2018

A year in which two very uneven semis managed to produce one very enjoyable final, with the added bonus of big-hitters missing out and underdogs shining

⁰¹ Azerbaijan

B: There’s not trying hard and then there’s taking the piss. I mean, this makes rhyming ‘fire’ with ‘desire’ seem erudite. “I feel a strong connection with the lyrics of the song,” said a made-up press release Aisel, which is lucky given Sandra Bjurman must have spent all of about 10 minutes on them. It deserved not to qualify for that alone.

A: There’s a pleasing synthy drive to this, especially in the chorus. Overall it’s quite an immersive experience, with a soundscape that goes some way to explaining, if not excusing, the daft lyrics. Unless that’s just coincidence.

V: Safura running! Perfect opener. Aisel is solid but never looks completely comfortable, and all the scuttling about looks daft at times. In the second semi they’d probably have qualified with this, so I almost feel sorry for them. (I don’t feel sorry for them.)

⁰² Iceland

B: With Coming Home in 2011, Þórunn Clausen kept things sweet, touching even, without drifting into the overly sentimental. Here she throws herself over the edge of ‘well-meaning’ and plummets into an abyss of banality that wouldn’t be out of place in a schoolgirl essay that’s given a B- simply because the teacher doesn’t have the heart to penalise such unsophisticated soapboxing. I have no such qualms: it gets an F from me. “It might as well be you who’s suffering tonight” is an unintentional mistake but sums up the effect the song has on me.

A: Normally I’m easy to please with a piano/string combo, but just about everything here feels like it’s being blackmailed into cooperating. It’s not an unaccomplished piece, but it’s just so pedestrian.

V: What is it about Eurovision that encourages people to make such peculiar costume choices? I haven’t seen a skivvy like that since about 1985. It’s endearing how well Ari holds it together before dissolving into a big girl’s blouse right at the end. The precocious way he knocks over the mike stand is hilarious.

⁰³ Albania

B: The official translation goes some way to capturing the romance of the original, but I’m glad they kept it in Albanian. It’s not always the prettiest language on paper, but something about it here (in combination with Eugent’s delivery) makes it sound like the most romantic language in the world. It certainly gets the yearning of the title across, belying how mundane it appears from an English-speaker’s point of view. Wonderful rhyme and rhythm in “Dua të hesht në këtë natë i shtrirë në këtë shtrat / Ku ëndrrat hyjnore shërojnë çdo plagë”.

A: It’s interesting that in its way this isn’t doing much that’s all that different from Iceland – take out the main piano line and replace it with acoustics before layering on the strings and voila – and yet it does it so much better. I initially felt the three-minute version was a bit too busy for its own good, especially with the acrobatic new vocal arrangement, but with the benefit of hindsight it condenses the feel of the original, and of the story at its heart, into a pretty perfect piece of pop-rock. Eugent is one of the best singers, with one of the most characterful voices, that Eurovision’s seen in quite some time.

V: He makes it look so fucking easy. I’m a little bit in love with him.

⁰⁴ Belgium

B: A pleasing attempt to get at the heart of modern malaise, although I’m not sure the message it’s sending is particularly positive.

A: The Bond is strong in this one, so it’s no surprise to learn Sennek’s contributed to the genre previously. She also works for IKEA though, which might explain why this feels a little flat (flat-pack?) at times. Its decent credentials save it from sounding amateur – the chorus, for example, is wonderfully layered when you listen to it stripped of the vocals. But then the chorus was also the song’s weakest point from the word go, never allowing it to peak in quite the way it should. Sennek’s languid, broken-nosed delivery of the verses suits the feel of them better than the more strident approach taken to the chorus, which is nevertheless in keeping with what the song’s saying.

V: For someone who’s allegedly big on fashion, what was she thinking with that dress? And for someone who sells things visually for a living, what was she thinking with that performance? 30 seconds of potentially effective but poorly executed concept bookend some aimless shuffling along the catwalk against a murky backdrop, the absolute worst staging choice for a song that needs intimacy and warmth if it’s going to have any chance of working. On the plus side, her vocals are actually okay. She’s just not the most engaging of performers.

⁰⁵ Czech Republic

B: The lyrical elephant in the room in this year’s contest might not have been on trend, but it didn’t send Twitter into hashtag meltdown either (perhaps because he doesn’t come out of it all that well himself). Misgivings aside, it actually has some clever stuff in it, my favourite being the play-on-words in “I know you ‘bop-whop-a-lu bop’ on his wood bamboo”.

A: One thing listening to the karaoke version of this underscores is how central Mikolas’ vocals are to selling the package as a whole. It’s a slick, minimalist production that works surprisingly well for being so sparing. Perhaps too much so, given its lack of jury support in the final. But then they had the less controversial and more mainstream Swedish entry to circle jerk over, so the relative merits of the Czech entry mightn’t even have come into it.

V: The polar opposite of Belgium, with a strong concept they commit to from start to finish and a performer you want to keep watching for the whole three minutes, rendering the fact that he’s only 90% on song unimportant (in the semi – the whole thing’s even better in the final). One of the best uses of the cameras and the [fairly limiting] stage in the contest.

⁰⁶ Lithuania

B: Sweet, gentle, effective. The English captures the feel of the Lithuanian pretty effortlessly, too, with lines like “I’m not afraid to grow old if I have your hand to hold” mirroring the original “O visa kita yra nesvarbu… / Kol Tavo ranką turiu” (‘Everything else is irrelevant / When I hold your hand’).

A: Unlikely to win any awards for the complexity of its composition perhaps, but therein lies its charm. And sometimes you only need a handful of elements to make something work. In that sense this and Lie to Me are another interesting pairing – musically worlds apart but taking a similar approach, with the vocals telling much of the story.

V: There’s something very believable about Ieva that endears her to you instantly. As with Mikolas Josef, it makes it easier to overlook the fact that vocally the performance isn’t flawless. It feels sincere though, and that’s the key. Even now, seeing it for the hundredth time, I find it rather moving.

⁰⁷ Israel

B: Tons of playful stuff worth mentioning, from the ‘Simon Says’ reference and the Wonder Woman nod to the clever juxtaposition of “You’re stupid just like your smartphone”. The vacuous plaything being given voice is then undercut in a deliciously tongue-in-cheek and ironic way by having nothing intelligent to say. The rest is a bit take-it-or-leave-it for me, but at least it’s take-it-or-leave-it on Netta’s own terms, which is the whole point.

A: Thank god they went with the looper opening from the video, because I honestly can’t stand the first few bars of the studio version – elsewhere in the song the shrill synths are buried in the mix and tend to pass me by, but isolated out in front they just raise my hackles. Not unusually, considering the composer, the chorus both 1) lets the side down somewhat and yet 2) gets away with it for its chutzpah alone. Netta has a surprising range that’s strong and subtle by turn.

V: You can’t help but smile at this. The staging’s a bit all over the place – at least the way the cameras capture it in the semi, where if we’re perfectly honest Netta is never completely where she needs to be note-wise. But again, when you’ve got the personality to sell it and a strong visual to back it up with, it doesn’t matter. And she’s better in the final anyway, where it counts most. Her look is one of the strongest (and most successful) in the competition.

⁰⁸ Belarus

B: There’s something disarmingly pathetic about admitting in your own Eurovision.tv profile that “at the age of 18 [all-caps ALEKSEEV] attempted to take part in the Ukrainian edition of The Voice but did not pass the auditions”. Kind of makes you go: Aww, that explains a lot. The lyrics are less horrible than they might be but gain nothing from being in English.

A: If the whole thing was like that first minute I wouldn’t dislike it as much as I do, but then we get the tinny percussive bits, the deflating-balloon synths and the overly insistent choir and voila, it irritates the shit out of me. And if all that wasn’t enough to weigh the song down, there’s Alekseev’s voice. As vanity projects go, it’s very unattractive: the musical equivalent of a facelift gone wrong.

V: Melodrama! The cheap theatricality of it all is bound to see it featured in Eurovision clip shows for decades to come. (The way the juddering camera delivers the rose to the waiting dancer it’s like Interflora have started hiring out-of-work Daleks as cheap labour.) Alekseev acquits himself well enough to avoid a vocal car crash, sadly.

⁰⁹ Estonia

B: I suppose the Italian lends this the requisite romanticism.

A: The opening bars set the tone effectively: bombastic, cold and empty. It’s doing exactly what it sets out to, but in a peculiarly recognisable “from the frozen North” sort of way. Elina’s operatic vocals add a certain warmth, but in the end do little to counter the coldness of the vast, at times forbidding musical space they inhabit.

V: Quick, someone get the Veet! She really doesn’t sound very good on the low notes, does she. Which was always the issue. I suspect that without the dress this would have struggled to qualify, but even then it’s not that pretty or impressive, so finishing in the top 10 in the final was arguably by sleight of hand rather than on merit.

¹⁰ Bulgaria

B: Slightly clumsy use of metaphor here, but it works well enough. I’m sure there were plenty of people in the fan circle for whom nothing says ‘love’ more than an all-engulfing hole.

A: Song-writing by committee taken to the nth degree. Another intriguing pairing, back-to-back; more effective on the whole than La Forza, but not as immediately accessible and less obvious in its intent. Not that you necessarily have to set out a stall – sometimes the mystery of a thing is its own attraction – but if you do, and even more so if you don’t, you really don’t need five stall-holders. Continues the strong run of entries from the country though.

V: “Equinox were formed specifically for the Eurovision Song Contest and is composed of five members who have never performed together before.” And it shows. A bit; not a lot, but enough to make the performance at least look a little messy. They sound pretty good together, although let’s call a spade a spade: the three Bulgarians, while credited first in their Eurovision.tv profile, have the least input into the thing and are really just glorified backing singers added for some local content. The woman in the wig does have her own bits but is clearly not producing the wailing at the start or at the end, so why they try to make out she is I’ve no idea.

¹¹ FYR Macedonia

B: “You’re standing in the shadows / And wondering why you’re in the dark” is a great line. And pretty much sums up Macedonia at Eurovision these days.

A: The thing that seemed to stump most people about this song upon its release is the very thing I love about it most – the shifting tempo and styles, which to me is a clever and efficient way of reflecting both the ‘lost and found’ theme and the different voices and moments that the narrative presents us with. It doesn’t hurt either that it’s an acoustic showcase which is a joy to listen to in its own right. (Go on – treat yourself to the instrumental version!) People might complain that it’s three songs in one, but so what? It’s three very good songs making one even better one in my book, and the best thing Macedonia’s given us in ages.

V: But then, of course, they have to perform it. Staging’s not been Macedonia’s strong point in recent years and this is no exception, feeling patchy and under-rehearsed. Add in the fact that Marija’s vocals are uncomfortably strained and that the song doesn’t sound very good in the arena for some reason and that’s them sunk. You can almost pinpoint the precise moment the song outstays its welcome and any passing interest is lost by the audience as the second verse drags on to its impotent conclusion :(

¹² Croatia

B: Occasional moments of cliché in an otherwise decent set of lyrics. ‘Roses and horses in the rain’ sounds like someone was asked to describe, in ten words or less, a late-’80s music video by Alannah Myles or Meatloaf or someone.

A: Slinky, sexy and with a dangerous edge that’s in keeping with the lyrics – music and vocals alike.

V: Franka hasn’t got any trace of an accent, but she has got a dress that makes it look like her lady garden needs tending. Something like that shouldn’t be the focus of your attention in a song with so much potential for a memorable performance, but since all we get is [the admittedly vocally impressive] Ms Batelić becoming increasingly Tourette’s in her head movements, what else is there? It’s a pity that arguably the best of Croatia’s three entries since their return was the first to fail, but not a surprise when the presentation’s so lacklustre. Points off as well for the obvious but concealed backing vocalists.

¹³ Austria

B: Taken out of context, these lyrics are kind of creepy. It’s Austria though, so it could well be about someone keeping their daughter in the basement. [*Double-checks to make sure a ‘J. Fritzl’ isn’t credited as one of the lyricists*]

A: It’s not hard to tell that this is from the same stable as the Bulgarian entry, but whereas Bones is deliberately backwards in coming forwards, Nobody But You wears its heart on its sleeve and is therefore far easier to get to grips with. And far more inviting, to be honest. The soul and gospel elements are pitched just right, the whole thing builds very effectively – even the last-minute introduction of the electric guitar fails to annoy me – and Cesár’s voice suits the song down to the ground.

V: I’m still surprised at the widespread and relatively consistent support for this, especially given that performance. It sounds good, definitely, with very assured vocals, but the staging is just so aimless and Cesár looks uncomfortable in the role of leading man, like an understudy called on at the last minute to fill in for the big-name star everyone paid to see. And what is he wearing? Why would you even put him in it in the first place when he’s got such a cracking body? Quibbles aside, I’m not suggesting the song wasn’t worthy of its final score, and it’s easy to overlook the fact that consecutive results of 2nd, 3rd and 4th make Mr Sampson one of the most successful ESC entrants of the 21st century.

¹⁴ Greece

B: Apparently this means something nationalist. Is it about Macedonia? “Αν μιλήσεις στα βουνά μου, θα σ’ ακούσει η μοναξιά μου” makes her sound like a frustrated housewife who wishes her husband still motorboated her the way he used to.

A: I’m guessing ‘atmosphere’ was the keyword at the tone meeting here. It all ends up sounding a bit fantasy series-lite for me, but what do I know? Apart from that I still struggle to hum along to it properly after a gazillion listens. On closer inspection the harmonies are quite complex and not all that attractive. There are vocals and vocal effects running pretty much all the way through it, making it an even trickier proposition to recreate live.

V: In the end it’s the lead vocals that are the problem anyway. The mysterious tin-man hand encapsulates all that is impenetrable about this song and performance, which it would be generous to call half-hearted. Yianna’s proportions look all wrong, too.

¹⁵ Finland

B: Credit where it’s due, this is a decent stab at an anthem. Although why anyone should be inspired by her new-found sense of empowerment is another matter.

A: Overrated from the outset, this is functional but faceless. Saara Aalto has a strange quality to her voice as well that means it only really impresses when she’s giving it both barrels: the rest of the time she sounds like she’s on Stars in Their Eyes saying “Tonight, Matthew, I will be… that woman from Aqua!”

V: “The stage performance of the song has been created by Brian Friedman, the creative genius behind performances by Beyoncé, Cher and Mariah Carey.” OK. They clearly think this is all yass slay queen! when everyone else is just rolling their eyes. The queer gestapo lottery show set and routine smack of too many tasteless ideas being thrown at the wall in the hope that some of them will stick, and while Saara has vocal tricks that would score her points on a TV talent show she’s simply not sympathetic enough as a performer to win the audience over otherwise.

¹⁶ Armenia

B: Transliterated Armenian looks like a language made up for a science-fiction franchise. The swirls and curves of Armenian itself are appropriate to the lyrics here, with lines like “Քամի, քամիԱյդ ո՞ւր ես տարել տաք իմ հուշերը” embodying the emotional turmoil at the heart of the thing. And, amusingly, translating as “Wind, oh wind, where have you taken my warm memories?”

A: This has all the elements of a good song, but for some reason they don’t fit together. Things start well, get even better when the guitar kicks in on the first chorus, then falter and finally stumble towards the finishing line, chucking everything at it as they go. If the song stuck to being the more subdued and considered piece it starts out as it might work better, but things quickly become overblown and both my patience and good will evaporate.

V: Another distractingly odd outfit, but the domino Stonehenge is intriguing. Not that it ever does anything. The whole thing looks rather bare in the end, and while Sevak gives a solid performance and seems like a nice, unassuming sort of guy, it’s not enough to make up for the simplistic staging.

¹⁷ Switzerland

B: Swiss Neutrality™ ordered a theme song and this is what it got, a protest against protest. “We’re the liars in the face of facts / A different weapon but the same attack” is keenly observed nonetheless.

A: Great use of brass in the chorus; measured and effective. Satisfying arrangement altogether, really – bolshy in a way that argues against the stance it’s pushing, but perhaps that’s the point.

V: A confident, comfortable performance deserving of a place in the final, which it probably would have got had it not found itself in the unexpectedly competitive first semi. I’m not sure where the “hands up who’s been hurt” bit fits in, but it doesn’t necessarily detract from the rest of it.

¹⁸ Ireland

B: Ryan promised “an honest piece” with this song, and its narrator is certainly credulous, albeit in a way that’s easy to identify with. “There’s a smile on your face that I haven’t seen / Since we started going out” and “We said until death do us part and then you chose to break my heart” are aww-inspiringly naïve and sincere. (I did wonder at first whether the mention of ‘troubles’ plural made this some kind of analogy for Northern Ireland, but I’m assuming not.)

A: This may have been a collaborative song-writing effort, but whoever else might have had a hand in it, it certainly managed to retain its quintessential Irishness – which is precisely what I railed against when it was unveiled, since it felt like the least imaginative exercise in treading water RTE could have chosen. It’s won me over since then; it is unimaginative, but at least it’s polished, and Ryan’s voice is very easy to listen to.

V: Strongest Irish entry overall in many a year. Ryan is affable and assured, the backing vocals are very good and the interpretive dance adds an extra layer that works really well. Considering it could have come across as disjointed and/or overly busy, this is a minor triumph. The lass at the piano looks like she’s been sitting there accompanying Irish Eurovision entries in a timeless bubble since 1971.

¹⁹ Cyprus

B: I can just about accept that five people composed this, but not that it took all five of them to come up with those lyrics. Still, there’s no pretension to them – “What u see is what u get” – and they give us probably the only namecheck the humble pelican will ever receive in a Eurovision song, so they’re not entirely useless.

A: Basically a Clayton’s Turkish entry taken out of time from about 10 years ago but given a more modern production. (‘Echo’ is definitely the effect du jour in the Swedish school of song-writing these last few years.) (That and chipmunk vocals.) Neutering your chorus is always risky, but it pays off here because the bit that comes after it is what the rest of the song exists to serve. Yeah yeah, neat hook.

V: Sweden, Greece and Albania combine to give Cyprus their best ever result, and it’s worth every point: the most absorbing performance of the lot. Eleni isn’t the best singer in the world, but her vocals are far more than merely adequate here, and her hair is the best prop in the entire contest.

²⁰ Norway

B: As has been rightly pointed out elsewhere, That’s How You Write a Song doesn’t actually tell you how to write a song. (Not that it would be improved if it did.) The scat/boogie-woogie interlude is barrel-scraping well before it’s reached the bottom. “Enjoy the small things / With time they will get big” suggests the Viagra’s taking a while to kick in.

A: It’s unfortunate that a song with that title makes do with a handful of borderline irritating elements and just repeats them ad infinitum. Actually, it’s only unfortunate if you have to listen to it more than once, since it’s very much a one-trick pony. First time round it does enough to fool most people; the magic is lost as soon as you try it a second time.

V: Where this should feel charming it just feels complacent. It doesn’t help that Alexander seems so distracted, constantly looking off to the side, presumably to see whether the on-screen graphics are working. It won the semi, so it must have done the trick regardless, but by the time we get to the final it’s a loooong three minutes.

²¹ Romania

B: There’s some nice stuff here – I particularly like the opening – but it soon goes from being intriguing to head-scratching in terms of who’s to blame in this crumbling relationship.

A: Ooh, those strings! They get me every time. I like the whole thing, to be honest, but its structure nobbles any chance of it making an impact in a contest such as this. It’s also hampered by lacking a chorus and being a four-minute song they pull the plug on at three – thematically it just about fits, but it’s far too abrupt for its own good. So I’m all like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ because I like it, but, well.

V: CSI: Bucharest investigate the brutal murder of choreography in a creepy doll factory. Cristina’s vocals are fantastic when she rocks out, but in all other respects this is every shade of wrong.

²² Serbia

B: “Свет је наш и нова деца с нама стварају бољи свет.” So what happened to their old children?

A: Lyrically tight-fisted and musically reductionist, this comes across as someone’s idea of what Serbian Eurovision entries sound like rather than what an entry should be like in its own right. Everything about it feels like it’s ticking a box. I was comparatively forgiving of it when it was selected, but it hasn’t aged well, and that was only four months ago.

V: The performance only compounds the sense that they’re ticking things off the list. They should count themselves lucky they weren’t in Semi 1, where the song would (rightfully) have died a death. The hair ropes are nice though, and hyper granddad’s a laugh.

²³ San Marino

B: If this satisfied itself with being a humdrum anthem it’d be fine, if unremarkable. But then it treats us to that rap. Better? Yeah, hell no.

A: Whether or not it copies Heroes, the chorus is the best bit by a long chalk. Well, not that long a chalk. The length of the chalk is relative.

V: Squeaky Jessica is overstretched here, but I don’t think anyone cares because there’s a robot with a funny sign that’s the best joke of the entire contest (script included) and he drops it and he looks sad and aww!

²⁴ Denmark

B: A history lesson and morality tale in one: very economical. The line “Yet victory won’t prevail” is annoying for its clunkiness and misplaced emphasis, like the Viking peacenik in question wasn’t one Magnus Erlendsson but someone called Vic Tory.

A: Before the S.A.G.A.P.O. kicks in and this is just pretending to be blockbuster soundtrack stuff it’s not too bad. After that the cheese factor goes through the roof. Sweden roundly rejecting it and Denmark lapping it up both make complete sense.

V: It’s Vikings of the Caribbean! Cue end titles. Looks and sounds lethargic. Was it in a slightly lower key than the studio version? Rasmussen’s eyes are magnetic, but as I said all along, his voice really doesn’t have much power to it.

²⁵ Russia

B: Taken at face value, these lyrics aren’t bad. (Well, apart from “I won’t give in to the motions”, which on top of everything else makes it sound like she’s got dysentery.) There’s a quiet sort of resolve to them that’s far more understated than anything else about the entry.

A: Shouty, monotonous chorus. The whole thing’s dull, actually.

V: Speaking of lower keys… It was never going to be enough to make this anything other than manageable, and while Julia can go away with her head at least upright, if not exactly held high, it’s an uncomfortable three minutes of Eurovision. The absolute cynicism of recruiting her in the first place is exposed by the performance, which is designed to prop up, distract and conceal simultaneously.

²⁶ Moldova

B: Oh, it’s “stopping traffic” – I thought it was “stuck in traffic”. Pretty perfunctory set of lyrics, but they serve their purpose. The whole ‘number two’ interlude implies they had one too many lagers with their curry the night before.

A: I can only repeat what I said when noting my initial impressions: it screams Philip Kirkorov, even without the Work Your Magic-meets-Shady Lady national final performance. It’s like a committee, or perhaps a computer, tried to distil everything that Moldova’s enjoyed success with at Eurovision and all it ended up producing was this pale and irritating imitation.

V: For the second year in a row the Moldovans come up with one of the slickest performances of the contest, although this is streaks ahead technically of what Sunstroke Project gave us. The fact DoReDos execute it flawlessly while delivering such solid vocals is astonishing. The stage prop looks like a cheap Chinese knock-off and the 1960s farce isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste, but hey, it’s progressive of a country like Moldova to be propagating polyamory.

²⁷ The Netherlands

B: “Everybody’s got a little outlaw in ’em” sounds like the tagline P. T. Barnum would have used to promote a conjoined-twin hoax if he’d rolled up in the Wild West in the 1840s. Not dissimilarly, these lyrics have a bit of a shopping list feel to them, determined to fit in as many country music staples (or clichés, as you prefer) as it takes to pass itself off as authentic. I like “Diamondback rattle with a quick-strike venom”, but yeah, it is indeed a fine, fine line.

A: Love the harmonies; not quite as much as last year’s perhaps, but even so. Can’t really think of anything else to say about it. By and large it speaks for itself.

V: Oh Waylon. I love your voice, but the krumping, the costumes… I never want to watch this performance again.

²⁸ Australia

B: There’s so much to choose from to apply to the entry in retrospect that it’s an embarrassment of riches. Take your pick of responses to “I know what you must be thinking”.

A: When you listen to the instrumental version, that opening stretch sounds like you’re hearing it under water. The percussion cuts through it like a lightning bolt and adds the spark that then drives the rest of the song, which never makes more sense than in its final 30 seconds. The rest of it feels like it’s reining itself until the release that comes in the bridge – which works in terms of the song leading up to you accepting yourself for who you are and celebrating that fact, but less so when it’s designed to be a positive, uplifting anthem and takes that long to get to the point.

V: Since the song was meant to serve as a reminder that “inclusivity can overcome all obstacles or hardships”, it’s odd to give it a staging that excludes anyone but Jessica herself. But then it’s a bit of a Schrödinger’s performance anyway – you’re never quite sure whether it’s absolutely right or utterly wrong. On the one hand I’m all for her just getting up there and doing her thing, even if that means she looks like she’s stumbled out of G-A-Y at four in the morning, but on the other it’s a song that’s crying out for a crowning backing vocalist moment a la Bulgaria 2016. It’s a riddle – or it was, until the televoters answered it by turning their noses up at the song as presented.

²⁹ Georgia

B: Who knew that in the midst of this gentle ballad there was a nostalgic one-line paean to communism in “შენი მხოლოდ ის არის, რასაც სხვისთვის თმობ” or, as rendered in English, “You own only what you share”.

A: ‘Ethno-fusion’ clearly promises more than it delivers if this is anything to go by. ‘Jazz fusion’ perhaps, but I fail to see what’s particularly ethnic about it, apart from the language. I don’t mind it on the whole, although it’s another one whose melody is hard to get a handle on, and there’s a sense of it taking itself way too seriously.

V: Lord, it does go on. Faultless vocals weren’t going to save it from last place when it had so much else working against it. There are moments where the cute one looks like he’s never seen a television camera before.

³⁰ Poland

B: Those opening lines are surely about Lukas Meijer’s inability to sing. The lyrics as a whole should be heard and not seen.

A: Is this any great shakes? Probably not, but it works for me. I love the way the house-driven bridge (or A-chorus, or whatever it is) goes all acoustic for a bit the second time round. The whole thing is the kind of uplifting I was hoping We Got Love would be but isn’t.

V: Every single high note is painful, but the backing vocals are good. It gets a much-needed injection of energy at the two-minute mark, but given the sort of song it is it shouldn’t need one in the first place. I’m pretty sure Gromee played a creepy faux-Amish cult leader in an early episode of The X Files. If he didn’t, he should have.

³¹ Malta

B: Plaudits for the attempt at awareness-raising, but gah, it’s all just so Maltese.

A: Strings are used to good dramatic effect here in a composition that’s more thoughtful than it might appear. The thumping chorus and dubstep break are pretty lame though, and since they form your lasting impression of the song, that’s not very helpful.

V: So much effort to visually compensate for the song’s shortcomings and all for naught, probably because it muddies an already largely incomprehensible message. Christabelle puts in a good turn and looks like she’s having fun, so I hope not qualifying wasn’t entirely soul-destroying.

³² Hungary

B: “The music of AWS is a tool for expressing a wide range of emotions ranging from extreme anger to exalted joy,” legend has it, but that range is clearly quite limited here. There’s anger, definitely, but rather than taking us all the way to the other end of the scale it gets no further than some added bitterness and sarcasm. Which is fine; relationships often leave people angry and resentful. “Játsszunk nyílt lapokkal végre / A hajómnak mennie kell / És itt fog hagyni téged” is a scathing opening put-down, for starters.

A: And fair dos to them, the words generally are a lot more nuanced than their delivery might suggest. And I don’t just mean the screaming – which is obviously niche, possibly also a fetish, and definitely not everyone’s thing – but the music, which to me is surprisingly basic and unchanging throughout. It explains the otherwise incongruous key change though: in all but the bridge, this is basically schlager in disguise.

V: Quite a pair of lungs he’s got, and he can run and scream at the same time, so they get a bonus point for that. The backing vocals at the end sound like a teenage boy going “Oh but mum!” on a loop.

³³ Latvia

B: Wonderfully crushing lyrics, these. Realisation, resignation and desperation are all on display, with “You walk in smelling like her perfume / What was I thinking?” and “I’m just the funny girl to you” morphing into “I’ll be your funny girl” in what is an all-too-recognisable depiction of a very unhealthy relationship.

A: The American influences are easy to spot here – the chorus in particular has a film noir/gumshoe feel to it that casts Laura as a sort of reverse Tess Trueheart to a philandering Dick Tracy. It’s a nuanced piece of music, but it shoots itself in the foot by tempering its ambition: it ought to add something else to the mix in its last minute to give it a punchier finish, but just sticks to its guns. Which are otherwise rather impressive, but by that point out of ammo.

V: Shades of Aminata, but not nearly as engrossing. Laura nails it for the first half of the song, but at some point, for some reason, goes marginally off-piste and never recovers. Only enough to be noticeable rather than knotty, but probably contributing to the song’s result.

³⁴ Sweden

B: Clever wordplay in “We were gold / I dug you like you were treasure”, but it looks better on paper than it ultimately sounds. The rest of it works well enough. Positively Swedish in terms of how many consecutive one-syllable words it uses throughout.

A: Very Kiss Me Once-Kylie. Overlooking the bugger-it-that’s-good-enough cut-and-paste job that hacks the opening to pieces and leaves you feeling you’ve missed half of it (which you have), the song is as well-produced as any recent Swedish entry. Covers the contemporary bases, too. This accounts for its adoration by the juries.

V: The fact that it’s fairly generic and that the routine is even more bereft of spontaneity than usual perhaps accounts for it being shunned by the televoters. That and Benjamin looking so self-satisfied when you can barely hear him for half the song. Mind you, I’d be satisfied with myself if I looked that good in slacks.

³⁵ Montenegro

B: The best thing about this entry is that it’s in Montenegrin, since it means lines like “Me and life – like dog and cat / The heart the most treasured pet” (© Official Translation) sound nowhere near as daft as they would in English. The frost metaphor is nice but short-lived, swamped by more heavy-handed stuff.

A:k.a. playing your country’s only qualifying entries at their own game and coming off second-best (well, third-best I suppose) by dint of the fact that you pale in comparison. And it’s not even like Moj svijet or Adio were that ground-breaking. This isn’t especially feeble; it’s rather nice to begin with, but it soon layers on the musical pathos and I stop caring how good it might once have been. The arrangement and backing vocals get far too insistent for my liking towards the end.

V: Poor jug-eared Vanja looks and feels shoehorned into a genre he’d not normally frequent. The true ugliness of his outfit is only revealed when the lights turn orange towards the end and we get lots of close-ups of the backing vocalists – who all seem to be in competition with one another to see who can overact the most – wandering up and touching him as if to express their condolences.

³⁶ Slovenia

B: I suppose you could argue that claiming “Svoje duše ne dam nikomur, držim jo za se / Prava umetnost, brez-brez cene” while fishing for points in a light-entertainment show no one’s ever considered a bastion of real music is disingenuous, if not delusional.

A: That said, zero concessions are being made here. Even the bass refuses to toe the line for most of the song, opting for its own discordant series of notes. That’s trap for you, I suppose. I’m more fascinated by it than I am enamoured of it, but that’s half a victory.

V: Great look, great vocals, great routine. The shit-the-music’s-stopped bit is inspired and works perfectly in the semi; not so much in the final.

³⁷ Ukraine

B: Three minutes of ignoring the symptoms of gonorrhoea.

A: The lyrics claim they can’t get any better, but Melovin’s diction certainly could. His largely impenetrable vocals become a wall of noise in what is already the musical equivalent of ADD. Much like Slovenia, I want to like this more than I do every time I hear it, but I never manage to. Or rather it never manages to convince me why I should.

V: Timothée Chalamet cosplays Marilyn Manson.

³⁸ Spain

B: Nice enough, I guess.

A: Dump the vocals here and that first chorus sounds like it could have been lifted straight from the soundtrack to Beautiful Thing (the original score, obviously; not the Mamas and the Papas’ back catalogue). The whole arrangement’s lovely… in isolation. Alfred’s awkward gurning can be heard in every line he sings and rather takes the shine off the thing for me. Amaia, on the other hand, has the perfect voice for such a ballad. The little oh-oh-oh bridge is the best bit of the whole song.

V: “Amaia and Alfred have a special gift: an innate talent that mesmerises their audience.” I’ll be the judge of that. Although I do like his suit. “Tu Canción is the perfect embodiment of Amaia and Alfred’s real and enchanting love story.” About which, by and large, the audience gave zero fucks. But the stage looks pretty, and the fluid camerawork is effective.

³⁹ Portugal

B: If I wanted to be crass I’d say “I’ll take care of your garden” sounds like a card a budding young gardener put in their newsagents’ window only to be flooded with enquiries from local chavs about what they charge for Brazilians. But I don’t want to be crass, because there’s something almost… confessional about this, like we’re privy to the final words whispered by the protagonist on the death bed of the person who’s fading away before them. The flow and the repetition and the promise that’s being made are almost stream-of-consciousness stuff.

A: Far and away the most modern entry Portugal’s given us in decades. I get why some people – alright, the vast majority of people if its result is anything to go by – find it uninvolving, but its understatedness and the fact it’s so contained are why I love it so much. I also understand why some people (…) take issue with Cláudia’s vocals, but to me they couldn’t feel more right. The whole thing’s asking to be misunderstood, but/therefore it will always have my admiration for doing its own thing.

V: Just beautiful.

⁴⁰ United Kingdom

B: Striving for ‘uplifting anthem’ but falling at the first (and indeed every subsequent) hackneyed hurdle. The whole mother-father-sister-brother thing makes me want to slap the songwriters, and “Am I making you proud or could I do better?” is a question you never want to ask about the UK at Eurovision.

A: Yet another entry where the bridge is the best part. Mind you, it’s the only punchy bit of the entire song, and it’s not as though it has to try very hard here to outshine the verses or choruses.

V: Kudos to SuRie for carrying on after the stage invasion. In a perverse way, although she’s clearly shaken at the end of the performance, it sees her up her game and really throw herself into the final minute of the song, giving it the sort of energy the whole thing needed. Up to that point it’s pleasant but plodding. In any case it was never likely to escape the lower confines of the scoreboard, so at least she scores points for being a trooper.

⁴¹ Germany

B: While everyone else was arguing about whether this was mawkish I was busy trying to work out whether his father was in fact dead or had simply abandoned the family while Michael was a kid. Insensitive perhaps, but the lyrics confuse things by bringing mum into the story and labelling the whole thing with that unintentionally mangled title. It doesn’t matter either way, of course, and I’m with those who find it poignant rather than schmaltzy. “Every now and then I’m drawn to places / Where I hear your voice or see your face and / Every little thought will lead me right back to you” makes for a relatable and very effective lead-in to the chorus.

A: This is all tremulous piano and tugging-at-the-heart strings for the better part of two-and-a-half minutes and works an absolute treat. But it knows when it needs to shift up a gear and obligingly does so. It’s deceptive how simple it all seems.

V: Maybe I’m just mellowing as I get older, but I find this genuinely affecting. It clearly means a lot to Michael; you can see it his eyes, and in the way he holds himself. Those watching can obviously see it as well, with both the juries and televoters responding to it. And quite right too.

⁴² France

B: Not an unqualified success, but attractive, and the line “rien à perdre… excepté la vie” effortlessly cuts through the apathetic terms in which the subject is discussed by those unaffected by it, underscoring why its message is pertinent.

A: As a purely instrumental piece, this is probably my favourite of the year. It’s just such a classy and effective composition. Madame’s vocals don’t undermine that, but rather transform it into an altogether different prospect, equally wonderful in its own right. In fact I’ve not really appreciated till now, listening to it again with my reviewer’s hat on, how well the chorus works as a vocal and lyrical combination in terms of its stop-start flow, like the boat on which Mercy was born being buffeted about on the Mediterranean.

V: The chant-like ending is more of an acquired taste, admittedly, and it’s where the performance finally comes unstuck. Up to that point it’s been professional, if distant, with no lifebuoy thrown to the audience if they’re struggling to work out what it’s about, and suddenly it’s an interactive piece that looks like it should be protesting something but echoes to a chorus of what sounds like “Thank you, thank you”. It wouldn’t have hurt to take their cue from Germany, or even Malta, and illustrate their point. It still works well enough on the whole, but its full potential goes untapped.

⁴³ Italy

B: Garrulous in that typical Italian way, with the words tripping over themselves at times as they tumble out. Still, a lyrical onslaught is fitting in a song fixated on war. Well, not fixated as such – it raises some fair and valid points (“Non esiste bomba pacifista” being one) – but it does drive the message home without a great deal of subtlety, or much let-up. Again though, that works given the subject matter. I do like the coupling in “Madri senza figli… figli senza padri” and “Braccia senza mani / Facce senza nomi”.

A: Is Italian bluegrass a thing? I’d been scratching my head about how to categorise the music here (Wikipedia very helpfully genre-labels it ‘pop’) when I realised that bluegrass was as close as I could get. The banjo lends it that sort of feel in what is, in hindsight, a very engaging and neatly crafted composition I have a much greater appreciation for now than I did going into the contest.

V: The vocals, as they ratchet up, I still have less of an appreciation for, but they clearly didn’t deter the audience at home. This is a classy, thoughtful performance which takes everything France was trying to do, puts it quite literally into words and gets it just right.

And so to the points...

1 point goes to Austria

2 points go to Switzerland

3 points go to Ireland

4 points go to France

5 points go to the Czech Republic

6 points go to Lithuania

7 points go to Italy

8 points go to Germany

10 points go to Albania

and finally...

12 points go to...

Portugal!!!

The wooden spoon is awarded, on the end of a juddering camera, to Belarus.