Intro Post

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Here is my first Eurovision post after coming back home from Eurovision 2024! And here’s my post about my Eurovision trip in case you missed it.

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Introduction

Just like last time Austria hosted Eurovision, which was way back in 1967, Eurovision 2015 took place in Vienna. Five other Austrian cities were in the running to host, but they had only one potential venue each whereas Vienna had seven. It makes sense that after almost 50 years without hosting Eurovision, Austria once more went for its capital.

Three countries returned this year, one skipped, and one made its debut, adding up to 40 participants. Cyprus and Serbia returned after skipping 2014, the Czech Republic returned for the first time since 2009, and Ukraine skipped out due to the war in Crimea. Four other countries that would later return were absent this year: Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Luxembourg. Most notably, after years of foreshadowing, the newest addition to the family entered Eurovision: none other than Australia. Since Australia qualified directly to the finals this year, I’ll talk more about their presence in the next post. For now, in case you didn’t know, Australia was originally intended to be a one-time guest for the contest’s 60th edition.

Austria went for an all-female trio of presenters with hard-to-spell names: Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler, and Arabella Kiesbauer. The previous winner Conchita Wurst served as the green room host. 2014 to 2017 are the “almost everyone sings in English” years—are you ready for the second of them? I’m kind of not, but at least the language diversity ramps up in 2018. We begin with the 13 non-qualifiers, all but two of which are in English.

This is the first year to feature interviews with the automatically qualifying contestants during the semifinals, an attempt at redeeming the Big Five’s disadvantage that didn’t work very well. The contest implemented a much better solution in 2024, by having the Big Five and host perform in the semifinals.

I watched the semifinals by myself with German commentary. Not Austrian German, as fitting as that would’ve been.

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Moldova: I Want Your Love

Artist: Eduard Romanyuta

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

After returning from Eurovision 2024, the very first song I have to review is a boring synth pop tune with no distinguishing factors. How am I supposed to comment on this? Maybe I just need to readjust to mid-2010’s Eurovision, when the song lineup wasn’t as diverse as it is these days. I guess I can point out the sexualized female police outfits, which we see on stage because it’s Eurovision.

Netherlands: Walk Along

Artist: Trijntje Oosterhuis, the most Dutch-sounding name in history

Language: English

Key: F♯ major

After two entries that fans love (one of which I love too), the Netherlands missed the mark this year. This is one of only two times the Netherlands failed to qualify after 2013, three if you count Joost Klein’s controversial disqualification.

The “whyayayayay” lyrics are annoying, why doesn’t she sing “why why why why” instead? Trijntje (short for Katrijntje) can sing well but the song is just boring radio guitar pop with repetitive chords. Will this be another year of obvious non-qualifiers? We’re only two songs in, too soon to say.

Finland: Aina mun pitää

Artist: Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät

Language: Finnish

Key: A minor

This song is best known for surpassing “All”, the British entry from 1957, as the shortest song in Eurovision history at only 85 seconds long. Most Eurovision fans don’t like this song very much and I’m no exception, but I don’t think it deserves that much hate. I kind of like the punk rock instrumental and I respect the disability representation, but it sounds more like an unfinished demo than a song and I can never enjoy singers barfing up their breakfast. I do actually like that the song keeps to the point and doesn’t overstay its welcome. And it’s certainly not forgettable. In short, I respect this song but don’t find it fun to listen to.

This scored last place in the semifinal (and in the jury vote), but it scored 10th place in the televote, so if the semifinals were purely televote this would’ve qualified. How crazy is that?

North Macedonia: Autumn Leaves

Artist: Daniel Kajmakoski

Language: English

Key: A minor

You know what weirds me out? The thought that there are probably thousands of Eurovision fans who associate the name “Autumn Leaves” with this song, instead of the jazz classic from 1945 that my mother loves. I’d rather keep associating “Autumn Leaves” with the jazz song instead of this dull power ballad whose singer drifts off key. Apparently it was localized from Macedonian to English, but I’m not intrigued enough to check out the original version.

Belarus: Time

Artist: Uzari (Yuri Naurotski) and Maimuna Amadu Murashko

Language: English

Key: C minor

This starts as an average power ballad, then transitions to an average dance pop song with a violinist who’s barely audible for most of the song. All the actually interesting songs qualified this evening, which is good for future me but annoying for present me.

Denmark: The Way You Are

Artist: Anti Social Media

Language: English, though we’re only six years away from hearing Danish again

Key: C major

Sorry to anyone who likes this song, but I can’t stop laughing at the fact that this year Denmark wasn’t rewarded for radio pop. It’s interchangeable with any other radio pop entry of theirs, even though I’m sure they don’t all sound the same. The televoters didn’t care for this song, and even the juries only gave it 11th place. It’s the kind of song where I keep clicking away and getting distracted because it’s hard to wait for it to end.

Peter Urban said this sounds like something he’s heard a thousand times already, but said the fans are amazed anyway. Clearly they weren’t that amazed.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

Fun fact: four entries this evening featured a map on stage. These are Armenia, Hungary, Russia, and Romania. That fits with the theme I’ve noticed this year: songs that rely too much on their messages. Most entries in this semifinal aren’t my cup of tea, but at least the ones that made it to the final will be interesting to analyze.

For an interval act amidst the voting, we got a tour of Vienna from the perspective of a cat, dog, and horse. It’s a fun video but I prefer live stage performances. It’s set to the instrumentals of various 2014 entries, which all sound familiar but I can’t remember which country most were from. Why didn’t they use the instrumental of the actually good entries, like “Calm After the Storm”? Also, I agree with Erica, as a cat owner the sound of a distressed cat annoyed me.

After the voting came two Eurovision history skits: one tying in with musicians and athletes from Austria, and one about references to Australia in Eurovision. As with last year, these were nowhere near as entertaining as the history skits from 2013.

The qualifier reveals were rushed and didn’t feel exciting at all. They blatantly had to rush the show along to fit in the two-hour limit. Doesn’t help that none of the songs from this semifinal truly excite me. Let’s hope semifinal 2 is a different story!

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Ireland: Playing with Numbers

Artist: Molly Sterling

Language: English

Key: C major

Molly sounds like she’s crying when singing this ballad, and I don’t mean that in a good way. She sounds breathy because she thinks that’s how all the cool kids sing these days. It distracts me from the rest of the song, which is just a ballad waltz that makes me feel nothing. Maybe it would be more effective if she reserved the breathy singing for the bridge, and sang like a normal person for the rest of the song, but then it would still be a boring ballad.

San Marino: Chain of Lights

Artist: Anita Simoncini and Michele Perniola, from San Marino and Italy respectively

Language: English

Key: F minor, F♯ minor, B major, C minor

Anita Simoncini is the first ever Eurovision artist to be younger than me. She was born April 14, 1999, just 11 days after me, meaning she had turned 16 years old a month before the contest again.

Sigh, another song with a globe on stage, and lyrics about peace. Musically it’s not that bad, one of Ralph Siegel’s better works. It sounds almost like a cinematic stage play song. Unfortunately both the singers are weak and don’t seem to have much chemistry. And plus, when the song switches to major key it brings back traumatic memories of all those German inspirational ballads.

Malta: Warrior

Artist: Amber Bondin

Language: English

Key: C minor

This is the first year in Eurovision history to feature two songs with the same title. Both Malta and Georgia’s entries are called “Warrior”. If I’m not mistaken, the only other year with this trait is 2021, which has two songs called “Amen”.

Amber unfortunately struggles to sing on rhythm, especially in the verses. But even then, this is just an “it’s dramatic I guess?” song, commonplace in modern Eurovision.

Portugal: Há um mar que nos separa

Artist: Leonor Andrade

Language: Portuguese

Key: C♯ minor, D minor

I always get excited to see what Portugal brings to Eurovision, because they stubbornly cling onto their wonderful language, but this is very disappointing. I kind of like the bitcrushing effects, but otherwise this is a stilted stompy pop song that doesn’t even fit the Portuguese language. It would fit better with English, I’m sorry to say.

This is the very last Portuguese entry before they finally won the contest in 2017. How did they manage to win the contest? It took a complete overhaul to Festival da Canção, which I’ll discuss five posts from now. That’s how long it’ll take to reach the 2017 final.

Czechia: Hope Never Dies

Artist: Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta

Language: English

Key: D minor, E♭ minor

Now we have the first Czech entry in Eurovision since 2009! This country wouldn’t score well in the first few years of their return, but eventually they’d start getting better results.

We have quite a few male/female duet ballads this year for some reason, and this fails to stand out among them. It’s not bad or anything, but it’s very forgettable and has a boring cheesy key change. Another song where I kept clicking away and getting sidetracked.

Iceland: Unbroken

Artist: Maria Olafs

Language: English

Key: A♭ major

How ironic that a seven-year qualification streak was broken with a song called “Unbroken”. Now begins Iceland’s four-year dark age, which I’m sure was the subject of economic crisis jokes. This is a generic four-chord pop song whose singer distractingly shakes around. It feels refreshing that neither the juries nor televoters liked this four-chord pop.

Switzerland: Time to Shine

Artist: Mélanie René

Language: English

Key: E minor

No, Switzerland, your time to shine is nine years from now. Don’t get too impatient.

Turns out that the best non-qualifier of this year is the last one! I’m not heartbroken that it didn’t make it and I don’t strongly feel it should’ve been exchanged for a different song, but I’m baffled it got last place because it’s a very decent rock ballad. I particularly enjoy the subtle flutes and her shower curtain dress. For the sake of this blog, I’m glad this year has one non-qualifier worth listening to.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

I’d say this was a slightly better semifinal than the first, but most of the songs this year really aren’t my thing. It’s filled with pop that blends together, and I imagine that if I was following the national selections of 2015 live, I’d have struggled to maintain interest. This makes me glad I became a Eurovision fan as recently as 2023. I got to witness Eurovision at its most peaceful, then Eurovision at its most chaotic. If there’s any positive side of the drama from Eurovision 2024, it’s that I feel post-Eurovision relief instead of post-Eurovision depression.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I still have this semifinal to discuss. During the voting time window, the show continued the history skit, and I’m not going to count it as an interval act. It had some good gags but I’ll say it again, SVT did the history skit so much better. Then after the voting came a skit about voting mishaps, which brought back some hilarious memories. I wouldn’t call that an interval act either. Does this mean this semifinal didn’t have an interval act, or is the definition of “interval act” subjective?

The qualifier reveals are still rushed, but a few reveals did make me happy: Sweden because their song kicks ass, Montenegro because Željko is my hero, and Israel because their song is a catchy bop. Peter Urban felt sad for Ireland due to his colleague and fellow commentator Marty Whelan, as well as Iceland and his neighbor Switzerland. I’m not sad about any of the non-qualifiers, but if I had to pick one that deserved a better result, I’d go with Switzerland.

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See you next time as I begrudgingly admit that “A Million Voices” is a damn good song.

>> 2015 (Final): Songs Overly Reliant on Their Messages