Intro Post

< 2010 Final | 2011 Semifinals | 2011 Final >

Yesterday, Czechia released a revamp of their 2024 entry “Pedestal”. The song has grown on me and the new section makes it feel a lot more complete. Still far from my favorite of the year, but I’d now be happy if it qualifies.

---

Introduction

As one of the most populous countries in Europe, Germany has a rich assortment of cities that could feasibly host a modern-day Eurovision. Reportedly 23 cities expressed interest at first, then eight publicly declared they’d like to bid, then four officially applied: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Hannover. Eventually Düsseldorf won the right to host the first Eurovision Song Contest in reunified Germany.

Eurovision 2011 came amazingly close to featuring the entirety of Europe. At a glance, the only gap in the map of participants seems to be the Czech Republic, but a few others are missing: Montenegro, Luxembourg, a few microstates, and Kosovo who probably can’t join Eurovision unless Serbia recognizes their independence. Austria, Hungary, and San Marino all returned after skipping the last one or two years, and most excitingly of all, Italy finally rejoined Eurovision after last participating in 1997. Perhaps Germany’s victory last year convinced Italy that it was worth taking part.

After not doing postcards last time Germany hosted in 1983, it’s refreshing to see some proper German postcards. These postcards are a lovingly crafted tour of places in Germany, and they each end with the contest’s slogan “Feel Your Heart Beat!” written or spoken in each country’s language.

The rules this year were mostly the same, except the Big Four were now the Big Five: the UK, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. This means that the grand final would consist of 25 countries if a Big Five country won last year, 26 countries otherwise. As with last year, the voting opened shortly before the songs began. We have 18 non-qualifiers to review in this post, and as with last year, Peter Urban’s German commentary to guide us. The first semifinal has a special guest commentator, TV host Steven Gätjen.

---

Poland: Jestem

Artist: Magdalena Tul

Language: Polish

Key: G minor

When was the last time Eurovision had a song fully in Polish? Let me check… apparently it was 1999. We still haven’t had another fully Polish entry as of this writing.

This time Poland went for a swing dance song, kind of like Albania did last year but in their own language. It isn’t bad musically, but the performance is truly dreadful. Magdalena is painfully off key. It’s worst when an off-key singer sings too low, because it means they sound sleepy. And then she goes for the “volume = quality” approach near the end, which just makes me miserable. It seems like all the effort went into the dance moves and none into the singing. The studio version is just a regular dance song, and doesn’t have the screaming near the end, but it still has the annoying whispering at the start.

Norway: Haba Haba

Artist: Stella Mwangi

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Swahili

Key: A♭ major

If you’re wondering why some of the audience was holding Kenyan flags at the start of the show, I’m pretty sure this song is why. Not sure what’s up with the Mexican flags though.

It’s pretty cool that East African culture is represented in Eurovision and I like the message of this song tied in with a singable Swahili proverb, but as a composition I find it much too repetitive. I wish it didn’t just use the same I-IV-I-V chord progression throughout the entire song, and that it had more musical elements to mix it up. I think “Feker Libi” from 2020 pulled off the East African cultural style so much better.

Albania: Feel the Passion

Artist: Aurena Gaçe

Language: English, plus a bit of Albanian in the final chorus

Key: G♯ minor

Albania sure loves their dramatic female singers, don’t they? I like the rousing chord progression in the chorus, but the rest doesn’t convince me. It’s another one of those rock entries that I can only enjoy if I tune it out in the background. It always annoys me when singers only have two modes: breathy and shouty. Aurena is breathy in the verses and shouty in the chorus.

Armenia: Boom Boom

Artist: Emmy (Emma Bejanyan)

Language: English

Key: G minor

Is that supposed to be the European Union flag in the background? Probably not, because the stars are white instead of yellow. But I’m sure there are some viewers who thought this song was a plea for Armenia to join the EU so they could have an economic boom.

This is probably the most hated Armenian entry and one of the most hated entries of 2011, but I don’t see why. This is the most enjoyable song I’ve encountered so far. Note that the first five songs in this semifinal didn’t qualify, so I haven’t heard any qualifiers yet. It’s not great or anything, but it has a nice bouncy beat and I like the blending of major and minor key—it’s dissonance done well.

Turkey: Live It Up

Artist: Yüksek Sadakat, a rock band

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor

By internally selecting another rock band, I think Turkey was trying to replicate the success of “We Could Be the Same” last year, but it clearly didn’t work out. This is just an ordinary average rock song, nothing that hypes me up like last time. The lead singer of “We Could Be the Same” sounded fierce and passionate, but this song’s singer sounds a little sleepy. This time the performance features an acrobatic body stretcher instead of a robot, but she has nothing to do with the message of the song as far as I know.

After this song comes an interval show where two of the hosts (Stefan Raab and Anke Engelke) teach the contestants how to sing a German folk song. The melody of the chorus (falleri, fallera) rings a bell; I probably heard it when I visited Germany as a kid or something. It’s funny to watch the contestants try to sing in German. They all tried their best and I admire that. And after these five non-qualifiers in a row, we have five qualifiers in a row.

Malta: One Life

Artist: Glen Vella

Language: English

Key: A minor, B♭ minor

After the five qualifiers in a row, we have three non-qualifiers in a row, then one last joke entry that didn’t qualify. This is a regular early 2010’s dance song in swing rhythm, so at first I was surprised it didn’t qualify. But then the song did two things that annoy me. It has a dramatic piano interlude out of nowhere which is actually the best part of the song, but doesn’t fit with the rest. And the key change at the end is totally unnecessary.

This got 11th place in the semifinal so it came very close to qualifying, and even was ranked sixth place by the juries—what the hell? Well OK, the songs have mostly been dull so far, and the duller a lineup of songs is, the harder it is to understand voters’ tastes.

San Marino: Stand By

Artist: Senhit Zadik Zadik, then known as Senit

Language: English

Key: F major

In their second attempt, San Marino still hasn’t figured out how to stand out in Eurovision. This is just a slow dull 2011 pop song and Senhit sings a little off key, which is a shame because she has quite a good voice. She almost got a second chance in Eurovision 2020 but that was canceled, then she got her second chance for real in 2021 and reached the grand final.

Croatia: Celebrate

Artist: Daria Kinzer

Language: English

Key: F♯ major, G major

Note that the verses of this song are more precisely in D♯/E♭ minor, which has the same key signature as F♯ major. I only the key signatures of the chorus, for simplicity’s sake.

Anyway, this is a stereotypical early 2010’s dance song with overdramatic staging (two costume changes, are you kidding me?) and dubstep synths. Remember when dubstep was trendy for a few years? It even has a cheesy dubstep bridge that goes BAAAAM wubwubwubwubwub. I get the feeling we’ll hear that a lot the next few years. This song surprisingly reached 74th place in the 2023 ESC250, higher than any other entry from 2011. Don’t ask me how—it never seemed like a fan favorite entry to me.

I felt so vindicated when Peter Urban said the costume changes were pointless, because they are! If done right a costume change can add hype to a song, but these were just unnecessary showoffs.

Portugal: A luta é alegria

Artist: Homens da Luta (Men of the Struggle)

Language: Portuguese

Key: E♭ major

It was a nice three years in a row of qualifying—now Portugal has gone back to being checked out. They sent a joke entry a few years after it was cool. It’s not actually the first parody song from Portugal: you have “Tourada” from 1973 and “Playback” from 1981. I find it hilarious that even when sending a joke entry, Portugal stubbornly stuck to their own language. Spain put a bit of English into their 2008 joke entry, but these guys didn’t.

My god, this song is so fucking stupid, but it’s also genuinely funny knowing its context. Homens da Luta is a band that parodies all those patriotic songs about the Carnation Revolution, which was all the rage in Portugal back in the 1970’s including in their Eurovision songs. I had extensively analyzed all the Portuguese entries about the revolution, trying my best to dissect the lyrics despite not speaking Portuguese. And now I’m hit in the face with a song taking the piss out of all that “Portugal has been through horrid times, but now we have a new beginning, oh yeah here are all the great places we colonized, something something saudade, something something coração”.

The lyrics of this song are more like “sometimes you’ll find yourself hopeless, but don’t worry, the struggle is joy actually, also please bring us food”. The six singers wear a bunch of wacky protester outfits and hold up two-sided signs showing the song’s title in 16 languages (English: The Struggle Is Joy). Normally I’m annoyed when the staging features the song title translated to tons of languages, but these guys clearly did it as a joke so I’m OK with it.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

Well, that was pretty boring. There was only one song in this semifinal that truly excites me, and I want my commenters to try guessing which one it is.

Erica said that Eurovision 2011 is a showcase of every possible genre, but the only flavor is bland. I have to agree, this year so far has been like a restaurant where most of the food tastes dull. The hamburgers have stiff buns, the spaghetti doesn’t have enough salt, and the salad consists of only lettuce and tomatoes. But the restaurant has a few great dishes worth trying, as well as friendly professional hosts and beautiful paintings of Germany (which in this metaphor are the postcards).

Now that I think of it, what kinds of restaurants would other Eurovision years be like? I have a few ideas:

• Most of the grayscale 1960’s years would serve ten different kinds of soup and maybe one flavor of ice cream.
• Eurovision 1991 would be in a touristy part of Italy but has clumsy waiters who can only speak Italian. The food tastes great, but they often serve you the wrong dish or deliver it half an hour late.
• Eurovision 2001 would be in a huge noisy three-story building and has too few waiters to accommodate everyone. Everything in the menu is written in rhymes.
• Eurovision 2009 would be a huge glamorous family restaurant with holographic digital menus and 3D animatronics of its mascots. Some of the staff are clumsy, but it has some of the best European dishes you’ve ever tasted.

It turns out Peter Urban’s commentary is a lot more fun when he has a guest on board! Both of them were excited at the start because it took place in Germany, and during the voting run-through they talked about how good of a job Düsseldorf did organizing this contest. The contest took place in the Merkur Spiel-Arena (named Düsseldorf Arena for Eurovision), a building with a seating capacity of 35,000—nearly that of the infamously oversized stadium that Denmark chose in 2001. To avoid repeating the mistakes Denmark made, the stage was placed in the center of the arena instead of the edge.

The interval act is a percussion ensemble, nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes, that’s all an interval act needs to be. The purpose is to keep the viewers entertained while the votes are being counted, and percussion ensembles do that well. The qualifier reveals were a borefest because as I said, only one of the qualifiers got a “YES!” out of me. Which one is that? You’ll find out in my next post.

---

Netherlands: Never Alone

Artist: 3JS. That’s pronounced “three J’s”, not “three J S”.

Language: English

Key: C major

In this era of Eurovision, I’ve come to automatically expect a certain type of song from some countries. I associate Greece with flashy dance songs, Azerbaijan with swedo-pop, Ireland with not letting go of Irish ballads, and the Netherlands with not qualifying. 3JS is a Dutch-language band, but they sang an English version of their song “Je vecht nooit alleen”. I can see what Erica meant by the Dutch denying all knowledge of their own language. I’m ticked that 3JS chose to ignore the language they normally sing in, but they sing quite well in English. Surprisingly, I don’t vastly prefer the Dutch version.

I expected this song to be just more dull drivel, but it’s actually the Netherlands’ most honest effort in many years! It’s a pleasant hopeful-sounding 2010’s pop song with some good production and energy. I can’t explain why, but it’s a lot more enjoyable than all those thickly accented Eurodance pop songs. I don’t love this song, but unlike so many others this year I could happily put it in the background. I would’ve totally expected this song to break the Netherlands’ non-qualification streak, but instead it got LAST PLACE IN THE SEMIFINAL? In a year filled with dull soppy 2011 pop songs, one of which WON THE FUCKING CONTEST? Christ, this is almost as baffling as Lord of the Lost scoring last place.

If I was watching in 2011, I might have thrown some points at the Netherlands out of sympathy. I feel really sad for Dutch Eurovision fans this year. You can see a lot of Dutch flags in the audience; this must have been the most hope they’ve had in years. Don’t worry, the Netherlands will have a light at the end of the tunnel. By which I mean a light a year after the end of the tunnel, because “Calm After the Storm” is better in every way than “Birds”.

Belgium: With Love Baby

Artist: Witloof Bay

Language: English

Key: C minor, D minor

Fun fact: The postcard for this song has the first ever acknowledgement of German-speaking Belgians in Eurovision. The diver on the left holds a sign saying “Voel het ritme van je hart!”, on the right “Écoute ton cœur battre !”, then the guy on the left flips it to say “Fühl dein ♡ schlagen!” Those are Dutch, French, and German respectively, all three official languages of Belgium. Such great attention to detail! We’ll get an even better language detail in the Swiss postcard.

This is the second fully acapella song in Eurovision, and it’s so much better than the first. It’s so fun and groovy and jazzy and these guys are making these amazing jazz chords with their own mouths. They don’t quite maintain a steady key throughout, but they consistently harmonize and I assume none of them have perfect pitch anyway. If one of them did have perfect pitch, then they’d all ask Mr. Perfect Pitch to sing the correct starting note. I know this because I am Mr. Perfect Pitch.

I would say the lyrics are inane, but that’s just a negative way to say they’re simplistic. The simple lyrics fit this song well, because they keep “with love baby” as a recognizable hook set to a surprising variety of chords.

I’m sad as hell that this didn’t qualify, because I just know some lifeless ballad drivel made it through instead. It got 53 points which is just one less than the tenth place qualifier (Moldova). I would say I’m pissed off that this didn’t qualify, but frankly I’m relieved I’ve reached a non-qualifier that’s truly worth listening to. The Netherlands sent an honest effort, sure, but I only was so positive because I expected it to be one of the driveliest drivels of the entire night, and because I’m NOT convinced it’s last place material.

Slovakia: I’m Still Alive

Artist: Twiins (Daniela and Veronika Nízlová)

Language: English

Key: A major

This is the kind of bland shit I just knew would score higher than the Netherlands and I can’t understand why. It’s dreary and repetitive and has a slow droning beat and has the same generic four-chord progression throughout the entire song, which always annoys the hell out of me. Even if you don’t know what a chord progression is, I think most listeners can tell it sounds repetitive. How the hell did this score five fewer points than Belgium, and how the fuck did the juries rank this higher than Ireland??? (For reference, this is the first of two years Ireland sent Jedward.) Moreover, how the hell can THIS be the best ranking of Slovakia’s four-year comeback?

I’ve noticed that the blander a year’s lineup of songs are, the less I understand the results. I’m reminded of all the confusing results of the 1980’s where Generic Ballad #1 scored 130 points and Generic Ballad #2 scored 3 points. This entire contest is the same deal.

Cyprus: San ángelos s’agápisa (Σαν άγγελος σ’αγάπησα)

Artist: Christos Mylordos

Language: Greek

Key: E minor

This is one of two Eurovision years post-1998 with two songs in Greek: the other is 2013. Cyprus went for an ethno-ballad this year, which is pretty cool because normally it’s only the Balkans that do this. I like the calm ethnic sections better than the rock sections. I can’t say this clicks with me, but in a year as weak as this it would’ve brought a splash of life into the final. The sound of men harmonizing in Greek makes me excited for “Alcohol Is Free” in 2013.

Bulgaria: Na inat (На инат)

Artist: Poli Genova

Language: Bulgarian

Key: E minor

Here’s a rare native language Eurovision entry that I think would sound better in English. It has the fast rhythmic pop-rock singing style that doesn’t fit at all with the consonant clusters of Bulgarian, or any Slavic language. I’m surprised this doesn’t have an English version, because it feels like a Bulgarian cover of a song in English. It’s not bad as a composition, but the chords feel very copy-pasted.

North Macedonia: Rusinka (Русинкa)

Artist: Vlato Ilievski, who died in 2018

Language: Macedonian, plus English in the intro

Key: A minor

All four non-English songs in this semifinal are side by side, and none of them qualified. The grand final will be meager in non-English songs: aside from France, Spain, and Italy, we’ll only have Serbia and Greece (plus Hungary and Lithuania if we’re being generous).

I’m amused that Russia had never to this point sent Russian-sounding folk music to Eurovision, but two others have: Poland in 2005 (partly in Russian), and North Macedonia this year. This song tells the story of a Macedonian man who’s fallen in love with a Russian woman and wants to learn her language. I wish it sounded more folk-like and less like a rock arrangement of a Russian-inspired folk song, and I’m not convinced by his raspy singing style, but this is more fun to listen to than most other songs this year. I love the rotating visual effects in the background, and the accordion interlude is the best part.

Israel: Ding Dong

Artist: Dana International, the winner of 1998

Language: Hebrew and English

Key: B♭ minor, B minor

Dana International is the only returning winner in Eurovision history to not qualify to the finals. Her winning song “Diva” was rousing and anthemic, but this song is a total dud. Just a boring Eurodance song with awkward language mixing and an unnecessary key change. It does nothing to hype me up, so it’s basically just background noise.

Belarus: I Love Belarus

Artist: Anastasia Vinnikova

Language: English

Key: G minor, A minor

I like the little skit before Estonia (who came right before Belarus) where Stefan Raab plays Eurovision songs on the guitar and he and Judith Rakers sing along. It’s full of charming gags.

I have no idea why Belarus was so insistent on sending a patriotic song this year, but they were. First they wanted to send a song called “Born in Byelorussia”, then they rewrote it and renamed it to “Born in Belarus”. Then the song got disqualified since it was publicly performed in May 2010, so they sent a new one called “I Love Belarus”. As a song, this is mediocre Europop rock with some ethnic instruments superimposed on top.

Latvia: Angel in Disguise

Artist: Musiqq (Marats Ogļezņevs and Emīls Balceris)

Language: English

Key: G minor

This starts off decent enough with a nice guitar, but it quickly gets repetitive. The chord progression is annoyingly the same throughout the entire song. I kind of like the synth percussion in the verses, but otherwise it’s another addition to the dull 2011 pop soup. The singer drifts off key right when the instrumental ends.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

The lineup of songs in this semifinal was better than the first, but still dull overall. There were a few gems, but most of the songs are either total trash, or fall into the huge pile of “pleasant to listen to but doesn’t inspire me”. That’s why I named this post “The Most Boring Year Since 1992”. 1999 to 2002 had worse lineups of songs than this, but a lot of the songs were bad in an entertaining way, or had something remarkably annoying about them. This isn’t the worst year since 1992, just the most boring in terms of songs.

I love the hosts’ silly “name two things that don’t go together” game transitioning into the interval act, which is something German-themed with a twist: breakdancing to classical music by Johann Sebastian Bach! How did it take Germany this long to think of doing a classical music act? The country is an absolute powerhouse of classical composers. It was one of the most creative interval acts I’ve seen yet. ARD worked hard to make this contest feel German, and it paid off so much!

I feel bad for a few of the non-qualifiers (particularly the Netherlands), but the only one I’ll miss in the final is Belgium. The qualifier reveals were more interesting than last time, because the tenth qualifier was a particularly tense moment. Could the last qualifier be the Belgian acapella, or the former winner from Israel? Or could Slovakia or the Netherlands finally have their lucky break? Nope, it’s just Sweden. Some fans love their song, but to me it’s an amusing anticlimax. There was one qualifier reveal that made me happy and one that made me burst out laughing. I invite my commenters to guess which ones those are.

One more fun fact: Peter Urban was surprised that Estonia qualified and said their song looks like it’s from a kids’ show. Now that he said it, I kind of agree.

---

See you next time for the most maddening Eurovision victory of all time. Right after the most happyening Eurovision victory of all time (for me at least), how weird is that? Also, “happyening” is totally a real word. It doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as other totally real words, but it’s a real word nonetheless.

>> 2011 (Final): The Most Controversial Winner Since 1991