01 Moldova
B: If it wasn’t obvious that this was aimed squarely at a
homegrown audience, the obscure Moldovan/Romanian cultural references (from
sour chicken soup to a Soviet-era children’s movie and its soundtrack) make it
so. There’s a universal sort of yearning in the way it muses on the call of
home, and its otherwise schizophrenic lyrics – made up of at least seven
languages at last count – throw up lines as poetic as “Undeva, undeva / Între praf și stele / Suntem noi, rătăcit strigând spre ele”. That said, it’s also outward-looking and
aspirational, suggesting that there’s more than just PR guff to the claim in
the official bio that “Satoshi is drawn to contrast… [his stage name conveying]
the idea of clear thinking and creative awareness.”
A: Essentially a football chant set to [folk] music. The pan-pipe
intro is a wonderful way of wrong-footing the listener, given what unfolds.
It’s a bit of a gallimaufry, this, musically – one whose disparate parts are nevertheless
welded together very neatly, as the instrumental version attests, with the
pipes and accordion and fiddle underpinning the whole thing in a layered
arrangement that makes the instrumental version very enjoyable to listen to –
but I suppose that tallies with what the lyrics are saying in regard to
dislocation and the sense of a nation splintered. On which note, as a fellow
fan remarked, the chorus comes across as though someone who can only produce
about three notes (perhaps the aforementioned football fan?) has commandeered
the Beach Boys’ Kokomo and given us a localised take on it, with Aloha,
Soroca, Euna and Vidaloca being the Moldovan equivalents of Aruba, Jamaica,
Bermuda and Bahama, landlocked though it is. Indeed, you’d think its climate
was tropical rather than continental for the little bit around the minute mark
where, underneath the vocals, we get a brief chorus of birdsong and chirruping
insects.
V: If the National Tourism Office of Moldova ever decides it needs
a human mascot, here’s one Eurovision made earlier: smiley Satoshi puts in a
confident and capable turn, selling the song for all it’s worth. He’s a little
weaker on the Saturday than he is in the semi, but not in any way that dilutes
the impact of the performance, which is a textbook example of how six people
can fill a Eurovision stage. It makes a perfect Tuesday-night opener and a
surefire televote magnet come the final, where their fourth-place finish with
the public is fully deserved. It’s nice to see Ms Moon back adding her own two
bani to the mix, including a nod to her 2013 entry, and the colourful,
anime-like accompaniment on the backdrop is fantastic. Alas, based on videos
filmed by the audience, much of what they had to offer went missing on screen.
That’s my only criticism of the performance, other than that the handheld
camera approach is a bit of a headache at times.
02 Sweden
B: These lyrics are very route-one in
both their ideas and execution. There’s something [let’s hope unintentionally]
creepy about the phrase “you’re in my body parts”.
A: Is this techno, trance, eurodance?
Whatever it is, it’s arguably a song i) without a chorus and ii) at least 10
years too late. I get why it caused some frothing at the loins, but one fan’s
banger is another fan’s torture – OMG it slaps, but not in a good way. The
incessant farty synths are an assault on the senses.
V: “I am a disaster” might be pushing
it, but this is Sweden’s weakest overall package at Eurovision in a long time. Beyond
an impressive light show, there’s little to get excited about here; even the
choreography feels half-arsed. The tolerances of Felicia’s voice, which is thin
to begin with, are stretched before she’s even moved a muscle in a performance
where she deliberately distances herself from the audience. None of her
supposed charisma and stage presence are in evidence. The 16½ points she earned
on average from the televoters in her two appearances feel justified: as an
audience, we were robbed of a non-qualification Sweden definitely deserved.
03 Croatia
B: You’d think the douze(s) from
Belgrade were in the bag for the fact alone that half the song-writing team was
two-time Pesma za Evroviziju third-placer Zorja and her husband. But the song
and its story are decidedly not-Serbian, as I discovered when doing a bit of
digging. Australian-Croatian psychologist and cultural historian Ina Vukić
explains: “Inspired by the custom of tattooing of Catholic women in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and parts of Croatia under Ottoman rule… [Andromeda]
functions as a contemporary translation of an old symbol… that carries a deep
cultural memory… [If] it is reduced to mere decoration and if it succumbs to
the pressures of ideologies, trends and media, it will most likely be reduced
to a mere ornament. The historical lesson is clear: a people that does not
preserve its own identity quickly becomes voiceless in a society in which the
decisive institutions are in the hands of others. The song… reminds us that
resistance and resilience are not luxuries but necessities, and that the
courage to preserve identity must not be limited to past generations. Those who
allow their identity to be extinguished or forgotten risk losing more than just
their name… [The song] serves as a wake-up call heard worldwide, not just in
Europe: preserving one’s own identity requires determination, and history will
not wait for those who give up. Andromeda, from the ancient Greek mythology,
does, after all, symbolise the ultimate ‘damsel in distress’, representing
innocence, sacrifice and passive beauty caught between divine wrath and heroic
rescue… It gives a voice to generations who carried trauma quietly,
without archives, without monuments. To experiences that were rarely written
down but deeply lived and passed through generations.” Huh. Who knew? Then
again, maybe it’s all just an elaborate but subliminal advertising campaign for
a forthcoming Croatian version of The Traitors, given the number of
times the word izdajice is mentioned.
A: The bass drop and synth fallout
that open the song make you think for a moment that we’re in for a My System
II. After a few fallow years we get the first of several key changes in
this year’s contest here. It brings with it a hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck
moment as things ramp up – illustrated by the underlying strings, which are
glorious – but this has the effect of rendering the blatancy of the last few
bars redundant in terms of the effect it’s going for. Up to that point the
overall feel of the piece has been dramatic without tipping over into melodrama,
and quite engrossing. The whole thing has a soundtrack feel to it, especially
the instrumental version. It certainly corners its market in this year’s
line-up. It’s just a shame that the chorus, which is where the blend of the
girls’ voices comes into its own, somewhat drowns out the vocals.
V: I’m no proponent of prerecorded
vocals, but this is one song – especially towards the end – that’s crying out
for a backing track to beef things up. Lelek are by no means lacking; if
anything, they’re slightly stronger again in the final than they were in the
semi, but the demands on them post-key change mean they’re spread a little thin
vocally both times in what should be the song’s most powerful moment. The
camera direction in the final bars, on the other hand, conveys that power
perfectly, and is a televisual triumph. Less so the withered roots leading up
to the portal on the backdrop, which, combined with the lasses’ outfits and
markings and the hovering lady, make the performance look like a 17th-century
Croatian witch-hunter take on the Upside Down from Stranger Things. It’s
the first of many this year to make fulsome use of the dry ice machine, which
in the semi at least gets a bit carried away with itself.
04 Greece
B: Satire from Greece! Appropriate. I
love the bathos (again, appropriate) of wanting “δόξα, αιωνιότητα και λεφτά”.
A: Between this, Sweden and Croatia,
it’s murky synths a-go-go early in this semi. Ferto proves to be a long
three minutes in isolation: it needs the visuals to distract you from its
repetitive elements, however fitting they are. The different approaches to the
vocals and music go some way to alleviating that, but don’t always work. For
example, I love the “8-bit version of Pentozali” (© Reditter All_this_hype), but feel that the flip to balladeering at
the end is undermined by then switching back to the chorus, eroding any
sincerity and making it feel a bit like a parody – even if, again, this is consistent
with the message that’s being delivered. It’s very well produced, I’ll give it
that, but if you ever wondered what a pinball machine with ADHD would sound
like, I think you have your answer.
V: Akylas apparently became known
through viral covers on TikTok, and that scans – this performance is very
clippable and never requires you to concentrate on one thing for more than
about 15 seconds. But for that very reason it comes across as disjointed and
ultimately less than the sum of its parts. The hexagonal mirror tunnel thing is
striking, and the best bit (technically at least) is the switcheroo that makes
it look like Akylas teleports in the blink of an eye from the revolving set
onto its roof for the ‘Look, mama!’ bit towards the end, but that section is
undermined by the song itself and then again by the staging. Other elements are
less effective, like the sedate kick-scooting while the pyros pfft in its wake,
and the fruit machine visuals, which serve to reinforce how repetitive the
chorus is. Among everything else that’s going on, there are also moments of
what might generously be called homage in the performance: the disembowelling of
the dancer and twanging of his intestines feels like a tongue-in-cheek nod to My
Number One, and there’s more than a hint of Joost Klein in both the song
and its staging generally. Akylas is slightly more of a cartoon figure though,
or a computer game character, and has something of the Mawaan Rizwans about him,
cute and camp in equal measure.
05 Portugal
B: Vento? Check. Jardim?
Check. Saudade? Check-check-check. It’s like the CAPTCHA version of
proving you’re a Portuguese song. The entire first verse (“No silêncio do luar
/ Sopra o vento devagar / Traz o cheiro das roseiras / E o teu nome a
sussurrar”) sets the scene perfectly.
A: The bio informs us that “the
quintet carries with it the essence of ‘Cante Alentejano’, a traditional way of
singing… intertwined with a contemporary pop sound.” All I’ll say is that they
must have a rather elastic definition of ‘contemporary’. The a-cappella opening
is compelling in a way that renders the rest of it a bit of a letdown, and the
lads never sound anywhere near as good in isolation as they do in unison: the
harmonies throughout are stunning. Indeed, there’s an old-school charm to the
whole thing that’s as worthy of a place in this line-up as anything else (and
comes as blessed relief nestled in the first half of its semi). The
instrumental – LOL at the idea of it being a ‘karaoke version’ – is a symphony
of strings, guitar and piano that grants the song some real emotional heft. And
we get another key change!
V: There’s nothing egregiously wrong
with this performance, but it still doesn’t work. Vocally the lads are as
reliable as ever, but as ever, they sound much better singing together than
they do singing apart. Then there are the “we’re off down the pub” looks
they’re all sporting, which are refreshingly down-to-earth but do nothing to
enhance things. Add to that the odd choice in a song called Rosa to opt
for an entirely black-and-white backdrop (seriously, could they not even have
had the rose turn red at the very end?) and to then spend most of the
performance on the catwalk, where you’d be forgiven for thinking the song was
called Hair Follicles Under a Microscope from the on-floor graphics, and
there’s no wow factor at all. That it still came within a douze and a half of
qualifying in a semi with no friends is testament to the vocal quality on display,
but in every other respect it feels like they’re just making up the numbers.
Which, given how they ended up there in the first place, they kind of were.
06 Georgia
B: “Don’t think” is sage advice when it comes to these lyrics, since “Keep
me on replay” pertains to most of them. I’d dig for deeper meaning if I thought
I’d find any, but I know I won’t.
A: Readily identifiable as Georgian for its bombast, like a follow-up
to 2024’s Firefighter. The chorus is both the high point and weak link here, although the
meandering second verse (or whatever those bits are) doesn’t work very well
either. I suppose it’s in keeping that the whole thing feels like erstwhile
kiddie performers trying to come up with something more adult-sounding that will
still appeal to their original demographic.
V: Confession time: I never made it beyond about the third edition of
JESC, and to this day I’ve never seen or heard Bzikebi’s “catchy bee-themed
bop” Bzz.., so I have no point of comparison here. Not that one’s needed, I
suppose. But yowzers, to be almost completely blanked by juries and televoters like
that, maybe they should have done more to shake off their Junior roots. The
weirdly static choreography comes across as childish in a very unappealing way,
and the uniform look might have worked better if it hadn’t left lead singer
Giorgi looking so squat and boxy. He’s more impressive vocally than the Mariams
– whichever one of the two it is that’s entrusted with the big note singularly
fails to convince – but they all put in a somewhat shifty-eyed performance that’s
hamstrung by them staying on brand.
07 Italy
B: I like “L’eternità è dentro una parola”, but all told, this lacks
the warp and weft of previous Italian entries. It’s sweet, but doesn’t have a
lot to say.
A: It’s only fit and proper that we get this sort of [balorda] nostalgia
when we were denied it last year after Olly passed on the ticket to Basel. As a
piece of music, it somehow stays on the right side of the line that would
otherwise see it labelled a piss-take, helped by Sal seeming quite genuine in
his delivery of it. The orchestral arrangement is fantastic. The whole thing
sounds like a ’70s track remastered for the digital age.
V: I really can’t tell if this performance is meant to be ironic, since
if it’s not, it does nothing to dispel the impression of our Sal being a solid
if unremarkable wedding singer. Part of that is his look, of course, but there
also seems to be less focus on him than there is on the theatrics playing out
behind him at times, and I don’t particularly rate his vocals either – he
really has to reach for the high notes, and you can see it on his face. The
skirt unfurling to reveal the Italian flag is the tacky icing on the wedding
cake. Elsewhere, the performance is inadvertently (?) homoerotic; it feels very
much like a lavender marriage we’re witnessing. Still, everyone liked it enough
for it to secure another top-five finish for Italy, so what do I know.
08 Finland
B: The official-blurb revelation that Linda Lampenius once adorned the
cover of Playboy ties in perfectly with the nominal antagonist she’s playing here. Although
the you’re-so-hot-but-cold-as-ice thing is a cliché, the central metaphor of
the flamethrower is quite a clever one for the capricious vixen who teases the leading
man. In purely technical terms, this gets a bonus point for the rhyme and
wordplay in “Saat mut palamaan / Saan sust palan vaan”, and for the look – if
not necessarily the sound – of jäädytää. Oh, and nothing places this song as
squarely in Northern Europe as the line “Voiko ihminen kuolla kiimaan?”
(Answer: Yes, yes you can.)
A: Chucking in one hook after another, the bridge and chorus here are probably
the best of the contest. The comparatively restrained verses provide some respite
from the rest of the song, which is never knowingly not in your face. The
vocals suit it down to the ground, an aural antidote to the piercing striations
of the violin, which are the embodiment of the metaphor at the heart of the
lyrics but feel quite old-fashioned in their way. The whole thing gets a bit
busy at times, particularly as it ramps up towards that shrill climax, beating
you into submission as it goes. It’s a pasting that, all things considered, I’m
willing to take.
V: Pete Parkkonen (does he turn into the Finnish version of
Spider-Man?) looks a bit like his diminutive namesake Peter Dinklage,
particularly when puppy-dog-eyeing us through the grill of the confessional. He
puts in a great vocal performance; the rest is as studied as it always was, and
in one of the contest’s most impenetrable languages, which perhaps explains why
the audience didn’t connect with it to the extent they were expected to.
Odds-on favourite or not, some fans treated its failure to win like an
insoluble conundrum which showed that something, somewhere must be wrong,
overlooking that it secured Finland its equal third-best placing in 59 attempts,
a result everyone – the Finns included – would have been ecstatic about as
recently as a decade ago. In the end, as precise and effective as the whole
thing is, you can’t deny its melodrama, or the fact that neither Pete nor Linda
make any concession to the television viewer in the catharsis they act out,
looking right through them even when staring down the barrel of the camera.
They clearly took the Swedish approach of “if it ain’t broke, just elevate it”
without considering that its [ironically] Northern iciness might not translate
across the continent. It’s still one of the most complete packages of the contest,
I hasten to add; just not quite the crowd pleaser it was assumed to be. Oh, and
while laudable, the live playing of the violin makes no appreciable difference,
at least to me.
09 Montenegro
B: Tamara’s championing of women’s empowerment and equality is
certainly reflected in lines like “Lijepe žene, lijepe su zbog sebe”, “K’o od
gromova rođena / Žena” and the whole of “Ko si ti da mi pričaš / Ko sam ja? /
Da l’ ću doć ili poć? / Ja sam otišla / Sve sto vodi do tebe / Sam srušila”.
A: This isn’t dissimilar in structure to the Swedish entry, but the
instrumental parts are far more palatable. Nor is it dissimilar in purpose to
the Croatian entry, which makes the punchy approach entirely warranted. The sparing
use of the bell throughout is great, but its tolling is especially meaningful
right at the end. This is an example of music and lyrics gelling to form something
really cohesive.
V: And then we get this masterclass in how not to present a song at
ESC. It’s fascinating to think that everyone on the Montenegrin delegation and
the top floor at RTCG must have viewed this staging a hundred times before it
went live and never once questioned whether the right choices had been made. The
self-important chaptering of the performance lends it a weight it never
evidences, serving only to highlight that half the song is delivered in
pre-recorded vocals and dance breaks. Even when Tamara is heard, she sounds
unrelentingly awful. She and the dancers snarling their way through the whole
thing is doubtless meant to reflect the righteous anger at the heart of the
lyrics, but just looks ridiculous and off-putting. And that collar shows they
haven’t learned anything on the costuming front from their last couple of
entries. All told, the fact the entry earned 14 times as many points as Georgia
– with only two of them coming from its neighbouring juries – after an even
more disastrous performance is mind-boggling.
10 Estonia
B: I had to snigger at the eurovision.com bio foregrounding Vanilla
Ninja-branded ice cream as being the best-selling in Estonia since its launch
in 2003, since sure, it’s an achievement, but one that has nothing to do with
the band. (I also learned from it that they have a song called When the
Indians Cry. I ain’t touchin’ that one with a bargepole.) As for their Viennese
confection, I wonder if “pure rebel rock’n roll” [sic] is meant to characterise
their Cool Vibes days. It must have been a pretty tame rebellion…
A: …one that continues here with the beefed-up Eurovision version of
the song, which smothers its schlager roots in electric guitar but does little
to disguise them. They were clearly hoping to get a chant going on the ‘too
epic’ bits, but it doesn’t become any more true the more you shout it. Yes,
it’s a harmless enough bit of fluff and not bad when taken on its own merits,
such as they are; and yes, there’s a place for it in the 2026 line-up. But it’s
still very much a makeweight.
V: It was never going to be better than this. So there’s that.
11 Israel
B: Apparently this can be interpreted as a metaphor for Israel’s “complex
relationship with the Western world” and as a “break-up letter to Europe”. It’s
an amazing self-own if it is, and if Michelle is Israel in that context.
Generally though it feels like the after to the Finnish entry’s before. “La
reine des problèmes” is a slap in the face, but also awkward – at least when
translated into English – and a lazy rhyme. As the third melting pot of
languages after the Moldovan and Greek entries, the song holds together well
enough. I just wish, in the English part, they’d rhymed “trapped in your
carousel” with “Instagram hell” rather than “under your spell”.
A: Noam has a lovely gravelly quality to his voice that contributes much
to the song that might otherwise be lacking. I find the sudden drops into the
chorus problematic, purely from a listening point of view, since they add to
the overall bittiness of what are a fairly frenetic three minutes in any event.
I prefer the quieter moments to those that are more forthright. The acoustic opening,
backed by those initial strings, is lovely. They later morph into something
more punctuated and harder on the ears, albeit pleasingly of their region in
the second verse. Overall, the sense is of a song that’s thrown too much into
the mix and could have done with some red-pen editing.
V: Noam’s look is very James Newman sponsored by Ozempic®. He sounds great and, more impressively, effortless. The
milk-and-white-chocolate dancers I can take or leave (the one inside the
diamond at the start writhes around him for a bit before darting off as if
she’s spotted a squirrel), but they do add some movement to proceedings, in
which Noam himself remains fairly stationary. The aforementioned prop is
stunning, as is the predominantly copper, blue and silver colouring. I just
wish, yet again, that the whole thing could be taken on its own merits rather
than in the context of the politics impinging on the contest. The performance
is very effective; the song is what it is. In combination, they’re definitely
overachieving by finishing as runners-up.
12 Germany
B: Ein wahres Multitalent! But it perhaps says something that most of
what Sarah’s known for of late has had less to do with singing and more to do
with performing generally. She mightn’t be at the tail-end of her career, but
doing Eurovision 15 years after her big breakthrough has that sort of feel to
it. Lyrically, this is the basicest of bitches in this year’s line-up, with
about as much spice as a pumpkin spice latte. Lines like “Just know that I
could take my revenge / I could go out with all of your friends” are justly
ripe for ridicule.
A: Considering it’s like ESC06 rang and asked for its song back, it’s no
surprise to find some very Confessions-era Madonna
vocal effects underpinning the main line here. In fact I much prefer listening
to the song without Sarah on it, since I don’t feel she has the right voice (or
strength of voice) for it, plus the instrumental version reveals some mildly
interesting things about it that otherwise go unnoticed. ‘Solid but
unremarkable’ was coined for this type of song, and yet without the true
nostalgia of the Italian entry or even the simple retro appeal of something
like Too Epic to Be True, where’s the value add?
V: Serviceable, but I had this pegged as a nul-pointer in the
final as soon as I’d seen it in the semi. They at least made the smart choice
to rejig the opening, which draws both your eye and your ear more effectively
than the studio version. The routine is bog-standard – Sarah is no Chanel or
Eleni, and is outshone by her backing dancers – and I can’t imagine the
planning meeting lasted for any more than a few minutes when all they came up
with for the visuals was ‘red’, ‘flames’ and ‘words on screen’. Kudos for the
camerawork though, especially the zooms-in on the podium.
13 Belgium
B: “Through her lyrics, [upper-case] ESSYLA aims to share the concerns
of the young women of her generation, with a central focus on female
empowerment.” Quite a strange set of lyrics then, which contrast the lightness
of things like “ice-cream melting on my blue jeans” with the darkness of the
admission that “I keep dancing on the ice / Where everything dies / Frozen to
the bone… / Cause I feel alive / I’m satisfied”. The imagery throughout is
muddled, so much so that you can never really be sure what point she’s making.
None of it reads as particularly empowering, unless it’s derived from doing the
kind of thing the Finnish and Montenegrin entries rail against with the roles
reversed. It comes across as tit-for-tat.
A: Great production here. The chorus – or, again, the chorus and
post-chorus instrumental stretch, of which we’ve quite a few examples this year
– doesn’t live up to the promise of the opening, but nor does it undermine the song
as a whole, which is very inventive. Essyla’s vocals are well attuned to the shades
in the lyrics, getting the feel of them across, especially at the beginning.
The slightly sinister-sounding synths and strings have the same effect. The
bridge, and indeed the entire last minute or so, is one of the best of the
year. That final little gasp is the cherry on top.
V: Essyla has an interesting face, in that it’s genuinely hard to tell
whether she’s 15 or 55. What is easier to tell is that she’s no dancer, or at
least not allowed to be one here; her movement is minimised, no doubt to allow
her to concentrate on the vocals, which she delivers well enough. The choice to
start low on the lines in the pre-chorus before going high at the ends is an
odd one, contributing to a disarming opening which makes you wonder whether
we’re in for a vocal car crash. Job done in simply getting to the final, she
seems freer and more in the moment, but is also one of the most visibly
exhausted upon reaching the end of her Eurovision journey. Overall, the
minimalist staging suits the song, as it focuses things; even the choreography
is fairly contained. The regal touches to the dancers’ costumes are neat, and
the song itself sounds great in the hall. Its overall result is understandable,
but it has no business wallowing in the zero-point doldrums alongside Germany
and the UK.
14 Lithuania
B: Yet another linguistic mash-up; they account for a quarter of the competing
entries in this semi. And why include just two or three when you can chuck in
six? Follow Moldova’s lead! (“Gal lengviau būtų su subtitrais?” is clearly a
rhetorical question.) I suppose the melange reflects the singer’s state of
mind, and the notion that there’s beauty to be found even in chaos. There’s
something counterintuitively uplifting in the lines leading into the chorus:
“Kai viskas griūna gyvenimą pamatau / Ir kuo toliau žiūriu / Aš tiesiog
noriu daugiau”.
A: This loses me after the moody, atmospheric Lithuanian opening, so I
suppose I should be grateful it makes up a full third of the song. The polyglottal
stop that is the second verse tips it out of the boat, holds its head under the
water and drowns it in melodrama, with no lifeline thrown to the listener to
ever take it seriously beyond that point. It’s a shame, because the first
chorus – with its new patina of strings – just about gets the balance right.
The net effect is of a song out of a modern musical, and a truncated version of
one at that. This makes it no less a song in its own right, of course; just one
mid-narrative whose aims don’t align with those of the numbers bookending it.
V: In make-up terms, lamé Tin Man is
quite the glow-up from the comparatively restrained
first-degree-burns-around-the-eyes look the flowery Lion served while
performing last year’s Eurovizija.LT runner-up Drobė. He holds it
together here for the first half of the song, but having delivered the arch B/W
subtitles bit and dispatched his monk’s robes like Darth Vader striking down
Ben Kenobi in Star Wars, his big notes
go wildly astray. He’s a little more disciplined in the final, but there again he
struggles with his timing. I still can’t tell whether the added Saturday-night tear
is an affectation, or whether the face paint made his eye water. In the end,
the mannered performance just gives the impression of him being a weirdo.
15 San Marino
B: How am I only just finding out that the otherwise mononymous
Senhit’s full name is Senhit Zadik Zadik and that in the Ge’ez script of the
land of her forefathers it’s written ሰንሂት ጻዲቅ ጻዲቅ, like someone doodling choreography moves? Meanwhile, George Alan
O’Dowd gets a credit for both the music and lyrics here, but not under the name
he’s better known by. I wonder if that was deliberate, given that the two lines
he does deliver are the worst of the bunch, and that he’s not even mentioned in
the bio. For want of anything more impressive, I’m partial to “Look at you /
Staring at your shoes / Like you’re scared or something”.
A: This starts like Belgium if Belgium forgot to be interesting. The
chorus, when it comes around, is positively Swedish in being so separate from
the verses, but at least the Swedes know how to finesse the transitions.
There’s almost nothing I like about this, if I’m honest. It’s bland and
repetitive, belying its title, and even when it introduces a proper superstar
it does very little (musically) to highlight it. I know Senhit-the-artist is a
vanity project, or at best a hobby for the rich and idle, but it goes to show
that money doesn’t always buy you quality.
V: “They never seen perfection like this before” was tempting fate, but
to be fair, this looks amazing – quite apart from Boy George, you can tell
they’ve chucked a shit tonne of cash at it (for all it achieved). In fact I’d
go so far as to say San Marino hasn’t looked better on a Eurovision stage. I’d
also say Senhit sounds the best she ever has here, even if her voice is
starting to betray her age. Still, she doesn’t come across as anywhere near as
superannuated as the supposed superstar of the piece, who does some old-lady
dancing on the stage before emitting a final ‘Woo!’ that’s a hundred times
better than the four actual lines he delivers.
16 Poland
B: I guess a song about how useless unquestioning faith proves to be in
the real world ought to be applauded when it’s coming from a staunchly Catholic
country like Poland. If, indeed, that’s your take on it. That’s the way I
choose to interpret lines like “Lord are you giving up on me / Cos I’m not
giving up on me / Thought you would forgive all my sins”, because otherwise
it’s the complete reverse – ‘My life is just one long struggle full of bad
choices and horrible people but hey, the sky fairy will come through for me at
some point, right?’ – and I’d like to give her more credit than that.
A: Fair dos to Alicja, she sounds the part. And fair dos to the song:
when it’s not getting ideas above its gospel station, I have a certain amount
of time for it. It’s when it falls into the trap of its own making that I hold
it at arm’s length. The unadulterated Americanness of it would put me off at
the best of times, and those are not the times we are living in. The
intermittent, ephemeral synths are the highlight of the composition, which in
all other respects does what it says on the tin. I won’t deny its power, but it
has a preachy, bludgeoning quality I just can’t be doing with.
V: She sure has got a set of lungs on her. A vocal powerhouse, Ms
Szemplińska barrels through this; not always making it look easy, perhaps, but
outshining just about all of her competitors. She absolutely nails the last big
note in the final, putting even more of a full-stop on the performance than in
the semi. I love the silhouette her metallic bustier and bandy-legged palazzo
pants create in combination with her hair, and the choreography that plays out
on that impossibly angled ramp is entrancing. Alicja is so powerful in her own
right that the fact there’s no gospel choir on stage with her makes no odds, but
it still would have been nice to feature them on the big screen.
17 Serbia
B: I see that breaking free from – or, fatally, clinging onto – toxic
relationships is a running theme at the tail-end of this semi. The double
meaning of the title is a clever bit of word play and reflects the incongruity
at the heart of these lyrics, which are about one and the same person being
what keeps you going and what drives you ever closer to the edge. There’s a
degree of both self-awareness and self-deception on the part of the protagonist
which reflects that as well. Interestingly, the lines “Ne mogu još dugo ovako /
Da puzim i molim, i klanjam se” could see Kraj mene drifting into
the same territory as the Polish entry if the use of the feminine endings on
the past participles for the object of the unrequited love didn’t scupper any
interpretation of a crisis of religious faith.
A: I quite like the dissonance between Luka’s lead vocals, the choral
backing in the chorus and the hint of the madness to come that bubbles under in
the second verse. This is an odd beast though: it takes more than two minutes
to get to the point, which feels like wasted time when you’ve only got three to
play with, and which forces it to just stop when the sand runs out. Equally,
you wouldn’t want the screaming to dominate any more of the song. I’m not
averse to its goth-metal stylings, but they turn out to be more appealing in
theory than they are in practice. And as the instrumental reveals, a lot of
that is down to the aforementioned vocals – not just at the end, but
throughout.
V: In all that get-up, Luka reminds me of the Skeksis in The Dark
Crystal. (The keyboardist who shares vocal duties with him when he goes all
Pazuzu Regan looks like a drag-king version of Clare Balding.) There’s a
frisson of excitement in the semi when the camera catches the stagehand darting
on to whip off his cloak like some overeager fan. The sound mix is much better
in the final, by which I mean you can actually hear Luka. The switch from icy
blue to burning orange when the screaming starts is predictable but effective.
18 Bulgaria
B: Never mind the rang – lines like “Close to the edge I can feel
it inside” and “Come on, let me pull you in so deep” tell you all too clearly
what the bang in the title refers to.
A: Arresting opening. I rail against the haphazard structure of the
rest of it, which feels almost literally thrown together, and yet I’m forced to
admit that as an example of “unrestrained genre-blending”, as they put it, it’s
pretty effective. If the supposedly Jamaican origins of the title are true, I’m
glad they resisted the temptation of appropriating its musical culture as well.
That said, the high-pitched bagpipey thing* that pops up every now and then
sounds just as home in a bit of Balkan EDM as it would coming from a snake charmer
on the subcontinent, so I suppose the song has a wide-reaching sound whether it
intends to or not.
V: This is one of those rare transformational performances that takes a
mid-tier song and turns it into a true contender: as a song, Bangaranga will never be
among my favourites, but this staging of it certainly will be. Dara has an
innate charisma that most of her competitors would kill for, and which elevates
this performance from the opening shot. Part of what makes it so potent is how
incongruous it is – all of us at our watch party were instantly transfixed by
it for being so unexpected, and unexpectedly good. That very ’70s set, the
costumes and the arthouse masks and make-up see you, the viewer at home, sit up
and take notice before Dara acknowledges the space she’s in and opens up the
performance to the crowd in the arena, who understandably lap it up. Her vocals
are also surprisingly good, if a little breathless in the semi, where she still
looks like she’s finding her way through the routine (or at least the set) at
certain points. She approaches it less gingerly and with a tad more control in
the final, where it counts most, and where she has the audience eating out of
her hand. The more free-form winner’s reprise is simply joyous.
*Googling suggests a ‘djura gaida’, which is a type of aerophone,
apparently. (Nope, me neither.)
19 Azerbaijan
B: The blatant lie in the bio that our Cəmilə reached the top three of the
Azeri national final in 2011 when she did no better than third in a
quarter-final is a bizarre way of trying to ferment credibility when she has a
perfectly decent CV of actual achievements – amongst which these lyrics cannot
be counted. The inversion of expectations in the lines “But now I see through
your disguise / The truth is burning in my eyes” is the only highlight in a
bland set of lyrics. Not even the Azeri coda is enough to make them more
interesting.
A: İctimai poo-pooed the notion that this entry was AI-generated, but
then we’ve heard them deny dodgy shit before. (Plus, as we saw above, their
official PR this year is deliberately misleading.) Just Go is certainly
dull and clichéd enough for a machine to have come up with, and let’s be
honest, it would be less embarrassing conceding that it had been than anyone
human admitting to writing it. The only rousing bit in the whole song is the
bridge into the chorus. The rest is the unrewarding musical equivalent of
solving a 10-piece puzzle in about 15 seconds flat and then having to stare at
it for another two-and-three-quarter minutes. The only positive thing I can say
about it is that Jiva’s vocals complement the music nicely, even if they never
manage to lift the song, which had already shot itself in both feet before issuing
a note.
V: I know the Azeris were on a hiding to nothing here, and I guess they
knew it too, but even so, what’s happened to the ambitious Azerbaijan of old?
Based on this staging it’s like they’ve given up completely. It’s Jiva I feel
sorry for, because she can actually sing, and yet they do nothing but plonk her
in front of some drip-dry bedclothes like she’s in a low-budget commercial for
fabric softener before casting it in a light that makes the linen look dirty.
(I’d like to think there’s a knowing irony to that, but I doubt it.) As
silhouetted on it, the dancer/stalker/handler resembles an Azeri Freddy Krueger
in A Nightmare
on Qarağac küçəsi, which might explain the singer’s bleeding eyes. You’d have to wonder whether
coming last in every single televote bar one – where it came second-last – is
some kind of record, and whether it will galvanise the İctimaians to try harder
in Sofia. And if they take nothing else away from this performance, I hope they
realise that singing in their own language, which they showcase even more here
than in the studio version, is very much welcome.
20 Romania
B: I haven’t got a single string of pearls to my name and therefore
none to clutch, but I’m still surprised Romania got away with an entry with
that title. Sure, Alexandra was eloquent in her response to the controversy it
generated – “As a
songwriter, I often use symbolism to give shape to feelings that are difficult
to explain directly. This song reflects… the journey of reclaiming your voice
and autonomy… and the feeling of being emotionally suffocated by our own
expectations” – but still seemed to be
missing (or deliberately dodging) the point. As grateful as she is to those who
engage with her music in good faith, she should have realised how titling her
song Choke Me could be interpreted, especially when sung
by a woman. And it’s not just the title anyway: with the best will and ‘Who,
me?’ face in the world, the lyrics are full of sexual/BDSM undertones, from
“Why do you want to tame me?” through “You are here to obey me” to “My body is
begging / Do what I say”. And come on, the vanishing chance that “All I need is
your love / I want it to choke me” could be perceived innocently disappears the
very next moment when the command changes to “I want you to choke me”. You can
try and frame someone having their ability to speak taken away from them as
metaphorically reclaiming their voice all you want: it won’t wash. If Alexandra
had come out and owned it by saying, “Oh, yeah, it’s a song about female sexual
empowerment” or something I would at least have respected its (and her) intent.
A: Hate hate HATE the spoken bits in the verses, and the popera can
fuck right off. The rest of it is decent enough pop-rock fare, with the heavier
elements echoing the angst and intensity of the lyrics (or vice versa). There’s
some nice, unobtrusive synthwork here and there that you only unearth when you
listen to the instrumental.
V: The “artistic rigor with raw emotion” Alexandra is renowned for
demonstrating on stage is on view here in a performance that has a distinct
story to tell and into which she throws herself 100%. She displays admirable
vocal range and control, which is overlooked by the juries in a way you’d describe
as unaccountable if it weren’t for the fact that rockier numbers seem much
harder to sell to them (cf. Serbia). Perhaps they also took issue with the
lyrics and the obfuscation surrounding them? Visually, the only aspect of the
staging that doesn’t work for me is the neon chains-cum-umbilical cords
tethering her to the guitarists at the beginning, since they just look a bit
tacky. Otherwise, this is another strong showing for the returning countries,
all of whose top-four finishes in the final televote feel warranted.
21 Luxembourg
B: The metaphor here is no-frills, but there’s a degree of nuance in
the transition from “when there’s thunder / I… wonder who am I” to “Even when
there’s thunder / Oh I don’t have to wonder who am I”.
A: That plinky-plonk opening really draws you in. Eva Marija has an
appealing timbre to her voice as well, especially in the quieter and
lower-pitched bits. The B-chorus, however, is a real contradiction: undeniably
the albatross around the rest of the song’s neck (Mother Nature knows – we get
it), but also the bit where it truly soars. There’s a pleasing drive to the
composition as a whole, which feels like a functioning ecosystem all of its own.
And it’s arguably the best of the three entries in this year’s contest
co-written by ESC stalwarts Julie Aagaard and Thomas Stengaard. I don’t think
they got the memo about the instrumental/karaoke version though, which is just
the original with the vocals turned down a bit.
V: Probably because she’s had to deliver it a thousand times since the
national final, the wide-eyed innocence of the song and Eva Marija’s delivery
of it come across as inauthentic at times on the Vienna stage, which feels
inexplicably drained of life. I mean, come on – that’s what you call
the thing and then you inject almost no colour into it? The blooming of the
flowers on the augmented mic stand at the end feels anaemic rather than
triumphant. My only comment on the performance upon its petering out in the
semi was, “At least she hit all her marks.”
22 Czechia
B: “People keep asking me what Crossroads is about,” the
performer posted on Instagram ahead of the song’s release. “It’s a bit hard to
give one cohesive answer, because it has so many layers that I wouldn’t want to
overexplain. But… It’s about navigating our lives in a world filled with both
familiar and unfamiliar situations, distractions, overinformation, social
media, the climate crisis… Which turn is the right one to take? The only
compass we have in this maze is our intuition, but following it isn’t always
easy. And maybe that’s the point… I knew the direction the song needed to take,
but it took some time to pull all these complex themes into [a] few verses.”
Which, I dunno, maybe reflect a broader Gen-Z malaise at the state of the world
and their place in it, but the lyrics – pretentious and preachy in turn – still
come across as something written by an earnest high school student who hasn’t
quite developed the writing skills to pull it off.
A: From the floaty vocals to the ethereal strings, this ought to press a
plethora of buttons for me, but it somehow misses all of them. Daniel’s mumbled
delivery annoys me no end, rendering the majority of the lyrics unintelligible,
and the promise of the opening minute dissolves into an ever-shoutier morass that
abandons any sense of direction. Which, to be fair, is in keeping with the
theme, but even so. It’s frustrating, because there’s more than merely a kernel
of a good idea here. It doesn’t help that you can hear this over and over again
and still not be able to sing a note of it. I’m not saying that all songs have
to be pop-standard with predictable chords and a tune that etches itself in
your memory immediately, but something – anything – to grab onto would be
appreciated.
V: Young Mr Žižka is viewed as ‘talent of the future’ on the Czech
music scene, so let’s hope ESC proves to be a springboard for him rather than a
shuttered gate. Considering it was almost entirely the industry professionals
on the juries who rewarded said talent, it might have worked out OK for him –
certainly more than the camerawork did in the final. That he escapes the circle
of mirrors at the end, giving him a moment of recognition from the audience in
the arena, is the only nod to the live setting he’s performing in. I find the
mirrors themselves a little on the nose otherwise, being so literally
reflective while also acting as a cage that isolates Daniel for most of the
performance, however appropriate that may be to the song’s message.
23 France
B: Fredie Marche: “How many French-song clichés shall I cram into the
lyrics?” Monroe: “Yes.”
A: Ditto the music. There’s no denying Ms Rigby’s talent, especially
for one so young, but all her operatic projection and resonance serves to do
here, especially in combination with the pomp of the music, is make the song
feel self-important and leave you wondering what to do with it. Don’t get me
wrong, it’s an accomplished composition; everything about the song is polished.
But it’s also theatrical, and ultimately so OTT that it just becomes the
musical equivalent of a puff piece.
V: She’s a prodigy and no mistake, completely at home on stage and in
front of the cameras. That’s a double-edged sword though, since it makes the
whole thing feel even more like it’s laying down a challenge. It’s clearly one
the televoters weren’t willing to face: their near-wholesale rejection of it
must have stung. We can only hope it leads France TV to reconsider their
approach to Eurovision, at least when it comes to the clichés. While referencing
Les
Misérables makes perfect sense given the performance and the country delivering
it, little is achieved bar adding to the sense of egotism the song exudes.
24 Armenia
B: Rosa Linn had a hand in these lyrics, which could be where the
overlapping Snap-like ennui comes from. In this case it’s of
the workaday grind variety – “Copy-paste my days… / One more round of kissing
the ground” – which I dare say is autobiographical, given what the bio tells us
about the singer. Speaking of which, I did a double-take when it informed me
that SIMÓN topped both the national and international jury votes in Depi
Evratesil last year with Ay paparey bye – I was like,
what? He did? It wasn’t the strongest line up of songs, but really?** I suppose
there’s no accounting for taste.
A: There certainly isn’t where this is concerned. I can’t tell whether it
being so aggressively repetitive and yet monotonous is deliberate or facetious
in terms of what the song is about. I’m not sure it has any redeeming qualities
as a piece of music. And I’m still none the wiser as to why it’s called Paloma rumba.
V: **Although it was a very effective showcase for him being a dancer
first and a singer only second. “Take my chance to finally dance” indeed. Ironically,
it’s the exaggerated running at the end that works best in visual terms rather
than any of the dance elements, and the metaphor of being trapped in a crowded
elevator is significantly more sophisticated than anything else they go for.
The whole thing is surprising – considering how in-your-face it is – for having
next to no impact at all. It might have outscored its Caucasian neighbours by a
factor of 10, but it capped off a terrible year for them in the contest.
25 Switzerland
B: I’m not sure the vaunted “sharp lyricism with emotional clarity” is
on display here, where the narrator rapidly morphs from creepy stalker into
crazed killer. Not that there’s anything wrong with a murder ballad, of course
– it’s just that this is less Where the Wild Roses Grow and more “I’m
fucked in the head, so you have to die”.
A: Rather a lot has been made of this being an album track and
therefore unsuited as a Eurovision entry, but I don’t think its status as Track
9 or whatever is the issue here: it’s the nature of the song itself. Of course,
whether you view that as an issue at all is another matter; there is, or at
least should be, room in the contest for all types of music and all types of
songs, including those you wouldn’t necessarily label as ‘immediate’ in their
impact. Personally, I think Alice has a lot to recommend it, especially in
the context of the second semi-final, but also generally among the 2026 cohort.
It’s very well arranged and produced (among others by Grammy-nominated
co-composer Charlie McClean), with some great backing vocals. Veronica’s own
delivery is spot on as well, what with the lyrics being such a double-edged
sword: subdued but insistent, impassioned but with an edge of obsession.
V: This is dark and threatening, as it should be. I don’t really know
how I was expecting them to stage it, but not like this, nor this successfully.
The individual elements are really well integrated, speaking to the lyrics, and
Veronica provides a flawless vocal that’s indistinguishable from the studio
version at times. It must have been galling to discover that they’d made the
top 10 with both the juries and televoters and yet still failed to qualify – especially
when pipped to the post by:
26 Cyprus
B: Our tousle-haired songstress was right to opt for the one-word stage
name: Antigoni Buxton sounds like a character out of Harry Potter, or a YA teen
detective or something. “Let ’em stare / If they’re watching, they got eyes for
me” exists on that thin line between self-confidence and self-delusion that
there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
A: This is another number straight out of 2006 – at least from the
45-second mark onwards, when the throwback comes out of left field after an
introduction that makes you think you’re in for something much more modern. Alas,
that’s not what we get. The whole song is anchored around its chorus, which is
all about encouraging audience participation. (How eager you are to provide it
is a different story.) Kudos for the traditional instruments in the
arrangement, which after Bulgaria again features some sort of bagpipe***,
making it Balkan by default. Antigoni’s vocals, even in the studio version, never
really convince me that she’s any better than she has to be as a singer.
V: “Might just have you falling in love.” Not on this evidence. Antigoni
puts in by far the weakest vocal performance of the contest, which makes it all
the more depressing that a bit of glittery midriff and hanky-waving was still
enough to get her over the line and rob something much more worthy of a place
in the final. She looks stunning, and the colours and lighting certainly
flatter the piece, but the undemanding choreography speaks of an attempt at
damage limitation that achieves little in the end. If she’d scraped through off
the back of her Saturday-night performance I’d be less incensed by it, but as
it stands, the Greek jury’s 12 has rarely been so laughable.
***This time a tsambouna, if the internet is to be believed. The Albanians
call it something different, but I’m assuming it’s more or less the same
instrument as the one that featured so prominently in Zjarr e ftohtë in Athens.
27 Austria
B: A spiritual – or rather animal – successor to Weil der
Mensch zählt in its way, but with an altogether different message. The bit with der
Gorilla in particular (“Ich nehm ihn an der Hand… / Wir schauen uns in die
Augen / Und jetzt fangen wir an / Du kannst mir vertrauen / Hier ist alles
erlaubt / Wir haben uns doch lang genug versteckt”) is a coming-out story and
no mistake. The whole thing can be read as a takedown of the gay scene, with
Cosmó imagining his own personal queer haven.
A: Love the woof. This gives the impression of a story set to music,
which is what all songs are, of course; but the music here kind of becomes
incidental, content to play second fiddle to the narrative. It’s not
underproduced by any means, but it is unassuming. The composition rarely if ever
does anything to draw your attention away from the lyrics… which lends itself
to being problematic if you’ve no idea what Cosmó is going on about.
V: Random thoughts from watching this again: 1) Am I the only one who
gets a bit of a retro lesbian vibe? 2) His outfit makes him look like a
deflated weather balloon. 3) Stylish animal masks. 4) Cosmó gives a confident
and capable performance for someone so wet behind the ears. 5) The roar of the
gorilla doesn’t match his inciting of “Wien!”, sadly. 6) The easy-to-copy
choreography is a nice touch. 7) Though the partisan crowd were always going to
support it, this makes for an unexpectedly effective closer in the final.
28 Latvia
B: Props for the official translation of the lyrics, which mostly
retains the feel of the original, as far as I can tell. That said, the determination
to rhyme does soften some lines, allowing e.g. a chink of light into the
stygian gloom of “Slīksim kopā šaubu atvarā” (“Let’s drown together in the
abyss of doubt”). Yeah, come on Europe, let’s do it! On which note, it’s quite
the choice picking Atvara as a stage name when that’s what it means. Still,
it’s more memorable than Liene Stūrmane. I love the fact that a word as compact
as ēnā conveys the entire notion of ‘in[to] the shadows’. From the chorus
alone here you’d be forgiven for thinking that āll vōwēls īn Lātvīān cōmē cāppēd wīth ā crōssbār.
A: The instrumental version of this is quite the soundscape, featuring
all sorts of neat little touches. The final minute lays things on a bit too
thick for me, but up to that point it’s been one of the year’s most interesting
compositions. The piano at the start almost sounds as though it’s being played
underwater, weighed down as it is, and matched by Atvara’s initially more
tempered delivery. She’s never better vocally than when she floats up into
something higher and lighter in the first chorus. Like the song generally, I
find her voice harder going the less hesitant it becomes. No shade (ahem) on
the song overall though, which is positively absorbing and, in a good way, a
real outlier.
V: Unlike in any of the previous renditions of the song I saw, the high
notes at the end here are flawless, so well done to Atvara for peaking at the
right time. Not that it helped, of course. If it’s the song the audience took
issue with, that’s one thing; but the performance is still dogged by the same
issues it always was, in that although it’s striking for its graphics and
overall minimalism, it forces the singer to divide her attention between timing
all her movements to match the animation (or whatever it is) (and which she
still doesn’t manage precisely) and actually singing. On top of that, her
concentrating face is rather sneery. I still like the staging, and thought the
song ploughed unique enough of a furrow in the second semi to make it to the
final, but in hindsight I can see why it failed to ignite much excitement.
29 Denmark
B: “Hjertet ved hvad det vil – bare la det bestemme”. Words to live by.
I love that throwing in a single bit of English sees these lyrics
front-and-centre the exhortation ‘Men please’!
A: Incredibly atmospheric. One of the many things I love about it is
that it deliberately eschews the easy route, giving you little to cling to
musically, but instantly hooking you nonetheless. The simple melody of the
pre-chorus does much of the heavy lifting in anchoring the song, as the chorus
itself has its own, quite different aims, full of single-minded determination.
It’s quite the achievement to be so uncompromising and yet remain this
accessible – all the more so when presenting the whole thing in Danish.
V: There aren’t many vocal powerhouses among this year’s line-up, but
here, unquestionably, we have one of them. His solid if slightly in-his-head
performance in the semi improves in the final, where he shines. (As does the
lid of the box, which they’ve at last given a bit of a clean.) The cool
grey-blues that accompany most of the song are the perfect tone to contrast
against the explosive orange of the denouement. It’s a combination that draws –
and holds – the eye very effectively. I’m glad the juries recognised the
quality of the song and its staging more than the televoters did, since it’s
the strongest Danish entry in years. And I love Søren’s
“Thank you for letting me open my favourite show!” right at the end <3
Addendum #1: From certain angles, in a certain light, Søren looks like someone tried to 3D-print action figures of ’80s
detectives Cagney and Lacey but the printer fused Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless
together.
30 Australia
B: Clearly more determined to enjoy a one-night-stand than Denmark! These
lyrics don’t do much that’s different or exciting, but the core concept of the
eclipse works well as a metaphor for everything else falling away in the moment
and there being nothing and no one but you and them.
A: Made to order if ever a Eurovision entry was – and the measurements
are just right. The layered arrangement and Delta’s assured vocals tick one
jury box after another, while the shifting tempos, key change and general level
of incident are there to keep you listening and/or watching. For the most part
the song gels beautifully, but the one thing that stops me from describing the
composition as all of a piece is the incongruous piano solo after the
two-minute mark, which I can only assume was added to give Delta an opportunity
to show off on the joanna.
V: A towering performance, in every sense, but as controlling as it is
controlled: Delta doesn’t put a foot wrong, but that’s because she allows
herself no room for spontaneity. Towards the end it feels like she’s trying too
hard to prove a point we’ve already seen more than enough evidence for. I also
find her tendency to take a quick breath before launching into the bigger and
longer notes, especially in the middle of words, a bit of a cop-out. (And is
the live version in a slightly lower key? If so, so’s that.) All that said, you
can’t fault the laser focus of both the song and the performance – the
Australian delegation went to Vienna meaning business, and left with the
country’s second-best result. Job done. Clinical perhaps, but efficient.
31 Ukraine
B: The message here strives for uplifting, but it doesn’t really have
the strength to hold it. The sentiment is sweet, and hopeful, particularly in
the Ukrainian context, but it all feels a bit Anthem 101. The chorus makes it
sound like she’s crocheting socks for everyone.
A: Well intentioned but dull, despite the beautiful orchestration and
all the ideas thrown at it. The long note is extraordinary and yet indicative
of the structural problems at the heart of the song, which doesn’t have much to
say for itself beyond the halfway mark.
V: LELÉKA has a quiet dignity about her that I admire. She looks rather
like Sissy Spacek in Carrie, and the performance could probably do with
something akin to the prom-night massacre to pep it up. Not that it deterred
the viewers *cough*diaspora*cough* from elevating it to an exaggerated top-five
finish in the final televote; the juries’ 15th out of 25 feels more deserved.
It’s nice that they gave the guy playing the bandura a more respectful amount
of screen time than Australia did its harpist, whose hands had barely made a
10-second cameo before vanishing forever. Oh, and it’s a pity that neither of
the long notes is pulled off perfectly – not least when they choose to use
those bits for the recaps.
32 United Kingdom
B: The BBC bio takes pains to paint Sam Battle as quirky but qualified
to fight the UK’s corner at Eurovision. Which is odd, since he seems intent on
punching himself (i.e. the country) in the face repeatedly here, disparaging
various aspects that underpin British cultural identity. I sympathise with the
state of things in Blighty since Brexit, but I never expected one of their
entries to basically say, “LOL, the UK is shit, I’m outta here, Europe is so
much better” – if for no other reason than it was unlikely to win the wider
European audience over. Lyrically, this and Armenia turn out to be unexpected
stablemates, at least on the office drudgery front. Elsewhere, who among us
hasn’t asked ourselves what the point of munchin’ roly-poly and custard is?
Apart from rhyming with ‘mustard’, it makes a less eyebrow-raising option in
context than if he’d gobbled a spotted dick.
A: This is as quintessentially British as a stick of rock, which,
depending how you look at it, either supports the message the lyrics are trying
to get across or completely undermines it. The instrumental is great fun for
inspiration spotters. The words I can take or leave, but I really like the
music. (The bridge wouldn’t be all that out of place on a Pet Shop Boys B-side.)
That said, the use of the term ‘Marmite’ definitely applies here: I can see why
some people love the song and others hate it.
V: The problem with this performance is that it falls between two
stools – it’s quite kooky, but not super-kooky, so ends up feeling neither one thing
nor the other. It’s just there. The vocals are the same, in that LMNC puts in a
decent performance without either impressing or disappointing, while the staging
isn’t funny/entertaining enough to make up for its weirdness or boring enough
that you can blame that for its result. (The buck there stops with the BBC, and
you’d have to hope that three televote zeros in a row would give them pause to
reconsider their approach. The glory of Sam Ryder is a rapidly fading memory.)
The pastel pink and pea green mean that even the colours seem washed out.
33 Albania
B: Despite the slightly sinister momma-gonna-whoop-yo-ass undertone of
opening line “Ta dish se nâna po ju pret”, the lyrics here quickly reveal
themselves to be a touching meditation on love and loss – just not the kind I
thought. At first I assumed the poor Nân in question had popped her clogs, but
it turns out it’s not that sort of dirge (in the original meaning of the word),
but rather about the bond between mother and child and the pain that separation
brings. In a country with high levels of emigration since opening up to the
outside world, there’s also the hint of a political slant to it. On a personal
level, I dare say my own mum would identify with the sentiment in “Zemra po
dhemb / E lotin mezi po e mban / Ju tash po ikni / Do qani pak / Do harroheni /
Për jetë ma t’mirë, e di” when I buggered off to Europe, and on waving me off
after every visit since.
A: There’s a very attractive quality to Alis’ vocals in the verses
that’s diminished somewhat by the weight of the refrain and his need to
outshine, or at the very least hold his own against, the chorus of thousands
backing the track. As is often the case with Albanian entries, there’s nothing
very subtle about this, although Nân is arguably an instance of where less would
have been more: the chorus, especially towards the end, feels like musical assault
and battery. The verses and outro are more nuanced and much easier to take.
V: It’s amazing how a pair of sunglasses can age someone about 20 years,
as we discover when Alis’ mum takes them off him and we realise that he isn’t,
in fact, middle-aged. Mind you, the couture chain mail has much the same
effect. The song, too, to some extent, at least the way it’s staged here:
literally overbearing in places. In the semi, Alis gets suitably if unhelpfully
hysterical during his vocal ad-libs, which fly about the place without ever
landing where they’re supposed to; he just about makes the designated runway in
the final. The overall sense of the performance is one in which far more than
just Alis’ generation of émigré Albanians are being judged. And as someone
who’s had to synch his fair share of subtitles, it rankles that those in the
chorus here are timed to the music rather than the lines while the rest are
timed correctly.
34 Malta
B: And the award for the entry that hedges the most bets lyrically goes
to… It also has possibly the most banal opening couplet of any Eurovision entry
in “Hello, my friend / Is it the end?”. The whole thing operates on that level,
with the only glimmer of anything interesting being in the Maltese additions
and the reference to Jean la Valette. (Metaphor alert! He defended Malta
against the Ottomans.) But what with the insistence on ‘friend’ and the way in
which bella – while grammatically feminine – doesn’t necessarily refer to a woman
given its use and placement here, it feels like our Aidan is going out of his
way to avoid the obvious. “Miskin min hu bħali” indeed if that hunch is
correct. Of course, I’ll take it all back if Aidan turns out not to be queer
after all.
A: The promise of the first verse and bridge are largely squandered by
the chorus and the tedious repetition of the title that follows (was that the
bit Sarah Bonnici was responsible for?), while the three-minute rule imposes an
awkward shape on the song. But as the instrumental version shows, this is
otherwise a delightful orchestral ballad which could have been lifted straight
from the 1950s. It’s a shame that Aidan doesn’t have the right voice for it: it
needs Sinatran depth and tones to really make it work. That said, it’s a minor
masterpiece by Maltese standards.
V: All the money they spent on that prop and it still looks like he’s
singing in a gazebo that’s had fly screens fitted. Aidan might have had his
heart broken, but it looks like he’s had his nose broken a few times as well in
that weirdly unflattering medium close-up at the start. Immaculate hair though.
He can hold a note, but not for very long, and he just doesn’t have the crooner
voice needed to elevate this live. He lacks the easy-going charm, too: his look
on “it is you” is one of the cringiest moments of the contest, and that’s
saying something. The fake cry near the end is almost as bad. Still, it could
have been a lot worse.
Addendum #2: Aidan sounds very Australian when he thanks the audience.
The accent must have really rubbed off on him during his promo tour (which in
the final televote garnered him an average of just 0.57 points from each of the
14 countries he visited).
35 Norway
B: The question of what he’s talking about in “I got no self control /
Left it right all over you and your pretty clothes” is presumably answered in
“Gooooo ya ya ya ya”.
A: Catchy from the get-go, and that’s before Jonas even opens his
mouth. He and his “distinctive vocal grit” command the track, which is
impressive, because it takes some doing despite the composition – an acoustic
and percussive showcase – being so economical (which is, of course, its trump
card). It’s very much a case of him singing the song, not the song singing him,
as it were. The last-minute key change ought to feel superfluous, but it’s the
perfect way for the song to end.
V: The backdrop makes smart and graphically interesting use of words on
screen, showing up the likes of Germany. I’m less inclined to give the nod to
the claim that Jonas has “a stage presence that [feels] years ahead of his
time” when Harry Styles, Benson Boone et al. got there well before him. It’s
amazing to think his 19 audience points in the final – a casualty of his voice
giving out at the last after bawling his way through the song so many times in
the preceding week-and-a-bit? – were enough for 15th place in the televote
ranking. He did much better in the semi, in every sense, even if his vocals
were already a little frayed there. All told, it feels like he’d be hard work
to be around for more than a short time. (Mind you, that’s true of the shiny-headed
guitarist as well. The drummer, for his part, looks like he’d happily join the
Portuguese lads down the pub.) Amusingly, Jonas drops to his knees the same way
Mr Blobby does.
And so to the points...
1 point goes to Bulgaria
2 points go to Latvia
3 points go to Romania
4 points go to Croatia
5 points go to Moldova
6 points go to Belgium
7 points go to Australia
8 points go to Switzerland
10 points go to Finland
and finally...
12 points go to...
Denmark!
The Caucasus can count themselves lucky that the wooden spoon [on the table] is awarded to Cyprus.
