Monthly Archives: September 2024

Cookie Fonster Fondly Recalls Eurovision 2023 (Semifinals): The First Year I Watched Live

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Intro Post

< 2022 Final | 2023 Semifinals | 2023 Final >

Let me tell you guys right now: I am absolutely, utterly stoked about reaching Eurovision 2023. I hope you guys are at least half as excited to read my thoughts on it!

Introduction

Well, I’ve finally reached the first Eurovision year I watched live. I started this blog post series just a few weeks after the contest, so you can imagine how impatient I was back then to reach 2023. Now I’m finally at this year, but another year has passed since then and now 2024 is the one I’m impatient to get to. But I’ll cherish this year anyway! I didn’t just watch Eurovision 2023 live when it happened, I also intensively followed the pre-season and memorized everything about all the songs. So I still know most of these songs like the back of my hand. Can you just stop and think about how crazy it is that Eurovision happens every single year (except for 2020)? Most international competitions occur only every two years, or every four years, but Eurovision still manages to be an annual event. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me.

After Ukraine won Eurovision 2022, the EBU faced a dilemma: should Eurovision 2023 be hosted in Ukraine, or in a different country in case the war doesn’t end? On June 17, 2022, they confirmed Ukraine wouldn’t be able to host the contest. Ukrainians were initially unhappy with the decision, but then on July 25, the EBU decided to host the contest in the United Kingdom, and Ukraine was on board with that. This was the UK’s reward for scoring second place, and their first time hosting Eurovision since 1998. It was also the ninth time the UK hosted Eurovision, and the first time the previous winner didn’t host since 1980. I’m glad we’re now in an era where every country is willing to host Eurovision after victory. Ukraine was just unable to because of the war, but they did lend a hand to help the BBC put this show together.

Cities in all four parts of the United Kingdom expressed interest in hosting Eurovision, and the winner was Liverpool, announced as the host city on October 7. It’s a city famed for its musical heritage, known for being the hometown of the Beatles and many other famous British musical acts, so what better place is there to host the world’s biggest music show? British fans were absolutely delighted to have Eurovision back in their country—I know because I met some of them in Malmö and they talked about how great it was. Since the UK has tons and tons of people, it was famously difficult to get tickets this year. Everyone I’ve heard of who saw the contest live said it was absolutely worth it.

This contest featured most of the same countries participating in 2022, but three skipped out: Bulgaria, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. This meant that the map of Europe had even more holes than last time, but we’ll make do with the countries that are there. We have a relatively small lineup of 37 countries, and thus only eleven non-qualifiers to go through.

I should also mention that this contest features two important changes to the voting. First off is that the semifinals are now televote-only, which I think is an excellent change. It gives more power to the people without messing with number ratios or the twelve points system. The second is exciting for me: viewers from the rest of the world can now vote in Eurovision! The contest has now embraced that people love it around the world—mainly in the US and Canada, Europe, Israel, and Australia, but it has scattered fans from many other corners of the world. Viewers in non-participating countries have the perk of being able to vote in both semifinals, and my European friends are jealous of me for that.

I had already written a short post reviewing Eurovision 2023, but I had always intended to write a full-length review of the year, and now the time has come! I had suspected that by this point, I’d write sprawling detailed paragraphs about every song, and I was right. I will watch the semifinals with German commentary, which I could have done back in 2023 without needing a VPN, but I didn’t know that at the time. This was Peter Urban’s final year commentating Eurovision. He has done this every year since 1997 except 2009, props to him for sticking around this long!

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Cookie Fonster’s Verdicts on Eurovision 2022 (Final): The Year of Moody Guitar Songs

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Intro Post

< 2022 Semifinals | 2022 Final | 2023 Semifinals >

I woke up early to finish this post because it’s nice to get this out of the way before my work day starts. After this post, I only have four left till I finish this project! Thanks to all my commenters for sticking around all this time. And don’t worry, I have a few bonus posts in mind once I finish 2024.

Introduction

Because the winner last time was a Big Five country, the grand final of Eurovision 2022 featured 25 countries instead of the usual 26. These countries all competed for the prize in Turin, Italy, and due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many fans saw it as a foregone conclusion that Ukraine would win, and that’s indeed what happened. They overwhelmingly won the televote with the second native-language winner in a row. The jury winner was the United Kingdom who got, after so many years of terrible results, a jaw-dropping second place. Their best ever result since 1998! Spain achieved a just as amazing third place, their best ever result since 1995, meaning that two Big Five countries had their redemption arcs this year. In fact, I was originally going to call this post “The British Redemption Arc” before I chose a title reflective of the other songs this year.

After a bunch of opening acts I don’t care much about, we finally have a flag parade as it should be: all the contestants walk on the stage waving their flags! I love seeing each of them carry their flags in a different way with a different style: some go big, some go modest, some mix in rainbow or transgender flags. I also love seeing the United Kingdom, for once, getting some of the biggest cheers in the crowd. I’m still not a big fan of these hosts, but I do love Laura Pausini’s sparkly blue suit. Maybe I just have a thing for sparkly clothes, and I never unlocked this taste till I watched Eurovision?

The postcards feature a drone robot named Leo (introduced in the opening film of semifinal 1) showing the viewers a tour of Italy, with images of the contestants projected onto the buildings. I’m not a big fan of these postcards because they show too much of Italy (lovely country though; it’s a tourist destination for good reason) and not enough of the contestants. One of many ways the production doesn’t live up to 2021.

I watched the grand final with British commentary, done by Eurovision veteran Graham Norton. I find that the more years someone has commentated Eurovision, the more entertaining their commentary gets.

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Cookie Fonster’s Verdicts on Eurovision 2022 (Semifinals): Two Completely Undeserved Last Places

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Intro Post

< 2021 Final | 2022 Semifinals | 2022 Final >

Introduction

The third most recent Eurovision Song Contest as of this writing was Italy’s chance to redeem themselves after their infamously bad hosting of 1991, but spoiler alert: their hosting efforts are mediocre at best. During the host city selection, RAI already ran into tons of troubles. Seventeen cities expressed interest in bidding, eleven cities bidded to host, five were shortlisted, and it was not until October 8, 2021 that Turin was chosen as the host city. That is far too late if you ask me. The host city was supposed to be revealed by the end of August, but I’m willing to bet RAI procrastinated on making the final choice.

This year had 40 countries participating, a number that I really hope Eurovision reaches again. Armenia and Montenegro returned after skipping 2021, and all the 2021 participant countries were going to return at first… until February 24, 2022, when Russia began their invasion of Ukraine. The EBU was originally going to keep Russia in the contest, but after multiple broadcasters threatened to leave the contest, Russia was banned the next day. On February 26, Channel One and VGTRK—the two Russian broadcasters who took turns picking their Eurovision entry—both left the EBU. Russia has been banned from Eurovision, and many other international competitions, ever since.

This contest had a few returns to normalcy we didn’t see in Eurovision 2021: the arena had full capacity and standing seats were available again. No contestants had to stay home, but all countries did record live on tape performances as backup; they also did that in 2021, which is what Australia had to use then. Unlike Eurovision 2021, the audience had to wear face masks at all times, but that wasn’t enforced too heavily. This makes me wonder what Eurovision 2021 would’ve looked like if Italy had hosted. Would a live audience have been possible there? I doubt it, considering Italy was one of the countries hit hardest by COVID.

I’ve already heard all the entries of 2022 (since about a year ago I believe), so it’ll feel a bit strange to review these without hearing anything unfamiliar. I’ve never seen the contest in full before, and as usual, I’ll watch the semifinals with German commentary.

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Cookie Fonster Revels in Eurovision 2021 (Final): A Native-Language Top Three

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Intro Post

< 2021 Semfinals | 2021 Final | 2022 Semifinals >

Holy shit you guys, I can’t believe 2022 is the next Eurovision year for me to review. That was actually the most recent year of the contest when I became a fan.

Also, a day after finishing the post, I ranked Eurovision 2021!

Introduction

“We’ve got a real range of music tonight. Brilliant staging, great lighting, some wonderful vocalists, and others… well, some as flat as Holland.” My god, I fucking love Graham Norton so much.

The grand final of Eurovision 2021, hosted in Rotterdam, Netherlands, featured the usual 26 competitors vying for the crown—16 veterans and 10 newcomers, meaning that a little over half had competed in 2020.

The contest had a quartet of hosts, each of whom comes from a different background. Chantal Janzen is the usual TV host hired to host Eurovision, which is a smart choice as long as they’re fluent in English and French, which she is.* Jan Smit is another TV host and singer who has co-commentated Eurovision for the Netherlands from 2011 to 2019 and 2022 to 2023. Edsilia Rombley has competed in Eurovision twice: she sang for the Netherlands in 1998 and 2007 and also has experience as a television presenter. And finally, Nikkie de Jager is a beauty YouTuber and makeup artist who had dreamed for many years of hosting Eurovision. She was originally going to be an online host for 2020, but this year she was promoted to an in-person host.

The postcards are probably the part of the contest where the influence of COVID-19 is most notable. They feature the usual tour of different places in the Netherlands (always welcome by me) and don’t feature the contestants in person, but rather feature a digitally generated house with objects relevant to the artist and photos/videos of the singer, then a brief hologram of the artist.

As the title of this post suggests, the top three songs of this year are all not in English. Italy scored their third Eurovision win (first since 1990), France scored second place (their best result since 1991), and Switzerland third (best since 1993)—highest of all the returning artists from 2020. While Italy and France did very well, the rest of the Big Five and host rounded out the bottom four and each scored zero points in the televote. The United Kingdom infamously scored zero points in total, the first time that has ever happened in the jury + televote system.

The flag parade was loads of fun—when was the last time the opening featured the hosts singing? Brings back memories of all the hosts from 1985 to 1987 singing… and not so good memories of the 1991 hosts singing. This might also be the first opening act to feature a fire/desire rhyme. Most contestants didn’t hold a flag of their countries, but Stefania waved quite a big Greek flag. She actually lives in the Netherlands, but clearly she’s proud of her Greek roots, as Greeks abroad tend to be.

I watched the grand final with British commentary, as per usual. I wonder how Graham Norton will react to James Newman getting zero points?

* Chantal can also speak German and does it very well! She sounds near indistinguishable from a native speaker.

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Cookie Fonster Revels in Eurovision 2021 (Semifinals): A Heartwarming Show, but a Heartbreaking Bloodbath

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Intro Post

< 2020 Semifinal 2 | 2021 Semifinals | 2021 Final >

Introduction

Some international annual events had to be canceled for two or three years in a row due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’re very fortunate that Eurovision only missed one year and maintained its host city of Rotterdam, Netherlands for 2021. The producers of Eurovision 2021 ensured the contest complied with all COVID-19 regulations, but cleverly disguised the fact that it occurred during a pandemic.

It feels strange to watch clips from the 2020 (actually 2021) Summer Olympics with almost no live audience, so it’s miraculous that the EBU put together a live audience for 2021. They did so by allowing only 3,500 seats in the Rotterdam Ahoy, about a third of the usual amount, and not allowing any standing seats—the space was instead used for a socially distanced green room. The audience members didn’t have to wear masks or sit two meters apart—they only had to test negative for COVID and wear masks when not seated. The audience consisted only of those who had bought tickets for Eurovision 2020, so there were no public ticket sales this year. One change that the pandemic did cause was that backing vocals could now be pre-recorded. It’s a bit of a divisive rule, but as we’ll see in quite a few songs this year, it’ll allow for a new layer of creative freedom.

All countries that would have participated in 2020 returned for 2021, except for Belarus who was banned due to sending a propaganda song, and Armenia who skipped out due to a war with Azerbaijan. Out of these 39 countries, 24 of them internally selected the same artist as 2020, two (Estonia and Lithuania) held a national final where the 2020 contestant won, and 13 selected an entirely new contestant. This means that exactly two-thirds of the entries this year have the same artist as 2020.

The running order for both semifinals looks pretty similar to the 2020 semifinals. The draws of who gets into which semifinal, and who is in which half, were reused from 2020, but the countries were reordered for the sake of the show. This means each semifinal will consist of the same countries as its 2020 counterpart (barring the ones that dropped out), but not always the same singers.

As of this writing, I’ve heard in full almost all Eurovision entries from 1956 to 2024, except for these countries’ entries this year: Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, and Sweden. By the time I finish this post, I will have heard every single song in Eurovision history.

I watched the semifinals with German commentary by an increasingly raspy Peter Urban, who by this point I’ve warmed up to. I find his style of commentary to be deadpan in an endearing old man way. In case you were wondering, I’m back to watching these contests alone. If you’d like to know more about how I find commentary for recent contests, or would like me to send video files I have available, there are multiple ways to contact me listed on my home page. I’m open to helping you out!

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Cookie Fonster Speculates on Eurovision 2020 (Semifinal 2): Would Iceland Have Won?

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Intro Post

< 2020 Semifinal 1 | 2020 Semifinal 2 | 2021 Semifinals >

Introduction

In this post I go through the other 21 songs of Eurovision 2020, the contest that was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the 18 songs that would’ve competed in semifinal 2, and the three automatic qualifiers who would’ve voted here: France, the UK, and Spain. This will be a way weaker lineup of songs than semifinal 1, but it also contains the song that most fans believe would’ve won 2020: “Think About Things” from Iceland.

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