything to go by, I suspect he is.
V: Dump the other three-quarters of Quartissimo and give me the shorter one now! I love the way the backdrop is flipping through pages of music as if seeking inspiration, or perhaps the source of the plagiarism. The bits in Slovene sound terrible.

29 Hungary
B: Never has a song been truer to its lyrics than here with admissions like “It’s an overload in a disco fantasy”. It’s so utterly and unashamedly camp. The line “In the middle of the night we dance till we get sore” would make a great (if obvious) blankety blank if you replaced ‘dance’ with ‘_____’.
A: I suppose if you’re queer and you’re going to pinch an intro from anyone, it might as well be Madonna; there are worse things to be accused of copying than Vogue. Mind you, there are more things that this song could be accused of plagiarising than just Vogue, too. But it’s discotastic and I love it, especially coming from a country I thought would never give us anything of the sort.
V: This suffers from the worst sound mix of the contest, but then very little about the performance works anyway, including Zoli’s Barbara Dex-winning outfit. In its own way, it’s as appalling a three minutes as Bulgaria. As much as I love the song, I can’t wait for it to end.

30 Azerbaijan
B: These lyrics are cleverer than they initially appear or indeed need to be. I especially like the lines “Suddenly you stand beside me / And I see a million burning stars”.
A: For an Azerbaijani-Iranian-Greek-Swedish mash-up, only one of these really stands out in the composition. It stood out from the first time I heard it, which is when it also convinced me that it would be in there with a chance in May, despite coming across in parts as dorky as Arash himself does. It’s still obviously missing a key change.
V: The song makes perfect Eurovision sense, sounds huge and earns enormous support in the arena. Arash is a dork, but at least he never gets ideas above his station. Collectively, they could be the generic Asian family out of Eastenders.

31 Greece
B: How do two native speakers of English come up with lyrics this banal?
A: They must have heard the music and decided it wasn’t worth their while overextending themselves. I loved the way the deluded Greek fanboys defended this to their last breath as the most fresh and modern-sounding song in the contest.
V: Titty dance! Alex Panayi was robbed of an on-screen credit here. The performance is genius, but then it had to be, since it was never going to have any other laurels to rest on.

32 Lithuania
B: I can see why the chorus might make some people roll their eyes, but I think the repetition works.
A: Piano! Brilliant arrangement. I suppose my one consolation is that this made it to the final when Switzerland didn’t.
V: Whether or not they got the backdrop they asked for, this performance suffers the moment Sasha abandons the piano, when it all starts to get very affected. And whether or not it’s his mother tongue, the Russian sounds nowhere near as good as the English, or even the Lithuanian for that matter. Bah!

33 Moldova
B: Well, the lyrics fit the feel of the song perfectly, but the English ones make it sound a little bit like a tourist board commercial. Has there ever been an Anglophone song that mentions anything like “foaie verde-a bobului”?
A: I’ve always had a soft spot for this. If anything’s going to make me get up and dance like no one’s watching, it’s this kind of thing: fun, spirited, full of character and with no ulterior motives whatsoever. Plus it’s a great piece of music.
V: 2009’s Qele qele opening and no mistake: once you’ve heard Nelly doing that, she seems a bit wasted on the rest of it. The backing dancers are some of the best-looking men on stage this year and consequently wearing far too many clothes, however appropriate and colourful their costumes might be. It’s not as fun as I expected it to be, but brilliant all the same. Has anyone deciphered what’s scribbled on her hand in the final?

34 Albania
B: “Edhe një çast nëse ti më mungon / Unë mbyll dy sytë të ndjej pranë” sounds so much more exotic than “...when you’re not here / I close my eyes / ...and I feel you’re there”, even though it says basically the same thing. Decent enough lyrics for the kind of song, I suppose.
A: I’ve never thought this remix works as well as the original arrangement. There’s not much wrong with it, and in some ways it’s more in keeping with the surrealism of the rest of it, but even so. Where it definitely improves on the original is in adding an extra chorus after the key change.
V: Distracted as I was by turquoise gimp man, I didn’t realise until afterwards that the two dudes in black were little guys. Kejsi’s vocals are tremendous. I love the way she screams like the girl she is when she qualifies!

35 Ukraine
B: The lines “The charm that I possess / Will put you to the test” were clearly prophetic. I quite like how sassy the whole thing is.
A: Trashy though it may be, the song has a lot to recommend it musically. The last half a minute is flawless.
V: Imagine the disaster zone a duet between Svetlana and Sakis would be, bereft of backing vocalists. (There’s even an element of the titty dance!) This looks amazing when you can actually see it: however strapped for cash they may be, NTU certainly know how to put on a show.

36 Estonia
B: Given how cold and dark the picture is that these lyrics paint, they radiate warmth and colour, to my ears anyway. They also flow beautifully. The translation on Diggiloo* isn’t half bad either ;-)
A: The mind still boggles that Sven Lõhmus produced something this good, although I suppose you have to wonder how much of the string arrangement came from him and how much from the girls playing it. Either way the whole thing works a treat. So much so that I’d say it was vying for the title of best ever Estonian entry.
V: I adore the way Sandra seems to be exuding the dry ice at the start there in the semi, like she’s just been woken from cryogenic sleep. The sound here is awful once again, and the vocals sound a bit thin, but nothing disguises the strength of either. It’s all marvellously ethereal. Celestial, even. The sequined blue dresses are a step too far for me, alas. (Incidentally, Sandra’s “Thank juuuuuuuuuuu!” has been hilariously lampooned ever since.)

*Although some pedantic Estonian who thought they knew better demanded that one of the lines be changed because my poetic interpretation wasn’t close enough to the original. D’oh!

37 The Netherlands
B: I suppose the lyrics are decent enough for this kind of anthem, but half of them produce a frown for one reason or another. The way the last line of the first chorus comes out as “there are too many men that fart” is good for at least one snigger before the fnaar-fnaar value wears off.
A: It might have been just about passable in its original form.
V: This immediately sounds like it’s going to be massive, but then they start singing and it plummets head-first off a cliff. Rightly or wrongly, it’s far too easy to perceive as just a bunch of sad old queens camping it up. The backing vocalists are great.

38 France
B: Wonderful lyrics, as is almost always the case with the French entries. “Je veux bien tout donner, si seul’ment tu y crois” illustrates the fine line the song treads in testing the televoters’ limits of interest and appreciation.
A: Well it’s tremendous, obviously. A bit aloof. Like someone you have a great deal of respect and admiration for without liking them particularly or having much in common with them.
V: As mesmerising as this is, it only shows how much more successful France could have been with Patricia Kaas at the helm if they’d chosen a more accessible song. Charmingly, she looks amazed at the reception she gets.

39 Russia
B: It’s never struck me before how thematically similar this is to the similarly-titled Belarusian entry from 2006, albeit with the protagonist having been wrung out the other end of the relationship.
A: You’ve got to love Russia’s entry in Moscow being penned by a Georgian and an Estonian and performed by a Ukrainian. Composer Konstantin Meladze is a pretty big name on the Russian music scene, moving in the same circles as Alla Pugachova’s other yes-men, so it’s no surprise he came up with something like this: the Russian music and entertainment industry in microcosm, where the melodrama is slapped on even thicker than the make-up.
V: She can’t sing for shit. But the show – and the fact she really does look like Jennifer Ehle playing Lizzie Bennet in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice – is amazing, and certainly makes for a memorable home entry.

40 Germany
B: From the very first line this annoys me. Who says “let us [do anything]” rather than “let’s”?
A: Any credibility this has as a composition is synthesised to within an inch of its life. It only surprised me to see it received the support it did to the extent that it came from countries where, as some had predicted, this kind of Dancing with the Stars fodder remains popular.
V: I suppose if we couldn’t have Zoli camping it up in the final, at least we got Oscar, although he comes a very poor second. (Lamé trousers?!) The stage looks amazing. No wonder Dita von Teese barely moved in that outfit – the fact she could even breathe in a corset that tight is a miracle.

41 United Kingdom
B: I still struggle to see this as anything other than a metaphor for the UK’s bad run at Eurovision and them saying: “Look what we’ve gone and done. Now, chuck points at us!” The lyrics are also rather lazy given who they’ve been penned by, but I’m guessing she spat them out in about half an hour if the clips from Your Country Needs You were anything to go by.
A: Whoever it was composed by, and however professionally, it’s still at least 20 years too late. The orchestration is top-notch, needless to say.
V: And it was all going so well until the key change. Still pretty good though, all things considered. The whole teacher-witnessing-pupil’s-coming-of-age bit is overdone: ALW really didn’t need to be there. I love the way Jade reacts to being nudged by the violinist like she’s been snubbed and wanders off.

42 Spain
B: I quite like the ballsiness to this, evident in lines likes “No importa si quieres o no, porque hoy mando yo”. And I like “Quiero clavarte en mi cruz”, too.
A: I don’t see why Turkey did so much better than this. Neither is especially good in my opinion, although I guess the market this is aimed at is slightly less mainstream. That said, there’s more to admire about this composition once you sift out the lazy and predictable bits.
V: They might have shipped in composers from Greece and Sweden, but wherever they got their choreographer from, I hope they kept the receipt. And I don’t know whether it’s just nerves, but Soraya doesn’t sound like she has much depth to her vocals. The performance comes across as one of the least rehearsed of the lot.

And so to the points...

1 point goes to Moldova

2 points go to France

3 points go to Portugal

4 points go to Israel

5 points go to Bosnia and Herzegovina

6 points go to Lithuania

7 points go to Latvia

8 points go to Iceland

10 points go to Estonia

and finally...

12 points go to...


Switzerland!


The wooden spoon goes to the Netherlands.

2008

More than 10 songs deserve to make the top ten, but it’s a year where more than 10 songs deserve to make the bottom ten as well. And as nice a show as they put on, the Serbs are responsible for the worst direction in the contest since I can’t remember when.

01 Montenegro
B: The line “Stojiš na ivici srca” adds a touch of poetry to these lyrics...
A: ...but it’s “Vrijeme za uzalud gubim” that sums up the song as a whole. The one good thing about it is that it shows Montenegro is capable of making something out of nothing, suggesting that if they ever do come up with a decent entry they should be able to turn it into something magnificent.
V: Good vocals from everyone, but Stefan reminds me of that kid from Weeds whose uncle teaches him the finer points of masturbation. Which makes him being fondled by the ladies in leather even less convincing.

02 Israel
B: I’m not sure whether these lyrics just don’t translate or whether they’re simply badly translated, but either way I get the sense of something very meaningful being said here, whatever it might be. They’re deceptive in any case: as words they lack beauty, but somewhere between the page and Boaz Mauda’s interpretation of them they transform into something heartfelt and romantic.
A: Those first 30 seconds are transfixing. There are layers of subtlety to the arrangement here that I missed completely the first time around.
V: Bit ropey on the timing, but what a strap of a man for such a voice to come from! The male backing vocalists and No Name jumping about work better than you’d expect them to, and I can forgive them the cheesy final tableau because of the strength of the rest of the performance.

03 Estonia
B: Pass.
A: Well, it’s not trying to be anything more than it actually is, if that constitutes a defence. It far outstays what little welcome it enjoyed.
V: Peeter Oja’s croaky voice suits the performance. Otherwise, this is appalling in every repect – apart from that it’s not taking itself in the slightest bit seriously.

04 Moldova
B: I love these lyrics: they have a well-meaning clumsiness about them in places, but then surprise you with lines like “All I need / Is to find... / ...the words I’ve never said / The words I need to touch your world / And your life, to breathe your soul”.
A: The 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound production is fantastic, bringing out every little nuance of the composition. I could listen to it on an endless loop and never get tired of it.
V: I love the smile when she almost falls off the sofa during the first verse. The ad libs are authentic, but seem only to be there to prop up a very exposed performance and some equally exposed staging. The stage itself looks glorious.

05 San Marino
B: Lord of the Rings leftover Nicola Della Valle clearly had his high school creative writing lessons in mind when penning the opening line here: “Mai avrei pensato a te come mia complice” makes you wonder immediately where the rest of it is heading.
A: Every time I listen to this, I find myself urging it on to greater things. They never come. It has all the elements to be the kind of powerhouse pop Muse have made a name for themselves with, but instead it chooses – for no obvious reason – to rein itself in. Having said that, it’s another striking debut.
V: The stage looks great again, so it’s a pity more isn’t made of the lighting. The vocals are more successful as the centrepiece here than they are with Moldova.

06 Belgium
B: It seems about right that something this twee should be a family affair. The imaginary language is irritating.
A: Scratch that – the whole thing’s irritating. The underlying problem is that it doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of what it wants to be.

V: This looks way better than it deserves to. They do their best to make something of it, I’ll give them that, although I don’t understand why everyone’s so breathless by the two minute mark. Soetkin needs to take fewer happy pills when she gets up in the morning.

07 Azerbaijan
B: Behind all the heaven and hell trappings, this is very gay.
A: Talk about unlikely debuts. This isn’t any more competent than the Montenegrin entry, but it diverts your attention from its shortcomings more successfully. The thing that does set it apart from Zauvijek volim te, however, is its ambition. Overreaching though it may have been.
V: Amazingly bad, with direction to match. I quite like Elnur’s hairstyle. I think it’s the tightness of his pants that’s making him go all falsetto.

08 Slovenia
B: If you watched the promo video for this knowing only that the first part of the first line meant “On the floor by myself” you’d have to wonder what was about to unfold. The lyrics are quite ballsy, as reflected in the title, which is a very useful one: To Hell with It covers a multitude of sins, especially if you realise your routine’s not working but you’re contractually obliged to go ahead with it.
A: Slovenia by numbers, albeit at the classier end of the scale. There are plenty of decent hooks in the arrangement (both vocal and musical), but it’s still a glass half-empty.
V: You just know they’ve fucked it up within the first five seconds. This is another example of singing which is perfectly in tune but completely off key.

09 Norway
B: These lyrics work better performed than on paper. I always hear the opening line of the second verse as “Love can go away forever if you bullshit”.
A: It’s still the way the vocals are delivered that makes this for me. Well, that and everything else.
V: It just sounds good, doesn’t it? Better than that, it sounds like quality, especially given the run of songs before it. The simple and attractive performance works a charm, and the vocals are fantastic from everyone involved.

10 Poland
B: Moments of this seem oddly un-nativespeakery until you realise her real name is Tamara Diane Gołębiowska and perhaps English isn’t her first language after all.
A: I must admit I’ve always liked this more than I felt it was perhaps right to. It’s very contrived, after all, and not very interesting. The piano and strings are enough for me though.
V: As odd as she looks and occasionally sounds, Ms Gee does seem to be giving it her all, and she even appears surprised at times that she’s pulling it off. Which, you know, props to her for that.

11 Ireland
B: A lot of what this has to say should be clever in a very self-deprecating kind of way. I can’t shake the feeling though that – despite the opening lines – it’s all one big, very cheap shot at everyone in the contest except Ireland, along the lines of “look what you’ve reduced us to”. And that, coming from a country with its track record in recent years, is beyond rich.

A: It’s a pity the Irish chose to give us something this upbeat as pastiche. That said, I’m no great fan of the composition, which is workmanlike at best. That, presumably, being the point.
V: You can actually hear that whoever’s got his microphone shoved up Dustin’s arse is singing in a box. Awful direction again – you’d be forgiven for failing to realise that the turkey on the trolley is anything other than a prop. The “did we win?” bit at the end raises a smile, but is immediately tarnished by what comes next. (The next thing he said, I mean; not Casanova.)

12 Andorra
B: Nothing spectacular, these lyrics, but at least they’re correct.
A: This is more successful at what it’s trying to do than Sweden if you ask me. Which isn’t saying much, admittedly. It lacks the key change it needs to be pure schlager, but credit where it’s due, they don’t go too far wrong.
V: Gisela makes the word ‘waited’ sound like it rhymes with ‘ferret’. The lower key the live version is performed in sounds terrible, but by the end that’s the least of their worries.

13 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: I don’t know who Tim Clancy is, but he wrote a decent set of English lyrics to this. I still wish they’d used them for the chorus, if for no other reason than “I’m gonna try to wake you up but you’re acting like you already are” seems to fit better than “Pokušaću da te probudim a ti se pravi budna”, particularly with the Bosnian version almost coming across as pro-creationism. Either way, it’s a work of genius.
A: I love the way the acoustic and electric guitars are, for the most part, deliberately separated in the mix. But then I love everything about this – one of the boldest, most unorthodox, complex and complete works of art the contest has seen.
V: Seriously, it’s like the director’s working blind. (Did they ditch him for Saturday night or was he just a quick learner?) The performance is suitably bonkers. I’m glad they made more of its lighting in the final.

14 Armenia
B: The lines “Yes im hay hoghits / Eka berem / Hove sareri / Luyse arevi” and the music that accompany them make for an engrossing opening. Pity it all descends into utter banality.
A: Unlike the Israeli entry, this just falls away completely after an equally arresting opening. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it (apart from it feeling tired after about a minute and a half), and elements of the arrangement and composition are inspired. All things being equal it was unlucky not to have emulated My Number One’s victory, since it’s pretty much the same thing, just in a slightly rejigged format. Perhaps that’s why it sticks in my craw.

V: Although I can see the appeal, this strikes me as being very lazy. Sirusho looks like a two-bit tart and seems to know it. The colours and effects are fantastic, with pyrotechnics that actually do what they should.

15 The Netherlands
B: Clever lyrics in the way lines like “In my dreams I’ll fly so high I can reach the stars / I sit on top of a mountain / And scream when nobody hears me” capture the emotional all-over-the-placeness of this kind of situation.
A: I hadn’t realised Tjeerd van Zanen was one of the composers of this. You wouldn’t know. The pop sensibilities are all there, yes, but as an alloy I’m not sure it’s any more than the sum of its parts. At least they slot together neatly enough.
V: Somebody turn the lights on! Great performance, although as per 2007 I would have dropped the dancing tracksuits.

16 Finland
B: The chorus could be the start of a joke about New Zealanders (“Missä miehet ratsastaa / Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa”). Huh! Hah!
A: This is almost as theatrical as Lordi, and equally camp in its way, even as a piece of music. The addition of the Finnish sees it come across as the apotheosis of the country’s hard-rock trilogy. There’s really nowhere left for them to go now along these lines.
V: They would have qualified on those first four bars alone, wouldn’t they? You can nevertheless tell from the muted welcome they receive in the final that once there, they won’t be going very far. Still, it gives us another chance to ogle semi-naked men, even if it is the peculiarly hairless, alabaster example typical of so many Finnish men.

17 Romania
B: The Italian works very well with the Romanian in a song like this.
A: Three minutes of music that do exactly what’s required of them. Needless to say I like the piano and strings and frown upon the use of the electric guitar.
V: I want to have Vlad Miriţa’s babies, preferably on tap. Nico’s arrival is the green light for the shouting match that ensues. What is she wearing in the semi? The slinky silver number in the final’s an improvement, but she still looks like his mum.

18 Russia
B: Dima Bilan’s alleged decent into debilitating drug addiction lends an amusing new dimension to lines like “I’m falling off the sky”. The whole thing could be a metaphor for being high. Confiscate the narcotics though and you still get a textbook anthem.
A: You can tell this comes from an American R&B stable because it’s so minimalist. I’m pleased to say its minimalism is effective – which is so often not the case with this kind of music. A bit like Romania, it does what it says on the tin, so there’s not much point in complaining about it. Or room to do so.
V: He’s clearly convinced of his own magnificence. He looks like an amputee when the spotlight comes on in the final. The performance is pleasingly understated by Russian standards until the ineffectual ice skating begins, after which it unravels at a rate of knots.

19 Greece
B: “Can you feel it – that I’m not a little girl?” Depends where you put your hands, I suppose. There’s something very teenage-girl-desperate-to-have-her-cherry-popped about this song.
A: Just as authentic as Believe, but not in a way that makes that a good thing. Whatever I said about Sarbel last time you could say about this, too.
V: I’m not sure why, but I just don’t like this at all. Astroturf hasn’t looked that tacky since it covered the lawn in The Brady Bunch.

20 Iceland
B: When you put together the performers, composer, lyricists and backing vocalists here, you get a team representing virtually every Icelandic entry over the last 20 years. So it’s fitting that they’re all in on an anthem called This Is My Life.

A: The lyrics seem to be saying: you want it to be better, but this is pretty much as good as it gets, so like it for what it is. And I do. But in purely musical terms, it still could be better.
V: This makes Sweden redundant on every level. Flawless vocals from our blond(e) duo.

21 Sweden
B: The lazy meaningless of these lyrics is summed up perfectly by the bridge: “Heroes can live on their own / But heroes never die alone” is not only unimaginative, but also repetitive, and while purporting to say something actually says nothing at all.
A: Tinny, very tinny.
V: Do you think anyone realises she’s not that colour naturally? Nothing else about her is normal. Her voice is strong, but not very pretty. How I wish this had never made the final.

22 Turkey
B: I love the lines “Beni büyütün, ağlatmayın / Sevginiz nerde, övündüğünüz” and “Direniyor, faili tutkunun / Kızmıș ve küçülmüș”, although I haven’t got a clue what the second one means.
A: Coming straight after Sweden only highlights further how progressive this is. Brilliant.
V: Perhaps it’s an echo, but the music almost sounds live. The lighting and colours here would make this stand out a mile from everything else even if the song itself didn’t.

23 Ukraine
B: There’s clever stuff going on here. I like the knowing and completely shameless nods in lines like “No one knows who I am / But I don’t give a damn” and “I am a brand new star that you’ve never known”, and the ‘screw you’ quality to “There is one thing I bet / You’re about to regret / I’m no longer your lover” and “Baby, don’t call me baby”.

A: Hero’s shortcomings are ruthlessly exposed when it’s overshadowed like this. Shady Lady mightn’t be quite up there with Deli in terms of artistry, but boy does it knock Ms Perrelli into a cocked hat. It barely puts a foot wrong.
V: I wouldn’t be surprised if Philip Kirkorov’s talents for songwriting (or -pilfering) and staging see him winning the contest in the not too distant future. This has absolutely everything it needs and deserves – except, yet again, good direction.

24 Lithuania
B: I suppose it’s romantic, if you can figure out what he’s going on about.
A: Forgotten number from an ’80s musical. And forgotten for a very good reason.

V: Piercing eyes.

25 Albania
B: I’ll have to remember the lines “Bora e zerit tënd mbi zemrën time ra / Mbuloi strehën e fundit të dashurisë” next time I find myself trapped in a loveless relationship. Ironically, this is the warmest and most beautiful Albanian has sounded in any of the country’s entries.
A: From the shorn, often fragile vocals to the delicate and rich composition, this is an absolute triumph.
V: Olta sings the hostile Serbian audience into submission. Fucking brilliant, and such maturity.

26 Switzerland
B: I really wish I’d never taken a proper listen to these lyrics, because it made me realise how quintessentially Swiss the whole thing is in being both (1) a run-of-the-mill anthem and (2) a soppy ballad tinged with childhood nostalgia.
A: This works a lot better as one song than two songs ought to, testament to the strength of the composition underpinning it all. It knows what to highlight, when to do it and how, and as a result produces the most together-sounding piece of music the Swiss have entered for a very long time.
V: This verges on great for every one of its three minutes, but still somehow manages to fall flat. Paolo is as cute as I hoped he would be.

27 Czech Republic
B: Ms Kerndlová might insist that the guys can kiss goodbye to Madame Palm and her five sisters when she’s around, but I’m sure plenty of them will still be going solo when she’s wearing skirts that short.

A: This has ‘unmitigated disaster’ writ large all over it. The fact that the bridge into the chorus is better (and catchier) than the chorus itself says it all.
V: She means well.

28 Belarus
B: “I’m gonna miss you, maybe” is quite good.
A: There’s a strange murkiness to the music here, and straight after the Czech entry it also commits the cardinal sin of having a bridge which is more interesting and accomplished than the chorus it builds up to. The song starts treading water well before the two minute mark.

V: His fringe quivers! Awful backing vocals, which pick one note and stick to it.

29 Latvia
B: If this was a Junior Eurovision entry, I’d still baulk at how puerile it is.
A: It took four people to compose this?
V: As if the Latvian accents aren’t bad enough, we also have to put up with Robert Meloni[’s].

30 Croatia
B: Romance in the truest sense of the world. Lovely.
A: This creates more atmosphere and exhibits more imagination and finesse in its first 30 seconds than the last three songs did in 9 minutes, and sustains it for the better part of two-and-a-half. Which is to say until it reaches its slapstick finale.
V: What a bemusing performance. It doesn’t work, however hard it tries, but it sounds good. The solitary dancing lady is as ineffectual here as she was for San Marino.

31 Bulgaria
B: The lyrics aren’t really the point, are they.
A: That shifts all of the focus onto the music, which is, partly, a good thing, since it has relentless drive and energy when it’s not changing gears. It’s trying to be something Eurovision never was at the time but also never will be, so as experiments go, it’s largely triumphant but also rather pointless.
V: This should work, too, but doesn’t. I love Metal Mickey thanking Europe at the end.

32 Denmark
B: “If your life is like a sad song maybe / You should try and celebrate it” sounds like a tactful way of saying “get over yourself”.

A: Very much a weeknight song. The Danes seem forever trapped in Monday to Friday where Eurovision is concerned of late – not that you can blame them, given that their only recent weekend outing was drag by name and drag by nature. Besides, they tend to do unobtrusive and cosy quite well, as here.
V: This is a bit affected, but still effective, and it couldn’t come from anywhere other than Denmark. I wouldn’t say no to the stubbly guitarist, who bears a passing resemblance to Bradley Cooper.

33 Georgia
B: “Are you still so blind to ask me why?” is amusing, overweening and tasteless. The claim that “the face of war is never true” is well illustrated by the grey areas surrounding Russia’s incursion into Georgia.
A: Bin the lead vocals and this would be perfectly palatable, droopy chorus included. The backing vocals are great.
V: Yes, all very insistent, and lacking any kind of subtlety. Kudos to them for the unexpected transformation, which is – conversely – pulled off very neatly and without fuss. Diana Gurstkaya (sic) has teeth that make me think she and Isis Gee had a pre-contest bleach-off.

34 Hungary
B: Some nice imagery here, but it’s still fairly faceless as ballads go.
A: There’s just no getting past how bland and old-fashioned this is. The way it’s composed is awkwardly disjointed in places.
V: Boring, but charming, and the stage looks pretty. Csézy appears to be wearing a hairy clam.

35 Malta
B: She’s a Camilleri? It all makes sense now.
A: This isn’t the pile of poo it appears to be upon first inspection, but it doesn’t amount to much.
V: Ruslana’s afterparty. Not the car crash I remember it being.

36 Cyprus
B: “Bam, vre manges, oli sas tin pathate” might be an exaggeration – with the exception of the thumb-spraining, text-mad Greek diaspora in the UK and Bulgaria – but when you actually look at the lyrics, the charm and sassiness that got the song to Eurovision in the first place is revealed, and takes it up in my estimations.
A: One glance at the scoreboard highlights the problem with – or, more generously, for – this song: having worked itself into a niche, it has no way of extending its appeal beyond Greekish circles, however accomplished it may be as a piece of music. But it is a bit annoying.

V: They’re not doing too well on the names in this semi, are they? They have her down as Kadi Evdokia. She’s rather impressive, but I have no idea what planet we’re on. Or what decade it is there.

37 FYR Macedonia
B: The rap bits are slightly too Moldova ’06 for my liking, but the chorus is great. And “the stars above glow like they’re making love” is a gorgeous line.

A: Let Me Love You is much more effective in urban terms than Ninanajna, which makes the fact that it didn’t make it to the final when its predecessor did even more unjust. It goes without saying that the orchestral arrangement gets my thumbs-up, but so do the vocals, which suit it nicely.
V: This certainly gets a gold star in its exercise book for being much improved. It sounds great, and the stage looks fantastic.

38 Portugal
B: It’s all a bit melodramatic, frankly.

A: If any song was going to get the Portuguese back into the final, this was it. The big-and-brashness of it overshadows some of the more moderate and attractive elements, but that’s pretty much the point.
V: Beautiful vocals from one and all. The purple hair is a choice.

39 United Kingdom
B: I wonder whether poor Andy was still ‘struggling to keep his feet on the ground’ when he saw the UK once again languishing at the bottom of the scoreboard.
A: Perfect for headphones, this song – there’s lots happening you might not otherwise pick up. It’s a very effective slice of the era it’s emulating, and I have a lot of affection for it, but you can’t ignore how unsuited it is to the televoting era.

V: Best British performance in a decade, hands down. All five of the guys on stage look like they should be driving buses. The backing vocalists are both brilliant and sexy.

40 Germany
B: Nice rhythm to the lyrics in the verses. They’re quite nice overall, actually.
A: This is not only unsuited to the televoting era, but to any competition in which you only have three minutes to impress. It would likely do better with juries, since it’s more than competent, but only slightly, since it’s still not all that engaging. It’s a well-produced song that works in its own right, just not for Eurovision.

V: I was worried about them sounding odd individually, but it’s their vocals together that don’t work. It’s the blonde’s fault, mostly. They should have disappeared in that puff of smoke at the end for the full effect.

41 France
B: Even with the biography of the song provided, does anyone know what it’s about? It has to be one of the most arcane things ever to hit the Eurovision stage. I like the line “toi et moi, c’est comme tu sais”, which covers all sorts of bases.
A: Rather like Pokušaj, you don’t have to understand this to enjoy it or recognise that there’s something to it. I doubt I’ll ever get it, however many times I listen to it, but at least I’ll enjoy myself in the process of failing to.

V: The sound mix here is appalling, and the direction is even worse. Luckily, the performance is so weird that it doesn’t make much difference. Full marks to the backing vocalists for a very difficult job well done.

42 Spain
B: I love the fact that they claim it took 11 people to write this.
A: This is a decent joke ruined in the telling: it should have been kept short and to the point. There’s little sense in deconstructing it musically.
V: Probably the most successful of the year’s novelty entries. It raises a smile or two. [Watches] Three, to be precise.

43 Serbia
B: This is basically just Lejla with the roles reversed, isn’t it?
A: Oddly, this to me has more in common with Molitva than either of Željko’s other works to this point, and that’s perhaps why it comes off worse in my estimations. It’s a classy offering, but seems less inspired and less inspirational than either Lane moje or Lejla. It makes for a fitting final panel to the triptych though.
V: Can she not see the dead people on the stage in front of her? The moon appears to be a laser disc. Lovely home entry, but they were lucky to make 6th.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to France

2 points go to FYR Macedonia

3 points go to the United Kingdom

4 points go to Moldova

5 points go to Norway

6 points go to Ukraine

7 points go to Israel

8 points go to Albania

10 points go to Bosnia and Herzegovina

and finally...

12 points go to...


Turkey!


The big wooden spoon goes to the Czech Republic, but in such a bumper year an honorary set of three smaller commemorative spoons is also awarded to the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – for their equally atrocious efforts.

2007

Rather a good year. With a bit of distance, the production shines.

01 Bulgaria
B: The image of a “ludo mlado, konche yazdi” is both sexy and pathetic. To be honest, I hadn’t realised this song actually had proper words: it never struck me that it should have.
A: Pretty much the entire first minute of the song is about creating atmosphere and watching it build. It’s funny, listening to it now, how much the drums are in the background in places, when they’re the central element of the performance. Great piece of music, in any case.
V: What a sparkly little chainmail pixie Elitsa is. Off-key for much of the semi-final performance, but it doesn’t really matter even if you do notice it, and she’s very much on song in the final anyway. The bit where they throw away the drum sticks is great, and the stage looks fantastic from the off. I love the little pony-leg-kick motion Elitsa does.

02 Israel
B: I mustn’t have bothered checking out the lyrics to any of these non-English songs at the time – if I had I might have had more time for this number, whose lyrics are clever and complex by turns. They fly in the face of the no-politics-in-Eurovision policy, obviously, but are all the better for it because they actually mean something. There’s great rhythm to some of the English lyrics that really personifies them, like “With demonic, technologic willingness to harm” and “Don’t wanna go kaput kaboom”, but the real highlights are in the Hebrew lyrics: lines like “Hine milkhama, hine hanshama”, “Klum, klum, ze ma shekulam osim” and “Vekulam shotim lekhayim vetov’im ze letzad ze”. At long last an Israeli anthem with a pertinent message, not just some soporific blancmange.
A: Loads of personality, with a composition that is surprisingly deft in places. There can be no argument that the best bit is the ‘nevertheless’ moment. However, because it eats up words at a rate of knots and shifts in style so frequently, it seems to go on for much longer than three minutes.
V: They were right: the direction really is all over the place. But I fail to see how staging or shooting it any differently would have brought a different result: there’s more drag here than in Drama Queen.

03 Cyprus
B: Do you think Poseidon the lyricist deliberately chose French words that would fool me into thinking they were Greek? I maintain they could scan as either. I think it’s lines like “Routine et paresse nous menacent” that confuse me. In any case, the situation they describe resonates.
A: This feels like it should come across a lot more convincingly than it does. The electronic/synth production sounds dated, and the faux-techno middle eight is at least 15 years too late.
V: Scary and unattractive. The schizophrenic kaleidoscope effect is perfect.

04 Belarus
B: These lyrics work well enough when they’re sung, but lines like “You can serve me something really hot” just look daft on the page.
A: Whether or not it intends to, this tells you immediately that it’s trying to be a James Bond theme, or at least mimic the scale of one. It impresses me, but only conditionally, since parts of it still sound sluggish and lazy to my ears. I wonder how many more CIS countries Philip Kirkorov will magic rabbits out of hats for at the eleventh hour.
V: Another unattractive set of vocals here, but the stage show is sufficiently distracting for it not to matter all that much. The stage show is, in fact, one of the best we’ve ever seen.

05 Iceland
B: There are touches of greatness to these lyrics – in the opening line, for example, and in the image of a ‘love let loose and painted black’ – but the overall impression is that Peter Fenner was making it all up as he went along, thinking: “Oh, that sounds good, that’ll do.”
A: This has ‘Made in Iceland’ stamped all over it, which is probably why I love it: so much of their music seems to capture a sense of the physicality of the country itself. And I’ll always respect a song which brings together elements of pop and rock this successfully, especially when backed by such a fantastic orchestral arrangement.
V: I’d forgotten what a boisterous opening run this semi had. The stage looks amazing once again. Great performance from Eiríkur, but someone ought to have reminded the drummer not to get ideas above his station.

06 Georgia
B: Full marks for the sense of surrealist grandeur they do their best to achieve.
A: An entire landscape of music echoes between your ears with this song. I doubt we’ll see another debut as adventurous and impressive as this again. It’s expressive, it’s vibrant and it’s so bold.
V: A laudable effort is made here to capture the ambience of the lyrics and music. I still find the whole thing captivating.

07 Montenegro
B: Is he pining for a battered wife? What does “Poljubiću tvoje crno oko” mean? Does she have a black eye? The blahness of the lyrics makes it easy to believe the song’s from the same lyricist as Ciao amore...
A: ...but it’s hard to believe it’s from the same composer as Zauvijek moja. (Then again, the second and last entry from the unhappily wed Serbia and Montenegro was clearly the exception to the rule for both him and the guy who wrote the lyrics.) Following the Georgian entry, it proves the whole ying-yang thing: a lot more competent than anyone gives it credit for, it nevertheless lacks any sense of inventiveness or ambition.
V: Note-perfect performance from Carol Brady Mr Faddy; his backing vocalists ought to have had the rough edges hewn off them. The green and brown colour scheme is nice.

08 Switzerland
B: If I was DJ Bobo’s forever I’d probably feel it was “Like a nightmare, never ending” as well. The rest of the lyrics drag the points tally well into the minuses, but the unexpected use of ‘hence’ brings them back to an even zero.
A: Does what it says on the tin (i.e. not much).
V: For a song that feels like it was composed with every frame of its mini-feature-film video clip worked out in advance, they fuck up royally on the visuals. The sound mix is surprisingly uneven, too, leaving the weak vocals very exposed. Yay!

09 Moldova
B: I bet these lyrics would make perfect sense if you translated them directly into Romanian.

A: We’re well past the 30-second mark and still nothing’s happened, so it’s nice that countries other than Turkey can give us ridiculously long introductions. They make up for it in the remaining two and a half minutes, although it does lead to that rushed ending, which has always bothered me. The piano (keyboards?) in the second verse is great, and the strings are tremendous throughout. But then they always are.
V: The whole thing is a wardrobe disaster of the highest magnitude. Natalia’s vocals are amazing though, once she gets the better of her nerves, and she provides a strong note – literally – to finish on in the final. Great, bold colour scheme.

10 The Netherlands
B: “Are we making the same mistake?” Yes. “Have we learned from the past?” No.
A: Dutch pop not exactly at its best, but it doesn’t do much wrong either. It just doesn’t have the wow factor it needs to elevate it above the merely adequate, however rich Edsilia’s vocals are.
V: Like Glennis Grace, Edsilia here puts in a flawless vocal performance, but it doesn’t really feel like she’s in the moment. Such a pity.

11 Albania
B: “But the journey’s long, the going’s slow / ... / A million miles later / I crave a love that’s greater / Take me home again” – affecting lyrics that meant so much more when Frederik Ndoci spoke about what he and his country have been through in his lifetime.
A: Beautiful, layered production. There’s something truly heart-rending about both the music and the vocals.
V: Lovely. Mrs Ndoci bears a striking resemblance to 1960s Doctor Who companion and history teacher Barbara Wright. And those backing vocalists – the two right behind Frederik in the close-ups – were my ultimate three-in-a-bed fantasy in Helsinki.

12 Denmark
B: If they were going for lyrics here that couldn’t be sung by anyone other than a drag queen, they got them exactly right.
A: Ditto re: the music. It’s dripping in sequins.
V: Do the robot! The idea was clearly for the backing vocalists and dancers not to upstage DQ, but they look like they’ve been (ahem) dragged on stage while having a couple of drinks after work. Remarkably steady vocals given how wonky they were all week.

13 Croatia
B: I like these lyrics rather a lot. “Ti si k’o na ranu sol” would make a fabulous, cutting putdown in the right situation.

A: This just works for me, and it still seems quintessentially Croatian. It’s better than a handful of entries from the country that have made it to the final, so it’s a shame it was the first one not to get through. Great structure, coming full circle the way it does. The acoustic version on the promo CD is fantastic.
V: There are several amazing things about Carrie Bradshaw clone Ms Gluhak: the length of her legs; the fuffiness of her hair; and the fact that never once live does she manage to sing quite in the right key.

14 Poland
B: I can’t find anything to say about this at all.
A: I’ve never understood the transformation this undergoes in the chorus: the verses actually have a drive and energy about them that suit a song called Time to Party, and then it goes all salad days on us. Mind you, theirs is not a party I’d probably ever receive – and certainly never accept – an invitation to. Not my scene.
V: This is almost as tiresome as Push the Button. The fizzing cage is superfluous, although it and the chains underscore the tone effectively, which is both completely wrong and completely right at the same time. And I don’t mean this unkindly, but Sasha looks remarkably like a chihuahua. Maybe it’s the diamante collar. 

15 Serbia
B: Lovely rhythm to the lyrics. I love the fact that žar means ‘ardour’. You occasionally come across words in these languages and think: that’s perfect.
A: Piano and strings with an acoustic track? Works for me. But I still find the song as a whole a bit overblown and self-important.
V: The vocals are glorious; the performance is bemusing, even sinister. It’s so red it feels like someone should be developing photos. I wonder whether it would have done as well with some leggy babe singing it, or whether Marija’s charmingly geeky pug dog look was part of the appeal.

16 Czech Republic
B: Social conscience from the Czechs on their debut. You’ve got to love it for the diacritics it brings to the contest alone.
A: In hindsight, being drawn straight after Serbia was the death knell of this song. Something so uncompromising and unadulterated was never likely to set the scoreboard alight, but you can just see the middle-aged women sitting there tutting at these burly men shouting and making a racket after the nice lesbian and her lady mayoress friends.
V: They don’t make much allowance for the fact that they’re not on some festival stage, do they? I love the fact that the guy jumping up and down waving the flag at the end is as queer as the rest of the folk in the OGAE crowd.

17 Portugal
B: I suppose if you were caught up in the moment you might think that second verse wasn’t total bollocks. “Dança esta canção porque tem tudo de ti” doesn’t convince me, I’m afraid.
A: To this day I fail to see the appeal that took this to within a hair’s breadth of making the final. It’s sunny and completely unpretentious, but there’s nothing interesting about it whatsoever.
V: They were very clever to fiddle with (and soften) the vocals here. You wouldn’t believe from this performance that Sabrina is as good a singer as she showed herself to be in the press conferences. It’s competent, but very kitsch.

18 FYR Macedonia
B: “Mojot svet se osum noti / Edna duša balkanska” does make a great line, especially given the rhythm of it and the music it’s set to. The verses here have a sense of poetry about them, but the la-la-ness of the chorus is only disguised by the Macedonian, and once we hit the English part the illusion is shattered completely.
A: So many of the elements introduced in the opening bars of the song seem to be working against each other, and yet come together seamlessly. Classy production. I appreciate that it wears its Macedonianness on its sleeve.
V: Legs ahoy! Do the FYRoM delegation like their glances to camera in the opening pan or what. (And their stools.) Why they eschewed the lovely turquoise colour scheme the production team originally offered them I don’t know: what they went with seems unnecessarily and inappropriately dark to me. [Addendum: Are all of the men in Macedonia either boyish like the lad doing the dancing here or crusty like Vlado Janevski? Is there nothing in between?]

19 Norway
B: The only clever thing about these lyrics is the way the lines “Let’s feel the beat, feel the heat, you and me” and “Just move your feet to the beat and dance with me” work so well set to the music with all that happy clapping going on.
A: Paint-by-numbers Nordic trash. Guri sings it like she’s in an elocution lesson.
V: Great lead vocals, and the three apparently now mandatory blonde backing vocalists are as solid as ever. But this has so little energy for such an upbeat song.

20 Malta
B: The metaphors here soon reach saturation point, but they’re pretty clever for the most part. I like the pairing of “You colour me blue, turn my passion to red / It’s feelin’ like I’ve become indigo”. Hard to find any words that even vaguely sound like, rhyme or fit with ‘vertigo’, so they get the thumbs up for that alone.
A: I like the sweeping north African feel of this*, yet another soundtrack song.
V: *Which makes me wonder why they went all oriental with it. It doesn’t smack of the east to me at all. The Maltese would have been right to feel cheated by the director here: he manages to miss large swathes of the choreography. They would also have been right to feel short-changed by Ms Lewis, who holds herself back to such an extent that she mucks up all of the big notes in the chorus. [Googles] Who knew that the beefcake on the violin is actually a famous, er, violinist? Apparently he’s a doctor, too. The things you learn when you do a bit of research.

21 Andorra
B: Catalan looks quite odd at times, when you’re presented with lines like “Podem unir-nos, fer-ho bé”. This has some fairly stark truths for what is essentially a naïve schoolboy essay.

A: Offsetting the potentially eye-rolling message of the lyrics with some West Coast grunge was always going to make it more palatable. The pace is relentless.
V: How bizarre that Andorra of all countries gets the most audible support from the audience in the semi-final! This looks and sounds great, even if the adorable N!ki is flat as a tack most of the time. This is the only also-ran I would dearly love to have seen in the final just because.

22 Hungary
B: The last two lines are the best of the whole song. As an aside, it’s interesting to note that Imre, the given name of the lyricist here, is also a common man’s name in Estonia, pointing to the ancient Finno-Ugric links between the languages. (Having said that, Ines is as popular a woman’s name in Portugal as it is in Estonia, so maybe it’s all hit and miss.)
A: Sublime.
V: Best stage and lighting of the entire contest. Great staging, too. Someone from the Hungarian delegation was clearly listening in the press centre after the semi when I said that Magda needed to sit on the suitcase :) Unexpectedly, She’s a lot shakier in the final.

23 Estonia
B: There’s a certain passion and fire to these lyrics, which suggests they got something right, and I like the inevitability of it all.
A: Good synths. The promise of the opening is never kept though, merely reiterated, rendering 90% of the song disappointing. Add to this the fact that Gerli Padar really doesn’t have an attractive voice and the result is a foregone conclusion.
V: The lighting here isn’t just great – it’s spectacular! Yellow and white make for a very welcome change. The screengrab of Gerli on Diggiloo makes it look like she’s plummeting to her death from the top of a tall building, perhaps having given a rooftop concert, still grasping her microphone, professional to the last. Which is fitting, since this performance is as worthy of the term as Estonia had ever been at Eurovision to this point. In fact everyone in those screengrabs looks like they’re either trying not to – or are in the process of – falling off (or indeed pushing someone else off) a tall building.

24 Belgium
B: Suitably uplifting.
A: Fun, funky, engaging. Lots of positive things, really.
V: Apart from the fact that it’s a retro number in a Eurovision era when no one’s going for it, the undoing of this performance is that the vocals are at their weakest where they matter most.

25 Slovenia
B: I like the line “Ljubim nekaj, česar več ni”.
A: It fulfils its remit, but it’s safe to say I’m not a fan of ethnopopera.

V: Diva overload, which is a bit incongruous given she looks like she just fell out of bed and got entangled in her sewing kit. The stage design is striking, like some icy cavern at the end of a dark underground tunnel. Have we worked out in the intervening years what the glowing hand thing was all about?

26 Turkey
B: The sexual charge of these lyrics is undeniable, albeit pretty much shorted out by the bridge, whose combination of ‘lovey-dovey’ and ‘candy’ jars completely.
A: The musical marriage of Turkish elements and contemporary production here is a marked success. Meandering, to a degree, but it sounds good.
V: For the second year in a row, the Turks employ a troupe of foreign dancers and more than get their money’s worth. Kenan is adorable. But are the fireworks at the start mistimed? Shouldn’t they spurt at the same moment the girls drop the cloth, so that our wee guy seems to appear out of nowhere?

27 Austria
B: This is fairly all-encompassing as anthems go, but it has some identifiably gay elements. (Do straight men ‘strut’?) I like the line “If you don’t understand it, don’t take it for granted”.
A: As with various other Austrian entries through the ages, this has all the potential in the world and no one with the degree of talent or interest needed to realise it. I’m glad it has an edge to it, given it was the Life Ball anthem, but it still doesn’t say a lot musically.
V: Dies the death it was always going to come the middle eight.

28 Latvia
B: “Questa notte sarà l’immensità”? Talk about blowing your own trumpet. “Fra le tante stelle, tu mi fai veder la luna” is lovely in a set of lyrics that is otherwise hard to engage with.
A: Italian, by and large, is not a difficult language to pronounce, so I sympathise with the handful of Italians who’ve had to hear this song: now they know how native speakers of English have felt at Eurovision for so many years. Not that this is the most irritating aspect of the song, which is huge and rousing and calculated to an infinite number of decimal places. It makes my skin crawl.
V: Roberto Meloni is a twat. Zigfrīds Muktupāvels (great name!) looks like a Victorian serial killer. Thankfully, he’s offset by the boyish charms of Andris Ērglis.

29 Bosnia and Herzegovina
B: “Neka ide bol na moju dušu što za tobom umirem”... Tortured in a way that only Bosnia can and indeed does do at Eurovision. It forms a neat counterpart to their 2006 entry; Marija could well be the embodiment of Lejla herself, answering Hari’s call. I mean, that was always her being snatched away from him, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like she actually wanted to marry the other guy.
A: Beautiful. Lush. Powerful. The list goes on.
V: Given that the aquamarine colour scheme is such a triumph, why oh why did they ever switch to [seemingly the default] red? Pink, at the very least, or even better gold would have made more appropriate choices.

30 Spain
B: I still don’t notice the English lyrics among the Spanish, and for some reason I associate that with Basty more than the other three. Perhaps because he seems so utterly blond. “Kaa giii miii jooo lovv!”

A: Rather insistent in the way it makes its point, this, isn’t it. With a few more bells it could be a little-known discotastic No Name number.

V: Well, it’s pretty obvious where their appeal lies. Plucked to perfection.

31 Ireland
B: Lyrics so cringeworthy they’re headache-inducing, in the verses at least. Or rather verse, since there’s only one. The chorus is quite good.
A: Oh for this to be a blatant rip-off of Nocturne, or at the very least an instrumental: the composition and arrangement are fab.
V: The performance, on the other hand, is awful. It’s like the pub landlord and his wife have decided to have an impromptu knees-up. And egg & chips was never going to work as a desktop theme.

32 Finland
B: Clever touches to these lyrics, which are full of resentment and bitterness. I particularly like the transition from “I wanna wake you” through “I wanna break you” to “I gotta hate you”, and I love the almost casual addition of “you’ll get yours” at the end of the chorus.
A: This is way more accomplished than I ever realised.
V: Dark, brooding and really quite amazing.

33 Lithuania
B: Easily the most mature set of lyrics Lithuania has ever given us. “I’m trying not to think that at break of dawn / You’ll be gone and I’ll be lost” is almost as wonderful as “Melting in your arms, I fail to realise / Why the mornings always change the colour of your eyes”.
A: Acoustic heaven. I love the fact that it eschews a chorus until it’s ready to give us one.
V: The stark, static presentation gets the thumbs up from me. The director must have loved them: he only needed about three cameras and five different shots.

34 Greece
B: “She is the heart of attention / Probably should mention – she’s mine” make a great couple of lines.
A: This, then that, then one of these, then this bit again...
V: It’s all very Fabrizio.

35 Sweden
B: The lyrics don’t mean anything, but they’re very good. The whole verse starting with “So if you see me somewhere” is brilliant.
A: Same old retro Swedish pop in a new guise, but refreshing for it. It has roughly the same effect as In My Dreams did for its genre, which is to say it’s a production that’s very authentic and together. The ‘roughly’ bit enters the equation when you realise it’s not as entertaining.

V: Glam! Ola Salo is the consummate showman.

Addendum: Krisse’s interlude is one the funniest couple of minutes in Eurovision, period.

36 France
B: Très clever. I especially like “Des fleurs, des fleurs, des fleurs for you” for some reason.
A: There’s every reason for this to split at the seams, but it doesn’t.
V: File under ‘why we love France at Eurovision’. Les Fatals Picards are more likeable than The Ark from the word go.

37 Russia
B: Clunky and blatant: works a treat. The line the EBU draws when it comes to raunchy and/or offensive lyrics is obviously very blurred.
A: If Never Let You Go was a contemporary classic, this is hyper-modern, right down to the music-video interlude. You’ve got to hand it to the Russians: with very few exceptions, they know how to write (or at least pick) damn good pop songs for the contest.
V: If we can’t have the Andorran school boys in the final, at least we get the sluttiest school girls this side of the Urals. The bridge is perfect.

38 Germany
B: Brilliant! I love the lines “Wie sie gehn und stehn / Wie sie dich ansehn / Und shohn öffnen sich Tasche und Herz”.
A: Bugger the women: I want to have Roger Cicero’s babies.
V: Sounds fantastic, but plastering the wall with his name probably wasn’t the best idea in hindsight, and the camerawork is very sluggish.

39 Ukraine
B: “Ruchki, ruchki ye! / Nu, nu, nu Helsinki! / Ukrajina – ce kl’jovo?” Bonkers.
A: As a piece of music, this is clever in ways you probably wouldn’t expect it to be.

V: The stage looks amazing. Apart from that, words fail me.

40 United Kingdom
B: Carry On Up the Eurosong.
A: Good vocals (and harmonies) save this from being utterly shameful. For all its failings, you can see why it would appeal to a British Eurovision audience, as backhanded a compliment as that may be.
V: Well, ‘camp’ would be an understatement. The visual effects are inspired, which is more than can be said for the props, although the NOTHING TO DECLARE sign is great.

41 Romania
B: Fantastic rhythm to the lyrics, in all languages, but especially in the Russian lines “Gdye-to tam, kto-to tam, tebya lyubit, ne zabud / Skazhi da, lyubimaya, lyubi, lyubi ty menya”.
A: The multi-layered arrangement cements the sense of a piece of music not getting the treatment it deserves. It’s too good to have to exist under the label ‘novelty entry’, and yet that’s precisely what it turns out to be.
V: They’re just as unattractive a prospect as the Latvians, frankly. They sound alright though.

42 Armenia
B: Very bland lyrics for what is, arguably, a very bland ballad, only made more interesting by lines like “Anavart khosqer / Anapak huyser”, which make me wish it had all been in Armenian.
A: Hayko should have realised, as the song’s composer, that it would have been better in someone else’s hands. It’s not that he’s not a good singer – although he’s not that great either – but to me it lends itself to the lightness of touch that female vocalists tend to provide. There’s more strength to it as a piece of music than I recall there being, but as with the Belarusian entry, bits of it feel overlooked.

V: Someone should have told Hayko we had him down for a bleeding heart without the need for a tacky prop. Speaking of which: did the silly animatronic tree ever end up doing anything apart from dispensing toilet tissue? [Watches] Oh, I see it did. Hmm.


And so to the points...

1 point goes to FYR Macedonia

2 points go to Finland

3 points go to Russia

4 points go to Iceland

5 points go to Hungary

6 points go to Lithuania

7 points go to Albania

8 points go to Bosnia and Herzegovina

10 points go to Germany

and finally...

12 points go to...


Georgia!


The wooden spoon goes to Switzerland.