Intro Post

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Greetings from Pittsburgh! I wrote this post at home but reread it at my hotel to do finishing touches. I’m staying in this city for a weekend to meet with a couple friends I know due to Homestuck.

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Introduction

Jamala’s victory gave Ukraine their second opportunity to host Eurovision, and they naturally had to choose a city. Although Kyiv was clearly by far the best option, five other Ukrainian cities sent bids to host and this caused delays in announcing the host city and venue. In September 2016, UA:PBC finally decided to host Eurovision 2017 in the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv. The city was better prepared regarding hotels than it was last time it hosted in 2005, but this was still one of the tougher contests for fans to find accommodation.

This contest featured 42 countries, the same number as 2016 but with two swapped. Portugal, who had withdrawn due to a lack of funds, returned to the contest while Bosnia withdrew due to a lack of funds. Romania, who had withdrawn in April after having a song ready, returned to the contest while Russia withdrew in April after having a song ready. That’s right, this year and next year Russia would put the EBU through some of the most annoying bullshit it’s ever suffered.

Eurovision 2017 is notably one of two years hosted entirely by men; the other was Eurovision 1956, with a single male host. This year was hosted by Timur Miroshnychenko (the Ukrainian Eurovision commentator since 2007) and two other dudes who are probably TV hosts or something. I was kind of hoping Timur would seem like the leader of these hosts, but instead he was relegated to the green room for most of the show. I would’ve thought this was because he commentated this year, but this year had substitute Ukrainian commentators.

Bad news: this year has only six native-language songs (actually five native-language songs and one native-language mistake), not counting the songs from English-speaking countries. Good news: all of the native-language songs not from the Big Five qualified this year. Bad news: this post will consist entirely of English-language songs. Good news: this means the final will have a relatively good amount of linguistic diversity, by mid-2010’s standards. I watched the semifinals together with Liv with Swedish commentary (featuring Edward af Sillén and Måns Zelmerlöw), then by myself with German commentary (the usual Peter Urban) as I wrote this post.

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Russia: Flame Is Burning (withdrawn)

Artist: Julia Samoylova

Language: English

Key: B minor

The Russian broadcaster was so pissed off that “You Are the Only One” didn’t win Eurovision 2016 that they took out their anger on Ukraine for not one, but two years in a row. It’s very obvious to me that Russia did not actually intend to participate in Eurovision 2017, but instead sent a singer that they knew Ukraine would reject because she traveled to Crimea from the Russian border after 2017, in a petty attempt to make Ukraine look bad. Their intention was to make Ukraine seem like evil monsters for refusing to send a “sweet innocent wheelchair girl” to Eurovision. Even though Julia Samoylova is a completely normal adult who just happens to be in a wheelchair. Russia would let her participate in Eurovision next year, but they’d treat her even more terribly.

Although I personally think Russia is to blame for this fiasco, Ukraine’s broadcaster also got into beef with the EBU for refusing to let Julia participate. The EBU was so angered that they almost banned Ukraine from future Eurovision events.

It’s a shame Russia didn’t intend for this song to be a Eurovision entry, because it’s quite a nice minor key ballad even if the lyrics are a bit hard to understand and her lisp gets on my nerves. It has good buildup, guitar, and strings, and the chorus has a similar chord progression to “Mon amour” from 2024 (same key) which is pretty cool. Before the final chorus, the instrumental transitions to a B major chord which almost sounds like a lead-in to E minor key, but it actually stays in its original key. At least the song got to be on the official Eurovision 2017 album, just like “Moment of Silence” was last year.

Georgia: Keep the Faith

Artist: Tamara Gachechiladze

Language: English

Key: G minor, A minor

The first non-qualifier of semifinal 1 was performed in the death slot. The title (which is repeated way too many times) annoys the shit out of me because it sounds like it means “keep your belief in God” instead of “don’t lose hope” which is probably what was intended. As a song, this tries to be some kind of courage anthem but is just a dreary soppy ballad with an abrupt key change that contributes nothing to the song.

Albania: World

Artist: Lindita Halimi

Language: English

Key: D minor

Here is the second Albanian female ballad that Liv hates with every fiber of her being but I don’t. I think it’s a stereotypical Albanian ballad whose singer looks like a stereotypical Albanian contestant, and I certainly don’t care for it, but I don’t get why she hates it this much. The instrumental is dramatic and kind of nice, but it doesn’t really match the simplistic lyrics about peace, and her long waily notes near the end are too much.

Montenegro: Space

Artist: Slavko Kalezić

Language: English

Key: A minor

This is just a dance song with a weird outfit and weird voice, it’s just kind of there and there’s not much else to it. I feel the lyrics should come off as using outer space as a metaphor for a daring romance, but it just seems to be a song literally about being an astronaut. Montenegro wasn’t trying that hard in this era.

Finland: Blackbird

Artist: Norma John (Lasse Piirainen on piano, Leena Tirronen on vocals)

Language: English

Key: B minor

Wait, what? I thought Norma John was one person this whole time, but apparently it’s the name of a duo. Maybe I should’ve guessed, because Norma John isn’t a very Finnish-sounding name, but it could pass as a stage name.

This is the first non-qualifier to truly upset me since “Samo shampioni” from 2013. It’s been a very quick grower since I first watched the semifinal with Liv. It’s downright beautiful and very moving, plus some really bland crap made it through over this. It’s a mysterious, minimalist piano and strings tune that I would say fits Finland to a T. It’s a perfect representation of the English-language music that I associate with the Nordic countries. And plus, Leena (her name is not Norma!) can sing incredibly well. She hits every note, both while singing and ooh-ing, and sounds both sensitive and expressive.

Don’t ask me how the televoters ranked this only tenth place. Liv suggests it might be because the recap showed an unappealing section, and maybe that would’ve hurt it but not by this much. And the juries somehow ranked this 12th place, so it got twelfth place overall. Why the hell did the juries still not recognize Finnish musical genius? In any case, I’m clearly not alone in feeling this song was robbed, because fans constantly complain to this day that “Blackbird” didn’t qualify.

Iceland: Paper

Artist: Svala Björgvinsdóttir

Language: English

Key: D minor

Svala’s father (named Björgvin as you can tell from her last name) participated in Eurovision 1995 with the song “Núna”, which I still think is a dull ballad. Now it’s her turn to perform and her song is much better, but sadly she didn’t qualify. I’m also obligated to mention that the Icelandic national final this year featured Daði Freyr with “Hvað með það?” (English version: Is This Love?), a song about the day he first met his wife which can be seen as a predecessor to “Think About Things” and “10 Years”.

It’s a shame the chorus of this repeats so many times when this could have used a bridge section, because its composition and instruments are actually pretty cool. It’s got a lot of varied creative synth design that suits a cold country really well.

I haven’t bothered listening to all the Icelandic versions of Iceland’s entries, but I was curious how this song sounded in Icelandic. The Icelandic version is called “Ég veit það” (I know it) and it’s a way cooler title than “Paper”. I’m not sure if I consider that the real version of the song, but it’s better than the English version.

Cute fun fact: Svala’s father presented the votes from the Icelandic jury this year.

Czechia: My Turn

Artist: Martina Bárta

Language: English

Key: G major

This is another ballady ballad, but Liv finds it pleasant as far as Czech entries go. I can sense a good song in there somewhere and an overall sweet tone, as well as some good diverse chords, but it just somehow fails to speak to me. Maybe it just doesn’t have enough progression.

Slovenia: On My Way

Artist: Omar Naber, returning from 2005

Language: English

Key: D major, D♭ major (debatably), E♭ major, F major

Omar Naber’s inclusion in Eurovision was controversial this year, because he had been imprisoned in 2011 for sexually assaulting a woman. This is why I’m thankful this song isn’t good at all, unlike his first Eurovision entry.

I cannot think of a bigger downgrade from a returning artist in Eurovision history. “Stop” from 2005 had a really lovely and exciting buildup from a regular ballad into a rock ballad, with no need for tacky key changes, as well as a good Slavic melody to tie the song together. This is just a complete and utter dud. And he composed both of these songs himself, so how is this one so much worse??? It starts off promising enough, almost seems like it’s in minor key, but then when the ballad drum beat kicks in, all I can do is sigh.

Peter Urban said this song sounded like it came from an imaginary musical, and I can see what he means here. Maybe that’s part of why this song doesn’t work for me: it tries to be halfway between a freeform structured song for a musical and a regular ballad, and doesn’t work in either sense.

Latvia: Line

Artist: Triana Park, a band and not one person

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

I’m not sure why this electro-pop song scored last place, because I actually kind of like it and it deserved to qualify over quite a few other songs. It has a good beat and fun bouncy synths and I think the lead singer’s outfit is pretty cool. I might even come back to it now and then, but not as much as Finland. She looks like she belongs in an anime con like Jamie-Lee last year, but her outfit actually matches the rest of the visual design on the stage.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

My first impression of the hosts this year is, this is yet another case where three is too many. So far the best host trio has easily been those of 2010, but Stefan Raab and the ladies (2011) and Lise Rønne and the gentlemen (2014) were decent too. I’m really not a fan of the Azeri host trio from 2012 or the Austrian ladies from 2015, and this year I would’ve preferred just Timur plus a female host. He was clearly the most qualified of the hosts and had the best diction, as shown by his prior experience hosting Junior Eurovision. Liv likes Timur as a host but really doesn’t like the other two. I don’t think the other two are that bad, but they’re trying a bit too hard to be funny which is par for the course.

We’re now at a point where Eurovision has tons of opening and interval acts each night, so I don’t feel like discussing all of them this year. Just know that my favorite parts were the opening film with Ukrainian women singing, and the interval act where Jamala sings an absolutely kickass Ukrainian-language song called “Zamanyly” (Заманили), far better than most entries this year. It’s our first time hearing Ukrainian-language music on stage since 2005, which is awesome! This is the first “winner performs a new song” type of interval act that I truly love. I wish we had more interval acts focused on music in the host country’s native language. Jamala also sang a modified version of “1944” which is fine I guess, kinda just shuffled around musically.

Now for the qualifier reveals… this is the first year since 2013 where the reveals aren’t just a bunch of “yes!” and “fine I guess”. I got annoyed when the dull ballads from Greece, Poland, and Australia qualified—Finland, Latvia, and Iceland all deserved it more. At the end, it hurt to see only one of Finland and Belgium being able to qualify. This means this semifinal has three non-qualifiers I would’ve gladly traded! Finland is the non-qualifier I’m saddest about, but if Finland was the last qualifier, then I’d be much more upset about Belgium not qualifying. As for the other qualifiers I like, I’ll save that for the next post.

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Serbia: In Too Deep

Artist: Tijana Bojićević

Language: English

Key: E minor

This is a super-boring dance anthem thing that makes me feel absolutely nothing. I couldn’t be more thankful that Serbia brought back their snazzy-sounding Slavic language next year. As I’ve mentioned before, this is the only year in Eurovision history from 1986 onwards with no songs in Serbo-Croatian. Thankfully Belarus keeps up the streak of at least one song in a Slavic language.

I think I agree with Erica, it’s extremely hard to form any meaningful opinion on this song. It’s not particularly good or bad either way, just kind of boring.

North Macedonia: Dance Alone

Artist: Jana Burčeska

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor

This is just an average dance song that I again fail to have much of an opinion about, other than that it’s slightly funky and that the staging is true to its title, and that it gets repetitive near the end.

The most notable thing about Jana in Eurovision is that she made a big deal out of being pregnant amidst the show. A pregnancy test is featured in her postcard, and during the green room interviews her husband proposed to her on live TV. Which is kind of sweet but also making the show about herself.

Malta: Breathlessly

Artist: Claudio Faniello, whose brother was in Eurovision 2001 and 2006

Language: English

Key: D♭ major

I had a burning feeling that Malta would send one of the most painfully boring songs of the year, and unfortunately I was right. This is another generic ballad (described by Peter Urban as a classic Eurovision ballad), which I guess has a fairly good voice. I’m annoyed about the closeups of her face on the LED screen.

Three songs later, Hungary is the first breath of life into this boring-ass semifinal, and it qualified so I’ll have to save my thoughts for my next post. For now, just know that it totally blew me away.

Ireland: Dying to Try

Artist: Brendan Murray

Language: English

Key: A♭ major, B♭ major

Ireland, what the hell were you thinking this year? No one is going to vote for this! Well, it did get 86 points, almost 50/50 from the jury and televote, but this semifinal had way less than ten good songs so it’s fair.

I can never remember a single thing about how this song sounds: all I can remember is that it’s a dull sleepy ballad (not even an Irish-sounding ballad) with a 20-year-old singer whose voice that belongs in Junior Eurovision. Plus I don’t get the point of the hot air balloon on stage. Apparently the rule of singers 16 or older doesn’t mean we’re free from annoying childish voices. It’s even weirder because Peter Urban said that Brendan’s voice sounds quite deep when he speaks.

Liv raised a good point about the singer: if his voice sounded like an adult, she would be able to properly praise his singing, but here the most she could think is “oh look, this cute kid is doing so well”.

San Marino: Spirit of the Night

Artist: Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson

Language: English

Key: G minor, G♯ minor, D minor, E♭ minor

I need to take a moment to celebrate, because now I never have to hear a Ralph Siegel song in Eurovision again! Well, aside from the actually good songs he composed which I can relisten to anytime. His last good entry was “Reise nach Jerusalem” from 1999.

Hahaha, the final ever Eurovision entry composed by Ralph Siegel got only one point in total, which was from German televoters. Serves him right for composing all those bland-ass German peace ballads. This is like “Chain of Lights” two years prior, another duet composed by Siegel, but even more vaguely annoying and with no real chemistry between the singers or meaning to the lyrics. I mean, it’s not terrible or anything, just a dull disco pop song with too many key changes and a cheesy higher/desire rhyme.

Switzerland: Apollo

Artist: Timebelle

Language: English

Key: G minor

The most notable fact about this entry is that “Yodel It!”, the divisive Romanian entry, was originally going to be sung by Timebelle, but they rejected the song in favor of “Apollo”. So instead, the Romanian producers of “Yodel It!” gave it to a Romanian singer and Switzerland save some other forgettable song instead. Luckily, we’re only two years away from the start of Switzerland’s golden era!

This song isn’t bad or anything; it actually has a nice beat and synths, but the boring chords weigh it down. I wouldn’t turn it off, but I wouldn’t come back to it either. I do like the message at the end where she says thank you in as many languages as she could—not Ukrainian unfortunately.

Lithuania: Rain of Revolution

Artist: Fusedmarc

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

This song isn’t as cool or avant-garde as Fusedmarc seems to think it is; they’re described by the Swedish commentators as an alternative electro group. It’s just a dance song with weird and janky lyrics like “life like roller coaster spinning me around” and “there’s no wait in dream life, nothing stops me now”. It’s a little bit funky, but the lyrics and shouty singing both annoy me.

What is it with Lithuanian entries and lyrics that make no sense? “Happy I cause happy you” in 2001, baby’s first ballad in 2008, the shoes called love and pain in 2013, and now this. In all fairness, Lithuania also gave us “Eastern European Funk” (2010) whose lyrics are absolutely brilliant.

Side note: the lead singer looks hilariously similar to Little My from the Moomins, with her red dress and hair curled into a bun.

Estonia: Verona

Artist: Koit Toome (returning from 1998) and Laura Põldvere (returning from 2005)

Language: English

Key: D minor

I’m afraid the last non-qualifier of the evening (and second last of the semifinal) isn’t anything to write home about. My notes say two things about this song: it’s a “regular dance ballad duet I guess”, and Liv wanted me to mention it sounds way to similar to “Left Outside Alone” by Anastacia. The melodies of both songs really overlap in my head, particularly “reckless type of love” and “left outside alone”, but we’ll see a much bigger song similarity she pointed out when we reach the grand final.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

The opening act is a bunch of 21st century Eurovision winners arranged with traditional Ukrainian instruments. It’s pretty good as far as “old Eurovision songs rearranged” acts go, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Stefan Raab’s rock cover of “Satellite”. The arrangements of “Euphoria” and “My Number One” are very well done, but I don’t like that the arrangement of “Fairytale” keeps alternating with an unrelated composition in major key, and “Rise Like a Phoenix” doesn’t work in this style. Liv isn’t a fan of this opening act and said that Ukraine can do much better with their traditional music, as they’ll prove with the intervals of 2023.

This semifinal had only one on-stage interval act, and it was the traditional “huge crew of folk dancers” interval act I’m so fond of, much like the acts Ukraine put on when they last hosted in 2005. I wish more interval acts in the 2010’s featured huge crews of dancers—that really helps them feel like interval acts, and not just random songs thrown in to fill time. This act is a joy to watch visually, and the Slavic choir music is a bit more electronic than I would’ve liked, but decent enough for me to enjoy this act. Oh yeah, both semifinals also had skits featuring Verka Serduchka, and as much as it hurts me to admit, these felt like nothing more than time fillers.

Unlike semifinal 1, there’s not a single non-qualifier I feel sorry about. Hungary’s awesome ethnic song was the fourth qualifier, so all the reveals after that were pretty boring. But I’m also pleased Denmark made it through because their song is surprisingly good, and I would’ve been baffled if Israel’s dance song hadn’t made it.

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See you next time for the longest overdue victory in Eurovision history.

>> 2017 (Final): All New Countries in the Top Three