2023

 

Technically (if not musically) one of the most impressive contests of the modern era. One that did the UK|Raine™ proud, too, never ignoring the elephant in the room but focussing on celebration and unity – with its tongue firmly in cheek at times, yet always with a great deal of affection. The final produced a surprisingly strong line-up of performances.

 

⁰¹ Norway

B: Like an underrunning episode of a TV series, the Italian prologue is added here to get it up to broadcast length but doesn’t add a great deal to it. The words chime with the rest of the lyrics, and the rest of the song, but muddy the waters in what is, on the whole, a resolutely Scandinavian take on proceedings. Maybe she’s just honing her language skills for the inevitable Valkyrie conquest of the Mediterranean. “A firestone, forged in flames” is an evocative image in an otherwise humdrum set of lyrics where empowerment is paired with laidadadilaidas and dam da das.

A: But then this is a [North] sea shanty, to all intents and purposes. A surprisingly ethereal one in places, it has to be said, Alessandra’s vocals ranging from growling and insistent to something much more tempered and glistening. They nicely offset the bombast of the composition, which drums you into submission with a relentlessness that’s brutal, if mercifully brief.

V: A curvalicious whip-crack of a performance from Ms Mele, who puts in a good show despite not quite hitting the squealy note either time. It all makes for a thumping opener to the semi. But even within the EBU’s new rules, how does the Italian opening qualify as backing track when it’s the main vocal of the opening bars? True, you don’t necessarily know it’s her providing them, yet if you do, it’s odd to see her just staring down the barrel of the camera while they play around her. Elsewhere, although I know it can’t have been an oversight and I’m not sure I would have wanted more anyway, her dancers might justifiably have felt short-changed from getting so little screen time.

 

⁰² Malta

B: Some clever (and identifiable) stuff in amongst this lot, including “the social tease of anxiety” and “When the tik gets toking I’m gone”. It’s the identical twin separated at birth from its even more awkward Czech sibling Introvert Party Club.

A: Fair dos to them, they stuck to their busking roots in composing this. There’s a recognisable Chromeo vibe to both the music and the vocals which is welcome for being so easy-going; its build is inconspicuous but effective. For my money the composition’s nicely layered as well, and I love the echo of the percussion throughout. As a hook, however, the sax line is undeniably repetitive. The song’s described as “a little bit of soul, a little bit of pop, and a little bit of funk”; some might argue the problem is that it’s a bit too little of anything.

V: Dav. Jr gets a tad lost in the mix at times here, but – and this will come as news to no one – he’s damn cute. This is a colourful, unselfconscious performance from the lads that’s cleverly put together, if perhaps a little too busy in places. With those lyrics they’re basically inviting the audience not to vote for it, so I hope they took their non-qualification in the spirit they intended.

 

⁰³ Serbia

B: Luke lists Eartha Kitt as one of his influences, and there’s definitely something of the camp Catwoman to him and his aesthetic. Not so much his lyrics though, which have a whiff of the black dog about them – and not for the last time this year. If the whispered Serbian admissions (“Noć je, beskonačni sati / Na ramenu djavoli”) don’t make it clear, the likes of “I just wanna close my eyes / And get it over with” leave little room for doubt. That said, it’s hard to blame him or argue against “Razum spava / Dok svet gori”.

A: Another percussive treat. The vocal arrangement being so disconnected from the music in the verses is a clever touch, as are the vocal effects bubbling away beneath the main vocal line. The music itself is dark and shifting in places, looming in others, and feels claustrophobic and inescapable at times. On the whole, it’s probably one of my favourite instrumentals of the year. That this dreamscape is translated into the language of gaming fits perfectly and yet feels a bit reductive at the same time.

V: Techno-opera with a hint of fetish, but ultimately Hatari-lite. For something this visually distinct it’s strange that it doesn’t always hold your interest, but maybe that’s because Luke’s thin vocals are already testing your patience. His eyes tend to roam in search of the cameras too, distractingly, though at least that’s confined to the semi. Kudos to him for conceptualising the whole thing – music, message, show – but there are moments where it feels like he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

 

⁰⁴ Latvia

B: Interesting that both the Balts chose to augment their entries with nods in their mother tongue to elements of their folklore. “Aijā, aijā, saldā miegā” isn’t quite as effective as “Čiūto tūto” but forms a lovely coda to the song, which works very well back to back with Serbia for its answering of “I just wanna sleep forever / Like it better when I dream” with “I’ll try to / … / Sing you lullabies / Please don’t wake up”. And in the end it comes full circle, with the narrator deciding he doesn’t want to wake up either. Depressing, but prettily put.

A: Continuing the parallels with Samo mi se spava, this too feels quite dreamlike for its occasional 5/8 timing and musical emphasis. The lead vocals pair well with the music in its more pensive moments, especially the acoustic outro, but otherwise lack the oomph the more insistent bits of the song demand – which fits thematically, but doesn’t do much for the overall effect. Bonus points for the counterintuitive use of the electric guitar to underscore the more fragile moments in the lyrics.

V: Andrejs is note-perfect, and the way he finds the camera right at the end is the cherry on top of a very good performance. (His diction has always irritated me slightly, but that’s another story.) The warm glow of the orange and gold against the inky backdrop suits the shifting mood of the song so much better than if they’d gone for the pastel tones and quasi-surrealism of the video.

 

⁰⁵ Portugal

B: I love the self-flagellation and simultaneous shrug of the shoulders in “O doutor diz que não há nada a fazer / Caso perdido, vi-o eu a escrever”. There’s a great bounce and rhythm to the lyrics throughout.

A: This sets out its stall from the opening bars and defies you to spurn what it’s offering. I can see why some might turn their noses up at it, but I’m sold from that opening flourish on the ivories and the tantalising promise of the first line. From there it pulls you in and spins you round in a whirlwind of musical exhibitionism that sometimes feels [and at points is certainly edited in a way that sounds] cobbled together but nevertheless works perfectly. There are touches of brass and woodwind in the mix that are content to play second fiddle to the rest of the arrangement, and they’re all the better for it. What I want to call the Spanish guitar, but which is probably something more appropriately Portuguese, is a delight throughout. I’m aware the whole thing’s a sales pitch on the part of Mimicat, but what can I say? She had me at hello.

V: The look she’s going for is clearly meant to be sultry cabaret dancer, but comes across at times as frazzled harlot. I’m assuming the abandonment of the version with the beefed-up backing vocals used solely for the final of Festival da Canção was a deliberate move to showcase Mimicat’s voice here. It works – the crowd go wild for her big note at the end, but are responsive throughout to what is a playful and energetic routine. She’s more than good enough in the semi to make it through to Saturday, but once there, gratifyingly, she ups her game, producing the best vocals of any performance of the song from FdC onwards.

 

⁰⁶ Ireland

B: “We give it all we got until we fail” is only half-right in this instance. It makes me doubt they’ll deliver when they promise that “When we go down, we go down”.

A: However futile an exercise in writing a song for Eurovision this may be (and 20 years too late at that), it does have a properly anthemic feel to it – bog-standard, to be sure, but hummable after a single listening, with the “catchy pop harmonies” their bio promises. The scratchy vocals suit the song in studio but don’t bode well for it live.

V: Much has already been said about Conor’s outfit, and since I’m all for body positivity and freedom of expression through fashion I’ll simply limit myself to adding: Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what the fuck was he thinking?!!?! There’s so much wrong with this performance that it’s hard to know what to pick apart first. The pointless staircase which Conor, face like suet pudding and looking as though he has no idea where he is, descends like an old person unsure of their footing? The hair, make-up and outfits on the drummer and keyboardist, which are every bit as hideous in their own way? Our unlikely lead’s nifty camp little bit of footwork as he makes his way down the catwalk? The weird hand-in-quicksand thing on the satellite stage? But more perplexing and annoying than any of these is Conor simply not singing half the song, treating the occasion as if it’s an arena show he’s the star of and this is the closing number everyone in the audience knows the words to, when it’s clear he’s doing it because he just can’t sing. The sheer number of ill-judged moments makes you think the whole thing might have been a joke on the part of the anti-everything stage director they eventually sacked. I suspect it’s not a mistake that the band’s official page on Eurovision.tv has the Icelandic performance in place of their own.

 

⁰⁷ Croatia

B: I might be wrong, but I think ‘Mama’ here is a metaphor.

A: With its repetition and easy hooks interspersed with attention-seeking musical mummery you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a children’s song. It’s like one of those TV shows or films that’s ostensibly for younger viewers but which features all sorts of references only the mums and dads watching it will get – and in this case the message comes with a clear PG rating, however much it’s dressed up. The oppressive synths and strings in the verses hinting at the darkness that inspired the song are a welcome discovery.

V: It’s drag storytime live, bordering on panto. (The guy with the sparking oversized rocket is every inch the villain of the piece. “He’s behind you!”, etc.) It strikes me as going for the kind of appeal Georgia was aiming for last year, only cranking the insanity up a notch or two dozen and actually achieving it. Frontman Zoran is minutely ahead of the backing track at the start (and slightly off in places throughout) in the semi, albeit in a way that’s barely noticeable and doesn’t matter at all, since he’s back on track in the final. It’s sweet that from their response to the audience’s enthusiasm they genuinely seem to feel right at home in the Eurovision bubble.

 

⁰⁸ Switzerland

B: The infamously neutral Swiss have been accused of tone-deafness in breaking their silence with this anti-war missive, but despite its occasional clunkiness I feel its heart is in the right place. What lines like “Can’t turn and run / No water guns / Just body bags that we’ve become” lack in nuance they make up for as an indictment of the cannon fodder of war. Indeed, this and Croatia back to back make for another fitting (if accidental?) pairing.

A: Quietly powerful arrangement, this. The tremulous first minute in particular suits it perfectly, conveying a sense of shame and mourning. The terrifying slide down the violin strings into the second verse adds to the tone and heralds the song making a more forceful stance against the subject that prompted it. Remo’s vocals work well against this backdrop, with a cogent but also vulnerable maturity to them that never lets you forget he’s barely more than a kid himself.

V: Our Remo looks like a police artist’s composite of a sweaty teenage lesbian suspected of crimes against couture. His voice feels slightly constrained in the lower register of the verses, but the rest of the song showcases his abilities nicely. The staging is pure SJB but works surprisingly well in context – like the use of pyro in the act, it’s both thoughtful and fairly minimalist. The colouring of the floor graphics at the end of the song makes it look like he’s kneeling on a giant sperm.

 

⁰⁹ Israel

B: Do unicorns fart rainbows? Is that their secret power? Maybe that’s yet another layer of meaning in this veritable mille-feuille of a lyrical concoction, which is apparently all about Israel and Israeli identity and such. Which it may well be, but the imagery’s still quite strange. The ‘femininal’ bit’s clever, even though I thought she was just mispronouncing ‘phenomenal’ the first time I heard it.

A: The instrumental version of this song is a revelation, demonstrating that it’s not nearly as disjointed a composition as it tends to come across as a finished package. True, there’s still a sense of it being a bit ADHD and distracted in its focus at times, especially when it’s only got three minutes to say what it wants to, but as a whole it works much better as a piece of music than it appears to at first. There are some great synths and strings in there, and various other ear-catching additions to the arrangement that make listening to it sans vocals very rewarding. Not to undermine Noa’s contribution, of course: she sounds fine, particularly in the verses.

V: “Ein li da’awin” might be true in the metaphoric sense, but it’s blatantly not when it comes to this performance. Heavy-lidded Noa is probably a better dancer than she is a singer – her vocals are good, not great, and never more exposed than on the ill-conceived long note in the second chorus – but she’s no Chanel either way, and the last 30 seconds of the routine are so much writhing around on the floor. She’s gorgeous though, and it’s impossible to dislike her. Her smile comes straight through the screen at you. The light-box prop is one of the most effective we’ve seen in the contest in some time, and while the strut down the catwalk is pure Israel-at-Eurovision, the rest of the choreography is actually quite measured.

 

¹⁰ Moldova

B: Positively pagan! Judging by “I-am cântat eu doine multe / Pân-a vrut să mă sărute ea” she agreed to marry him just to shut him up.

A: True to its folk roots, however synthetically enhanced, this is stripped back in parts (which works well) and incredibly repetitive (which doesn’t). The karaoke version reveals some instrumentation and underlying vocal effects you’d otherwise have no idea formed part of the song. Pasha’s vocals, by turns revelatory and reverential, are convincing in studio…

V: …but live he gives a whispered and ultimately breathless performance in which he barely seems to be singing at times. I’m disappointed in the stage show, which, like the song, is dull and repetitive in parts: the headdresses on the backing vocalists produce its only truly memorable visual, and ringing in the little guy feels faintly exploitative, as he’s almost literally made to jump through hoops at one point, and doesn’t really add anything to the performance in the end.

 

¹¹ Sweden

B: It’s nice to finally read these lyrics as written, because I now realise a) that I had no idea what half of them were, and b) how closely they align with what Hold Me Closer was saying last year. They don’t have the same heft or impact – they’re too self-absorbed for that, undermining the insistence in Loreen’s bio that she uses her music “to challenge her audience with messages of inclusion and representation”. Unless, here, that constitutes demanding her own inclusion in the life of the person who’s presumably cleared off because she’s too high-maintenance.

A: I wish the vocals here demonstrated a little more restraint early on: it all gets very insistent very quickly, the first chorus ramming the protagonist’s insecurities straight down your throat. The music is a little more circumspect, to its credit, holding back until the second chorus to unleash its full force. Whether by chance or design, the bridge in its entirety and the closing strings are incredibly reminiscent of Ray of Light-era Madonna, and for me are the highlight of the composition.

V: She’s a star and no mistake. She gives everything to this performance, which I’m not entirely sure I understand. Why the impractically long nails? Is it because she’s trapped inside a heated terrarium, like a lizard partway through shedding its skin? That’s assuming any of it’s supposed to mean or do anything other than create arresting visuals, which it surely does. But for my money the performance never looks more cinematic than in the sweeping, stormy long shots of the final chorus – when, I think it’s fair to say, it looks most reminiscent of Euphoria. Loreen’s vocals are assured throughout, but her nasal delivery of the bridge into the chorus still irks.

 

¹² Azerbaijan

B: Not quite as needy as Tattoo, but getting there. Its message is arguably more inclusive. “I don’t know if I’m someone or someone is me” exists in that blurred space between the utterly meaningless and the unexpectedly philosophical. It’s indicative of a set of lyrics that say more than you think they do at first glance.

A: Inspired by ’60s and ’70s styles the boys may have been, but their song is straight out of the ’90s. The Sixpence strum of it all is refreshingly laid-back and indeed unambitious on the part of the Azeris, and though they ended up none the richer for it, I hope (like Malta) it doesn’t discourage them from trying more homespun stuff in future. That opening ‘Aaaaaaaaah!’ makes it sound like Tural or Turan – whichever one is doing the dialling – has achieved his purpose in phoning the sex line before the actual lady at the other end has so much as said a word. (Either that or he’s got a Kølig Kaj crush on the woman who does the recorded voice.)

V: I’ve been wracking my brains for months now and I still can’t work out who it is they remind me of. Whoever it may be, you wouldn’t know from this performance that it was their first time on a big stage. The split-screen thing works well if you’ve no idea there’s two of them, and feels like a throwback to the ’90s of its own in a Sliding Doors kind of way. Things get away from the purple one a bit as the excitement mounts, but on the whole this is charming and understated, with lovely harmonies and gorgeous outfits.

 

¹³ Czechia

B: What I said about the Swiss lyrics, basically. At least where the anti-war message is concerned. “Blood’s on your God’s head” is refreshing for being so outspoken, and the whole message is made more powerful by a sixth of it coming from an actual Russian. On the female empowerment front, the imagery is no doubt unintentionally Shakespearean in “Дай ръка не се страхувай / С другите сестри поплувай / В морето ни нямаме място за тези омрази”, taking [up] hands rather than arms against a sea of troubles. And in further literary parallels, Olesya looks like Pippi Longstocking.

A: I’ve heard this a hundred times now and that opening still goes on for a couple of bars too long every time. The quasi-ecclesiastical arrangement of the vocals in the chorus is the highlight here and speaks to the sanctity of the lyrics. Nice quiet use of strings and synths in the bridge – right before that last powerful pass in particular – reflecting the vulnerability that’s contrasted against the determination displayed elsewhere in the words and music.

V: The vocals are somewhat ragged in isolation, but if ever there was a performance that was going to benefit from the backing track, it’s this one. And it does: when the choir kicks in towards the end it sounds amazing. (It makes up for Tanita’s rather limp rap; almost whispering it sends out mixed messages given what the rest of the song is saying.) I remarked after seeing this in the semi that it feels like the first time the Czechs have really got what a Eurovision performance is meant to be about, which may be a bit unfair to their successful recent efforts, but watching it back now I get the same feeling. A lot of thought has gone into it, as have a lot of elements, but without overloading it, and it feels very consistent. Offsetting the predominantly black-and-white backdrop with various hues of pink could have been a disaster but instead provides one of the most distinctive three minutes of the contest.

 

¹⁴ Netherlands

B: Markedly lower of brow than their initial press guff, Mia and Dion’s official bio goes some way to convincing you the pair are people you might actually connect with. “I don’t find any joy anymore / From the same old cycle” sums up the entire evolution of this entry, which is ironic, because it aims for transformative but never quite manages it.

A: It’s tempting to think our 2019 winner going by his birth name of Duncan de Moor in the writing credits of the entry on the official site was a conscious choice to distance himself from what must have increasingly seemed its inevitable result. The compromise version we got in Liverpool might have neutered his and fiancé Jordan Garfield’s vision of the song, but for all that there’s nothing shabby about it; underwhelming perhaps, but nothing to be ashamed of. In any case the original is well produced, with a fine ending especially. It just takes a while to get there, making the preceding two and a half minutes less duet than two people singing different bits of the same song.

V: I’ll just say it’s about as good as they were ever going to make it and leave it at that.

 

¹⁵ Finland

B: If any two lines tell you everything you need to know about this song and the guy singing it, it’s “Parketti kutsuu mua ku en oo enää lukossa / Niinku cha cha cha mä oon tulossa”. I 💚 his unironic love of piña coladas.

A: The cheery little heys! among the almost menacing choruses in the first half of the song are adorable – they’re like a precursor to the shamelessly dansband denouement. That shift in tone remains the most problematic part of the song, but it mixes its heavier metal with synthetic schlager to produce a workable alloy. Sure, Electric Callboy might have patented it first with We Got the Moves, but Käärijä’s version proves just as effectual in its own right.

V: It’s crazy, it’s party! This, Conor, is how you do body positivity. As soon as Käärijä pops up out of the top of the packing crate you know you’re in for three minutes of fun, and it snowballs from there. My favourite moment is when he does his little sideways shuffle down the catwalk, which raises a smile every time I see it. He’s not the greatest vocalist Finland’s ever produced, but within the context of the performance it doesn’t matter a jot, since it’s not the point and he’s good enough regardless. He seems determined to entertain, and entertain he does. But amidst all the fun it’s easy to overlook how technically complex this routine is and how flawlessly they pull it off. He handles almost getting decapitated by a wire like a pro.

 

¹⁶ Denmark

B: “Do you remember? / Said it’d be easier if I was dead.” The OED just slid into Riley’s DMs asking if they can have this song as their new definition of ‘dysfunctional relationship’. It’s all horribly one-sided and delusional, but more believable for it. We’ve all been there.

A: There’s something pleasingly ’80s about the synthy furrow this ploughs. It’s always struck me as being not very Danish, but then it reminds me of Kadie Elder’s First Time He Kissed a Boy, so I guess it is Danish, just not in a Eurovision context. Which is why I’m all the more glad it made it to the contest, however ignominious its fate. Processed to within an inch of its life though it may be, for me it’s one of the year’s strongest pop propositions.

V: With “nearly 11 million followers on TikTok [Reiley will] be urging every one of them to vote for Breaking My Heart.” I mean, good old Iceland proved more loyal and even they couldn’t bring themselves to throw more than six points his way. And yet his vocal isn’t nearly as wretched as it seems – for the most part it’s quite controlled. But it’s also very empty, and the very nature of the falsetto leaves him exposed. Alas, the studio version waved these red flags – or if not red, then very pink. The performance doesn’t exactly ooze with confidence either: unlike the last artist with a rotating house who dealt with a prop malfunction with aplomb, Reiley takes forever to peel the scribbled-out heart off the camera, producing a lingering ugly opening to things, then is visibly self-conscious about hitting the right marks and being signalled about the set shifting. His tugging of his jacket turns into something of a tic as well, and while the final pea-green colouring they go for is a nice contrast to the predominant reds and blues in the rest of the show, it doesn’t complement his outfit at all. The result is that the entire three minutes feel awkward and underrehearsed.

 

¹⁷ Armenia

B: “The Armenian singer-songwriter has been belting out tunes since the age of 4, but she’s moved on a bit from the nursery rhymes that marked her out as a natural performer.” Indeed – she’s graduated to Tumblr quotes! Still, she deserves praise for penning the music and [the rest of] the lyrics herself. The rap is the best part. I particularly like “Fire in my veins, heart in chains / … / so hypnotised by someone that I’ve never ever met / … / Three minutes of making impossible plans / Seven minutes of unnecessary panic attacks”. By the time the Armenian epilogue comes round, the glass half-full has become more than half-empty.

A: Lovely, lilting arrangement in the opening verse, or whatever we’re calling that bit – it’s an oddly structured song. The strings and percussion introduced in the first chorus presage the punchier rap, which nevertheless remains underpinned by the flowing piano. It’s all sounding suitably epic (or perhaps manic) by the end, when it peaks and trails off in a style reminiscent of – and which makes it very much the spiritual successor to – Not Alone.

V: Unnecessary dance-break alert! Part 1 of 2. (Although at least this one’s decent.) Interesting use of light and shadow, colour and its absence; it’s a confident delegation that has no problem plunging its performer into darkness. Brunette both looks and sounds great in her own right, but benefits further from being bookended by duff performances in the semi.

 

¹⁸ Romania

B: That’s three relationships on the trot which, real or imaginary, are uniformly unhealthy. At least this one exhibits a tad more self-awareness if “The scent of mistake just reminds you of me / And now all of your demons keep screaming my name” is anything to go by.

A: I assume they thought the acoustic opening would serve as a better showcase of Theodor’s vocal abilities, or perhaps just as a way of making the remaining two or so minutes more bearable. But then his vocals are the least of this song’s problems, which no amount of gloriously audible sliding along the fingerboard was going to solve.

V: Tremendous opening tracking shot, even if the stage does look like it’s covered in sex dolls. Beyond that… sheesh! If it wasn’t for Theodor paying her no heed whatsoever, you’d think the woman who appears out of nowhere at the end to smear him in Marmite was a stage invader. The conservatives upstairs at Romanian TV obviously weren’t bothered about that, but they were worried about Theodor’s outfit looking too gay; I’d have been more worried about it looking awful myself. Kudos again for the positivity though when you’ve got a perfectly normal body you shouldn’t be afraid to show lest the trolls deride your lack of a six-pack. (That said, the close-ups revealing that even the best make-up in the world can’t disguise the ravages of acne are terribly unforgiving.) I hope “Orice alţii vorbeau / Mie tot nu-mi păsa” was Theodor’s response in the wake of his failure, especially if the rumours are true that he was simultaneously hamstrung and hung out to dry by the broadcaster from the get-go.

 

¹⁹ Estonia

B: [OCD editor mini-rant re: “All the lies I’ve told myself” vs “All the lies I said before”] How can you get the collocation wrong after you’ve already got it right earlier in your own lyrics?!

A: The way the vocals slavishly follow the rhythm of the music (and indeed the music itself) in the chorus here annoys me, even more than the opening line of said chorus, which to my mind is horribly clunky. The quick-cut-it-off-the-three-minutes-are-up ending has always rankled, too, since it’s calling out for an ending every bit as overblown as the rest of the song. But to give it its dues as a composition, the piano harmonies are lovely, and the strings have an appropriate and likeable delicacy to them when they’re not being overweening.

V: There’s not much point turning round to mime playing a piano that’s already been laboriously established as playing itself. Still, that’s not what this performance is about. It’s a masterclass in vocal control, and while we all knew it to be the case, it bears repeating: Alika can sing. Pity it’s this song, whose staging, perhaps inevitably, borders on pretentious, with odd and unnecessary and occasionally banal bits of choreography. For it to come within a gnat’s cock of NQing – well, alright, the gap between Estonia and Iceland was more of a gulf, so a sperm whale’s cock – and then go on to finish comfortably within the top 10 in the final is the ‘Tsk, juries!’ moment of the year. On the plus side, the glacial blue wall and flooring is pretty, and Alika’s looking way better than she did in Eesti Laul, having been given an impressive hair and fashion makeover.

 

²⁰ Belgium

B: Ooh, he’s worked with Hercules & Love Affair! In light of the fact that Gustaph was “pushed in directions he wasn’t happy with and encouraged to keep quiet about his sexuality” early in his career, it’s vindicating to see him reclaiming himself in such a joyous way and being rewarded for it. It really is the transition from “You told me to love myself / A bit harder than yesterday” to “See now I love myself much more than I did yesterday” writ large.

A: Feel the nostalgic rush! It’s not often you get uplifting songs like this in a minor key. (Or is it?) A decent stab at a ’90s house anthem, although late ’80s dance music called on an early mobile phone the size of a brick and asked for its era-defining vocal effects back. Woo! Yeah!

V: There’s so much love on stage here, and indeed in the audience, who sing along from the opening line. Gustaph is an incredibly reliable performer, and such a sweet one that you can’t help but cheer him on. The pink, black and white of the Czech staging works just as well the second time round, and the dancer is marvellously androgynous. The whole thing’s just brimming with positivity. The only misguided moment in the entire routine is the overhead shot at the start of the second verse, where the black splatter on the floor makes it look like he’s just shat himself.

 

²¹ Cyprus

B: “I got used to all the ways it hurt.” Fnaar. There’s some decent wordplay in these lyrics (“You filled my life / With minor songs”, “You lift me up and leave me in the gutter” et al.) that elevate it above the usual fare of this nature.

A: Much better than it seems, this is a song that does a good job of concealing its best qualities. Some are almost completely lost beneath the more forthright components, including the cavernous vocals: the fluttering piano is a highlight, as is the swirl of strings. But all told the elements work well together, a mixture of bluster and reserve that mirrors what Andrew’s singing over the top of them.

V: Quite the turnaround from the damp squib of Electrify in last year’s Australia Decides. He nails each and every high note, and only shows signs of running out of puff towards the end. Rarely more than serviceable visually or vocally, the stage show nevertheless works as a whole and serves its primary purpose, which is to get them through to the final. The fact that it exceeds expectations there is a little more surprising, I’ll be honest.

 

²² Iceland

B: How to build up credibility and then fatally undermine it in one sentence: “The song was written and produced by a big name in Icelandic pop, Pálmi Ragnar Ásgeirsson, who was also behind María Ólafs’ Eurovision 2015 entry Unbroken.” Lyrically though this is another nice thematic pairing, following on from Cyprus. It displays an equanimity not all of us are able to muster in such situations: “Tired of finding meaning in the dark / I’m releasing all of you / In gratitude” is very mature. “I’ll take my flowers while I can” lets the side down a bit, but then I guess picking ‘power’ as your lyrical anchor limits your rhymes.

A: I’ve never been a big fan of drum’n’bass, and this hasn’t done anything to win we round. The acoustic opening makes a promise it never delivers on, while the echoing vocals add some much-needed depth to the song but only serve to show how empty it is. With next to no variation, it’s a very long three minutes.

V: It’s left entirely up to Diljá, and to a lesser extent the cameramen, to inject energy into this performance, which is a vocal powerhouse but little else. Hair and outfit are a choice, for starters. (In the case of the latter it’s only the orange lining that suggests it hasn’t been beamed in straight from ESC99.) The flowers on the LEDs are boringly literal but at least add momentary splashes of colour; the rest is unrelentingly dark. There’s one shot in the bridge before the final chorus where Diljá’s on the satellite stage and an overhead angle makes it look like she’s being flushed down a toilet, which as predictions go would prove accurate come results time. She was the only artist in the Green Room who seemed resigned to failure before the first qualifier was even revealed, so I hope it didn’t sour the whole ESC experience for her.

 

²³ Greece

B: There’s a major disconnect between the kid excited by perfecting his signature cinnamon rolls in the official bio and the angst-ridden teen of this suicide note of a set of lyrics. I mean I suppose the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but it’s a jarring leap from Junior Bake Off to the likes of “I hate my feelings / I’m overwhelmed” and “for me it’s too late”. He claims he’s not an actor, but ‘Victor Vernicos’ sounds like the name of the middle-aged business mogul housewives love to hate in a daytime American soap that’s been running for a thousand years.

A: Who was it that kickstarted the whole affected pronunciation thing in songs? They’ve got a lot to answer for. It renders some of what Victor sings here genuinely unintelligible. I have a lot of time for his vocals otherwise: it’s astounding they come from someone so young. I’ve always quite liked the music as well, which to me is as consistently angst-ridden as the lyrics – never more so than when the stabbing, slightly psychotic strings are introduced around the two-minute mark, with a churning, underwater quality to them. Overall I think it’s a very coherent piece of music.

V: Sadly, they felt it needed an equally fidgety performance. Give the kid some Ritalin! The opening bit where he seems to be lying inside a wordsearch is like even they can’t figure out what he’s singing: it’s all Greek to them as much as it is to everyone else. Victor – who has amazing eyebrows, and an outfit that makes him look like a zookeeper’s intern – does his best to gee the audience up, but he’s lost them by the end of the second verse, and some frantic jumping about the stage isn’t going to do anything to reverse that. In terms of performances that don’t work, this comes a startlingly close second to Ireland in retrospect.

 

²⁴ Poland

B: She tryna get all up there in her ex’s face, but I’m not buying it. You can’t fake attitude.

A: The basic bitch of this year’s bunch. It’s catchy enough, but entirely predictable in its progression. USP-free, zero value add.

V: Competent, but never trying harder than she has to, and indeed in certain parts not trying at all, Blanka is both the lynchpin and weakest link in this performance of Useless Dance Break: The Sequel. It doesn’t help that the backing dancers all look like they’ve been drafted in from children’s TV. On the plus side, the bass sounds great live and the tropical backdrop is a boon, especially after the tortured darkness of Greece in the semi.

 

²⁵ Slovenia

B: “Živeli, kot da jutri nas mogoče več ne bo” sums up their Eurovision experience. “An ban, pet podgan / Ti loviš, če preživiš / Jaz ti bom vzel vse” sounds like they were asked to describe Squid Game in a Slovenian haiku.

A: Playful and inclusive but not putting up with any of your shit, this “shagadelic softboi rock” is a breath of fresh air in this year’s line-up. It slickly oozes confidence without tipping over into self-congratulation, and only ever takes itself entirely seriously when challenged, upon which its celebration becomes a minor act of defiance. TL;DR – it’s a bloody good song.

V: It’s a shame then that the lads overegg the pudding in Liverpool, given how effortlessly they sold the song upon its unveiling in Ljubljana. The darker-haired of the two guitarists is the biggest ham of the lot, but they all get in on it. The staging though, with minimal use of the backdrop and lighting, does have more of an arena concert feel to it, and for all their overacting they still effortlessly fill that niche. I just wished they’d toned it down and let the song speak for itself, since it’s more than capable of doing so.

 

²⁶ Georgia

B: The fact that Iru is near as damn a native speaker of English makes the dog’s breakfast that is these lyrics even harder to comprehend, especially when she’s given a co-credit on them. (Hopefully just for the royalties.) You can count the lines that have no mistakes in them on one hand. They’re also repeated ad infinitum, but given the alternative was even more gobbledygook, I doubt we’re missing out.

A: Composer Giga Kukhianidze’s Junior Eurovision roots are arguably on display here in the chagadaradamda-chimidimidantas, and perhaps in the vocals, which in the verses can’t help but sound girly. It’s only the first chorus and second part of the song that give Iru the chance to show what she’s truly capable of. The strings brought in when there’s barely more than 30 seconds left make this the second song after Tattoo to have a bit of a Frozen feel to it (Madonna’s Frozen, not the Disney film). That section is the best bit of the song, and given it takes its time getting there and doesn’t really make up for the rest of the three minutes, it accounts for why this is the year’s most obvious case of ever-diminishing returns.

V: “Sing!” I mean of all the songs to try and get the audience to chime in on, this is hardly the one. You’d have to have a clue what she was rabbiting on about for a start. I think it says something that I mistook the quiet(er) bit at just over two minutes in as the end of the song while watching it back and then sighed when it dragged itself out for another 45 seconds. Mostly that’s the fault of it showing no restraint or subtlety, with Iru delivering her [otherwise impressive] vocals at full-blast from the opening line. First prominent use of the LED screens as more than a static backdrop, incidentally, and it does help to give the performance a distinct look.

 

²⁷ San Marino

B: “I can smell you like an animal” is such a gross line. Is it the butterflies in his ears that he’s smelling?

A: Opening your song with its chorus is always a risk, because it’s normally your biggest hook, so you’re putting all your cards on the table from the off. If it’s underwhelming – and this one is definitely that – where do you go from there? (‘Nowhere’ is the answer, as its result so cruelly demonstrated.) The ending’s hideous, and goes on forever. At least without the screaming in the instrumental version the underlying music is easier to appreciate. The only truly redeeming feature of the composition for me is the more nuanced approach to the verses, but that’s hardly enough to save it.

V: I’m sure lead singer Andrea is a very nice guy – and who ever thought the thing he’d have in common with La Zarra would be a love of Mr Bean – but he looks creepy AF here, and while he nails the final screamy bits in a way he doesn’t necessarily manage with other parts of the song, it still sounds terrible. The Piqued Jack with the quiff could be Swiss Remo’s older Italian cousin. Nice Pop-arty visuals.

 

²⁸ Austria

B: I love this – it’s clever, satirical, meaningful and fun. Certain aspects of it might indeed have prompted the audience to wonder what the heck it was about, especially the zero-dot-zero-zero-three interlude, so I hope the commentators did their bit to explain. “Give me two years and your dinner will be free” and “At least it pays to be funny” are the highlights.

A: This is just as clever musically as it is lyrically. The bridge is the best bit, on both counts, but the whole thing’s an overlooked triumph.

V: The crowd are po-po-poeing for all they’re worth, and who can blame them? It’s a song and performance that’s crying out for audience interaction. (Iru, take note.) Assured vocals from Teya & Salena, which only go marginally astray when they’re giving us their otherwise enviable harmonies, and even then noticeably so only in the semi. It’s a fun, candidly attention-seeking three minutes whose crowning glory was and always will be that towering UGH.

 

²⁹ Albania

B: It’s all very exclamatory (“Duje! / Si dikur ti duje / At’ dashni ti ruje! / Si jeten ti duje! / Mos e gjuj me gure!”) and, it seems, accusatory, as though Albina’s blaming the very parents she’s singing the song with of breaking up the family and throwing away everything they had. But they all appear far too cheery for that to be the case.

A: Well, you’d never mistake it as anything other than Albanian. As integral as the vocals are to the overall effect, take them off the track and you hear all sorts of things you might otherwise miss that stamp it with one unmistakable double-headed eagle after another. It’s a rich piece of music, if weirdly constructed and with a terrible ending. Ageless in its way, too – it could easily be the 2003 entry of theirs we were denied by the EBU.

V: Like a cheap knock-off of a successful Western product manufactured behind the Iron Curtain, this telenovela is one I’ve taken to calling The Kardashurians. Naff, but undeniably good, it’s ultimately rather likeable: I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a breakdown as magnificent as Albina’s. Kudos to the fam for providing 100% of the vocals live, and for doing so without a hint of a stray note. The singing dad’s hilarious, as is the slightly more reticent brother, whose early interjections sound like he’s throwing in a “She’s got a point!” about whatever Albina’s telling us. He’s easily the least enthusiastic about the hanky dance, whereas, adorably, the podgier of the two sisters, cute as a button, appears to be having the time of her life.

 

³⁰ Lithuania

B: As incantations go, “čiūto tūto” certainly works its magic here, becoming the keystone the song was lacking until very late in the day. “Finally my heart is beating” indeed. The lyrics as a whole augment this from a standard ballad into something recognisably more anthemic.

A: What would the portmanteau of contemporary pop and gospel be? Perhaps it would just be called G-pop. However it’s labelled, this is a rousing example of it. The eleventh-hour addition of the folk mantra was inspired, since it anchors the entire thing while elevating it slightly above the well-meaning but more humdrum fare it would otherwise have remained. The only thing that irks me about the song is the way the end of each verse runs head-first into the oncoming chorus.

V: As tends to be the case with gospel, this sounds much better on stage than it does in studio, so praise the Lithuanian baby Jeebuz they opted for live vocals across the board. The orange and purple palette here makes for a nice (and marked) change, but every iteration of the orange dress is awful. Nice lighting effects throughout. Monika seems stuck in her head at times, more so in the semi, preoccupied by hitting her marks and perhaps the notes. But she does that perfectly, so she needn’t have worried. It doesn’t undermine the performance as a whole, which the crowd seems genuinely fond of.

 

³¹ Australia

B: Have you ever done anything like this before? Well, have you?! Vaguely threatening opening (“Promise me you’ll hold me till I die” is odd as well) to what is otherwise a pretty positive set of lyrics. “Cross my heart / Till the sky turns red in the sunrise” is a nice turn of phrase.

A: It’s such an obvious closer that it’s like they wrote it visualising the end credits of the contest running over the winner’s reprise. At least they got that, of sorts, in the semi-final. For all my initial reticence towards it – mostly, to be honest, because it wasn’t Dreamer – I’ve since come round to its high-powered, anthemic appeal. It does work well in some of its less strident moments, such as when the piano comes to the fore in the last minute, but it’s the unexpected and unexpectedly transformative keytar solo that seals the deal. The way the song subtly reinvents itself in that final flourish is one of the musical highlights of the year for me. Unusual and interesting harmonies throughout, too.

V: Cracking stuff. Some of the impact’s lost when they’re sent on to play midfield in the final, but still. Going the whole retro hog, they seem to be decked out in the livery of the (I think) now defunct Australian department store David Jones.

 

³² France

B: Quite needy, these lyrics, aren’t they?

A: The first half of the verses exists within a range of about three notes, so I’m glad La Zarra gets a chance to show off her vocal chops elsewhere. 60 seconds is a long time to tease the positively but unimaginatively discotastic two minutes that follow, which do everything you might expect them to with confidence but little imaginative flair. I don’t not enjoy it, but nor does it do anything for me that dozens of other similar songs don’t. On top of which, the transcendent conclusion to the Australian entry only reminds me how peeved I was (and still am) that Évidemment doesn’t do more to give itself the big finish it’s crying out for.

V: Claiming “mes reins / Plus rien ne m’appartient / J’me fais du mal pour / Faire du bien / J’oublie comme si c’n’était rien” is ironic given she hardly moves throughout this performance. It’s like she’s been impaled by the Inquisition. “Je suis nue devant vous / Donnez-moi donc une chance” clearly fell on deaf ears. Among the audience as well, given the lukewarm reception it got, the vocal French – or at least Francophone – contingent in the fan circle notwithstanding. But what do you expect when you complain from the off that “On a beau être sur le toit du monde / ‎‏On ne peut toucher le ciel du doigt”. Don’t stick yourself on a Chanteuse de la Liberté plinth then! Her vocals start going ever so slightly off-piste from about halfway through, most notably (and unfortunately) on the big “Grande France” note, but on the whole this is a good performance. The effect of the golden shower is mostly lost with all the light reflecting off the glitterball panels.

 

³³ Spain

B: “As a child, Blanca raised a duck in her bathtub” is much more relatable than the immediately preceding waffle about her music “[connecting] us with what is pre-rational and instinctive” and “[exploring through experimentation and experience] the parts of our soul that go beyond words.” Let your songs speak for themselves, girl! Stuff like “Mi niño, cuando me muera / Que me entierren en la luna / Y toas las noches te vea” is lovely.

A: The heir to the non-existent Eurovision fortune of Remedios Amaya, Blanca Paloma is doomed to failure in the ESC arena: however brilliant it may be, Eaea is even less accessible than Quién maneja mi barca. The sung bits I can take or leave (I’ll leave them, thanks). The music on its own, on the other hand, is a fascinating proposal – a discombobulating soundscape that radiates a sinister sort of innocence. I’ll never love it, but I love that it’s there for me to listen to and scratch my head at.

V: Flawless vocals. And camerawork, for that matter. Mesmerising. Alienating, but mesmerising.

P.S. In her shout-out to the audience at the end of her performance, how does she manage to pronounce the ‘eu’ in Europe as ‘dew’?

 

³⁴ Italy

B: Beautifully tortured. The bridge in particular I like: “Tanto lo so che tu non dormi / Spegni la luce anche se non ti va / Restiamo al buio avvolti / Solo dal suono della voce / Al di là della follia che balla in tutte le cose / Due vite guarda che disordine”. The whole thing’s layered in meaning, whether Marco intended it that way or not.

A: Beautifully orchestrated, too, but you’d expect nothing less. The changes in tempo hint at the dichotomy at the heart of the song, so they get a pass for that, but shorn of their lyrical justification they feel like a tease with no payoff. The instrumental version also shows that as effective as the music is, Marco’s vocals do most of the heavy lifting in imbuing it with the requisite passion.

V: The flags, the leather-daddy postcard, the subtle stage show, the less subtle fashion, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it oil slick of rainbow colours penetrating the gloom, the refracted light from the prism on the cover of the album this is the first single from… Come out like no one’s watching, lad! (Even his bio gets in on it, camping it up with “This is not Marco’s first time at the rodeo” and informing us that since he last graced us with his presence his albums “have gone 69-times platinum. Nice.”) We get only infrequent glimpses of the queer gymnastics playing out in the background, which ties in nicely with what the song’s [probably] saying. Marco gives me the intensity I longed for and only saw in his winner’s reprise at Sanremo, and holds it together until the closing moments, when, finally and endearingly, he allows his emotions to get the better of him.

 

³⁵ Ukraine

B: The perfect message both for and from the reigning champs. “Незважаючи на біль / Я продовжую свій бій” indeed. Слава Україні!

A: A spartan composition in every sense, Heart of Steel is selective about what it deploys and when it chooses to do so. It’s polished, like all Ukrainian entries, but retains a defiantly gritty edge and throbs with a power that’s ominous for being so restrained. Jeffery’s soulful vocals float above all this, the human face of the unstoppable machinery beneath. As a package, it’s very effective. I only wish I liked it more.

V: Such artistry in the visuals. The colour scheme’s inspired as well. It’s not the most immediate song, so these help to focus you in on it. And it sounds good.

 

³⁶ Germany

B: “We’re so happy we could die” is a terrible line and no doubt the exact opposite of what they were feeling by the end of the voting. Hopefully a month later (at time of writing) it’s more a case of “Never forget? Let it go.”

A: This takes a similar approach to Finland in mixing schlager with metal, but the result is infinitely more banal. I think it’s because the starting points themselves are both so uninspiring. It doesn’t help that when frontman Chris isn’t screaming “Bloooood and gliiiiittterrrrr!” in our faces his vocals discourage us from taking either him or the song seriously. It really does teeter on the edge of parody in parts.

V: The puntastic “genre-fluid” certainly applies here: it’s like a Drag Race/Next in Fashion crossover where the models wearing the losing queens’ outfits have to lipsynch for their lives to a distinctly RuPaul take on death metal in a Berlin sex club. Without having been taught how to tuck.

 

³⁷ United Kingdom

B: Properly cathartic, and the sassiest of middle-finger pop. “I could have cried at home / And spent the night alone / Instead I wrote a song… / I was ready for a sentence baby / Instead I wrote it all down.” You go, girl!

A: Very solid. Which probably sounds backhanded as a compliment given the weight of expectation on the UK, especially this year, but it’s nothing to scoff at. It’s well made and has some neat hooks, making it both chart-friendly and chart-worthy. It does that thing a lot of songs these days do in not really setting its chorus apart, and it could do with being a bit more spicy considering it’s one big fuck-you (the Spanish guitar being merely a nice touch rather than a musical knee to the groin), but those quibbles aside it’s one of my favourite songs of the year.

V: To listen to, anyway. Going by her bio, that’s quite the impressive performance portfolio Mae’s built up to make this lacklustre a fist of her own entry. That isn’t entirely down to her: her vocals, which are generally fine, just don’t have enough power to them, and are also too low in the mix, meaning they’re outdone at every turn by the backing track. She, or whoever stage-managed the whole thing, also seems to have thought that a Carry On approach would be a good idea, which takes what should be proper sass and makes it knowingly and yet unconvincingly saucy. And I don’t know what they spent all their money on in this performance, but it seems to have left wardrobe with so little that they had to recycle the Portuguese dancers’ outfits. More attractive than them by far, and more engaging than the song and performance at times, are the visuals, which are a sort of mash-up of Andy Warhol and Monty Python. They do a lot to distinguish the entry, which isn’t the unmitigated disaster I might otherwise have made it out to be; it’s just frustrating for its untapped potential.

 

 And so to the points...

 

1 point goes to Italy

2 points go to Lithuania

3 points go to Belgium

4 points go to Slovenia

5 points go to Sweden

6 points go to Latvia

7 points go to Portugal

8 points go to Australia

 10 points go to Switzerland

 

and finally...

 

12 points go to...

 

Austria!

 

The wooden spoon is awarded to Romania. But Ireland can have one too for that fucking awful performance.

 

U In loving memory of the Eurovision key change (1956-2022)