Intro Post

< 2018 Semfinals | 2018 Final | 2019 Semifinals >

As of the writing, two Swiss cities remain in the running to host Eurovision 2025: Basel with two potential arenas, and Geneva with just one. I’m rooting for Basel because it’s a three hour drive from my grandma’s house in Germany, and thus I’d be more likely to go to next Eurovision if it’s in Basel.

---

Introduction

In Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, 26 countries battled on the annual Saturday night to take the prize of Eurovision 2018. It was a tight competition this year, especially among the jury votes where the country on top kept changing. Fortunately, no song came anywhere near zero points this year: on the bottom was Portugal with a still impressive 39 points. Two of the top three are countries we usually don’t see this high. In third place (and first in the jury) came Austria, in second place came a huge fan favorite from Cyprus, and the winner was a more divisive but perhaps more fiercely loved entry from Israel, who took home their fourth victory.

RTP clearly had a lot of fun showcasing their country with this show, but for the opening films they seemed to be on a tight budget—all three nights used the same film. On the other hand, the opening act has an indulgent medley of songs from famous Portuguese artists (including the first proper fado representation in Eurovision!), all sung in Portuguese because this country is too cool for anglophone pop. Then comes a nautical-themed flag parade set to Portuguese DJ music, which is just the most charming thing. As with last year, the host country was introduced last. The postcards are what I would’ve hoped Portugal would do: the artists opening a door to a location in Portugal and performing an activity there. As a soft spot for all things Portuguese, these postcards get my stamp of approval.

I watched the grand final with Finland Swedish commentary, parts of which my friend Liv translated for me. Finland Swedish is intriguing to listen to, because it feels like it’s from a parallel universe where Finnish is a Germanic language. The pronunciation is generally closer to the spelling than in Sweden, it doesn’t do silly things like pronouncing “de” (they) as “dom”* or the singsongy pitch accents, and there’s plenty of words that sound goofy to Swedes, but it’s better to ask a Swedish speaker to explain them. I would nerd about languages more, but that’s not the point of these reviews. These commentators are extremely funny and snooty and I’ll refer to them as the Yle commentators from now on, since that is Finland’s national broadcaster.

* That’s actually a simplified description of something more nuanced, which you can learn about in this video.

---

Ukraine: Under the Ladder

Artist: Mélovin (Kostiantyn Mykolaiovych Bocharov)

Language: English

Key: B♭ minor

The first entry of the final is one of few I don’t feel strongly about one way or the other. It’s got a good inventive staging gimmick where the guy bursts out of a piano much like Dima Bilan’s “Never Let You Go”, but otherwise it’s just an average dark pop song with pianos and drums and other normal features. I have no idea why it had such a huge disparity between the jury and televotes: last place in the jury and 7th place in the televote.

Spain: Tu canción

Artist: Amaia Romeru Arbizu and Alfred García

Language: Spanish (thank god!)

Key: C major

Spain in the death slot brings back memories of the stage invasion from 2010, and a ballad in the death slot brings back memories of the last few years I reviewed. If I was a stage invader in Eurovision—or more likely, if I was forced to pick a song during which to invade the stage—I’d pick this one, because callbacks are cool. Invading the stage isn’t nearly as cool, but this is still what I would’ve chosen.

This song is an accurate snapshot of two people early on in love and convinced that they’re eternally destined for each other, since Amaia and Alfred were a freshly dating couple but broke up only a year later. It’s a super sugary duet ballad that feels more Spanish than their prior entries, if only because the lyrics are so over-the-top romantic.

Slovenia: Hvala, ne!

Artist: Lea Sirk

Language: Slovenian, plus a repeated phrase in Portuguese near the end but only in the final

Key: E♭ minor

Funny Yle commentator quote number 1: “As an artist, it’s impressive to wow people with a song that you don’t even like. I’m certainly impressed by Lea Sirk, despite the fact she says she hates this song. ‘It’s just some way too repetitive trash that I wrote in 10 minutes in a moment of weakness’ she said in an interview.”

My guess is that Lea Sirk thought this was her greatest song ever when she originally submitted it to the Slovenian national final, but she started cringing at it after not too long, and she had to swallow those feelings for Eurovision. In which case I can relate—sometimes it only takes a few months for a piece of music I wrote to sour on me. But other times, I can still be proud of a piece of music many years later.

Honestly, I’m in two minds about this song. I think it depends on my mood whether I would blast this song way high, or if I agree with Lea about this song. Either I find it fun to rave to and enjoy this quirky dance trap pop in Slovenian, or it makes me shrivel up thinking about those annoying trap songs that TikTok kids blast. One thing’s for certain, my mom would absolutely hate this song and complain that this is what all the kids like to listen to.

The pause in the middle is a totally unnecessary gimmick, but I do quite like the bridge that comes afterwards since it varies the chords, and thus it’s the best part of the song. This is also the second song in Eurovision history that changed the language in the final (first is Turkey’s “Süper Star”). In the final chorus, Lea Sirk sings “obrigada, não” a few times. Now I feel bad for ByeAlex for not being allowed to sing “Kedvesem” in Swedish. Maybe he should have done it anyway without asking for permission, the EBU be damned.

Lithuania: When We’re Old

Artist: Ieva Zasimauskaitė

Language: English, plus a line in Lithuanian near the end

Key: G minor

I’m tempted to copy and paste Erica’s review of this song, but I won’t. This is a super dreary breathy ballad that I would have never expected to qualify, and her strange pronunciation of “old” grinds my gears (I’m a man, I can’t say “gets on my tits”). I’m also not a fan of her strawberry milk pink dress, and I’m surprised Erica didn’t complain about the color.

I’m surprised she didn’t sing more of this in Lithuanian, because it has a Lithuanian version called “Kol milyu” (While I love). Was Lithuania still traumatized by their zero points from 1994? Maybe it’s just the novelty of hearing this language again, but this song is definitely more interesting when sung in Lithuanian. The chords are still dreary and ballady and I wouldn’t come back to this version either, but it sounds way more personal in her native language.

Austria: Nobody but You

Artist: Cesár Sampson

Language: English

Key: B minor

This is Austria’s third best result in Eurovision behind their two victories: a fairly narrow first place in the jury, 13th place in the televote, and an impressive third place overall. Liv pointed out a good reason why Cesár did so well in the jury: he emotes with his entire body without standing behind a microphone, which is not at all easy to pull off. It helps that he’s wearing a cheek microphone, but it’s still not easy to do this while singing. He’s an absolute natural on stage and has the perfect stage presence to sell this song all on his own.

As for the song, it’s an accessible gospel pop song with a tinge of groovy piano chords and choir backing vocals. I’m not sure if it’s the kind of song I can come back to, but his performance totally brings the song to life. This is probably the only 21st century year other than 2014 where Austria felt like they had a real chance at winning, and I’m happy my country’s neighbor did so well! Honestly, he deserved to score one place higher than Germany, which he did.

Estonia: La forza

Artist: Elina Nechayeva, who as we see in the green room is crazy tall

Language: Italian

Key: D minor

I like how this song’s postcard shows a different side of Elina Nechayeva, where she puts on hiking equipment and climbs a steep mountain. That’s one use of her huge lung capacity—the other is her opera singing.

Unfortunately, this style of opera singing will never be anything more than “technically impressive” for me, especially when it’s over a power ballad. This song is the absolute definition of “she can sing really well, but it’s not for me”. I do like that the visual effects on her dress (which the Yle commentators said make her look like a living PowerPoint presentation) keep the viewers’ eyes engaged even as she’s standing still.

Norway: That’s How You Write a Song

Artist: Alexander Rybak, the winner of 2009

Language: English

Key: F minor

A commenter on Erica’s Reddit review described this song perfectly: it makes sense that it got first place in the semifinal, but 15th place in the grand final, because it’s the definition of a single-use song. It’s incredibly fun and charming on a first listen (or a first listen after months without hearing it), but it gets tiring SO quickly. When relistening, I always know what’s gonna happen next: the unhelpful songwriting instructions, the shooba-doo-bop part, the overly flashy violin solo. His violin was an integral part of “Fairytale”, but here it’s put in only as a gimmick.

I’ve always liked Alexander Rybak—he sings in many different languages, composes most of his own songs, slays on the violin, and oozes with pretty boy charm (which is obvious even to a straight man like me). I can see why he would think this is an amazing song, so it’s a shame this song isn’t just better. Liv says it would fit really well in a musical about people struggling with creativity, where the music teacher sings some words of encouragement to his students. And I think she’s right, this song would fit much better as a musical number that’s part of a greater story.

Portugal: O jardim

Artist: Cláudia Pascoal featuring Isaura Santos

Language: Portuguese

Key: C minor, let’s say. A bit up for interpretation.

Since this song’s entire chord progression consists only of three chords, its key signature is rather fuzzy. Liv is way more familiar with this song than I am and told me she thinks of the first chord here as the root chord, which is why she considers it to be in C Dorian. I’ll consider that to be a subtype of C minor for the sake of simplicity, since my blog lists almost all songs as either major or minor.

If you’re friends with other Eurovision fans, there has to be at least one case where you and your friend have the exact opposite opinions on two songs. I absolutely love “Amar pelos dois” whereas I can respect this one but don’t think it speaks to me; Liv’s opinions on these songs are reversed. My reason for not liking this one as much is mainly because the composition is way more repetitive: just three different chords, C minor, B♭ major, F major. I feel like it doesn’t really go anywhere besides adding a kick and snap drum beat, and a second vocalist. It does have very sweet lyrics about the singer’s dead grandma which couldn’t come from any other country.

Unfortunately I can see why this song didn’t score that well. I find it rather inaccessible and I don’t think fans viewed this song as a breath of fresh air, like they did with “Amar pelos dois”. It does have the impressive record of scoring the most points out of any last place in Eurovision history, which is 39 points. This goes to show this grand final had something for everyone and no full-out duds.

United Kingdom: Storm

Artist: SuRie (Susanna Marie Cork)

Language: English

Key: G minor

If it weren’t for the stage invasion, this would be another generic British radio pop entry with nothing bad or great about it. But instead, the stage invasion led to quite an interesting little story. Some guy walked up to SuRie’s microphone and shouted that the UK media is run by Nazis, then she grabbed the microphone back and sang more fiercely throughout the rest of the song. After the song came an unscheduled green room interview while the EBU staff discussed what to do next. SuRie got offered to perform again but declined, because she was proud of her performance in the end.

That said, even after the invasion, even if her voice sounds more passionate the song isn’t remarkable and I can see why it got third last place. She can sing, but the beat and melodies are very generic and anonymous.

Serbia: Nova deca

Artist: Sanja Ilić and Balkanika

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)

Key: B minor

Sanja Ilić composed this song but wasn’t seen on stage, which is confusing because I thought the lead singer was him at first. died of COVID-19 just three years after this contest, at the age of 69. He had a long history with Yugoslav and Serbian music and even composed the Yugoslav entry from 1982, “Halo, Halo”.

After three years in a row of dance pop songs in English, none of which I like all that much, I couldn’t be happier that this year Serbia remembered what they were good at all along. They didn’t just send a standard Balkan ballad, but brought a fresh new spin upon the formula! This is what Serbia did right and Montenegro did wrong. I was about to say this is why Serbia did well, but they only got 19th place which is absolute fucking injustice. Erica is just as pissed about that as I am, which makes sense because it’s exactly the kind of entry she would adore. Liv is also a major fan of this song, so clearly this song has quite a following!

I’ll never forget my first time hearing that lovely mournful choir intro in the first semifinal, which was about a week before this post’s publication. My mind was instantly blown, because I never knew how much I missed these dramatic Balkan entries. The intro is generous in length but doesn’t overstay its welcome. Then the drums kick in and the lead singer grips listeners with a memorable Balkan-sounding melody, which has just the right degree of harmonies to complement him but not drown him out. Then the dance beat kicks in and the lady in Balkanika sings some drawn-out notes, and it turns out that long wordless notes are way more tolerable if the singer doesn’t scream her lungs out like Celine Dion. And then it just keeps throwing those memorable Balkan melodies that transcend language barriers so perfectly.

This song is utterly brilliant and has the perfect blend of Balkan instrumentation and modern dance music. It doesn’t feel like a middle ground between ethnic music and accessible pop, but rather a completely natural blend of the two. It helps that the dance beat is not overdone, neither is the mournful singing or kettle drums or anything else about the song. Those are the Balkans in Eurovision at their finest. The staging is a spectacle to watch, yet it lets the song do the talking at the same time. I am baffled this didn’t do better, but in all fairness, I would be way more baffled if this scored 19th in a less linguistically diverse year.

Germany: You Let Me Walk Alone

Artist: Michael Schulte

Language: English, but I’ll forgive him this time

Key: B major

The Yle commentators shilled Michael Schulte quite heavily: they pointed out that Germany had been going tough years but this year sent a talented artist well-known on YouTube and Spotify, then explained this song’s backstory. They had high hopes for this entry, and they were right to: this is the most recent time Germany made it to the top 10!

This is also the last time Germany was outside the bottom two until 2024, when they broke this unlucky streak with a song that I really don’t like. On the other hand, I do like this song and it very much deserved its fourth place. I had better cherish this bright spot!

Until watching this year, I had forgotten how it feels to be proud of my country’s entry. The last German entries that made me feel any sort of patriotism were the twin Lena songs from 2010 and 2011. Don’t get me wrong, I do like “Black Smoke” from 2015 and think it deserved better, but I don’t feel all that proud of my country for sending it.

The difference with this song is that it’s a genuinely competitive entry, not just a regular pop song that happens to be pretty good. It’s so simple but effective, exactly the kind of songs Germany tends to do well—look at both “Ein bisschen Frieden” and “Satellite”. This song is a tribute to Michael Schulte’s father who died when he was 14, nothing more and nothing less. It knows exactly what it wants to be and succeeds in this purpose. I can tell he means every word when singing this song, because it tells a personal story to him. Compositionally this is simple and has a four-chord progression in most of the song, as well as a three-chord progression in the pre-chorus. I’m normally not a fan of these super-simple chord progressions, but here they suit the song perfectly, much in the same spirit of “Ein bisschen Frieden”. It’s genuinely such a sweet song with heartwarming lyrics, and the visuals are very sweet too. I’d go so far to call this whole song a 21st century counterpart to “Ein bisschen Frieden”.

Admittedly, as a (half) German I am biased in favor of this song; I don’t know if I’d be this positive if it was (for example) a British entry, but I’d still find it sweet either way. Can you blame me for being biased? I think every Eurofan would be biased for their country if they sent a song as heartwarming as this. I admit, I’m not too big a fan of the ballad drum beat that appears in the final chorus, but I’m proud of my country for sending this song anyway. I won’t feel this national pride again until I review 2023.

Albania: Mall

Artist: Eugent Bushpepa

Language: Albanian

Key: E major

It’s very fitting that this entry was performed in Portugal, because the song’s title refers to the Albanian equivalent of saudade, the untranslatable feeling of longing and nostalgia that’s so characteristic of Portugal. More specifically, it’s about his feelings of longing for a love interest he adored at first sight.

As of this writing, this is the last Albanian entry to be sung by a man and the last in major key. I’m glad Albania remembered this year that men exist and sent something different, but I don’t think it’s that different from prior Albanian entries. I could just as well imagine a waily Albanian woman singing this, since he gets increasingly shouty as the song goes on, and the instrumental is just an average rock ballad in 6/8 time.

France: Mercy

Artist: Madame Monsieur (Émilie Satt and Jean-Karl Lucas)

Language: French

Key: E minor

Thankfully France went back to singing fully in French this year, just like Spain and Italy with their languages. Enough of this annoying Romance language and English mixing! This has a good message and tells a moving real-life story about a child of immigrants from Nigeria named Mercy, who was born on a lifeboat that rescued refugees after a ship capsized, but I can’t say this does too much to me musically. It’s a good authentically French pop song with a nice chill beat, but it just doesn’t grip me, I can’t explain why. Maybe it needs more chord variance or a louder guitar. It also bugs me that the “merci, merci, je vais bien merci” is repeated so much in the last section, then the song abruptly ends.

Czechia: Lie to Me

Artist: Mikoláš Josef

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

Funny Yle commentator quote number 2:

– Have we got a backpack?
– Check.
– Have we got a camel?
– Check.
– Have we got a Matt Damon lookalike?
– Check.
– What does his passport say?
– Czech.

I’m including this quote because one of the easiest ways anyone can win my favor is by making cheeky puns. I almost wish all commentators were like this.

After a bunch of non-qualifications and one 25th place, Czechia surprisingly got their best result in Eurovision history at 6th place! Turns out all they needed to do to reach the final was send something quirky and innovative, something that breaks the mold. This is a playful yet serious hip-hop song by some dude in glasses and suspenders with a rather minimalist instrumental that allows listeners to pay attention to his rapping lyrics. It’s also got a playful trumpet part before each verse and is overall the kind of song that invites people to give votes. It’s exactly what the Czech Republic, or really any other country, could have been sending all this time! Maybe it makes sense for this country in particular, because they never had a recognizable Eurovision style to be associated with. Their first result is still so recent, so I’m still not sure they have a clear style yet.

This song has very interesting lyrics: it’s about a man telling his love interest to break up with her new boyfriend and return to him: lie to him as in not tell the truth, and as in lie down to him and come closer. I never thought about that double meaning until I read the lyrics.

Speaking of the lyrics, two lines were censored for Eurovision: “plenty of motherfuckers wanna eat my spaghetti” became “plenty of you beauties wanna eat my spaghetti”, and my favorite: “Quit sweet talking me now baby, I don’t give a fuck / You should have thought about me before you fucked him at the club” became “Quit sweet talking me now baby, I don’t give a damn / You should have thought about me back when I was your man”. This is exactly the kind of censorship I wish more songs did: rewriting the lyrics so that people wouldn’t know it was censored. So much cooler than those stupid bleeps or word reversals or (god forbid) omitting the word entirely.

Oh yeah, I should also answer the question: do I like this song? I think I do, even though it’s not the kind of song I listen to a lot or would come back to. It’s so refreshing to see a country send their first ever entry that fans find memorable.

Denmark: Higher Ground

Artist: Jonas Flodager Rasmussen

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Icelandic

Key: F♯ minor, A major. Unusual key change up three semitones.

I am so incredibly glad that for once Denmark went out of their comfort zone. They sent something properly cultural for once, specifically a song themed upon the Vikings sung by a bunch of bearded redheads. That said, I’m afraid I don’t love this song as much as Erica does. I do like the triple meter beat and the harmonies, and the deep spoken line in Icelandic is a fun touch, but this song still feels a little bit restrained to me. Maybe it has too many electronic elements, maybe it doesn’t reach its maximum potential with harmonies, maybe it needs a bridge section. I think “Where I Am” from last year is still the best Danish entry since “Fly on the Wings of Love”.

Australia: We Got Love

Artist: Jessica Mauboy, who was in the Australia-themed 2014 interval act

Language: English

Key: G major

As with last year, Australia did very well with the jury but flopped in the televote: 90 and 9 points respectively, leading to 20th place overall. I’m sure all those rabid Australian fans were sad they didn’t do better, but the only Australian Eurovision fan who I personally know wishes his country wasn’t in Eurovision.

Anyway, this song is bland X Factor jury bait pop three years in a row, and Eurovision is outgrowing that fast. I know that Australia decided to go out of the box next year and I’m very much relieved about that. The lyrics are incredibly inane and childish, especially for an English-speaking country, which sucks because Anglophone countries should set an example for good lyrics. “Love is stronger than fire” is especially such a lame lyric.

Finland: Monsters

Artist: Saara Aalto

Language: English

Key: C minor

I’m happy Finland qualified amidst their dark streak, though all they managed was second last place with 46 points… you know, for a second last place, 46 points is really good, and that’s 2018 for you. Saara Aalto is a charming performer and it bends my mind that she can sing while upside down, but this song isn’t that great or terrible either. It’s just a regular dance pop song with a generic beat, and admittedly catchy chorus.

I admire Saara Aalto for being quite a lover of languages: she has songs in English, Finnish, and Mandarin Chinese, and she made a 34-language version of “Monsters” that contains the languages of every country that participated in 2018. However, I do need to nitpick her German pronunciation: when she sings “reißt alle Wände ein, ab jetzt gibt’s nur noch Sonnenschein”, the B in “ab” should be devoiced so it sounds like a P. It might not seem like a big difference, but it’s very distracting to me. That’s also why Deutschland is actually pronounced as Deutschlant, which I never even realized until earlier this year when I saw a video where some English speaker pronounced it wrong. Most Slavic languages also devoice consonants at the end of words, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she made similar errors elsewhere in this cover. Still, I do admire the effort that went into this.

Bulgaria: Bones

Artist: Equinox

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

I really have no idea what to say about this song. It intersects with “Skeletons” from 2017 (same key even) but isn’t quite as good and I’m not sure all the singers’ voices go together all that well. It’s just an attempt at a dark pop song that doesn’t do much for me but doesn’t actively annoy me. My notes say Liv wonders where these people (a mix of Americans, Bulgarians from elsewhere in Europe, and one Bulgarian in Bulgaria) met; for all I know, they could’ve just been Internet friends.

Moldova: My Lucky Day

Artist: DoReDoS

Language: English

Key: D minor

I didn’t need a translation to know the Yle commentators referred to Philipp Kirkorov who composed this song as “Russian Thomas G:son”, and I burst out laughing.

This is a characteristic Moldovan entry in many ways: janky lyrics, a poppy and quirky instrumental, and most of all, staging that is an absolute joy in the eyes. It’s a fun brassy swing dance song that I feel is more of what “Still in Love with You” from 2015 should have been, because it embraces being goofy and campy so hard. I love the staging with the guys popping in and out of the doors, the mirror optical illusions achieved by the backing dancers, and the singers’ colors that match the Moldovan flag. The vocals are thickly accented and very blatantly not native English speakers, but in this case that gives the song charm.

Sweden: Dance You Off

Artist: Benjamin Ingrosso

Language: English

Key: F minor

I wonder how many people have this as their favorite Swedish entry of the 21st century? If you’re reading this post, now you know at least two: me and my friend Liv, who didn’t care about this song originally in Eurovision 2018, but it gradually crept up on her and now has this as her favorite of the year, as well as a strong contender for her favorite ever Swedish entry. This guy is a major rival to Alexander Rybak’s pretty boy charm, seriously such a handsome fellow. He clearly loves performing songs on stage, as is especially clear from his energetic “thank you so much, obrigado Portugal!” And the Yle commentators went off about his long history of entering competitions intending to win and his family of big names in music.

But wait, I hear you say. Isn’t this another generic swedo-pop song, and am I not going to make fun of this song for getting only 21 televote points? Ah, but don’t you remember what I said during Belgium’s song, about loving funky chords and jumy basslines? This song is filled to the brim with both. It only has one chord progression throughout, but in this case it really suits the song well. The chord progression is F minor for two measures, A♭ major for two, D♭ major for two, and B♭ minor and C minor for one measure each… at least at heart. In reality, these chords are augmented with all sorts of sevenths and other extensions. And I love the ways the same musical elements interact with different chords in different ways, like the “just want to dance, dance, dance you off” melody over the F minor and A♭ major chords, and don’t forget about those poppy and juicy electric piano chords and those sick-ass basslines. This song just magically snaps into place for me and I have to admit, it’s really addictive. More addictive than even some entries my readers would probably expect me to adore, like Serbia.

This song scored second place in the jury, which to some fans might seem like needlessly kissing Sweden’s ass, but I personally think it’s well-deserved. It’s a shame this didn’t get more televote points, but I can see why: this is a far more jury-friendly than televote-friendly performance. He looks like he’s in a music video the whole time (and the widescreen ratio fits that) and he doesn’t interact much with the audience. That probably cost him a lot of points, but you know what? I’m thankful that the juries gave this song respect and it landed in a decent seventh place. I can sometimes be pleased at the juries’ tastes, even though as an everyman fan it’s more common for me to agree with televoters.

I will admit, if it weren’t for Liv talking so much about how great this song is, I don’t think I would see this much good in it. But if you’re reading this, I bet you have a song or two you never thought much of till you saw someone else praising it. Another example of this is “City Lights” from 2017, which was number one on a video listing someone’s top 225 Eurovision songs of all time and explaining why. The creator of the video wrote a huge series of paragraphs explaining why the song is so great, and it’s actually what caused me to hear the song for the first time—I instantly loved it too. I wonder if I’ve influenced any of my commenters to love a song they hadn’t thought much of?

This is one of those songs that if I were to hear it on the radio, I would turn it way up, then turn the radio down again for whatever song plays next. I haven’t listened to radio stations much lately, because my hometown of Columbus USED to have an amazing alternative rock station called CD 92.9 that’s been with me my entire life, but in 2024 it fucking died and there’s no suitable replacement anywhere. My mom loved the station too and eventually found an alt rock station from Detroit that she sometimes puts on when I visit her, and the lineup of songs is similar but the radio hosts just aren’t the same. You never know what you have until you lose it, I suppose.

Hungary: Viszlát nyár

Artist: AWS, who the Yle commentators described as Bullet for my Valentine in Hungarian

Language: Hungarian

Key: E♭ minor

Erica is completely and utterly wrong about this song, whereas Liv is completely and utterly right: this song is fucking awesome. This is an aggressive hard rock song filled to the brim with Eastern European grimdarkness, both in music and lyrics, and when I listen to it, I have no choice but to turn the volume way up. It simply demands that of listeners.

Even though I don’t know much about Hungarian rock, I get the feeling this is as authentically Hungarian as it gets. I can’t imagine any country further west or further east sending something this grimdark yet awesome, I can’t explain why. It doesn’t dilly-dally or do any bullshit, it dives right into that kickass guitar riff and then treats me to some awesome drum fills and beats and a singer who’s aggressive and bitter in exactly the right way. The lyrics are about the death of the lead singer’s father but in a more pained way that is especially depressing considering the lead singer Örs died of leukemia in 2021.

This song has a few tropes that normally put me off but turn out to work fantastically here. That includes the bridge where he barfs up his breakfast and the key change which doesn’t feel cheesy at all but genuinely hypes me up. This makes for two Hungarian entries in a row that I love and I’m excited to hear the last one, since Jóci will be back! I’m prepared to be pissed off that he didn’t qualify.

Israel: Toy (the winner)

Artist: Netta Barzilai

Language: English, plus a few phrases in Hebrew

Key: E♭ minor

I wish I could have watched this contest live in 2018 for many reasons, one of which is that I would’ve been so surprised that this won! Maybe I would’ve been a little salty that this beat Cyprus and Sweden, or that it utterly demolished Serbia, but I can never stay mad at this song. It’s not a song I revisit often, but when I am exposed to it I can’t help but be charmed and have a fun time. It’s extreme mood whiplash to watch a compilation of Eurovision winners and see this right after “Amar pelos dois”.

I just can’t stay mad at Netta, honestly. I’ve heard nothing but nice things about her as a person and I love her energy on stage, as well as her annual running gag of incorrectly predicting the next Eurovision host city. This song perfects the dance formula that Israel has settled into since 2015: it’s an upbeat dancey tune with a mix of aggressive sections and poppy interludes with a slower beat, and tons of Israeli-sounding musical elements to tie it together. It throws tons of surprises at me, which is good because a song needs to be unpredictable in order for me to love it. Now I’m curious how “Feker Libi” would have scored in 2020, because I find that an even better and way more addictive Israeli dance song and it’ll be a joy to review.

The lyrics are a standup for women against being sexually harassed and bossed around, but I honestly don’t pay too much attention to the words except “I’m not your toy, you stupid boy”, which is both a comedic and effective line. One more fun fact about this song: Netta often performs songs with a looper on stage to repeat her vocal samples, but the rule against live instruments extended to loopers. To solve this problem, the repeated vocal samples at the start are sung by backing singers, and they sound so similar to her that I could’ve believed she was using the looper live!

Netherlands: Outlaw in ‘Em

Artist: Waylon (Willem Bijkerk)

Language: English

Key: E minor

The Netherlands has continued their streak of sending American-sounding songs every other year, and this time they brought a familiar face: the male singer of “Calm After the Storm”. I love that this song shows a totally new side of him yet still has the same spirit as his prior entry. It’s a super-fun country rock song whose lyrics say that everyone has a rebellious side and wants to break rules at heart, and the gestures on stage match with the lyrics really well. I would say I’m sad this only got 18th place, but I would say 121 points is a respectful score. The 2018 final has the second largest number of songs that scored over 100 points (all the top 19); the largest is in 2016, where all the top 20 earned at least a hundred.

I would say this is a perfect imitation of American country rock, but that’s not quite accurate to say when one of the composers is an American country composer. The other composers are Waylon himself, and Ilya Toshinsky who is a country composer hailing from Russia. A better way to describe this is as an authentic country rock song.

This is as American as a burger with a side of buffalo wings and I mean that in a good way. It has all the tropes like singing with a country accent and so many cool guitar and drum riffs, and I can tell Waylon loves making this style of music. Sure, it’s not as much of a masterpiece as “Calm After the Storm”, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s still a joy to listen to and I would have been sure to spare some votes for this.

Ireland: Together

Artist: Ryan O’Shaughnessy

Language: English

Key: F major

This is Ireland’s last time qualifying to the grand final until 2024, where they scored an impressive sixth place. But between those two songs, we have a streak of dark years for this country. This scored only 16th place, which was still their best result since Jedward in 2011.

It may be a slow pop ballad, but it’s not that ballady and I am charmed by this. The piano chords have a rhythm of two, four, and two beats in the chorus, which I find very nice, and the guitar parts are quite good too. This combination of instruments brings back memories of “Rock ‘n Roll Kids”. Ryan harmonizes super well with his backing singers. It’s a rather Irish-feeling song, but not in a Celtic folk way. Instead, it’s the type of mellow pop that I’d associate with Ireland.

Some fans think this song qualified only because of the gay couple depicted dancing on stage, and honestly I don’t mind if this is the case. Western media has way too little representation of gay men so seeing them here is rather refreshing.

Cyprus: Fuego

Artist: Eleni Foureira

Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Spanish.

Key: B minor

Funny Yle commentator quote number 3: “In his acceptance speech last year, Salvador Sobral was looking for music that wasn’t all fireworks and fast-food. It seems that part of the broadcast was interrupted on Cyprus, since they’re sending Eleni Foureira.”

This song needs no introduction. If you’re a Eurovision fan, I’m sure you already know that this is the defining Eurovision girlbop and jumpstarted an era of dancey girly pop songs that some fans find very overdone, and that it’s by far the most iconic entry to ever come from Cyprus. I don’t need to go into detail about this song’s influence on Eurovision history, since you’ve probably already seen endless comparisons of other girlbops to Fuego. And if you haven’t, then you learned something new about Eurovision fans.

This song is fucking awesome and completely deserves to be such a big fan favorite. It grips the listener so perfectly from start to finish, has incredibly good composition and production work, and has a masterful stage performance that’s a joy to watch. It’s impossible for me not to sing along and bop my head to this. I especially love the buildup to the chorus where she repeats “Fuego”.

Cyprus clearly intended to win Eurovision this year and I would’ve fully expected them to, but instead it’s one of those second places that’s more iconic than the winner. I’m surprised this didn’t win the jury or the televote, because I’d assume it’s the most appealing to both of them. And plus, “My Number One” and “Fuego” would be a fantastic duo of winners: girly bops with traditional Greek elements, stage performance that’s a joy to watch, big names in the Greek-speaking world who also have foreign roots. Eleni Foureira is mostly of Albanian descent, which unfortunately caused her to suffer racism during Eurovision 2018, and Helena Paparizou spent most of her childhood in Sweden. It happens that this song was even originally intended for Helena Paparizou. Fans fiercely stand behind “Fuego” to this day and continue to be baffled that it didn’t win.

This song also has a Spanish version that keeps some of the most iconic phrases in English, and it’s a fun alternative to “Fuego”. You could view it as foreshadowing of the next iconic girlbop, which I love even more than this. From this year onwards, Cyprus will fall victim to “let’s keep replicating this song that did really well” syndrome, and I’ll see for myself if their later girlbops live up to “Fuego”.

Italy: Non mi avete fatto niente

Artist: Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro

Language: Italian

Key: E♭ minor

And to close off this contest, we have the fifth place of the year. This song is an explicit protest against terrorism and has a heavy powerful instrumental that builds up beautifully from start to finish. I love that it starts as an emotional ballad in the first verse, but in the second verse it subverts expectations by gaining more of a country beat. This gives the song a more optimistic undertone, showing that people will continue surviving and resisting attacks. And from that point onwards, I’m too gripped to pay attention to the ways the song builds up. I’m just immersed and it would be a well-deserved winner. Again more deserved than “Toy”, but in the end I don’t mind Netta winning.

It’s one of few songs to namedrop place names in a way that’s actually intelligent, since the locations are places that terrorists had recently attacked. The only other good example is “Europapa”, a song where the namedropping ties into the story.

I admit, I mostly know the song as the one that shows lyrics in a ton of different languages. Normally I don’t like when Eurovision performances show lyrics translated to other languages, but this song actually does it in a smart way. The abundance of different languages ties into the song because it shows that these issues affect every country in the world, nowhere close to just Italy. The most prominent languages in the captions are English, Russian, and other Romance languages; we get cameos of other languages like German, Icelandic, Arabic, Hebrew, and much more. I’m sure some countries felt excluded here, but the list of languages still seems pretty thorough.

---

Who’s my favorite?

There are many contenders for who would be my winner of this year: Serbia’s gripping Balkan dance ballad, the iconic girlbop from Cyprus, the emotional ballad from Italy, the groovy dance song from Sweden, and maybe even the rock songs from Hungary and the Netherlands. To decide which is my winner, I’ll go with the one that I came back to the most often when writing this review, and that would be Sweden, Dance You Off. I just know some of you feel backstabbed by this choice, but I simply can’t control my tastes. The song is just that addictive.

• Belgium, 2 (1976, 2003)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1 (2006)
• Denmark, 3 (1963, 2000, 2001)
• Estonia, 1 (2009)
• Finland, 3 (1968, 1983, 1989)
• France, 4 (1977, 1990, 1991, 1997)
• Germany, 4 (1956, 1979, 1982, 1999)
• Greece, 1 (2013)
• Hungary, 1 (2005)
• Iceland, 1 (1992)
• Ireland, 4 (1970, 1980, 1993, 1994)
• Israel, 1 (1987)
• Italy, 1 (1958)
• Latvia, 1 (2002)
• Luxembourg, 4 (1961, 1965, 1972, 1988)
• Montenegro, 1 (2015)
• Netherlands, 8 (1957, 1959, 1964, 1967, 1969, 1975, 1998, 2014)
• Norway, 5 (1960, 1966, 1973, 1985, 1995)
• Portugal, 4 (1971, 1984, 2008, 2017)
• Serbia, 3 (2004, 2011, 2012)
• Sweden, 3 (1974, 1996, 2018)
• Switzerland, 1 (1986)
• Turkey, 2 (1978, 2010)
• Ukraine, 2 (2007, 2016)
• United Kingdom, 2 (1962, 1981)
• (22 winners)

Hopefully this makes up for the three times I retconned Sweden away from being my winner! I feel like if I were to choose a different song as my winner, I’d later feel an urge to retcon it to Sweden.

General thoughts:

My biggest conclusion from Eurovision 2018 is: I am fucking mad at myself for not having followed this contest live. I’m pretty sure I knew Eurovision existed back then, but I only knew it as the one event that the public Discord server I mentioned in this post pinged everyone for each year. I never thought to check it out back then because I had other obsessions, but I should have done it and I know I wouldn’t have regretted it. This is almost everything I want out of a Eurovision year: amazing musical variety, an entry that makes me proud of my country, and a gripping voting sequence full of surprises. The one bad thing is, I would have felt left out not being able to vote for any entries, since the rest of the world wasn’t able to vote until 2023. I always go with my gut when voting in Eurovision, so I can’t say for sure who I would’ve voted for then if I could. There are just too many good options.

Why did I say this is almost everything I want out of a Eurovision year? Because once all those godawful interval skits began, my mood became sour and didn’t recover till we reached the voting. The first interval act is a lovely and indulgently Portuguese ethnic performance featuring several musicians including Sara Tavares, who represented Portugal in Eurovision 1994 and died in 2024. I was disappointed that this singer of ethnic music sang a power ballad back then, so this interval act is her redemption arc! I would rather not think about the skits that came afterwards, because they’re just a crappy imitation of the SVT skits which had a distinctly Swedish sense of humor.

Annoyingly, those interval skits had way too many callbacks to “Amar pelos dois”. I love the song too, but come on, are you guys really going to shaft all those other Portuguese entries? Oh wait, the contest did call back to another Portuguese entry, but why on earth did they choose “Quero ser tua” of all songs? Why not bring attention to some of their many underrated 20th century entries instead? Unfortunately Salvador Sobral’s new song afterwards didn’t redeem my mood, because it’s too much of a plain piano ballad. The drum beat added by piano tapping brings some life into the song, but sadly this section is brief. Then he sings a duet version of “Amar pelos dois”, which I’d be much happier about if the contest hadn’t referenced the song like ten times already.

Funny Yle commentator quote number 4: “If you like real music, just like Salvador Sobral; light a candle and pour yourself a glass of wine. This is quality. / And if you’re a fan of fast-food music and fireworks, get some espresso coffee, grab some toothpicks to force your eyes open, because you’ll find this very long and boring.” Let’s just say, I’m proud of Salvador Sobral for outgrowing these pretentious opinions.

In Salvador’s defense, I rewatched his interval act after skipping the skits and I enjoyed it quite a bit more, and the piano tapping part is especially great. And it’s fun to hear “Amar pelos dois” sung with a Brazilian accent, which has more pronounced vowels and breathy R’s at the start of words. I just wish the contest could have skipped from the first interval act straight to this, then I wouldn’t have been so sour.

It took until the voting for my mood to be redeemed. Holy fuck, this was the most exciting voting sequence in many years—so many countries battling for the top, so many twists and turns! Austria, Israel, Cyprus, Germany, and Sweden all had a real chance of winning the jury vote, and in the end Austria safely topped the jury. My notes say the Yle commentators snarked, “do we have to go to Sweden again?” when the Swedes were in the lead, and they bragged when they got more televotes than Sweden.

The televote sequence twisted things even further, which was true joy to watch! Sweden getting only 21 points was a real shocker, exactly the kind of Eurovision shock I live for. I wouldn’t have wanted Sweden to win this year because they’ve won too much already, but if they didn’t have two victories this decade, I would’ve been pissed the televoters did Benjamin Ingrosso dirty. The biggest surprises are that it took so long for Ukraine’s televote score to be revealed (remember, the televote points were bottom to top this year), which must have been a relief to Ukrainian fans, and that Lithuania scored on the left side of the scoreboard, which me and Liv were both baffled about. On the bright side, it felt amazing for Germany to get such a good televote score. I just wish I could have experienced the absolute surprise of Israel winning, or rather realizing they were about to win because the 2016-2018 points system was weird.

All in all, I really wish I had watched this year live because it would have given me a great first impression of Eurovision! I know I was harsh on the interval skits, but honestly when I watch Eurovision live on TV, I space out at that point and just absorb the competing songs, and by the end of the show I barely remember any of the interval acts.

---

See you next time as Poland gets snatched from qualifying due to a voting mishap.

>> 2019 (Semifinals): The Second Non-Qualifier to Break My Heart