Intro Post

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Fun fact: this is my first ever Eurovision blog post to surpass 10,000 words! The Word document containing this post has a grand total of 10,168 words, which is just insane, I know.

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Introduction

After the low-budget productions of the two semifinals, it’s obvious from the opening act that the bulk of Israel’s funds for Eurovision went to producing the grand final. It starts with an opening film featuring Netta Barzilai flying an airplane commanded by Jon Ola Sand on the way to Tel Aviv.

Then comes a flag parade set to a medley of the host country’s Eurovision entries old and new, as well as a bunch of Israeli dance music that I assume is an original composition. I wish Portugal did some kind of medley like this last year, instead of constantly referencing “Amar pelos dois”. It features the instrumental of “Toy” from 2018, “Diva” from 1998, “Ey Sham” from 1973, and “Golden Boy” from 2015, as well as a song called “Tel Aviv” by Dana International. The flag parade alone is enough to tell the Israelis were absolutely joyed to host Eurovision again. The flag parade features a host saying welcome in each country’s language, then the country’s name in English. I wish the countries’ names were in their native languages, because it’s so weird to hear “willkommen, Germany”.

I didn’t discuss the hosts and postcards in the final, so I’ll do those now. After Ukraine said “men can host Eurovision too, let’s give us three dudes” and Portugal rebutted with “nuh-uh, four ladies are better!”, Israel gave us a gender-balanced quartet each of different ethnicities. Erez Tal is a Mizrahi Jew, Bar Refaeli is an Ashkenazi Jew, Assi Azar is a Yemenite Jew, and Lucy Ayoub is an Israeli Arab.

The postcards are the best of both worlds like last year, showcasing both the contestants and scenes of the host country, with the added twist of them performing dance routines set to a wide variety of music. They’re quite an extensive tour of Israel, a true showcase of the entire country! I’m thankful it’s not just Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but single-city postcards can work: I’m quite fond of the postcards touring Gothenburg in 1985. This year has delightful postcards and they might be my second favorites ever, behind the flag postcards of 2014.

This is the first year where the voting sequence looks pretty much exactly as we know it today: the televote points are now delivered not from fewest to most televotes, but from bottom to top of the jury votes which is exactly the most exciting and logical way to do it. The only oddity in the voting sequence is that the countries started off in alphabetical order this year, instead of the usual running order.

I watched the grand final once more with Swedish commentary along with my friend Liv, then once more with German commentary alone.

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Malta: Chameleon

Artist: Michaela Pace

Language: English

Key: B♭ minor

I’ve always been a staunch defendant of producer-made running order and for the longest time, I failed to see any downsides of it. But my Ukrainian commenter Famicom Guy has told me a lot about his more negative opinions on running order: the producers are absolutely obsessed with putting a girlbop in English at the start, a punching bag country number 2, the favorites of the betting odds near the end when possible, and at the very end something simple and fun. And near the end of the first half, you’ll also see a bunch of fan favorites and songs predicted to do well. Maybe that’s why Moldova to Azerbaijan (7 to 12) were such a strong stretch in 2017.

The running order of the 2019 final irks me a bit, because like 2016 it has a great selection of first three songs, but unlike 2016 I think they’re in the wrong order. It’s so annoyingly predictable that the producers put a girlbop that wasn’t one of the “favorites to win” at the start, even though I love this song. The first three are Malta, Albania, and Czechia, all strong entries, but I would’ve ordered them as Czechia, Malta, Albania. I think Czechia would be a great funky lighthearted opener, much like “What’s the Pressure” from 2016. Malta I’m sure would evade the curse of the death slot, since I think it’s a properly competitive entry. And then after these two accessible songs, the audience is eased in which is a perfect time to bring us the more exotic Albanian entry.

You’ve probably noticed that I don’t like most Maltese entries in Eurovision that much. I do enjoy “Could It Be” from 1991 and “Let Me Fly” from 1997, but it took until 2019 for them to send an entry that I properly love. Better late than ever, so good on you Malta!

So what exactly is it that makes this song work? Well, it starts off like a simple enough girl bop with a plucky guitar rhythm, but the moment it really becomes special is in the pre-chorus where she things “when life brings me trouble”. This part has a really standard pop progression, in a way that somehow magically works! I think it’s the tension between Eurovisiony girlbop music and more traditional modern pop that helps this song. Then you get to that awesome fucking chorus where the beat drops into simplicity and she sings “chama-chameleon”. The minimalist beat here works perfectly and I adore all those synths.

The second verse and chorus repeat predictably enough, with a rather minimalist chorus like last time. Then comes a bridge with a lovely tinge of Spanish-sounding piano and brass riffs, then the pre-chorus one last time, and then what I’ll consider to be the final chorus. She sings lyrics of the bridge (then pre-chorus) over the chord progression of the pre-chorus, and THAT is the wonderful rousing payoff we get after the minimalist first two choruses. I’ve said once or twice that I love when a song meshes the melody of one section with the chord progression of a different section, and this is a perfect example.

The staging is loads of fun to watch, even if I’m not sure what story it’s supposed to tell. As Peter Urban said at the end, it keeps changing colors and scenery at the end like a chameleon. She looks like a regular girl bordering between teenager and adult who happens to be good at singing girlbops, and that’s what she is! I can tell that she’s having fun singing this total bop, and her backing dancers aid her presence too.

Nice job Malta for sending an entry this good. I’d say it deserved better than 14th place!

Albania: Ktheju tokës

Artist: Jonida Maliqi

Language: Albanian

Key: E♭ minor

I actually find the title of this pretty easy to pronounce, as an English and German speaker. The scary-looking ë is actually just a schwa, so “tokës” approximately rhymes with “focus”. The J is pronounced as a Y is in English, and the “th” is pronounced as in English. The only real challenge is the consonant cluster “kth”, which I find easy to pronounce, but you can fake it by inserting a schwa between. That’s what some English speakers do with Japanese loanwords that start with “ts” and I absolutely hate it. If you can pronounce “ch” (t + sh) at the start of words in English, you can pronounce “ts” too! Maybe I’m biased as a German speaker, since that sound is common at the start of words and written as “z”.

Damn you producers, why would you put this in the death slot??? I mean OK, something has to go in the death slot, and I’m glad it’s at least a fan favorite entry instead of “let’s get this crap out of the way”. But still, as I said in my review of Malta, I would rather put this no earlier than the third slot, after the audience’s ears are a bit more comfortable for something like this.

Erica described this song as one that gets better and better the more you hear it, and I couldn’t agree more. As with Hungary, this song is in a language I know very little about, but I can tell she’s performing it with emotion and singing about something very personal to her. She performs with genuine emotion and doesn’t scream at the top of her lungs like so many other Albanian singers.

The title means “return to your land” and it’s about Albanians returning to their homeland after the migrant crisis caused by the Kosovo War. It’s meant to hit home and connect to Albanian speakers, while providing a touching musical experience for those who don’t speak it, and I can confirm it works in the latter regard.

It’s full of wow factor every time a new section begins, somewhat like Željko’s ballads or Hungary’s “Az én apám”, which was fucking robbed by the way, but I don’t know much about the ethnic instruments in the song, so talking about them would make me seem like a buffoon. Just know that it’s an absolute musical journey and I’m still very early in my relationship with it.* The flutes and varied drum beats and string riffs and bass drops are all just, holy fuck. Albania absolutely slayed this year and they only got 17th place. I blame the death slot. This was drawn into the first half by chance, but it should’ve been put in a more favorable slot like somewhere around number 12 (which is where Arcade was placed).

* Speaking of early relationships, my review of “Funny Girl” from 2018 was the very beginning of my relationship with that song, and now I’m totally obsessed with it (even though Sweden is still my winner). It helps that Laura Rizzotto is super cute.

Czechia: Friend of a Friend

Artist: Lake Malawi

Language: English

Key: G minor

And now we have the song that I think would’ve made a better (or at least, less painfully obvious) opener than Malta. If the producers didn’t decide to put a girlbop at the start too often, Malta would actually be a great opener, but this one is a more inspired choice.

I can’t believe it’s so recently that Czechia started taking Eurovision seriously, but I’m happy that they did two years in a row! This is a quirky, funky 80’s-sounding pop song that has an insanely catchy title hook and overall just manages to click with me. The spoken word in the first pre-chorus normally would be annoying, but it miraculously works for me because he’s clearly telling a personal story.

I love how the drum beat strips away for the pre-chorus, then comes in full force when the chorus begins. Even the American-sounding “I’m only a friend”, I’d say fits well into it musically, akin to a vocal sample in a 1990’s video game song. I also love the jazzy chords and basslines (always a plus with me), yet I already know this isn’t my favorite Czech entry ever because “My Sister’s Crown” exists. Speaking of sisters…

Germany: Sister

Artist: Sisters (stylized as S!STERS much to my chagrin)

Language: English

Key: C major

And back to the bottom Germany goes. This song scored second last place and got zero from the televote. Patriotism aside, I can’t say I’m all that sorry about it.

This is the only Eurovision year where the hashtag for Germany is #DEU instead of #GER. This is because the contest used the ISO 3166-2 country codes, which are often based on the countries’ national languages, instead of the country codes we see in the Olympics which are based only on English and French. I prefer this year’s country codes overall, but I may just be a little biased.

The German national final for Eurovision 2019 consisted of seven songs in English and none in German, which I find a real bummer. Or at least, I’d find it a bummer in an alternate timeline where German-language music existed. Maybe I should make the first ever song in history with lyrics in German? I’m not much of a songwriter, but everyone starts somewhere.

OK, to be fair, I have no idea what the other entries in the national final sound like. But what I do know is that fans absolutely love to pick on the song, for completely wrong reasons. The main criticism this song gets is that the singers (Carlotta and Laurita) aren’t actually sisters or even close friends and only know each other due to Eurovision. Which isn’t fair, why does that matter? The song isn’t necessarily about sisters, just about women in general putting their rivalry aside and working together, and sisters are just one example.

I can see what this song was going for and I actually like the message. But the music is a sappy ballad, which has been a common problem with German entries ever since the Ralph Siegel peace ballad era. The singers look like they’re yelling at each other and their shaking makes me nervous. Why do all the German entries have to be so sugary and safe? Why is that what defines German music in Eurovision? I don’t actually think the song is as bad as everyone says, but I’m peeved that the song resets its energy every time they sing “I… see flames in your eyes”. By the time we reach the third chorus, I think “I’ve already heard this part twice, why do I have to hear it a third time?”

Liv has an extremely different opinion on this song: she used to skip it every time she rewatched 2019, but then she decided she was tired of skipping it and gave it an honest chance, and she ended up loving the sweet atmosphere and the message it provides. And now she’s a staunch defendant of this song. I can see why she feels this way and can see some good in this song, but I can’t be unbiased when this is the kind of song I’m tired of my country sending.

Russia: Scream

Artist: Sergey Lazarev, returning from 2016

Language: English

Key: G minor

Sergey Lazarev repeated history this year by scoring third place in Eurovision, and this time I think that was totally overrated. I do enjoy this song, but I agree with Erica’s criticisms that it’s overly slow and the lyrics are a bit inane. It mostly relies on the dramatic staging featuring mirrors and duplicates of Sergey, as well as his charm on stage. I suspect that Russia selected him again because he was the only singer who they were confident fans wouldn’t boo. “You Are the Only One” was still fresh in fans’ minds.

Looking at the televote results, it actually makes sense that Russia did this well: most of their points came from former Soviet countries, as well as miscellany in eastern Europe. Just like older times, you could say! Or maybe that never even stopped being a thing. I haven’t been paying much attention to televote points lately, so I took some time to look at the detailed table of them for this post.

This song also has a Russian version called “Krik” (Крик) and the lyrics don’t seem that different from in English. Maybe they’re a little bit more personal in Russian, since he sings “my scream” instead of “they scream”.

Denmark: Love Is Forever

Artist: Leonora Colmor Jepsen

Language: English, French, Danish, and German, in decreasing order of prominence

Key: D♭ major

Now we have a song that’s the absolute definition of twee, but also the absolute definition of “twee in a good way”. It’s impossible not to sway my head back and forth when watching this, or to not sing along to the chorus, as me and Liv both did when watching the song. The song is ice cream in musical form and no one can tell me otherwise. The extra languages in the second half are such a great touch and make the song way more fun. The French verses and chorus sound lovely, it’s nice to hear Danish for the first time in 22 years, and she nails the single line in German, “Liebe ist für alle da”. It might not sound like much, but her pronunciation of the German line really does impress me!

The lyrics are twee and a little on-the-nose (especially “don’t get too political”), but they serve the song perfectly. And sometimes in life, you really do need to put politics aside and have fun together. Every time she sings “a taste of love, a taste of what could actually rule…”, my brain completes it with “the world”, so I trip up so hard when she sings “could actually rule both me and you”.

I always thought the usage of extra languages was there to showcase Leonora’s language skills, but the languages were actually the songwriters’ ideas, not hers. And going by a search on YouTube, she barely seems to speak any German or French, but in her defense, she sings very well in those languages and that takes special skill too. It was smart of the producers to put this after Russia, because it lightens the mood and prepares listeners for an even sillier and way more divisive entry.

San Marino: Say Na Na Na

Artist: Serhat, returning from 2016

Language: English, plus the numbers 1 to 3 in Turkish

Key: C♯ minor

I have no fucking idea why this qualified over Hungary, but I’ll leave Serhat alone and take my anger out on a different entry. The song isn’t much to write home about, just a silly disco song with a weird raspy voice, but I’ll let San Marino have this little moment in the limelight.

OK, but we can we talk about the German version of this song called “Sing Na Na Na”? For those who don’t speak German, “sing” isn’t the German word for “say”, but rather it means exactly the same as in English. I have no idea why the title isn’t translated as “Sag Na Na Na”, which means “Say Na Na Na”.

I know I always complain about the stereotype that German is the angry Rammstein language, but I’ll embrace the stereotype for once and say this is why the song sounds WAY better in German. Maybe I was wrong all along and the German language is designed for aggressive raspy singing. I don’t know how well he speaks German, but I think he sings way better in German than in English. He sounds very burly and manly when singing in German and it makes the song sound cool. Sadly he can’t pronounce the notorious “ich” sound in German and substitutes it with the “kh” sound common in Slavic languages, but the existence of a German version warms my heart anyway.

I’m tempted to say that for me, “Sing Na Na Na” is the real version of this song. In fact, I would have loved it so much if San Marino sent this version to Eurovision. It would be as if San Marino said “Germany, are you really going to keep ignoring your language? Fine, we’ll sing in German for you, since you’re so resistant.”

North Macedonia: Proud

Artist: Tamara Todevska, returning from 2008 and ready to redeem herself

Language: English

Key: F minor, G minor

Say goodbye to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, this country is now officially called North Macedonia! Though I’ve been referring to it this way the whole time.

Normally nothing interesting happens in the green room interviews, but I’d like to point out that in an interview with returning contestants later in the show, Tamara said she became so much wiser and more mature since her last time in Eurovision, and even became a mother of two, which I found to be really sweet. She certainly comes across this way on stage.

And now we have the grand redemption arc for this absolute underdog country. I’m so pissed off that the split screen near the end was between the absolute least surprising country possible and the Netherlands, when it could have been between the absolute most surprising country possible and the Netherlands. That’s because of voting drama involving the Belarusian jury, which led their votes in the final to be replaced with an aggregate vote based on other countries with a similar voting pattern, but the aggregate vote was accidentally reversed. So now the voting of Eurovision 2019 ends with a split screen between Sweden (the jury winner) and the Netherlands, when it could have been North Macedonia (the REAL jury winner) and the Netherlands. Crazy enough, this is the only jury winner in Eurovision history that comes from one of the countries that joined in 1993 onwards. It seems like the juries were still a little biased towards western Europe, exactly the opposite of what some accuse the televoters of.

From 2008 to 2018, North Macedonia had only qualified to the grand final once, and that was in 2012. It’s obvious to me that this year, North Macedonia was intent on achieving a miraculous redemption arc, and that’s exactly what they got! This is the country’s best result in Eurovision history, an impressive seventh place—first in the jury and 12th in the televote.

How exactly did North Macedonia achieve this result? Simple: their song has a powerful, easy to understand message and an absolutely perfect performance. It’s a bit like Germany’s great result last year, with a song that’s simply a tribute to the singer’s dead father. This is a motivational girl power song done to perfection. The lyrics are designed to slam you in the face and get you hyped up, and that’s exactly what they do. She performs with full confidence and conviction and truly means all of these lyrics.

The instrumental is a rousing ballad in triplet meter with perfect melodies, perfect violin and piano parts, perfect everything. Tamara herself describes the song as an ode to not only women, but anyone who has been put down and discriminated against. I especially love the line “all the rules are made for you to lose” in the first verse. It’s one of those English-language songs whose lyrics I think suit the country well, since North Macedonia itself gets a lot of flack from its neighbors, due to the naming dispute and conflicts with ethnic minorities. The country is also a punching bag in Eurovision, but now it’s showing the continent what it’s truly made of. It’s nice that the song was written entirely by local musicians, no hired Swedes to be found here!

I have nothing negative to say about this song, except maybe that I don’t come back to it all that often. That’s not because the song is bad or anything, but because it’s specifically designed to wow viewers and score well at Eurovision, not so much for casual listening. Still, I am overjoyed that North Macedonia had their day in the limelight and I hope that someday they can give us another great result! They just have to believe in themselves and show the world what it means to stand up proudly.

Sweden: Too Late for Love

Artist: John Lundvik (who wrote this and the UK entry) and the Mamas

Language: English

Key: B major, D♭ major

And now for the fake jury winner, a much more obvious country to be on their top than North Macedonia. I can’t help but think of John Lundvik as black Måns Zelmerlöw because their stage presence and expressions are crazy similar. We had also seen an interview with white John Lundvik during semifinal 2, and we’ll see him again in one of the final’s interval acts.

As a song, this is basically a predictable jury bait Swedish entry, and a predictable winner of modern Melodifestivalen (though Liv and I haven’t reached 2019 in our Melfest binge yet), though I do somewhat like it. It’s a gospel pop song that’s alright enough to listen to and elevated by John’s stage presence, but the Mamas in the background really carry it. We’ll get to see these ladies again in 2020. Yes, I know the contest was canceled that year, but I’ll watch and review all the songs anyway.

Peter Urban described this song as “nicht unbedingt originell aber immer professionell” (not especially original but always professional) which describes Sweden’s modern entries perfectly. I want det svenska språket back in Eurovision already, god dammit.

Slovenia: Sebi

Artist: Zalagasper (Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl)

Language: Slovenian, because Slovenia is actually a cool country

Key: G minor

In my semifinal notes for this song, I called the postcards “mini-interval acts”, and I completely forgot I wrote that but I agree with myself. This especially holds for the dancing to an upbeat guitar tune amidst farms in this postcard.

This is one of Liv’s favorites of the year: she loves the soothing minimalist attitude and the singers’ style of singing, and can tell regardless of the language that it’s intimate and romantic, in a much less annoying and sappy way than “Tu canción” from 2018. I agree with her about the singing. It’s a bit like “Az én apám” in this sense: you can hear the singer’s romantic feelings as she looks at Gašper. She sounds so fragile and sincere. And I don’t mind at all that they’re looking at each other and not the audience. They’re a real-life married couple, although I’m informed they had only recently started dating in Eurovision 2019

Yeah, now that I say it, this is a real grower. I love the synth percussion and dark instrumentation, as well as the outer space effects on stage. It’s such a moving piece of music the more I hear it. It makes me feel like the lovers have tuned out the entire rest of the universe to focus on each other. This song does a marvelous job transcending language barriers and really seems like a nice song to put on in the background. Erica absolutely hates this song and personally, I think all her reasons are petty. But I can sympathize with her, because there are many songs that fans tend to love but have too many pet peeves for me.

Cyprus: Replay

Artist: Tamta Goduadze

Language: English

Key: B minor

We all know that this song is a completely shameless sequel to “Fuego”, the runner-up last year. I’m guessing that Cyprus this year wanted to win Eurovision and hoped sending the same type of song as last time would send them to victory. This approach worked for Austria with Udo Jürgens’ ballads way back in the 1960’s, and Greece with their dancey Greek bops until 2005. Unfortunately this song only got 13th place; I think fans must not have found it quite as fresh this time.

I find most of the song sufficiently different from Fuego except for the bridge which has the same key and chord progression, so I keep expecting it to lead into the final chorus of Fuego. I like the song and find it fun enough to listen to, but it’s just not as exciting or rousing as its predecessor. That said, Tamta delivers the song with full confidence and I love the video effects of the last split second replaying when she sings “replay”. And her costume change is a bit cheesy but satisfying to watch. I also love the line “my heart beats like an 808”, since that’s the name of a drum machine famed among electronic musicians.

Netherlands: Arcade (the winner)

Artist: Duncan Laurence

Language: English

Key: A minor

… or as I like to call it, “Liefde is een videospel”.

I got a burst of neighborly pride from getting to type the Netherlands’ name in red again. The last Dutch victory had been 44 years ago, and I reviewed Eurovision 1975 just over a year ago so it’s really been a long time. As someone with a soft spot for the Dutch, I yet again find myself agreeing with Erica’s review. I am overjoyed that the Netherlands won again and I do think it’s a good song, but I just can’t become obsessed with it like I am with a few other Dutch entries around the time: my beloved trio of “Calm After the Storm” (2014), “De diepte” (2022), and “Europapa” (2024) whose disqualification broke my heart. Unlike her I wouldn’t have voted for the Netherlands’ song, but only because I am not Dutch.

This is an extremely “this is how you write a Eurovision winner” type of song. In fact, I’m not sure if this is the most “how to write a winner” song in Eurovision history, or if it’s “Tattoo”. It’s painfully obvious that the producers wanted to put this near the end, but they couldn’t because it got drawn into the first half, so slot number 12 is the next best thing. If I had to describe this song in one word, it would be professional. It’s a bit like “Waterloo” because both songs are Eurovision icons, and both of them have a creative and easy-to-understand metaphor for romantic troubles. This song’s metaphor is an addiction to arcade games, exemplified in the famous line, “loving you is a losing game”.

I have to admit, the drop in the first chorus always impresses me, with all the dramatic cinematic percussion. It’s one of few modern Eurovision songs to use cinematic percussion in a good way, since the entire song sounds unmistakably cinematic. The same goes for the final chorus having only stompy percussion and vocals, which is normally a trope that I hate, but it’s such a defining feature of this song that I can’t hate it. The stage perfectly portrays Duncan Laurence as a musician by having him seated at the piano, which conveys to listeners that this is a personal song to him. The staging is a great example of simple but effective.

That said, there are other songs that pull off this song’s musical tropes far better… well OK, I mostly mean one song, and it’s the godlike “Tout l’univers”. That’s a song I’ve been excited to review for a long time, so I hope you’re excited too!

Please give a round of applause to Ilse DeLange, the female singer of “Calm After the Storm”, for pushing Duncan Laurence to send this song to Eurovision and vocally coaching him to victory. She clearly wanted her country to win Eurovision, but since she already performed such an iconic song, she admirably passed the baton to someone else.

Greece: Better Love

Artist: Katerine Duska

Language: English

Key: E♭ major

Maybe my Greek commenter Ellie Z. can back me up on this; I suspect that after the flops of “Utopian Land” (2016) and “Óniró mou” (2018), there were very few singers who lived in Greece willing to represent their country, so ERT had a phase of selecting diaspora singers instead. This time they selected a singer from Canada; the next few years they’ll go for the Netherlands and Norway.

This is the song I’ll take out my anger at that Hungary didn’t qualify. It’s an absolutely hideous pop ballad with an annoying overdramatic beat and slurred waily voice. She fails to hit some of her high notes near the end, and the long high note isn’t that impressive either. The staging with weapons and a huge ball makes no sense because I have no idea what it has to do with the barely comprehensible lyrics. In the semifinal, how the fuck did this get more televotes than Hungary and how the FUCK did this score second place in the jury?! In the final, this scored only 14th place in the jury, which is still way too high.

Israel: Home

Artist: Kobi Marimi

Language: English

Key: B♭ major, D♭ major

This song comes across like it was written specifically to be the Israeli host entry. I’m not sure if it actually was, since Israel went for an approach of selecting their singer through a reality show, then songwriters write songs for the winner to choose between, but that’s certainly how the song comes off. The lyrics are about Jews returning to their homeland and coming home, but I find them vague and not particularly well-written. As a song, this is frankly boring as hell: just a dull ballad with a slightly overdramatic voice, and it doesn’t resolve satisfyingly either. It’s worth noting that the melody of the chorus sounds weirdly similar to that of “Too Late for Love”.

This got zero points from the juries, but it didn’t seem that way on the TV broadcast because the Belarusian jury voted in reverse. Or rather, the aggregated fake Belarusian jury votes were given in reverse. It got 35 points from the televote, leading to 23rd place overall. Sadly, this is exactly the kind of host entry that doesn’t score well.

Norway: Spirit in the Sky

Artist: Keiino

Language: English, plus joiking and a phrase in Northern Sami

Key: D minor

After two boring entries comes the biggest fan favorite song of Eurovision 2019, which fans are incredibly salty got so few points from the jury. It won the televote with 291 points, 30 points more than the Netherlands, but it landed in sixth place because the juries gave it a measly 40 points. That’s fewer points than the horrid garbage song from Greece, fewer than Iceland which one would think is jury repellent, and of course fewer than the predictable jury bait songs like Sweden and Australia. I really don’t understand why; I would say their vocals slipped up in the jury rehearsal, but I think that only happened with “Queen of Kings”, a later Norwegian entry from 2023.

Alexandra, Fred, and Tom all seem like such lovely people and that certainly comes across on stage and during the green room. This is one of few “everyone gets a turn to sing” songs that actually works for me, because all three have a different role in the song. Alexandra and Tom alternate and play off each other in the verses, and both of them harmonize in the chorus while Fred gives us his glorious Sami joiking, which is what really makes this song shine. Erica is right, this guy is the first joiker in Eurovision to be genuinely good.

The whole song has a really nice mystical dancey sound that suits Norway to a T. The verses are glorious and the bridge with the joiking is the best part, and the chorus is a little weaker since it has a rather standard dance beat, but it’s still good. This song is buckets of fun and is exactly what I want out of a Eurovision song: fun to listen and bop my head to, shows off something cultural about its country, and the kind of song that screams at viewers to vote for it. If I was watching live in 2019, I would’ve been prepared to give a bunch of votes to Hungary, but since they didn’t qualify I would’ve given this lots of votes instead.

I love their thank you message at the end of the song, they all sound so genuinely touched especially Alexandra. Fred said something in Northern Sami at the end, and it makes me smile even though I have no idea what he said.

United Kingdom: Bigger Than Us

Artist: Michael Rice

Language: English

Key: C major, D♭ major

Unfortunately, my good mood from Norway is ruined once again by this piece of utterly generic garbage. What the hell was the UK thinking this year? Why did they accept a Melodifestivalen reject from someone who’s competing in Eurovision with an actually decent song? And why oh why does this have to have every single generic feel-good radio pop song trope that I hate? Only one generic chord progression throughout, stereotypical stompy beat, final chorus beginning with just vocals and the stompy beat, generic key change, and ultra-generic lyrics. In all fairness, the chord progression changes for two measures in the final chorus, but the song still sucks.

This song tells me nothing about Michael Rice as a singer or person and has absolutely zero personality. It does not tell any type of personal story. It’s an attempt at X Factor jury bait and it didn’t even work, since this scored last place. The staging is also unimaginative and just features him being not particularly charismatic against a vague outer space background, then I guess a few backing singers appear near the end. The song objectively isn’t that bad on the ears, but it’s so aggressively anonymous that I end up hating it. I feel like any person in the entire world could have sung this song and it’d make no difference.

Iceland: Hatrið mun sigra

Artist: Hatari

Language: Icelandic

Key: E minor, F minor

I adore the contrast between Denmark and Iceland’s entries this year. “Love is forever” and “hatred will prevail” are a perfect duo representing extreme ends of the scale from twee to edgy. I also absolutely fucking adore the contrast between Iceland’s entries last year and this year. In 2018 Iceland sent a strong contender for the most boring song in Eurovision history, whereas their entry this year is the polar opposite of boring. Some fans love it, some fans hate it, and as for me personally, I fucking love everything about it.

This may seem like a purposely bonkers song made solely to be zany, but if you look a bit deeper, you’ll find that it’s a genuinely great dark techno song. These guys are truly passionate about making this kind of music and happen to have a bizarre sense of humor where they simultaneously do and don’t take themselves seriously. I am so fucking jealous of Iceland for sending a song as daring and aggressive as this. NDR would never let Germany send something like this to Eurovision and I hate it.

OK, now for the lengthy analysis of this song’s structure that I’ve been waiting to write since I began this blog post series, so for over a year now! This song grips me immediately with the dark techno synths and then after just a few seconds dives into this great pumping techno beat. The shouty singing in the verses isn’t hard at all for me to get used to: it fits the song perfectly and matches its attitude of “absurd yet serious”. Then the verse continues with a small break in the instrumental, and then the techno beat gains an extra layer of depth.

And then when the chorus starts, the song truly kicks into action. The instrumental switches from a repetitive synth riff (akin to the first half of Cha Cha Cha) to something with a proper chord progression (like the second half of Cha Cha Cha), and the vocals switch to fairly breathy falsetto singing. I’m not sure if the breathy sound is due to the singing, or more because of the Icelandic language. Either way, I absolutely love when songs have a contrast between harsh shouty parts and melodic parts, which typically happens in the verses and chorus respectively.

Then comes the second verse which sounds a little fuller because each line has one more syllable, and a few synth chords that are mostly inversions of the E minor root chord come in shortly after. Sadly in the grand final, he sings part of the second verse out of sync, so for me the definitive performance is in the semifinal. The second chorus plays about the same as the first, until the song does something REALLY cool which is minimize the beat further and further to lead up to what may seem like the end of the song. First the drum beat simplifies to repeated kicks, and then all percussion disappears and we’re left with just the low synth riff, some keyboards that resemble strings, and then the vocals. And after a brief pause comes one of my favorite key changes in Eurovision history. The fact that this crazy edgy song has a key change is a perfect example of the absurd yet serious attitude that exemplifies Hatari.

And don’t even get me started on the crazy staging with all the BDSM fetish outfits and the hammering guy on top of a cage. Another perfect example of their bizarre sense of humor. Don’t forget about the lyrics which are about hatred and the empty void consuming us all, with even a mention that Europe will crumble—a subtle hint that this song was designed to make a splash at Eurovision. And that’s exactly what it did: this song revitalized fans’ interest in Icelandic entries and landed in a respectable tenth place, with most of its points coming from the televote. This song got twelve points from televoters in Finland, Poland, and Hungary, and knowing what I know about these countries’ musical taste… yeah, that 100% checks out.

“Island ist schon eine spezielle Insel” (Iceland really is a special island), Peter Urban said at the end of the song with a slight laugh. I couldn’t agree more.

(And yes, Iceland is called “Island” in German, and personally I’m surprised the Germans don’t call it “Eisland” (the German words for ice and land). In pretty much all other Germanic languages, the name of Iceland natively translates to “ice land”.)

Estonia: Storm

Artist: Victor Crone

Language: English

Key: D major

I normally don’t talk much about other songs in national finals, but I should mention that Eesti Laul in 2019 had a song in German called “Wo sind die Katzen?” (where are the cats?) The song got last place in the second semifinal, probably because it’s incredibly fucking stupid, but as a German speaker I find it stupid in an endearing way.

Crazy enough, this is the third time Estonia has sent a Swedish singer to Eurovision (first two are 2002 and 2006). It seems like Estonia’s a bit obsessed with having Swedes sing their songs, exactly the opposite of Azerbaijan who hires local singers to sing Swedes’ songs.

This is yet another song that I’m baffled qualified over Hungary. I kind of like the guitar intro and ending, but the guitar disappears for most of it and most of the song is just some kind of feel-good pop anthem. It’s not bad or anything, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if this hadn’t qualified.

Belarus: Like It

Artist: Zena (Zinaida Kupriyanovich)

Language: English

Key: G minor

And now we have the last ever Belarusian entry to be performed live on stage. Their 2020 entry couldn’t be performed since the contest was canceled, and their 2021 entry was rejected. I personally consider 2020 the last Belarusian entry, but one can make a case for all three.

If this is the way Belarus is going to go out, then they ended on a positive note. This is a fun dancey song with nice guitars in the verses, and fun synths in the chorus, plus staging that’s fun to watch. What’s not to like? I think the lyrics are supposed to be about the singer promising her crush will like her, but the lyrics aren’t the point of the song for me. When I listen to the song, I just want to turn off my brain and party. In fact, this song is a power-off button for my brain.

Azerbaijan: Truth

Artist: Chingiz Mustafayev, not to be confused with Dschinghis Khan

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

This is a typically flashy Azerbaijani pop entry with attractive gimmicky staging, this time with some kind of medicine scan and a projection of a heart. As is typical for Azerbaijan, the visuals keep me hooked and the song is pleasant and catchy, but it’s nothing that I’d come back to. It has little hints of ethnic wailing (known in Azerbaijan as mugham) in attempt to make it sound cultural, but those aren’t an integral part of the song. This style of singing would be incorporated so much better in “Özünlə apar”, one of the most underrated entries of 2024.

France: Roi

Artist: Bilal Hassani

Language: French and way too much English

Key: F minor

This song I feel is something of a “Rise Like a Phoenix” wannabe: a crossdresser singing about self-acceptance and viewing himself as a king. But because this is 2010’s France, this song has a pretty bad identity crisis. It alternates between English and French way too often because the song thinks English is necessary for international audiences and French is necessary to represent France. The language alternation is like “L’amour à la française” but unironic and I’m especially weirded out by the line “je suis free”.

The instrumental is a decent piano ballad that’s fast by ballad standards, and I like the overall message plus the line “quand je rêve, je suis un roi” (when I dream, I am a king). But the language mixing really sours it for me and I just can’t like this.

Italy: Soldi

Artist: Alessandro Mahmood

Language: Italian, plus two lines in Arabic

Key: E♭ minor

And now we have the runner-up of the year, a song about Mahmood’s family life and difficult relationship with his father who only cared about money. It’s a fairly catchy song with a mix of Italian, Arabic, and hip-hop elements, and a double clap that’s impossible not to follow along with, even as I am listening to the song and typing these words. But this song just doesn’t really connect to me, I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s because the song has a barebones instrumental, as does most rap and hip-hop music; the instrumental takes a backseat to the lyrical rhythm. I like vocal songs better when the instrumental is rich and deep and complements the vocals. So basically, this song is yet another Italian entry that fans rave about but I just don’t get. It’s probably good but not my cup of tea.

(Yay, this is the 200th last song I have to review till I’m caught up! Only 199 to go now.)

Serbia: Kruna (Круна)

Artist: Nevena Božović

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian) with a pinch of English

Key: G♯ minor

I love you Serbia, but unfortunately this doesn’t do very much to me. It tries to be a Balkan ballad in 12/8 time but it’s just too shouty and not Balkan enough. When I watched the grand final with Liv and the lyrics changed to English, I politely asked Nevena to switch back to Serbian, and fortunately she listened to me! Sadly as soon as Switzerland’s postcard began, I started to forget how this sounded.

Switzerland: She Got Me

Artist: Luca Hänni

Language: English

Key: B minor

Now this song on the other hand begins Switzerland’s character arc of participating in Eurovision not to fill the attendance sheet, but to attempt a third victory. This song is a strong start for this era and gave Switzerland fourth place, their best result in… uh, let me check… twenty-six years, holy FUCK! Swizerland’s approach from 2019 to 2024 is focusing on strong male voices, professional staging, and a polished professional sound to the instrumentals.

I’m surprised Erica described this song as Swedish in sound and looks; did she simply mean that the performance looks and sounds professional? Because if so, that’s exactly what Sweden does so damn well. This is a full-out boybop which I like to think of as a gender-swapped Fuego: same key signature, similar dancey rhythm, and catchy title hooks. It only took one listen for me to remember how this song sounded and I also love the aspect ratio shenanigans on TV. The performance alternates between all sorts of wide, square, and average aspect ratios, making the staging look like a real-life music video. This will describe pretty much all the Swiss entries up to “The Code” (the newest Eurovision winner) and possibly beyond. We’ll have to see what’s next for Switzerland after their third victory.

I think Switzerland is probably the number one country I feel the most neighborly bias towards. That’s because my mom’s regional dialect of German is sort of like a toned-down version of Swiss German. She tones down her dialect way more when talking to me, probably so that I’d end up learning something reasonably close to standard German. So it’s making me really happy that Switzerland is now taking Eurovision seriously.

Australia: Zero Gravity

Artist: Kate Miller-Heidke

Language: English

Key: F♯ major

Is it petty of me that I kind of hate that this was put in the extremely desirable running order number 25? Every single year since 2017, the producers have decided to put one of the “favorites to win” or an otherwise big crowd pleaser into the second last slot in the running order, which I’m going to call the life slot. It wasn’t this way in the first few years of producer-chosen running order, but I feel like starting 2017, it became really blatant that the producers used it to boost entries that they’re told fans are excited about, and shaft the entries from punching bag countries. I think producers like to put a huge crowd pleaser second last because they think that means it isn’t too obvious they were boosting one of the betting odds’ favorites, but it’s still obvious as fuck.

It’s also obvious that the only reason there was so much hype surrounding the song is the staging, which I have to admit is absolutely mesmerizing. This song instantly sticks in viewers’ heads as “oh yeah, it’s the one with the opera princess taped to a pole, that performance was really cool!” so I argue it didn’t need to be near the end of the running order. It’s memorable as hell either way.

As for the song… I want to like it because of that incredible staging, but I just can’t get behind it. Fans love to rave about opera singers being the most talented vocalists in existence, but for me this style of singing will never be more than technically impressive. I mean yeah, she sings damn well especially while singing on those poles, and it’s not like the whole song is over the top opera, but blending dancey pop and opera just isn’t my thing musically. The song is mostly kind of good, but I really don’t like the generic cinematic stompy beat when they sing “nothing holding me down” over and over again.

Spain: La venda

Artist: Miki Nuñez

Language: Spanish

Key: C minor

And now we have the last ever Eurovision song before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the entire world. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe 2020 is the next year. Well, I believe it by this point, but it took me a long time to come to terms with this realization.

Go Spain for finally sending an upbeat Spanish bop again, I really missed those! It’s poppy and fun and doesn’t demand anything from the listener’s brain, which means it’s exactly the kind of entry that the producers have a habit of putting last. The lyrics are telling the listener to be happy and proud of themselves, and take off the blindfold (la venda) that’s preventing them from seeing the light. I would’ve thought it would benefit the song to come at the end, and I guess it kind of did since it got 53 votes, but I think that after the masterful staging from Australia, most fans had made up their minds on who to vote for.

The staging for this song is pretty fun too, it reminds me a little bit of how Philipp Kirkorov’s entries tend to be staged. That’s not a coincidence, I’m pretty sure this has the same stage director as his entries. Sadly this still didn’t manage to score above 20th place. It only got 22nd, because the juries somehow only gave it one point. I blame the Big Five rule, just like I do for Germany’s heartbreaking last place in 2023.

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Who’s my favorite?

This year has a lot of entries that match my tastes in one way or another—Iceland’s absolute techno banger, Hungary’s emotional guitar tune, Albania’s enchanting ethnic ballad, the girly bop from Malta, the ultra-big fan favorite from Norway—but only two of these truly tug at my heartstrings, and those are Albania and Hungary. I absolutely love both of these songs and almost want to choose both as my winner, but since I have to pick just one, I will choose the one that’s more melodic: Hungary, Az én apám. This is my first time choosing a non-qualifier as my winner of a Eurovision year!

• 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, 2 (2005, 2019)
• 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)

I would say Iceland is my third favorite of this year; maybe Malta fourth and Norway fifth, but that’s tentative. I’d guess a lot of my readers were expecting me to choose Norway as my winner, so apologies to those who did!

General thoughts:

I think I have mixed feelings about this year overall. More positive than negative, but mixed nonetheless. The lineup of songs was a tiny bit worse than 2018, and the lineup in the final sadly was significantly worse. The recaps reminded me over and over again that the grand final had a few really bad songs: Greece is an absolute stinker, Israel is really dull, and the UK is infuriatingly bland. But most of the songs in this grand final ranged from decent to amazing. What else should I give honorable mentions, besides the ones I ranked first to fifth? Let’s say Switzerland for their kickass boybop and North Macedonia for their amazingly high result. Tamara Todevska looked so touched when she received all those points.

As for the presentation of this year, my thoughts are more negative than positive. I love the stage design and postcards, and a few of the interval skits throughout the show were truly great. The presenters did their job well for the most part, but as with so many other hosts of this era, they were trying too hard to be funny.

This grand final had way too many interval acts and way too much time filler. I’ll go over the acts one by one, starting with the Switch Song act. This act was definitely the most fun of all, though I wish the song swaps just spoke for themselves instead of the hosts announcing each one. The best one by a landslide was Eleni Foureira covering my favorite Eurovision song of all time, “Dancing Lasha Tumbai”.

The next two interval acts are a band singing some kind of folk song in a mix of Hebrew and Arabic, then Netta Barzilai singing her new single “Nana Banana”. They’re both decent enough songs and not very interval act-y, but would’ve made way better Israeli host entries than “Home”. This is much like my thoughts on “Rainmaker”, Emmelie de Forest’s interval act of 2014; I feel like Israel could’ve pulled a Lena and sent “Nana Banana” as their host entry. But Netta doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d want to steal the spotlight two years in a row. Something I like about her is, she comes across as so herself when she sings all her sassy goofy dancey bop songs. I get the feeling that her personality in real life isn’t all that different from her stage persona.

Then comes the infamous Madonna interval act, which was a complete and utter embarrassment. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her sappy ultra-American “you guys are all winners, you all took so many steps to get here” speech. And then came her actual performance, which was pure pain to watch. And even if the performance wasn’t so off key, Eurovision shouldn’t be about dragging out famous names, and I think that was Israel’s biggest mistake when hosting this year. The contest should be about letting European music speak for itself, enough with America intruding everywhere! When I apologized on behalf of my home country for intruding into Eurovision, Liv told me that I am one of the good Americans. At the end of the performance, Edward af Sillén from SVT snarked that suddenly, Serhat didn’t seem so bad.

All of these interval acts were during the voting time window—it’s easy to forget that the interval acts used to take place after the time window, as the votes were being counted. We did have one interval skit after the voting time window, which was a tourism advertisement for Tel Aviv. It made me want to visit the city someday and kept my eyes glued on the screen, so as a tourism ad it worked.

Here’s a list of jury voting highlights:

• Azerbaijan and San Marino surprisingly delivered their votes in French. The rules allow it, so why the hell not?
• The Netherlands snarked a bit about Madonna’s off-key performance, only about an hour after it happened.
• Austria’s twelve points made North Macedonia rise way up—like a phoenix, you could say. The UK brought them to the top, then they remained in the lead for almost the whole rest of the sequence.
• Tamara Todevska said “I love you all” when Moldova gave her song twelve points. She was blown away to get so many points and I’m sure her entire country was too. Her children must think she’s the coolest mom in the world.
• Ireland gave their usual Irish in a thick English accent, which still draws blanks from the audience.

Now the Belarusian jury votes… How didn’t Jon Ola Sand or anyone else in the executive crew notice something was wrong? That’s the whole damn point of scrutineers, come on! Frank Naef would not have been proud. It was so obvious that the Belarusian votes were reversed, since most of them went to songs on the bottom of the scoreboard. I laughed when Belarus gave their twelve points to Israel, because I know that in reality, they accidentally revealed their last place. The Swedish commentators noticed something was off very quickly, especially Edward who is absolutely obsessed with Eurovision. But Peter Urban from ARD didn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

• When Cyprus was about to deliver twelve points, I thought to myself, “Greece didn’t qualify this year… hm, who are they going to give points to instead?” Then much to my dismay, I remembered Greece did in fact qualify.
• Australia had their votes delivered by Electric Fields, foreshadowing their Eurovision entry in 2024. Zaachariaha spoke what I’m guessing is an Australian Aboriginal language at the start.
• Laura Rizzotto delivered the points for Latvia and I think she’s becoming my first ever Eurovision crush. She has such a pretty face.

The new televote sequence system is so much better than the old one. It really provides the perfect mix of pleasant surprises, nasty surprises, and complete unsurprises. Peter Urban praised the new scoring system too, but he was so confused when Germany got zero points from the televote. Translated to English, he said: “No points… from the… televoters in Europe. Wow. Do you understand that? I don’t, honestly.” I love the shock of Norway rising to the absolute top with 293 points, though not too long after, Sergey Lazarev surpassed them and was briefly in the lead, which did not happen in 2016.

As unfortunate as it is that the voting mishap meant we never got a Netherlands vs. North Macedonia split screen, I think Netherlands vs. Sweden is a way more nerve-wracking final screen. If I was watching live in 2019 and the last two standing were North Macedonia and the Netherlands, I would’ve been happy about either outcome—first Dutch victory in 44 years, or first North Macedonian victory in history. Sweden vs. the Netherlands is a fierce competition between the overachieving country and the one that hasn’t won in 44 years. Sweden would’ve needed 253 points to surpass the Netherlands’ lead, and happily for Dutch fans, they only got 93.

It felt so unreal for the Netherlands to win for the first time in a generation and a half, and I’m sure it felt even crazier for Dutch fans. Ilse DeLange was with Duncan Laurence in the green room and it looked like she was about to cry. “Arcade” isn’t even close to being my winner of this year, but I get so much neighborly happiness that I’m perfectly OK with it.

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See you next time as for the first time since 1955, there is no Eurovision Song Contest.

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