Intro Post

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As of this writing, we now have all 37 artists confirmed for Eurovision 2024! The only songs we’re yet to hear are those from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Israel. I’m mostly super excited about the contest this year, but I’m salty about the song that Germany chose and, more importantly, worried about the drama that Israel’s presence will cause.

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Introduction

If you know anything about Russia, it won’t surprise you that when they won Eurovision in 2008, they immediately decided to host in Moscow. It’s their capital city, it’s by far their richest city, and it’s designed to leave foreigners with a positive impression of Russia. Knowing recent events, it’s bittersweet to think that 15 years ago, Russia was on good enough terms with the rest of Europe to host the gayest musical competition in the entire world. They even designed the most complex and glamorous stage we’ve seen in any contest yet.

The contest this year was tantalizingly close to featuring all of Europe. Slovakia rejoined after last participating in 1998, San Marino withdrew, and only Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, and Monaco were still gone. It didn’t seem like a tall order for the EBU to get these four countries to return, but unfortunately, the dream of Eurovision with a complete map still hasn’t been achieved. In addition, Georgia caused some drama by sending a song protesting against Vladimir Putin, which the EBU rejected. This meant that Georgia withdrew and the contest had a total of 42 countries. Still, it’s amazing how close Eurovision came to featuring the whole map from 2008 to 2011.

As with 2008, the contest had two semifinals with ten countries from each qualifying to the final: nine from televoting and one from backup juries. Then in the final, each country’s 1 to 12 points were determined using a mix of jury and televoting (but Norway was 100% jury due to a malfunction). This marked the return of juries to the Eurovision final.

I’m really excited to review this year, because it’s loaded with fan favorites and glamorous in presentation. I’ve always found Russia to be a fascinating country, so it should be interesting—and as I mentioned, bittersweet—to see how they hosted Eurovision. I watched the first semifinal with German commentary, this time commentated not by Peter Urban (who was sick) but Tim Frühling. And the second semifinal with Swedish commentary, by Shirley Clamp and Edward af Sillén. For some reason, it’s always easiest to find Eurovision commentary in Germanic languages.

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Georgia: We Don’t Wanna Put In (withdrawn)

Artist: Stephane and 3G

Language: English

Key: C minor

As usual, I almost forgot to do the rejected song this year. It slipped my mind until I reviewed Andorra’s song. Georgia was originally going to perform in the first semifinal, so I’m putting it here.

In late 2008, Georgia went back and forth on whether they wanted to participate in Eurovision 2009. In August they said no because of a war against Russia, then in December they said yes because they had just won Junior Eurovision. And then came their national final in February, where this song won by a landslide. It was rejected in March because of political lyrics, and Georgia was offered a chance to modify or replace their song but they refused. I don’t understand why a country would withdraw from Eurovision when they could just pick the runner-up of their national final, but in all fairness, the Georgians were pissed off at Vladimir Putin.

The weird thing is, the only part of this song that could be considered political is the title at the start of each chorus, which is an obvious pun jabbing at Putin. The rest of the lyrics are just a disco party song, and while I suppose you could analyze them as saying Putin is preventing Georgians from having fun and enjoying life, no one would think to interpret them that way if it weren’t for the pun.

What’s even weirder is, as a song I totally love this. It’s filled with jazzy chords and disco instruments like electric pianos, repeated notes on strings, and pitch-bending synths. Overall it has a really nice groovy rhythm to it. I’m not a big fan of the “I like all Europe countries” part, but the rest is genuinely fun to listen to. If it didn’t outright namedrop a politician, I don’t think this would’ve been rejected.

Montenegro: Just Get Out of My Life

Artist: Andrea Demirović

Language: English

Key: G minor

Other European countries should take notes: Russia is showing us the right way to do postcards! They’re quick and snappy, they have professional animations, they show landmarks of each participant country in a memorable pop-up book format, and they even teach the viewers some Russian at the end.

Anyway, the first four songs in this semifinal didn’t qualify. I’m guessing that since former Yugoslav bloc voting was nerfed, Montenegro decided that the Balkan sound wasn’t cool anymore. This time they went with a minor key Europop song composed by Ralph Siegel. It has a catchy melody as Siegel songs tend to have, but I don’t find it that remarkable otherwise. I’m weirded out by the guy touching the lead singer in odd places, even though it’s probably meant to match the message of this song.

Czechia: Aven Romale

Artist: Gipsy.cz

Language: English, plus a few phrases in Czech and Romani

Key: B♭ minor, C minor

Just to be clear, Romani isn’t the same as Romanian. It’s the language of the Roma, Romani, or Gypsy people who are spread throughout Europe and to this day face problems with discrimination.

Unfortunately the Czech Republic got zero points in this semifinal, so they withdrew from the contest until 2015. This time they sent their obligatory joke entry, but a year too late. It some good musical ideas and a catchy chorus, but overall it’s just too chaotic to click with most listeners, which includes me. It just throws together too many musical styles in three minutes, but there are a handful of fans who love this song for that reason.

Belgium: Copycat

Artist: Copycat (Patrick Ouchène)

Language: English

Key: D major, F minor

I’m starting to get weirded out by these extremely American-inspired songs. This is an Elvis Presley copycat song full of namedropping American place names, which is upbeat but doesn’t do much to me. I suppose it’s preferable to a dreary soppy ballad, but it’s nothing I’ll come back to. It ends abruptly, which as usual bugs me.

Belarus: Eyes That Never Lie

Artist: Petr Elfimov

Language: English

Key: D minor

This is a typical Belarusian 2000’s entry: dramatic rock, sung in thickly accented English, slightly weird lyrics. I like that it briefly enters a different key (F minor) in the chorus, but otherwise it’s rather repetitive and unremarkable, especially near the end. After this came two qualifiers, then the next non-qualifier is…

Andorra: La teva decisió (Get a Life)

Artist: Susanne Georgi

Language: Catalan and English

Key: D major

Susanne Georgi is quite an interesting figure. She’s originally from Denmark but has lived in Andorra since 1995 and is leading the fight to get Andorra back in Eurovision—they haven’t participated since 2009. That’s right: this is the last Andorran entry as of this writing. We’d better make it count! Unfortunately they never made it into the final.

Andorra’s last Eurovision effort is a sweet little guitar pop tune. It’s charming to listen to, but it was too lowkey to qualify into the finals, especially in an era where voters liked the big and bold. Also, I wish it drew more attention to the Catalan language. It’s only in the verses and bridge, and the rest is in English.

Switzerland: The Highest Heights

Artist: Lovebugs

Language: English

Key: D minor

Another indie rock sounding song, this time by a band that’s big in Switzerland. It’s not too bad, but more suited for radio than for Eurovision. It’s unexciting musically and the vocals sound muffled, which again isn’t great for Eurovision. I do like the mountains and Earth shown in the background though; reminds me of “Fly on the Wings of Love”.

Bulgaria: Illusion

Artist: Krassimir Avramov

Language: English

Key: E♭ minor, E minor

Tim Frühling (the German commentator) snarked about the selection of this entry: he said the logic of the Bulgarian national final could become a field of study. This year, Bulgaria had a national final that consisted of 14 events, from October 2008 to February 2009—15 if you count the live debate over whether the winner should even go to Eurovision, which happened because fans protested against the winner. I’m surprised Bulgaria even had the budget for such a gigantic national final. Did their broadcaster have tons of money to spare, or were they simply unwise with spending money?

This is one of those mediocre Eurodance songs that tries to pretend it’s something more than that by having weird over-the-top staging. That, and an opera singer who drifts out of key. I’m not going to fall for the illusion (pun intended).

North Macedonia: Nešto što kje ostane (Нешто што ќе остане)

Artist: Next Time

Language: Macedonian, which we’ve been hearing surprisingly often

Key: B major, C major

And now we have the last non-qualifier of semifinal 1. For the second year in a row, the backup juries screwed over North Macedonia in favor of a Nordic country—this time Finland. It made a little more sense to include backup juries this year, because juries contributed to voting in the final, but Finland scored last place in the final.

As usual, the non-qualifier I feel sorriest about is near the end. It’s much better than the other two non-qualifying rock songs, since it makes good use of guitars and has a mildly husky voice that suits the genre well. Just from the instrumental, I can tell the lyrics are about hoping that a romantic relationship works out, which is correct. The title means “something that will remain”. I don’t even mind the key change, because it’s followed by a cool guitar solo instead of a silly chorus repeat.

This song also has a Serbo-Croatian version* called “Ne dam da te diraju” (I won’t let them touch you) and an English version called “The Sweetest Thing That Will Remain”. The Serbo-Croatian version sounds the same as the original and proves once again that I’m bad at telling apart Slavic languages. The song works surprisingly well in English too.

* Wikipedia calls it the Serbo-Croatian version. It might have been marketed as a Serbian version or something, I don’t know.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

In most respects I’ve been enjoying the show Russia put on—kickass postcards, an awesome stage, smooth professional animations. It’s exactly the ambitious presentation style I would have expected from Russia. Unfortunately, I’m really not impressed with the semifinal hosts. Andrey is a little awkward and Natalia is totally nervous, especially when she struggles with French. Let’s hope Russia picked a better pair of hosts for the finals. I’m surprised the hosts didn’t speak Russian more often, now that I think of it. Personally I think Eurovision should be presented in English and the host country’s native language, instead of English and French. Or maybe the rule can be English and one other language, so the hosts can pick French if they prefer.

I like the substitute German commentator more than Peter Urban and I took notes of a few things he said about songs in the final, so I don’t forget them. Normally I just type all my thoughts about the songs on the computer, but for this post I decided to start by taking notes on paper, then type them in more detail. I have a lot of notes written down about the songs that qualified.

The interval act in this semifinal was designed to scream Russia as loudly as possible. It featured the Russian military choir accompanied by folk dancers, then an elaborate group drum solo, then t.A.T.u singing their song “Not Gonna Get Us” accompanied by the choir. No country would get away with using a military choir as their interval act these days, and the inclusion of fake tanks and military jets wasn’t in good taste. Aside from this, the interval act was a real treat and the choir was damn good. I’ve heard that the choir was the one positive thing that people could associate the Russian army with. And to think Russia will have more interval acts in the second semifinal and final… now my curiosity is piqued.

I absolutely love the rotating envelope animation to show who will qualify. It makes every qualifier reveal exciting, even the songs I don’t care about. I’m pleased that Israel qualified, because their song this year is really sweet. I’m also joyed that Armenia made it to the final and I’m impatient to analyze their ethno-bop. The number one qualifier that excited me the most is Portugal. It feels so wonderful when they take the contest seriously and get rewarded for it! As for what I think of the other qualifiers… you’ll have to wait till my next post.

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Ireland: Et Cetera

Artist: Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy

Language: English, although the title is technically in Latin

Key: F major, G major

Poor Ireland got 11th place in this year’s semifinal. Maybe if it wasn’t in the death slot it could have qualified, because this is actually pretty good. It’s an indie-sounding rock song that mixes standard chord progressions with some personal flair with a good clear voice that’s clearly a native English speaker. It’s always a pleasant surprise when Ireland deviates from their Irish ballads, but I’m not a fan of the truck driver’s key change.

I’m not sure if I’m sad about this song not qualifying because I haven’t heard the rest of the semifinal… wait, I just realized something. Part of why I feel sadder about late non-qualifiers than early ones is because when I’m late in the show, my brain has built a dividing line between the songs that seem like qualifiers and the ones that don’t. It proves that even when I take my sweet time reviewing each Eurovision song, I’m not immune to late-show bias.

Latvia: Probka (Пробка)

Artist: Intars Busulis

Language: Russian

Key: G major, or G minor, or both

Fun fact: This is the only Eurovision song entirely in Russian that wasn’t from Russia, unless you count the rejected Belarusian entries in 2021. It was originally going to be sung in Latvian, but it was localized to Russian for Eurovision. This is another thing you wouldn’t see in Eurovision these days: a former Soviet country singing in Russian. The former Soviet countries all still have a strong presence of Russian, but given recent events involving Russia, it’s understandable that these countries prefer not to sing in Russian for Eurovision.

All this talk about Russia in Eurovision leaves me bittersweet, not just about the contest but the world in general. As a kid I always thought Russia was one of the coolest and most fascinating countries in the world, but now for many people everything Russian has a sort of stigma attached to it. Even if the war in Ukraine ended right now and Putin was overthrown, it would take a lot for Russia to heal their image to the rest of the world. Personally, I try to keep an open mind in my perception of any country.

Anyway, let’s talk about this song. Why on earth do people hate it, let alone think it’s one of the worst songs in Eurovision history??? I think this is a genuinely good song and I don’t consider it a joke entry. It’s a little chaotic and bonkers, but it does a good job mixing the chaos with calmer, more serious sections. It’s not a constant barrage of chaos like, oh I don’t know, “Push the Button”. Plus, the 7/8 time signature beat in the verses is totally delicious. It reminds me of video game music in unusual time signatures, like “Weapons Factory” from Super Mario RPG or “Akrillic” from Plok.

The title of this song means “traffic jam” and the lyrics are, as you’d expect, about a traffic jam. I don’t know if the traffic jam is a metaphor for troubles in life, but going by translations, the metaphors seem clearer in the Latvian version called “Sastrēgums”. When I listen to the Latvian version, I can tell it’s not in a Slavic language which proves that I don’t view all eastern European languages as indistinguishable—just the Slavic ones. Maybe I just need to listen to music in Slavic languages more often and hear more people speak them, then I could better tell them apart.

Serbia: Cipela (Ципела)

Artist: Marko Kon and Milan Nikolić

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)

Key: F minor

Interestingly enough, the only countries to ever be barred from the finals due to backup juries are former Yugoslav countries: North Macedonia twice and Serbia once. The song that qualified instead was Croatia, another former Yugoslav country. This is the kind of song that predictably gets twelve points from other Balkans and almost no one else, though it did also get twelve points from France.

This is a fun ethnic dance song heavy in accordions and Balkan chanting, but it doesn’t have that musical magic we saw in the last few Serbian entries, so it makes sense that this didn’t qualify. I must say, it feels weird reviewing Serbia’s entry in the semifinal post.

Poland: I Don’t Wanna Leave

Artist: Lidia Kopania

Language: English

Key: E♭ minor (verses), F♯ major (chorus), G major (final chorus)

My heart sank when the Swedish commentator said “power ballad”—somehow, I just knew this wouldn’t be one of the rare ballads that clicks with me. Remember when power ballads in Eurovision were showered with points every year? Those days are long over now. This is basically just an Irish ballad torn straight out of the 1990’s. It has a few good musical ideas like the dissonant chords at the end of each chorus, but dear god it’s so ballady.

Cyprus: Firefly

Artist: Christina Metaxa

Language: English

Key: F♯ major

This tries to be a delicate subtle pop song, but the singer totally spoils it and the instrumental isn’t great anyway. She sings breathy at the beginning which isn’t a good start. Normally that leads into overly loud singing, but here she remains breathy the whole way through, as if she missed her bus and had to sprint to arrive on stage. Plus, she struggles to hit some of her notes.

Slovakia: Leť tmou

Artist: Kamil Mikulčík and Nela Pocisková

Language: Slovak

Key: A minor, B minor

Slovakia is back after 11 years! But their return would last for only four years, none of which they qualified in. This is just a boring duet ballad where the singers’ timing is off a lot of the time. Also, it has one of the awkwardest key changes I’ve ever heard. Don’t worry, next year has the biggest fan favorite of Slovakia’s entries.

Slovenia: Love Symphony

Artist: Quartissimo (a string quartet) and Martina Majerle

Language: Violins, interspersed with short phrases in Slovenian and English

Key: A minor

Every Eurovision fan knows about “Nocturne”, the song with vocals only at the start and end. But far fewer Eurovision fans know that Slovenia sent a song that’s minimal on vocals too. The reason this song is lesser known is because “Nocturne” pulls off the gimmick of almost no vocals perfectly, whereas this one does it terribly.

“Nocturne” is the musical equivalent of a sandwich with two thin crispy slices of bread on the outside, and the most delicious cheese dip you’ve ever tasted on the inside. The slices of bread are the vocals at the start and end, and the cheese dip is the bulk of the song. It’s an unconventional sandwich, but it’s still delicious.

“Love Symphony” is the musical equivalent of a sandwich where the lettuce, meat, cheese, and condiments are on the outside, and the bread is on the inside. The ingredients are all good in isolation, but when you eat it, your fingers get soggy and covered in ketchup. The bread in the center gets all mushy and the condiments drip from the bottom, doing nothing to accentuate the flavor of the meat. If you’re reading this review and think I was hungry when writing it, you’d be correct.

What I’m saying is, this is like an orchestral dance song shuffled so that the sections are in the wrong order. It starts with an instrumental bridge, then moves to the instrumental interlude that goes before each verse, and ends with a verse that cuts off partway through. This song would work perfectly as dramatic background music in Eurovision, like maybe when votes are being counted, or while the winner is walking to stage to collect their prize. Maybe if Slovenia ever hosts Eurovision, they could hire these guys to compose background music.

Hungary: Dance with Me

Artist: Zoli Ádok

Language: English

Key: C minor

The instrumental is kind of groovy, but that’s the only good thing I’ll say about this. I’m annoyed that he and the girls are laying on the floor at the start and this is annoyingly overchoreographed in general. Plus, he’s not even trying to hit any of the notes. It’s an obvious non-qualifier to me.

After this song, seven entries in a row qualified to the final whereas the last one didn’t, which is:

Netherlands: Shine

Artist: The Toppers (known in Dutch as De Toppers)

Language: English

Key: E♭ major, E major

After Estonia’s masterpiece stole my heart—actually, let me type out a few hearts to showcase how awesome that song is. ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎, there that should do it. Edward af Sillén said it was “min absolut favorit” (shouldn’t need a translation) which proves he has good taste.* Anyway, after Estonia’s masterpiece stole my heart, this song is a dud in comparison. It sounds like the project file of an upbeat dance song with half the instruments muted, particularly in the chorus. The guys have some nice harmonies but otherwise it ends the semifinal on a sour note.

* I can’t actually speak Swedish, but I’ve picked up on a lot of words through the course of this blog post series and I have a good feel for how its spelling works. My favorite thing about Swedish is the sj-sound which has like 20 different spellings.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

This year, the semifinals were very balanced: both had about the same concentration of competitive entries and the same amount of obvious non-qualifiers. This semifinal in particular has a clear divide between awake and asleep countries, which mostly intersects with the qualifiers. The awake countries sent something aiming to win, whereas the asleep ones weren’t trying at all. There’s very little in between. That’s how a lot of modern Eurovision comes off to me, especially in the 2020’s: most countries are extremely awake, but a few are extremely asleep.

Russia got all the Russianness out of their system in the first semifinal’s interval act, so the interval act this time is a medley of folk dances from various European countries, ending with Russia. Russia went all out in paying tribute to Europe, which as I said is bittersweet in retrospect. Oh yeah, the opening act was a medley of iconic Eurovision songs on balalaikas. I’m tired of these medleys featuring “Volare” and “Waterloo” every time, but I’m delighted to see “Ding-a-Dong” represented. Then came “Diva” (a surprising choice to be played in such an anti-LGBT country) and of course “Believe”, which sounds nicer in this arrangement style.

In the qualifier reveals, Moldova and Estonia made me burst with excitement, and Azerbaijan and Norway made me think “good pick but no surprise”. I wish Latvia had qualified and would’ve traded them in for… oh let’s say Denmark, because by now I’ve forgotten everything about their song.

There’s one mystery yet to be solved: if the grand final had so many fiercely competitive songs, then why did Norway win by a landslide?! Don’t get me wrong, I love “Fairytale” a lot, but it’s weird that it beat all the others by this much. Maybe in the final, we’ll answer that question together.

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See you next time for… oh my god, you guys. You’re not ready for how long and detailed my review of the 2009 final will be. I have huge thoughts on so many of these songs, even ones you wouldn’t expect me to say much about.

If my next post doesn’t turn out to be my longest Eurovision blog post yet, I’ll be very surprised. My current longest is the 2006 final at 7684 words (including the title).

>> 2009 (Final): A Spectacular Year Hard to Surpass (my new longest review, at 8204 words)