Intro Post

< 2007 Final | 2008 Semifinals | 2008 Final >

We’ve heard 29 songs out of 37 (36 if Israel withdraws) for Eurovision 2024! I plan on releasing “Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 3)” within the next few days.

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Introduction

If you thought Eurovision 2007 had an overly huge lineup of countries, then 2008 was even crazier. All countries from 2007 returned except for Austria, and two made their debut: the oft-forgotten microstate of San Marino, and the controversial Caucasus country of Azerbaijan. This meant that singers representing 43 countries would go to Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) and battle for the grand prize. The map of Europe was now complete, except for two microstates (Liechtenstein and Vatican City) and the disputed country of Kosovo, which declared independence three months before the contest. The only new country that has joined since then is Australia.

The 2007 semifinal had 28 countries compete for ten slots, which was a death sentence for any country without enough bloc voting partners. To prevent this from happening again, the EBU overhauled the format for 2008. From this year onwards, only the Big Four and the host country qualified straight to the finals, whereas the other countries were split across two semifinals. These 38 countries were divided into six pots based on bloc voting patterns, so that half of each pot would go to semifinal 1, and the other half to semifinal 2. The participants in semifinal 1 were not allowed to vote in semifinal 2, and vice versa. The Big Four and host country could only vote in one semifinal each: as decided by a random draw, Spain and Germany voted in the first one, and the UK, France, and Serbia voted in the second. All participating countries got to vote in the final.

Ten countries were picked to qualify from each semifinal: the top nine were determined from televoting, and the tenth using backup juries. But in the grand final, the results were once again pure televoting (except San Marino, which used backup juries). Though the voting would get tweaked in later years, especially regarding the presence of juries, the two-semifinal format has remained the same. After the problem of too many participating countries began in 1993, the EBU finally found a good solution. Some fans aren’t happy about the Big Five rule, but otherwise the two-semifinal system works like a charm.

For some reason, uploads of the 2008 semifinals are tough to find online, especially those with commentary. NRK came to the rescue and has the entire broadcast on their website with Norwegian commentary, so long as I have a VPN set to Norway. Expect a lot of “the Norwegian commentator said something about ABBA and Bobbysocks”. Actually, I’ve been referring to commentators by their names as of late, and her name is Hanne Hoftun.

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Montenegro: Zauvijek volim te (Заувијек волим те)

Artist: Stefan Filipović

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Montenegrin)

Key: A major

This year, Serbia broke the pattern of postcards featuring scenery from the host country. The Serbian postcards feature a few people forming flags in various ways, all in a room with a blank floor and a canvas on the wall, accompanied by a handwritten letter from Belgrade (usually from some random person to their family or love interest) in the host country’s language. Some are serious, some are goofy. Now these are the kinds of postcards I can get behind—I’m always a sucker for flags.

This sounds like the kind of song Yugoslavia used to send to Eurovision, or more specifically, the kind they sent when they weren’t sending dreary ballads. It’s an average pop rock song that goes in one ear and out the other, and those just aren’t as competitive as they used to be.

Estonia: Leto svet

Artist: Kreisiraadio

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian), German, and Finnish, but don’t get too excited. The lyrics are all nonsense.

Key: F major, F♯ major, F major

I don’t understand why Estonia abruptly stopped taking Eurovision seriously so shortly after they hosted. Did hosting the contest devastate the Estonian economy or something? Either way, this is a hideous joke entry designed solely to piss off the audience. Maybe these guys were trying to imitate “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” with those multilingual nonsense lyrics, but if they did, they completely missed the point. I relistened to “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” after this and realized that the song is full of instrumental depth and structural variety and is all-around fucking awesome. On the other hand, this is completely dreadful to listen to.

What annoys me most about this song is not the singers’ annoying voices, or the nonsensical lyrics, or the gratuitous flags, or the guys pretending to have sex with the piano, or even the fact that the guys are dressed in suits and the girls are stripped to bikinis (though the last point annoys me the second most). I’m most annoyed that after the piano interlude ends, the song restarts as if nothing ever happened. This restart makes no sense musically and annoys me as much as “minor key verses, major key chorus”, or a breakup song that’s agonizingly slow in major key and sounds dull instead of sad, or a song having the same boring four-chord progression from start to finish.

Moldova: A Century of Love

Artist: Geta Burlacu

Language: English

Key: D minor, E minor

The message in this song’s postcard consists of “Răspunde la telefon!” repeated eleven times. If you’re an English speaker, you can translate that if you use your brain.

This song proves that even one of the biggest fan favorite countries in Eurovision sends duds sometimes. This is dull and slow and has no recognizable hook, plus there are way too many colors on stage. I think the couch and blanket are supposed to tell some sort of romantic story in a house, but it just looks weird. To show how much people didn’t care for it, this only got ten points from Romania instead of their usual twelve.

San Marino: Complice

Artist: Miodio, an Italian-Sammarinese band

Language: Italian

Key: B♭ minor

I wonder if there are any Eurovision viewers who think San Marino is a fictional country invented for the sake of this contest? As it turns out, San Marino is as real a country as any other; it just happens to be extremely tiny and encircled by Italy. When you think about it, it makes sense that San Marino is so enthusiastic about Eurovision. The country barely ever gets to participate in sports, since other countries have such strong and competitive teams, so Eurovision is a more suitable place for them to be patriotic.

Unfortunately, San Marino scored last place in the final (below the joke entry from Estonia) and didn’t rejoin Eurovision until 2011, the same year Italy made their long-awaited return. It’s a perfectly fine dark rock song, but it doesn’t wow me enough that I’d vote for it, and the rest of Europe clearly felt the same. Still, it is weird as hell that this scored worse than two of the most hated joke entries in Eurovision history.

Belgium: O Julissi

Artist: Ishtar

Language: Imaginary, since it worked so well last time

Key: G major, A major

Wikipedia claims that the Belgian postcard was written in this song’s imaginary language, which isn’t at all true (it’s a mix of Dutch and French), so I decided to be a good citizen and remove it. Speaking of which, I have a real bone to pick with the English Wikipedia articles on Eurovision. They keep removing useful information for no reason; just a few days ago they got rid of all the “contains phrases in (language)” footnotes. The German Wikipedia articles on Eurovision are so much better—seriously, compare this to this. Although I don’t know why the German infoboxes say “Bilanz” at the top, instead of the country’s name.

Anyway, time for the last of the imaginary language trilogy! This time, Belgium went for the orchestral style, like something you’d hear in a stage play. Hanne Hoftun said “Eurovision nostalgi” right before this song began, so I assume she thinks exactly what I’ve always thought about this song: it sounds like something from the grayscale days of Eurovision. The only way in which it doesn’t is the multiple singers, which the contest didn’t allow back then, but otherwise it’s a throwback to the earliest days of the contest. Since it has multiple singers and sounds so whimsical, maybe it could pass as a grayscale interval act.

You might call me weird for this, but I love this song just as much as “Sanomi”. The main reason is because it’s just so damn cute! It’s not “cute, but” like “Y así” from 2005, it’s just regular cute. I want to pinch this song’s cheeks and feed it a cookie. It didn’t stand a chance to qualify because it has no drum beat and is too frilly for most viewers, but I would have voted for Belgium anyway. If this song was in some old-ass grayscale year like 1962, my “Who’s my favorite?” section would probably look something like this: “It’s easy this time, since just like last year, most songs were slow and boring as hell. Norway sent a playful romantic tune and Monaco wowed me the most of the chansons, but neither of them interests me anywhere near as much as Belgium, O Julissi.”

The main reason I like this song is because it does a good job building up from the main melody, which is “o julissi na jalini”. Every time the song returns to its principal melody, it adds a new instrument, whether that be clarinet chords or violin countermelodies. It keeps things interesting throughout all three minutes, which so many Eurovision songs fail to do! And then when she takes a break from singing and the flute plays the main melody with some improvised alterations, I feel like I’m galloping over a rainbow. The key change always catches me off guard, since this is not the kind of music that normally has key changes. But you know what? The key change works as an element of surprise.

As I did with “Sanomi”, I will now analyze the lyrics. First off, if I was listening to this song unaware it was in an imaginary language, what language would I think it’s in? This time, the lyrics clearly sound like one of Europe’s biggest language families: the Slavic languages. Those are the ones with all the consonant clusters, “ch” “sh” and “zh” sounds, and crazy noun case systems except for Bulgarian. I promise I’m not just saying this because the lyrics famously resemble a Ukrainian folk song called “Ой у лісі на ялині”. It has plenty of Slavic-sounding words, particularly sestro, moja, and dvorane. I can’t say which Slavic language it sounds most like, because I’ve never been good at telling them apart. Whenever I hear a Slavic language and don’t know what it is, my brain defaults to Russian.

I imagine the lyrics are about the lead singer (the protagonist of a stage play) wondering where her love interest named Julissi lives. It would take place near the start of the play when everything is still lighthearted. Maybe she’s singing “Oh Julissi in the forest? Oh Julissi in the mountains? Oh, you’re the sweetest and most charming man who I’ve laid my eyes upon!” I think the protagonist of this play is a silly naive girl unaware what challenges life has in store. The lyrics probably involve a crocodile, because what else would “krokodili” mean? Maybe she hopes Julissi doesn’t get eaten by a crocodile.

See, this is why imaginary language songs are so much fun: you can use your imagination to decide what they’re about. And that’s why I don’t like the English sections of “Amambanda”: they mean the song isn’t about whatever you want to be. For real though, the lead singer is so cute and they’re all having so much fun on stage! It’s a shame this didn’t qualify.

Slovenia: Vrag naj vzame

Artist: Rebeka Dremelj

Language: Slovenian

Key: A minor

I was originally going to call this post “Two Nights Became Three”, but this song made me rename it to “The Year of Rainbow Barf Staging”. Why are there so many colors on stage and why did Rebeka have to wear a garish coat, then take it off to reveal a half purple, half lime green dress? Christ, this is like 1968 and 1969 all over again, when the contest was first broadcast in color and people dressed in as many hues as possible.

This is a bit like a Slovenian version of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, particularly in terms of lyrics and key signature, but it’s less rousing and more Eurodancey. I like that it makes so much use of the Slovenian language, but there’s way too much happening on stage and I’m still not a Eurodance fan.

Ireland: Irelande Douze Pointe (misspelling of Irlande Douze Points)

Artist: Dustin the Turkey, portrayed by John Morrison

Language: English, plus phrases in French, German, Spanish, and Italian

Key: D♭ major (intro), D minor (the rest)

Now we have the other infamous joke entry in this semifinal. I absolutely hated this song for the longest time, but now that I’ve heard it in its intended context I am in two minds about it. On the one hand, this really isn’t good as a song, and I’m annoyed that western Europe gave up on taking Eurovision seriously in favor of pissy joke entries. On the other hand, a lot of lyrics in this song are total genius, in a satirical Eurovision way.

First off, the negatives. I really hate that the national anthem-sounding intro has no proper transition into the bulk of the song, which is repetitive hectic Eurodance. And unsurprisingly, I’m no fan of the Eurodance part either, let alone Dustin’s annoying singing. And the staging is a garish eyesore of too many colors, which I know was the intention but “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” proves a joke entry’s staging can look good.

Now that I have the contest of the past 52 years of Eurovision, I understand all the references in the lyrics and can pick out a clear theme in this song. To discover what this theme is, I’ll go through the song bit by bit and provide my own interpretation of the lyrics. It might not be exactly what the songwriters intended, but I think it’s an interesting interpretation regardless.

“Oh, I come from a nation that knows how to write a song / Oh, Europe, where did it all go wrong?”

The first line is referring to Ireland’s many Eurovision victories. Dustin is telling us that it’s totally possible for Ireland to win the contest if they took it as seriously as they did in the 1990’s. Remember “Why Me?”, “In Your Eyes”, “Rock ‘n Roll Kids”, and “The Voice”? Each of those songs did something special to elevate it beyond a typical English-language second or third place. The Irish used to put so much effort into the contest and as much as they might have grumbled about paying to host it, at heart they loved winning this contest. But I struggle to remember what any of their previous 2000’s entries sounded like. Some ballad, some other ballad, some song that I was happy wasn’t a ballad but still can’t remember how it sounds? Oh, and that Irish folk song that I really wanted to like but couldn’t.

On the other hand, you could argue Dustin is just whining that Ireland doesn’t score as well as they used to. But the more sensible Eurovision fans would know that Ireland’s entries in the 2000’s really weren’t as good as those of the 1990’s.

After some scrambled Eurovision namedropping (Terry Wogan, Johnny Logan, ABBA) in contexts that deliberately make no sense, as well as a bunch of repeated “Irlande douze points”, we have the passage that I find funniest:

“Give us another chance, we’re sorry for Riverdance […] And the Danube flows through France”

Both these lines are purposely false information: Riverdance is the most beloved interval act in Eurovision history, but Dustin talks about it like it’s as embarrassing as the voting mishaps of 1991 or the rhyming hosts of 2001. And the Danube river doesn’t actually flow through France; perhaps he’s deliberately confusing it with the Seine, the river that flows through Paris, which as we all know is the only city in France. Through all these false statements, I think Dustin is parodying viewers who complain about Eurovision but don’t know shit about how it actually works. And I’m sure that back then (and even these days), there were many such people in Ireland. A lot of western European viewers complained about bloc voting and their own poor results without realizing that eastern Europe was putting in the effort to send quality entries.

Towards the end, Dustin lists a whole bunch of eastern European countries and here’s one last amusing bit. The lyrics originally contained the word “Macedonia” and the Greek broadcaster predictably complained about that, so what was the solution? Simply to omit it. It never fails to surprise me how hung up Greece was about the Macedonia naming dispute.

I burst out laughing at the very end of the song, when Dustin asks amidst booing “did we win?” Those three words made me rethink this song beyond just an annoying joke entry. It’s absolutely not the kind of entry I want to come back to, but in its own dumb way this song is great. I need to stress, in its own dumb way.

Andorra: Casanova

Artist: Gisela Lladó Cánovas

Language: English, plus an obligatory line in Catalan

Key: E major (verses), F♯ major (chorus)

Oh god, no. After sending their most honest effort in 2007, this time Andorra gave us clichéd Eurodance that brings back bad memories of early 2000’s Eurovision. Plus, the singer’s dress is hideous. Why couldn’t this have swapped years with “Salvem el món”? Also, I always get annoyed when a song has just one line in the country’s native language and the rest is in English.

Netherlands: Your Heart Belongs to Me

Artist: Hind Laroussi

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

This time, the Netherlands tried imitating the ethno-bop style that eastern Europe loved to do. It’s energetic and sounds vaguely Greek or Turkish, but unfortunately Hind’s voice doesn’t fit this kind of song well. If it had a more energetic singer with a better stage presence, this would have been a strong competitor. Still, the instrumental is loads of fun and I’d take this over a dull ballad any day. I wish this had qualified, especially because the Netherlands have had such bad luck.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

The opening act was a children’s choir followed by a brass ensemble. The brass band is a fun concept, but I’m disappointed they only played “Waterloo” and “Volare”. Why not a broader selection of iconic songs like Greece did? And why didn’t they play any Yugoslav entries, or “Molitva” for that matter? I’m particularly confused that “Volare” keeps showing up in opening acts, because most people don’t know it was in Eurovision.

The interval act is the Belgrade Metropole Orchestra featuring a choir, intended to showcase the classical side of Serbian music. This act is interesting because it proves that Serbia could have brought back the orchestra this year if they so desired. But let’s face it, every Eurovision entry being accompanied by an orchestra is a thing of the past. Still, this makes me nostalgic for 20th century Eurovision.

I don’t care for most of the entries in this semifinal, qualifiers or not. The only qualifier reveal that got a “yessss” out of me was Finland, because I love their language that much. The rest were either obvious or baffling (spoiler alert: I don’t like Russia’s song at all), but I love that Hanne Hoftun (the Norwegian commentator) screamed when her country was the final qualifier. There are two non-qualifiers I’m sad about: Belgium was absolutely robbed and the Netherlands deserved it over quite a few songs. I would’ve swapped these two for Bosnia’s baffling song with baffling staging and Poland’s soppy ballad. Poland was the backup jury qualifier, but they were tenth place in the televote so the jury made no difference.

Overall, I’m left with the impression that Eurovision 2008 was a step backwards from 2007, especially in songs and visual design. But I’ll say more about that at the end of the final.

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Lithuania: Nomads in the Night

Artist: Jeromias Milius

Language: English

Key: C minor, C♯ minor

Erica said this song sounds like someone’s first ever attempt at writing a ballad. I’m guessing she means in terms of lyrics (in which case I agree completely), not in terms of composition, because the instrumental is an ordinary Eurovision ballad. The singer is hilariously overdramatic and the lyrics even more so. “Tonight I’ll try to rip out this aching heart, it’s filled with you”??? That’s the kind of shit a teenager would write who thinks they’re being cool and edgy.

This got free points from Latvia and Georgia (its fellow former Soviet countries), as well as eight from the UK—I’m guessing that’s because of diaspora voting. Nothing else from anyone.

Switzerland: Era stupendo

Artist: Paolo Meneguzzi

Language: Italian

Key: D♭ major

The first half of this song is a ballad that makes me feel like I’ve been transported back to the 1990’s. The second half is more upbeat but still makes me feel nothing. Why couldn’t they have added some pumping rock guitars, or soaring string melodies? I mean, it has a little bit of those, but not enough to not be boring.

Czechia: Have Some Fun

Artist: Tereza Kerndlová

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

This time the Czech Republic tried sending something more accessible to Eurovision audiences. It’s an early 2000’s sounding pop song with overly flashy staging, weird revealing outfits, and barely comprehensible English that all around does nothing to me. This got only nine points in the semifinal, so it came second last behind Hungary.

Belarus: Hasta la vista

Artist: Ruslan Alekhno

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Spanish

Key: C minor

Here is round two of Slavic countries sending a song called “Hasta la vista”. Belarus tried replicating the success of “Work Your Magic” from last year, but they didn’t do as well lately. Basically this is another one of those Eurovision songs where I appreciate that it’s dramatic but it doesn’t click with me otherwise. Also, Ruslan drifts off key a lot.

I was hoping all the good stuff would be in the second semifinal, but so far it’s just like the first but more boring. At least Turkey and Ukraine (who both qualified) were fun.

Bulgaria: DJ, Take Me Away

Artist: Deep Zone Project and DJ Balthazar

Language: English

Key: F minor

This is sort of like two songs in one: a sick-ass dance banger full of yummy punchy synths in the instrumental, and a mediocre pop song when she sings. It has surprisingly long stretches without any singing, which is good because those are the good parts, but also a little baffling. Why couldn’t the whole song consist of the techno dance sections (which even lean into dubstep, so this is arguably the first dubstep song in Eurovision) and be accompanied by fast-paced rapping, instead of slow melodic singing? Rap vocals would suit this song so much better.

I’m really confused by the section with fart sounds. I can’t tell whether it’s supposed to be a fart joke, or if the composers picked sound effects that happened to resemble farts.

Hungary: Candlelight

Artist: Csézy (Erzsebet Csézi)

Language: English, plus a bit of Hungarian near the end

Key: B♭ minor (verses), F♯ major (chorus), A major (bridge)

And now we have the last place of this semifinal, with only six points. It’s a total snoozefest of a ballad, but the Hungarian part of the lyrics made me curious to hear the Hungarian version (Szívverés, means “heartbeat”). This song is somewhat more interesting in Hungarian, but that could just be the novelty factor of hearing a ballad in this language. It’s still quite an exotic language to me, because Eurovision didn’t give me as much time to be acquainted with its sound as (for example) Finnish or Hebrew.

Malta: Vodka

Artist: Morena (Margaret Camilleri)

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Russian

Key: C major

For a joke entry this is actually pretty fun—an upbeat dance song that is simply about vodka, nothing more, nothing less, plus a Russian phrase that means “cheers!” But I think it needed wackier staging than a girl dressed in black and four elaborate backing dancers. Actually, it might be good that they didn’t go overboard on the staging, because knowing this year it would’ve been an eyesore of colors again.

Regardless of what the staging could have been, this is a nice burst of energy after Hungary. Just a shame that Morena drifts off key so much.

Cyprus: Femme Fatale

Artist: Evdokia Kaki

Language: Greek, plus the title repeated a few times, pronounced the French way

Key: C♯ minor and/or G♯ minor

Oh, how I missed the Greek language in Eurovision! This is the first Eurovision song entirely in Greek since 1999 (from Cyprus), and the first with any Greek lyrics since 2001 (from Greece). The Greek language sounds lovely and enchanting in this song—it’s clearly designed around the rhythm of Greek, not English or something else.

This starts with a lovely bouzouki intro (how I missed bouzoukis!) but after that, there is way too much going on both visually and musically. Why does the song have to speed up and slow down so much, and why are there so many table stunts? I think this song tries too hard to keep the audience’s attention in three minutes. At least the girl power lyrics are charming and she has a good voice. I have a soft spot for the Greek language, so I somewhat wish it qualified.

North Macedonia: Let Me Love You

Artist: Tamara Todevska, Rade Vrčakovski, and Adrian Gaxha. We’ll see the first of them again in 2019.

Language: English, even though it was recorded in five other languages.

Key: G minor

This song scored tenth place in the semifinal, but the backup juries voted for Sweden which prevented it from qualifying—an early forewarning of the juries’ insane bias towards swedo-pop.

North Macedonia was the only former Yugoslav country to sing in English this year; the rest all used their native languages. Rade Vrčakovski must have been very proud of composing this song, since it was recorded in six different languages: Macedonian, Albanian, English, Russian, Serbian, and Turkish.

I don’t get why the singers were booed at the start. Were they fed up with North Macedonia getting bloc voted so much? If so, why did no one else get booed? This is a very nice Balkan-sounding dance song where all three singers contribute a different role. It’s full of Balkan drama (musical drama, not political drama) but it gets repetitive near the end, since there isn’t any bridge or final climax and it ends abruptly. It’s far from my favorite Balkan entry, but I’m intrigued enough to listen to all those alternate language versions.

The Macedonian and Turkish versions are entirely in their own languages, but the other three keep the rap sections in English. As I expected, the Macedonian version sounds so much more natural than the English one. The Albanian version features Adrian Gaxha’s vocals more frequently, since his first language is Albanian. It would’ve been fun if North Macedonia performed in a mix of Albanian and Macedonian, since the country has used both as official languages since 2019, or maybe even those two and English. The song works surprisingly well in Turkish too, considering it has such a different rhythm from English and the Slavic languages. The Russian and Serbian versions don’t feel that different from Macedonian, but that’s just because I’m bad at telling apart Slavic languages. It can’t just be me who thinks Slavic languages all sound the same, right?

Considering all the alternate language versions of this song, performing it only in English was a missed opportunity. Still, I can never stay mad at Balkan instrumentation and I would’ve rather had this qualify over Sweden’s dull pop, or Georgia’s ballad with distractingly weird pronunciation.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

This semifinal was mostly joke entries and boring ballads, so there was nothing I strongly feel should’ve qualified that didn’t. Eurovision 2006 and 2007 weren’t as clogged with joke entries as I was led to believe, but 2008 absolutely deserves its reputation as the jokefest year. The plus side is that serious entries this year are going to shine bright, like Portugal. Their song at the end was such a pleasant surprise!

It’s nice and all that the first winner of Eurovision got to see so much of the contest’s future (she passed away in 2018), but it’s become a running gag how often they drag in Lys Assia. This time, the hosts brought her over to open the voting. How much of the audience do you think had any idea who she is? (In the first semifinal, they brought a Serbian athlete.)

The interval act was eight guys and one girl dancing to an accordion oompah beat. It was really weak as far as interval acts go, but not everything can be as awesome as… I would say Riverdance, but that’s cliched. Instead, I’ll say not everything can be as awesome as those Ukrainian dancers from 2005.

Oh my god, I wish I could have watched the qualifier reveals blind because I would’ve screamed when Portugal made it! They were the last qualifier to be revealed, which was absolutely cruel to Portuguese fans. Even though I already knew who would qualify, my reaction was still “YESSSSS LET’S GO PORTUGAL!” Latvia qualifying made me laugh and I’m pleased Ukraine continued their momentum from last year, but the rest I don’t care much about. Watching the previews of the Big Four and host entries, it’s clear which parts of Europe were taking Eurovision seriously and which had given up. Luckily, Portugal picked the right year to step up their game.

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See you next time as Russia gets bloc voted to the top. Yes, I’m being petty because I don’t like that song.

>> 2008 (Final): A Headache of Joke Entries