About yesterday’s European Song Contest 2024

Yesterday was the final of Eurovision. Lots of people use this as an opportunity to post pictures of dead babies. I get it, we live in pretty rough times. But the ESC is not an official European vote, or political platform. So how about we concentrate on the real elections going on. We have enough borderline fascist parties in every country to worry about. We should probably educate their fans about the dangers they pose.

Nobody asked me to give my statements. But, I watched the whole thing. So, here is my review of all the entries from winner to last place. It’s from a pure musical, performance, and ESC spirit perspective.

You can see all the votes and videos here

Switzerland — The Code — Nemo

This was a well deserved win. Sure, some folk can shout pandering to wokeness and gender fluidity, but I don’t care. Nemo had an amazing presence, it was a pitch-perfect rendition and felt like part of a musical. Singing this high and still showing that much power is not an easy feat. Seeing Nemo getting the votes from the expert jury was lovely, I thought they’d pass out any second. Shame the trophy got smashed in the final performance though. 5/5

Croatia — Rim Tim Tagi Dim — Baby Lasagna

This was for sure a banger and fun song, but I really missed a strong vocal lead. Given that he is a sound engineer, there is a lot of wall of sound, but no singer that takes me with him. Still, lots of stuff to shout in any stage of drunkenness, so that got them the audience vote. 4/5

Ukraine — Teresa & Maria — alyona alyona & Jerry Heil

Strong performance and pretty great song. When they told us that one is a rapper and the other a classical singer, I totally opted for the wrong ones. Sure, a bit of pathos in this one, but it deserved a really good place. 4/5

France — Mon amour — Slimane

France sent in a real heavy hitter. Slimane won every local award he could and sold gazillion times platinum. And it was a great performance — he knows his stuff. Well deserved high up place. 4/5

Israel — Hurricane — Eden Golan

Of course, lots of drama around this one and quite a few re-writes before they were allowed to release the song. ESC allows no political content, so that was a big one. All in all, this song did not deserve to end up this high, it was predictable and something we’ve seen dozens of times. 2/5

Ireland — Doomsday Blue — Bambie Thug

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. And nobody expected an exorcism, witchcraft and lots of screaming from Ireland. All that mixed with surprisingly melodic sequences. This was a tour de force, and pretty impressive, but I was wondering what the chap was on stage for. I’d have expected more of a duet. It was something different, so much for sure. And given that it will rattle the cage of some religious fanatics, more power to them. 4/5

Italy — La noia — Angelina Mango

We thought this could be a winner. Angelina Mango, daughter of a locally famous pop singer, delivered to a T what you expected. It focused on her and the song and the show was backdrop. I liked it and it is very hummable indeed. The topic of the song being boredom of Gen Z is interesting to look into further. 5/5

Armenia — Jako — Ladaniva

Well, that looked like a fairground or medieval festival with lots of people having fun. All in all it felt disconnected or trying too hard. But you have to give them credit for representing their culture in their song instead of going for a middle of the road pop song. 3/5

Sweden — Unforgettable — Marcus & Martinus

The irony award of the event goes to Sweden for calling this unforgettable. As it was the most forgettable boy-band-ish drivel. The stage show was pretty much the lights-inside-a-salad-shredder Puff Daddy style we all came to be utterly sick of. 1/5

Portugal — Grito — Iolanda

This was pretty avant-garde and a complex song. Ioalanda knows how to sing, but for the ECS there was no repeatability and dance floor compatibility. Shame, this was a damn good song. 4/5

Greece — Zari — Marina Satti

This started as a TikTok video (portrait style with flowing hearts) and continued to be a pandering to that new form of entertainment. Props for using lots of local instruments and music styles, but this had more influencer written over it than performance. It was fun, though and Marina Satti obviously had a blast. 3/5

Germany — Always on the Run — Isaak

Isaak came from the streets, literally as a busker. And this was a damn powerful performance. Vibes of Shakira, but he surely has a voice to be remembered. He also looks likeable and with no ego. When he won the German selection he said he needed to go to the bathroom as he is about to shit himself. Lovely to see someone get that far and win more points for his country than the last 4 years combined. As swearing isn’t allowed, he had to remove a “shit” in the lyrics but kept up with it seamlessly. 5/5

Luxembourg — Fighter — Tali

Luxembourg is back after a long hiatus and tried hard to be a performer people like. Sung mostly in French with English parts this was nothing to remember. Seen it a lot, solid work, but I missed something to grab me. 2/5

Lithuania — Luktelk — Silvester Belt

Again, run-of-the-mill performance. Cool that they sung in their own language though. 2/5

Cyprus — Liar — Silia Kapsis

Christina Aguilera was fun. This looked and sounded just a bit too close for comfort like her. Silia was the youngest performer, raised in Australia with Greek and Cypriot parents. So, what I missed here was country representation. Solid performance, again. 3/5

Latvia — Hollow — Dons

I felt for that chap. Damn good singer, sung his heart out, no performance around him, just some lovely particle animations and this bald headed man, by trade a voice actor, doing a great job. The song, however, failed to grip the audience and make people clap. 4/5

Serbia — Ramonda — Teya Dora

There was a lady on a rock who held the microphone far away and sang something. Vibes of Kate Bush failed to show up and it felt like a musical interlude when the rest of the stage was set up. 1/5

United Kingdom — Dizzy — Olly Alexander

This was an OK song, but the gay soft porn show made it hard to follow. This felt like it tried very hard to be edgy, including fancy camera trickery, but I was more confused than interested. It was a tad harsh to see though that they got zero points in the audience vote. Brexit means something, I guess? Still, the song was a toe tapper. 2/5

Finland — No Rules! — Windows95man

I had a good chuckle at that when I saw it on YouTube and I still love the silliness of this song. In the best tradition of Leningrad Cowboys, this was just having a blast and doing something, well, different. There was no way this would win, but just seeing him in his tiny tiny pants doing his tippy dance with fire whips was worth it. When you saw them getting the votes you realised they had a great time, regardless of outcome. 5/5

(It is interesting to ponder if the runner-up in the local votes would have done better, as Käärijä x Erika Vikman — Ruoska is a true banger!)

Estonia — (nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi — 5miinust & Puuluup

Winner of the longest song title ever in the ESC was a lot of older men on stage pretending to play a horse-hair harp and all singing differently in Estonian. It was entertaining, but also just confusing. 2/5

Georgia — Firefighter — Nutsa Buzaladze

My brother is a firefighter and looks nothing like that. Pretty obvious hot lady belting fair, that one, with dancers around writhing and stuff. Well, I suppose that’s considered working and what people want. Alas… 2/5

Spain — Zorra — Nebulossa

Zorra means bitch in Spanish and should not be said to a lady. Swearing is forbidden, so the audience had to sing the refrain. This had lads in corsets and kinky boots dancing around an older lady. The sound was perfect for Majorca/Ibiza tourists 6 Sangria in and bored the hell out of me. 1/5

Slovenia — Veronika — Raiven

Raiven tried to represent her country already two times and failed. This time she sang faux-nude in the middle of a group of scantily clad folk and it looked like Madonna trying to re-live glory days. Raiven is a good singer though and there were bits that could have amounted to something. 2/5

Austria — We Will Rave​ — Kaleen

No, you won’t. Even dropping some E would have made this a skit from a Helene Fischer show with less oomph. 1/5

Norway — Ulveham — Gåte

This was a damn great performance, sung in Norwegian with lots of old and new instruments and one hell of a presence by the singer. They won a lot of local Norwegian prices, and could easily rock a Mera Luna or Wave Gothic Festival with this song. This was baffling to me. It was a killer song. 5/5