2017

A contest that’s no better than it has to be, on just about every level, and where the televoters reminded the juries that ESC’s meant to be, you know, fun.

⁰¹ Sweden

B: As opening lines go, especially when you’re first up in the first semi and thus the first song of the year, “I can’t go on / Gotta keep it together” would be tempting fate with just about anyone other than Robin the Robot. “Hands down to the floor my love / And I’m doing whatever you want” shows who wears the strap-on in that relationship.

A: There’s no arguing with the production values here – if ever a Swedish entry was underproduced it would almost certainly be knowingly – so you can understand why it had appeal among the juries as well. Borders on the clinical at times though, as these things often do, but that only makes Mr Bengtsson’s carefully dosed contribution more appropriate.

V: Every bit as annoying as it was in Melodifestivalen, with the added bonus of weaker vocals; Robin always seems to me to be about half a minute away from collapsing completely. Perfect opener though. By the time we return to it in the final it feels perfunctory, but serves its purpose nonetheless.

⁰² Georgia

B: One in the eye for the ‘no means no’ camp this, isn’t it, if “Don’t let nobody turn you down” is anything to go by.

A: Credit where it’s due – at least the music matches the lyrics in striving for heartstring-tugging anthemic greatness but plateauing out at godawful. No dusting is needed to see Anri Jokhadze’s fingerprints all over it: from the bombastic arrangement to the heavy-handed backing vocals, it’s him all over. Tako’s vocals should be the most palatable thing about the whole song, but even they seem strangely unattractive.

V: What was the point of the cape? Such an unrelenting dirge.

⁰³ Australia

B: I always struggle to listen to a teenager telling me how much he knows about love without rolling my eyes at the precociousness of it all. We have two of them this year, and I have a lot more time for what Kristian says than the perceived wisdom Isaiah is peddling. You’re 17 and you’ve been burned too many times, have you, Master Firebrace? Get back to me when you’ve stopped playing with matches.

A: Divorced of the plodding performance and Isaiah’s crash-mat vocal acrobatics, it’s easy to understand what the juries heard in this and why SBS went with the same writing team as last year’s Sound of Silence. It’s not quite in the same league but is still an accomplished piece of music, and when the lad’s not forcing it out of shape his voice is great.

V: Isaiah’s whole look here is fascinatingly androgynous, although the outfit’s a bit gestapo chic. A ponderous and dull performance is marred by that spectacularly awful moment in the semi, but he’s more comfortable and controlled and therefore more impressive in the final.

⁰⁴ Albania

B: Whatever else their failings, you can almost always rely on the Albanian entry to deliver English lyrics that really try to capture the message they’re striving to deliver. And to throw up a phrase or two you rarely if ever hear in songs – thumbs up here for “at a loss for words” and the rather marvellous “For the life of me, I refuse to be anything but free”. The title, however, is stunted and ungainly.

A: The sound layering on this is fascinating, like the composers handed it over to a Foley artist and said, here, tweak away to your heart’s content. The second verse is particularly noteworthy for the acoustic drowning it seems to showcase. Lindita’s ice pick-sharp sibilance only adds to the overall effect. An engrossing three minutes.

V: More bewildering costume choices here. The veil/train hybrid looks like she’s just got caught up in a curtain. That might explain the teetering, I suppose. Lindita makes the same mistake as the Jan Jan girls from Armenia by wearing make-up that renders her cross-eyed. Her long note is amazing, but it’s arguably the only really notable thing about this performance. The stage looks wonderfully expansive.

⁰⁵ Belgium

B: There’s something poetic in the imagery of “Love came in between / The space in the city lights” that reflects and captures the song’s atmospheric instrumental roots. The minimalism here certainly works at the level of the lyrics.

A: It works well in the music, too, especially the verses, which have an almost sinister quality to them. There’s more going on beneath the vocals than I initially gave the song credit for – the stripped back post-middle eight chorus being a case in point – but I still think it’s a little too repetitive for its own good, and Blanche’s vocals too close to ‘bored’ for comfort. Still, another quality entry from the Walloons.

V: As if Blanche weren’t exposed enough in the semi, the sound mix then seems deliberately sabotaged to expose her even more. There’s a certain amount of audience love to be gained from looking that awkward – all the more so in the final, where she seems less frazzled anyway – but these are still an uncomfortable three minutes. Her naïve response to the warmth of the crowd (both times) is endearing.

⁰⁶ Montenegro

B: I love the way Slavko’s [self-penned?] Eurovision.tv bio informs us “he speak English”. Makes you suspect the innuendo-laden lyrics would have been beyond him. They’re better than they need to be, frankly.

A: Less bargain basement, more basement gay club in Podgorica, this. As a composition it was never going to win any awards, but like the effort expended on the lyrics, the music too is better than it’s likely to be given credit for. (In the grand history of Eurovision it might get lumped in with the likes of Dance with Me, but I’d argue it’s a cut above.) The few ethnic touches it bothers with are the only subtle thing about it, needless to say.

V: Oh lord, where to start. The fact he can barely sing isn’t even the biggest problem with this when he doesn’t appear to have a clue how to dance either. It’s all just so random and half-arsed. It was never going to achieve the greatness Slavko clearly believes himself to embody, but they don’t even try.

⁰⁷ Finland

B: Gloriously dark and painful.

A: Stunning arrangement, too. You can see why they went for the water motif in the official video. The whole thing mirrors the overwhelming sense of loss at the core of this, and then we get that perfect but oh so heart-breaking piano interlude. Couple all that with those vocals, so warm and yet so fragile, and you’ve got the complete package. After Strazdas, it’s the second song about a bird in Eurovision that just gets everything so utterly right for what it’s trying to say.

V: This never quite manages to capture the intimacy of the studio version, but is still a gazillion times better than just about anything else so far. Perhaps it was too dark and tortured for its own good, but it more than deserved a place in the final.

⁰⁸ Azerbaijan

B: Oh, it’s “Have my skeletons”? I thought she was insisting “I’m a skeletons”, which seemed about right given how unintelligible the rest of it was. It’s easy to lampoon for its thorn jeans, I suppose, but there’s a sense of it trying to say something meaningful amid the what-the-fuckery. “Have my lungs” is a line that’s undoubtedly never been sung before and never will be again. “I never dreamed that this could be happening to me” feels like it was written with the performance already storyboarded.

A: That’s three songs out of eight so far where the keyword at the tone meeting seems to have been ‘oppressive’. It’s not quite as effective here, I think because the rest of the tone seems so hard to pin down, which has the knock-on effect of me never really knowing what to do with the song. In the end I have to add it to the pile of entries I ought to like more than I actually do, however unfair that may be. I mean, it is good. But still.

V: Dihaj’s light, almost floating vocals at the beginning don’t really go with the hard image she’s presenting, but then I suppose the whole performance is one of contrasts and concepts that aren’t the easiest to grasp. There’s a lot going on, quite a bit of it missed in the semi, but the overall effect is more bemusing than entrancing. Amusingly, it looks like she scrawls ‘horny’ on the wall in the final.

⁰⁹ Portugal

B: “Eu sei / Que não se ama sozinho” – Madam Palm and her five daughters beg to differ. But gosh, this is so gorgeously romantic that fishing for anything fnaar-worthy feels dirty, even for me.

A: Deceptively simple and yet so manifestly effective. Call it old-fashioned all you want: it’s simply a beautiful piece of music. Salvador’s vocals complement it perfectly.

V: In what is probably the contest’s greatest coup, they manage to capture the sweeping filmic quality of this by doing almost nothing. The Midsummer Night’s Dream backdrop is inspired. I’m the first to testify to the song’s beauty, but I’ll admit I’m still surprised it won the audience over so completely.

¹⁰ Greece

B: I still go “Gah, it’s ‘self-defeating’!!” every time I hear this. But fair dos, the verses actually have something to say for themselves when you don’t really expect them to. The chorus undoes much of the good work, but then the whole thing feels like an exercise in diminishing returns anyway.

A: Including the music. Someone should have staged an intervention to stop the composer pressing buttons well before the overblown instrumental break.

V: Whoever styled Demy did a textbook job of undermining how stunning she is. That dress does nothing for her, and the just-got-out-of-the-shower hair doesn’t help either. Vocally she’s a lot stronger than I remember her being, although the big note in the chorus sounds terrible every single time in the semi. The hologram thing proves pointless, but then the whole gay-boys-in-a-paddling-pool presentation feels half-baked.

¹¹ Poland

B: Fire-desire-higher. Wire. I don’t understand half of this. Is it just a boring ballad?*

A: There are individual elements to this that capture the attention – the heartbeat effect, the whispered underlying vocals, the soundscape there at the beginning – but the whole thing is less than the sum of its parts. It’s also convinced of its importance in a way I never will be.

V: *Or a boring paean to animal rights? The explosion of generic flying things from Kasia’s arse is one of the most visually arresting moments of the contest and successfully distracts you from the fact she seems determined to torture the hell out of every single line. (Ironically.) I bet her tits felt just as tortured being crammed into that top. She looks tired in the final and like she’s not wearing any eye make-up, even though she is.

¹² Moldova

B: “It’s your girl and maybe should sleep at home / But I’ll steal her alone.” OK. I wonder what he will not anymore do what other guys did before. Anal? (Call me if you need satisfying on that front, Serghei.)

A: If there’s one thing that surprised me in this year’s results it was seeing Sunstroke Project do so well with the juries. Like so many others, I’d written it off to some extent on that front before the contest, pegging it as rudimentary and repetitive. Listening to it again now, stripped bare of its vocals, I realise it’s both those things and yet somehow still really effectively put together. It might be a case of the tail wagging the dog, but at least I came round to it eventually.

V: This just works a fucking treat. It’s the fun and easy but polished bit of fluff the contest so desperately needed and is worth every point it got.

¹³ Iceland

B: What’s this Icelandic obsession with colouring people in with your blue? Must be an idiomatic thing. The paper metaphors are rather more mâché than origami here, but the rest of the lyrics aren’t bad.

A: There’s something distinctly ’80s about this, which is no bad thing of course. Indeed, there’s something distinctly ’80s about Svala, so at least there’s a through-line. This sits somewhere between Belgium and Azerbaijan for me, in that I can see the worth in it but can’t bring myself to like it more however much I try.

V: Grete Paia’s mum sounds great (most of the time) but her trailer trash superhero look and choreography (if that’s what you can call it) combined with the generally uninspired backdrops make this a pretty forgettable performance. It doesn’t help that there’s no big moment to latch onto.

¹⁴ Czech Republic

B: This may lack the Portuguese icing, but in its way it’s every bit as sweet as Amar pelos dois. It wears its heart on its sleeve in lines like “From the very first time I saw you / You were my home” and “From the billion hearts to choose between / I was your choice”, which almost makes it feel like the after to Salvador’s before.

A: Some might say it’s the poor cousin to Salvador, too, but I’d disagree. The chasm that exists between their results is in no way reflective of any difference in their value, at least to me: I love this very nearly as much. I love its understatedness; that it swells with emotion, musically and lyrically, but is content to display it in a quiet way that seems to suit the relationship it’s laying bare. Martina’s voice is the perfect vehicle to convey the message, strong and idiosyncratic, but warm and intimate as well.

V: Gosh, it’s not a good year for costumes, is it. Martina looks like she’s on her way to a Buck Rogers cosplaying event but hasn’t done her hair yet. Then there’s the giant people in nappies on the wall behind her. I love the timbre of her voice, but she never quite connects for some reason. The lighting goes some way to producing the warmth the song needs to showcase it, but not enough.

¹⁵ Cyprus

B: “Attached inseparably / It’s all we’ll ever be / You, me, gravity” is a nice way to round out what is otherwise a well-meaning but mangled analogy.

A: Competent, if unexciting. It has many parts to it but simultaneously manages to feel like it only has about two.

V: A little bit Russian, a little bit Belgian, a little bit Armenian and a little bit clueless, but lovable for it. Dark-eyed Hovig is surprisingly sultry, and surprisingly good, although a little close to the edge at times.

¹⁶ Armenia

B: “She took it all into her space.” How… accommodating.

A: Very much a pass-the-parcel song, in that the excitement of peeling off the layers is ultimately cancelled out by the disappointment that there’s nothing more impressive at the heart of it all and you’ve no idea what you’re supposed to do with it. But it’s fun while the music and tension build, and there’s certainly enough to keep you engaged as it’s doing the rounds. It’s just that the journey is far more interesting than the destination.

V: Corners the ethnic market in the semi. Artsvik makes this performance look very easy when it’s not only vocally demanding but also every bit as carefully plotted and executed as last year’s. The song itself remains something of a handicap, explaining its eventual result, but the performance defies you to take your eyes off it for even a moment, and the stage rarely looks this good.

¹⁷ Slovenia

B: Never was a set of lyrics more fit for purpose for an entry that crashed and burned in the semis.

A: I’m more forgiving of this now than I was at first, but it was ever thus. It’s still a turd; just not as steaming.

V: The square-jawed matinee idol look suits Omar well. He’s obviously enjoying himself more than anyone watching him. The much-vaunted chandelier whatsit makes it look like he’s being beamed back up into the mothership at the end.

¹⁸ Latvia

B: If you discount the repetition, this is actually a pretty good set of lyrics. Which I guess is only surprising because of the way it’s packaged.

A: It’s not a bad bit of music, either, and maintains the direction the Latvian entries have been taking in the last few years, even if it did bring them their more traditional semi-barrel-scraping result. Clearly not the kind of thing that’s going to impress juries though, and you can’t really blame them – as soon as the synth-driven chorus proper kicks in you just know you’ve heard all there is to hear. Bad news when you’ve got another 90 seconds to fill.

V: Hi drummer! This is all very Latvian. (Take that as you will.) Agnes looks like she’d be a spark-and-a-half. It’s both an obvious song to close the semi with and a strangely underwhelming end to proceedings.

¹⁹ Serbia

B: Bit of a cut-and-paste job here, but it can have a point or two for the [probably unintentional] play on words in “Struck by every word that you said”.

A: This has one of the best openings of any song this year for me – the almost atonal xylophone is amazing. Sadly, it soon gives way to that unforgiving chorus. The whole thing is better than its result suggests, but at the same time its result is entirely understandable.

V: Oh dear – someone ordered their prom dress online from China. It takes an age for anyone to turn the lights on, but that’s possibly a good thing, since Tijana seems even more exposed when you can actually see her. Vocally she’s pretty good, but without you ever wanting to think “Yes, I’d love to hear more”. Useless (if pretty) dancer.

²⁰ Austria

B: There’s something charmingly insensitive about telling people that if their life’s shit it’s undoubtedly their own fault for being lazy and genuinely thinking that’s uplifting. It puts me in mind of the Prozac campaign that saves Eddie’s career in Season 3 of Absolutely Fabulous: “I want huge billboards. Depressed? Don't be! Unhappiness is an unnatural state!”
A: Aah, strings! It takes half the song for them to appear, but when they do, everything starts to gel much more effectively. The end result is still largely uninteresting, however. It feels… languid, which is the last label something called Running on Air wants slapping on it.

V: It’s sort of children’s TV crossed with Christian pop, this. Nathan stays just the right side of slappable though, and to be fair to him is pretty good.

⁰⁰ Russia

If nothing else, we can be thankful that ESC in Ukraine spared us this, the most cynical entry in the contest’s history and a strong contender for worst Russian entry ever. Appalling for being so calculated, and for simply being so appalling.

²¹ FYR Macedonia

B: They’re clearly going for fuck-you sass here, and just about getting there.

A: Not a million light years from what Kylie was doing circa 2001. (See what I did there?) That said, it’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t have even made the cut as a bonus track on the Japanese release of the album, let alone a B-side. Poptastic, if inescapably mediocre.

V: Of all the titles to take as your starting point for the performance this year, this was not the one. Jana is just about good enough, but the song needs much more than her alone on stage to overcome its limitations. It sounds great, and the backing vocals are some of the best of the contest, but – as I suspected from the start – Macedonia just doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull it off. Given its potential, it’s a huge disappointment. Despite being prepared for it.

²² Malta

B: A ‘vacancy in your heart’ sounds like the mistranslation of a medical diagnosis. Gerard James Borg is every inch the Judas goat here in “I know the game, I take the blame.”

A: My goodness this is turgid. There’s a whole extra minute of song we’re denied because of the three-minute rule, so let’s be thankful for small mercies. But why anyone – especially a bunch this knee-deep in Eurovision – would compose a four-minute song and then just amputate the last 60 seconds with no thought to the consequences is beyond me.

V: “Claudia’s career is one big rollercoaster of so many beautiful and different emotions.” I wonder where getting a big fat zero from the televoters fits in on that ride. A curvaceous and vocally reliable performance that would be completely unexciting if it weren’t for the moments where she looks like she’s about to motorboat her own breasts and then eat herself.

²³ Romania

B: What’s the use of doing all this work you really don’t want to be doing? Why, it’s so you don’t fall flat on your arse off the confetti cannon on the night itself. This proto-anthem for workaday heroes speaks for itself without saying anything very taxing.

A: I can’t think of anything much to say about this as a piece of music. It’s obviously no masterpiece, but nor is it a debacle. It’s just sort of acceptable in its sheer indifference. It’s the vocals that make it, in any event. Well, the yodelling. And though it should sink or swim on that alone, it too just makes me shrug.

V: Romania and Moldova both had the right idea this year amid the largely bland and/or po-faced competition, so it’s no surprise they both did so well with the audience at home. Nor is it a surprise that this didn’t do quite as well as Hey Mamma, since it’s trying (and has to try) that bit much harder and feels more studiously contrived.

²⁴ The Netherlands

B: Since it feels churlish to criticise a set of lyrics that speaks so candidly about something so painful, I’ll say no more than this: in a year where entries in other languages are in short supply, it’s lovely to see this one showcasing Dunglish in all its oblivious charm.

A: With a name like Rory de Kievit, you’d have to think Shelley’s boyfriend was destined for Eurovision greatness in the Ukrainian capital. ‘Greatness’ being a relative term, obviously, but I think finishing on the lower left-hand side of the scoreboard in the final was about as well as this was ever going to do, being the earmarked jury fodder that it is. Not to sell it short, mind you, since its harmonies are phenomenal. Oddly though, the instrumental sounds like it should be playing in the background of a corporate video; perhaps one showcasing outboard motors. I’m deliberately choosing not to refer to it as the karaoke version since, as beautiful as they are, the harmonies make the song almost impossible to sing along to and ever get right all the way through.

V: Appropriately if unhelpfully dark staging, offset by a bouncy and sparkly performance. Gratifyingly, if predictably, the understated power of the harmonies produces the first goosebump moment of the contest… 24 songs in. It doesn’t quite blow you away the way you hope it might, but it’s consummate stuff, and the fact it means so much to them is actually quite moving.

²⁵ Hungary

B: Something that translates as “At the age of four God talked to me” is an interesting opening gambit in a rap interlude. There’s a lot going on here generally though, and it all seems just as personal as the Dutch entry, like Joci is opening himself up for three minutes and saying: this is me, take it or leave it. As ever, the Hungarian is endlessly fascinating.

A: Armenia seems to be doing ethnic out of a sense of obligation when held up against this, which feels so much more genuine and meaningful, and more intriguing. And yet for all that it’s somehow much more accessible, too, at least musically, with the echoing production and seemingly mournful fiddle conveying so much. Vocally and narratively it’s a mystery, but that, of course, is its beauty. It’s almost as mysterious as why the juries failed to recognise all this when the televoters so obviously did.

V: Gorgeous shimmering backdrop. Really quite an engrossing three minutes.

²⁶ Denmark

B: Ouch @ “Always closing up tight / And never releasing”. Oddly clunky lyrics for a native speaker.

A: As resolutely MOR in its way as most Danish entries of late, but far more successful than any of them in achieving what it sets out to do. The backing vocals sound awkwardly pitched and exposed when Anja’s are taken off the thing.

V: Top-heavy Anja has an impressive pair of lungs on her, but it’s easy to see why this was almost as roundly rejected by the viewers as Malta. It’s all very overwrought. The backing vocals are at their shrill worst when they matter most in the semi; somewhat better in the final. I still like it though. What’s a boy to do? Addendum [final]: She’s dribbled on her tits!

²⁷ Ireland

B: Quite a sweet little love letter. “There ain’t no guarantee that / You and me won’t fail / But I’m dying to try” – it’s the Eurovision equivalent of assuming all relationships are doomed.

A: I suppose there’s something fittingly tentative about the arrangement in the first half of this, and thematically the way it takes a leap in the last minute is right enough, too. Musically it comes across as a non-sequitur, however, and the gospel chorus renders the thing elegiac rather than have the uplifting effect it’s presumably intended to. End result: funeral piece for a troubled teen.

V: He really does look like a girl with a facial hair problem. He’s solid, but not much more than that, and I still struggle to work out what the performance has to do with the song. Neither the oil spill off the coast of the volcanic island nor the giant humbug Brendan’s suspended from seems to speak of, or to, the message at the heart of the thing. In the end, however, I find I don’t really care, which is the song’s biggest problem.

²⁸ San Marino

B: “Him: Hey, are you the one I dream about? / Her: Baby, I am!” ROFL. Round of applause for the ingenuous presentation of the lyrics as the worst kind of script in the world. And another for it having been written by someone called Barnacle.

A: I never thought I’d say this about this song, but it needs a key change well before it gets one. In fact any distraction would do. It does that weird thing of framing its first chorus like the bridging one before the final chorus, too, so extra points off for that.

V: It’s almost disappointing how good this is vocally, because that’s one less thing to laugh at. (Mind you, the backing vocalists are hilarious.) For middle-aged disco, it could be a lot worse.

²⁹ Croatia

B: There are two ways to view these lyrics. You can probably guess which one I subscribe to.

A: Those strangulated strings at the beginning there are reminiscent, appropriately enough, of Nostalgija, and every bit as twee. But as hilariously awful as the whole thing is, it’s better than I initially allowed it to be. Which is as close to praise as it will get from me, since it’s still awful.

V: Any and all of the backing vocalists can be my friend, preferably with benefits. They miss a trick here by not pretending Jacques is twins. They could have revealed the big twist at the key change and everything. Tsk. Technically impressive – more so in the final, crucially – so kudos for that, but otherwise it’s the queerest, most ridiculous thing Eurovision has given us in a very long time. I mean, Big Gay Al.

³⁰ Norway

B: Aleksander Walmann must have taken Nathan Trent’s invective to heart. The ‘nerves in the coffin’ bit always rankles with me, but other bits are good. I like “I need to stop drowning in distractions”.

A: Like City Lights, this gets the, if not reluctant, then cautious nod from me for its contemporary credentials, tempered by a wish that they’d provided a bit more variety (and a decent hook). Atmospheric though, and Alex’s vocals are pure honey.

V: Live as well as in studio. Still a tad surprised this did as well as it did, but fair dos to them: they don’t put a foot wrong. The lighting and camerawork lend it something approaching a festival feel.

³¹ Switzerland

B: An unexpectedly mature set of lyrics, now that I look at them. Two ticks for “But what are we now / If we never tried? What are we now?”, which is gonna get an answer out of him by hook or by crook.

A: When this isn’t being all synth-heavy it almost sounds like incidental music – listen to it without the vocals and you’ll discover that the sound of a waterfall and the twittering of birds play underneath the entire thing. Why, I have no idea. But it’s interesting that it’s there, and it’s good that it’s interesting, because there’s not much else about the composition that is. Better than their last attempt, but nothing to get even remotely excited about.

V: Apparently the drummer “pursues his professional visions with boundless energy and a talent”. Not one for pulling off baby pink against a banana yellow backdrop, sadly. Rather like the Swiss entry in 2015, this is better than but every bit as doomed as you expect it to be. Whatshername the lead singer is actually really good. Hideous colour scheme and outfits though.

³² Belarus

B: “У нашай крыві сонца зайграе” makes it sound like a suicide pact.

A: Upbeat, and the guitars strum with infectious energy. There’s not a lot to it, but with this sort of thing there generally doesn’t need to be. As a vocalist Artem makes a great composer, but Ksenia is a delight.

V: Lovely, and such a welcome addition to the final line-up. Ksenia’s recovery from almost going arse over tit is sweet, as is the kiss.

³³ Bulgaria

B: At least he’s not pretending to be some guru who’s had his heart broken more often than someone three times his age. It’s probably just teenage hormones, all the same, so he gets a pass for not knowing how to process it all.

A: The Australian entry is no slouch, but the Bulgarian entry is everything Don’t Come Easy is trying but not quite managing to be. It’s no surprise that the televoters in particular rewarded the more stripped back and focussed ballads and turned their collective nose up at the rest when the difference in the net effect is so stark. Kristian’s vocals are astoundingly mature for someone so young, and paired with this effortless arrangement produce hands down the most successful contemporary entry of the year.

V: Kind of a reverse-Brendan, with that amazing deep voice coming out of what is very possibly a little girl. Whatever though, the vocals are amazing and the performance incredibly assured. Predictions of Kristian doing a Dima Bilan and coming back to give Bulgaria their first win must be a bet with very short odds. Here they show Germany how to take shades of grey and make them work for rather than against you. I could do without the cartoon electricity though.

³⁴ Lithuania

B: I wouldn’t have a clue what half of these words were if they weren’t written down.

A: There aren’t many songs where my feelings are split right down the middle pretty much along the dividing line between verse and chorus, but this is one. I love these verses in all their unapologetic synthiness; the rest of the composition is one misstep after another. It’s the kind of thing that should by rights be coming last in an Eesti Laul semi-final rather than representing anyone on the Eurovision stage, but that’s Lithuania for you.

V: Arresting aesthetic, and Viktoria can sing, I’ll give her that. It has all the problems it always did, but it’s as good as it was ever going to be. Which is a victory of sorts.

³⁵ Estonia

B: Rubbish even by Sven Lõhmus’ standards. He can’t even quote Where the Streets Have No Name properly.

A: More of that murky sound plaguing so many of this year’s entries, although the acoustic guitar soon steps in to rectify the situation. Purely as an instrumental, the first half of this actually shows some promise; it’s when the ’80s-in-a-bad-way chorus kicks in that all hope is lost. By the time three minutes is up it’s dragging its heels and no mistake. Koit’s falsetto wasn’t the best of ideas in hindsight – but then neither was the entry – and Laura often sounds as thin and reedy as she looks.

V: Good for a laugh, this sort of melodrama. Too much make-up, not enough sleep, and Koit looks like he’s about to eat Laura’s face at one point. For the second year in a row any real feeling is sacrificed at the altar of performance and what is touted as a certain qualifier crashes and burns in the semi.

³⁶ Israel

B: I’ve always found the narrative here a bit hard to follow, probably because the ‘breaking me to pieces’ bit sounds so negative when it is, I assume, meant to indicate that the guy Imri currently has in his life has made said life complete. As opposed to crushing him utterly. “My job is almost done” sets the tone for the performance in the final.

A: “Building on from the success of the… official song of Israel's 2015 Gay Pride Parade that brought them to public attention”, the composers clearly stick to what they know and pander to the same audience. It really does sound like it was written to be mimed to on a float. Given that’s the level it’s working on, it could be worse: some (not all) of the ethnic touches are surprisingly subtle, while the string arrangement is really quite sophisticated in places.

V: It’s always nice when someone you expect to be a bit hopeless knocks it out of the park. Imri sings his heart out in the semi, more than earning his third place with this classic closer. The final’s a different prospect, but then it was always going to be, and with objective achieved there’s less incentive to match the success that got you there. (It’s only in the last stretch that he really runs out of puff, anyway.) The outfits do nothing for anyone on stage when you have that much sculpted manflesh you could be displaying, and I’m still disappointed Imri didn’t have a boyfriend to propose to him on stage at the end of the song – but hey, Jana’s bloke liked it enough to put a ring on it, so I’ll have to make do.

³⁷ Italy

B: On point and 1980-something at the same time, but I guess that’s the intention. There’s something deliciously arch about feeding people the line “La folla grida un mantra” and them responding with an obedient “Alé!” on cue.

A: Even if it is having a sly dig at you, this is still the most infectious thing on offer this year.

V: Blimey, I’d forgotten how much worse this sounds in the lower key. It somehow drains it of so much of its energy. Arguably, so does the performance, which is colourful and upbeat but drifts a little too far into novelty-entry territory for safety. My gut feeling is that it was lucky to make 6^th frankly, which is a damned shame given the winning potential (and worth) of the song.

³⁸ Spain

B: Apologising in the very first line for the triteness of the chorus to come (“A veces cuesta decir todo lo que uno piensa”) won’t stop me ripping shit out of it, you know.

A: Uncomplicated – there genuinely are only about five things happening musically – but with no sophistication to it either. You can have one without the other if you like, but don’t expect it to elevate you above last place on a Eurovision scoreboard.

V: If it didn’t already have 26^th stamped all over it, it did within about 30 seconds of this performance starting. Running with the West Coast stoner thing at least gives it the fun bit with the surfboards. The bum note is hideous and ushers in a non-existent key change.

³⁹ United Kingdom

B: The message isn’t all that sophisticated here, but it’s poignant. I’m taken with the recursiveness of the middle eight: “This madness / We’re running through / There’s magic / It’s inside of you / It’s madness”.

A: This song is so much about the voice that I only gained a true appreciation for the music when I listened to the instrumental version. For starters, it’s been given a far more contemporary production than I ever realised, with elements that aren’t dissimilar to last year’s Australian entry or, indeed, this year’s Bulgarian one. The last stretch of the song also features some decidedly ethnic-sounding instrumentation (is it a zither?) that I’d never noticed before. In a nutshell, there’s a lot more of interest here than there appears to be on first inspection, or even repeat inspection if you’re focussed on Lucie’s vocals the whole time. None of this changes the fact that the ending’s naff, or that the song gives you little to cling onto. Alas.

V: Strong vocals and some stunning visuals are undermined by gurning and overacting when simplicity was, or at least should have been, the objective. I love the hint of Botticelli in the shell and styling, but Lucie’s hair looks like it’s refusing to cooperate and her dress looks cheap. The natural make-up doesn’t really work either. That said, it’s a much more coherent package overall than anything the UK’s given us in many a year.

⁴⁰ Germany

B: “I’m not afraid of making mistakes / Sometimes it’s wrong before it’s right” mightn’t be the most original observation, but I admire the cheeriness of its que-será-será pragmatism. It’s indicative of a set of lyrics that is solid but generally unexciting.

A: Ditto re: the music. Where Germany’s concerned, there’s definitely a rut forming.

V: Bless her, she looks so German. As the camera spirals downwards in that inspired first shot you can already feel the promise ebbing away. I love the graphical nature of the backdrops here, but whoever thought that a completely colourless approach was right for a song like this – however appropriate you might want to argue that is – needs shooting. The whole thing’s so washed out (including Levina’s vocals) that she only has Manel to thank for saving her from total ignominy. And even then only just.

⁴¹ Ukraine

B: Every bit as political as 1944. But who can blame them?

A: Not as limp a piece of musical lettuce as I originally decided it was, although the vocals being as wet as they are is what does for it in the end. Similar sort of stuff has done better in the past, but this was never going to emulate it.

V: Decent enough. No one was going to vote for it, so it’s just sort of there. The giant head works well with the colour scheme and lighting.

⁴² France

B: Smart use of “Embrasse-moi, dis-moi que tu m’aimes” as the hook in the A-chorus here, especially given the almost philosophical musings of the rest of the lyrics. The English bits are redolent of the romance of the French but inevitably sound less impressive.

A: A whiff of the souk, as you might expect, and all the better for it. There’s a wonderful sense of flow and movement to this, with each element of the arrangement dancing to its own rhythm within a carefully devised broader choreography. It all leads to those final bars, which for me constitute both musically and thematically the best ending of any song this year.

V: A thoroughly gorgeous prospect. Alma is stunning and vocally on song. The background does a lot to disguise how empty the stage is of the dancers the performance really ought to stretch to, but it’s better than I expected it to be in any event.

And so to the points...

1 point goes to Norway

2 points go to Italy

3 points go to Armenia

4 points go to Belarus

5 points go to the Netherlands

6 points go to France

7 points go to Hungary

8 points go to Finland

10 points go to Bulgaria

and finally...

12 points go to...

Portugal!!!

Although Spain makes a strong case for it, the wooden spoon is awarded to San Marino.