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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.
Cyprus: El Diablo
Artist: Elena Tsagrinou
Language: English, plus a repeated phrase in Spanish
Key: A minor
Cyprus definitely wanted to win Eurovision this year, given that they hired a bunch of mainstay Eurovision composers and sent yet another girlbop trying to replicate the success of “Fuego”. Unfortunately, since it’s a girlbop drawn into the first half, the producers decided it was the perfect song to put first yet again. I don’t think the running order is why this got only 16th place though. The juries and televoters both gave it about the same amount of points. As with 2019, I very much disagree with the producers’ order of the first three songs.
I actually rather like the verses with their bassy synths, but the acapella pre-chorus I’m not a huge fan of, and the chorus just sounds generic. And I still get annoyed when the singer starts by lying on the floor. For me the whole thing goes in one ear and out the other, so girlbop or not, I don’t find it a great opener.
Albania: Karma
Artist: Anxhela Peristeri
Language: Albanian, and boy does it kick ass
Key: D minor
Now THIS is the first song of the evening to really wake me up and get me to turn up the volume on my headphones. I really don’t understand why the producers didn’t pick this masterpiece as the opener, instead of Cyprus. It would have made a perfect opener to get the audience hyped up, just like “Discotheque” was the ideal choice to open semifinal 1. They probably didn’t choose this as the opener because it’s not in English, which makes no sense to me. Isn’t it part of the point of Eurovision to show that a good song transcends language barriers?
This song is fucking awesome and has to be my favorite Albanian entry of all time. It’s even better than “Ktheju tokës” from 2019. It’s one of those cases where a country has a clear formula in mind, tweaks that formula for a few years, and lands with a perfect output. I could imagine this song being Albania’s winner in the 2000’s, but unfortunately there are many more songs that are clearly designed to win.
OK, what exactly about this song is so awesome? It starts off with a cinematic intro where she sings the first few notes of the chorus, then we get some dramatic orchestration that would fit well in a movie trailer. The instrumentation strips down to strings and piano during the verse, and the drama kicks up a notch when the chorus begins, with all the lovely guitars and ethnic percussion. And then that section right after the chorus is a little like the ethnic-sounding section of “Supergirl” but a hundred times better, way more properly ethnic. It’s impossible not to bop my head to all this and I love all the harmonic minor notes.
Then she sings the second verse and I love the little ethnic guitar riffs after each line of the verse. I love in general when songs have a call and response between the vocals and instrumental. The second chorus is like the first chorus but fully orchestrated and way more punchy. The melody of the chorus is easy to remember since it starts with the first five notes of the minor scale then leads into some lovely long notes. The song then gains a splash of modernity in the breakdown with the trap drums and vocal samples, and finally she sings the last chorus with even more perfect Albanian drama. Anxhela performs this song like a queen and sings with perfect conviction and drama, and unlike other Albanian women doesn’t scream at the top of her lungs.
I’m really salty the producers put Albania in the death slot for the second contest in a row. Technically I can’t say second year in a row, since Eurovision 2020 was canceled. I genuinely think that if it weren’t in the death slot, this could have reached the left side of the scoreboard instead of a measly 21st place. Albania was so fucking robbed! THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN AT LEAST IN THE TOP 10! And the worst part is, if this was a televote-only semifinal, Albania wouldn’t have even qualified! In semifinal 2, all of the juries’ top 10 had qualified, and all of the televoters’ top 10 did except for Denmark. God, I would have been so fucking pissed off if Albania hadn’t qualified. It would’ve been a way greater loss than Denmark.
In all fairness… the fact that I say this song should have been in the top ten proves how insanely competitive this year is. In any year prior to this, it would’ve probably been within my top three. Still, 21st place is WAY too low for this utter beauty!
Israel: Set Me Free
Artist: Eden Alene, returning from 2020
Language: English, plus a phrase in Hebrew
Key: C♯ minor
Israel brought back the singer of the incredible “Feker Libi”, but my feelings on this song are very mixed. For one thing, I find it kind of jarring that while Feker Libi was a heartfelt party song about a joyful romance, this song is an “I’m so much better with your stupid ass out of my life” breakup song. It comes across like she broke up with her beloved feker libi, and the thought hurts my soul a little bit, even though the lyrics of the songs probably have nothing to do with each other. The other pair of romance and breakup songs from the same artist came from Austria’s Vincent Bueno, and I find the story that those tell way more believable.
The song gets off to a slow start, but once the first chorus kicks in I actually quite like this. It’s funky and dancey and full of groovy chords. I love the neon lights design on stage and especially her hair in the shape of a crown, that’s delightful. But there’s one section that I really don’t like, which is the breakdown part that starts with “I’m so awesome”. That section starts makes the entire song feel more like a stereotypical Israeli dance entry, which “Feker Libi” managed to avoid being. After the only bad part, the song resumes being good and changes up the chord progression for the final chorus.
Then comes the best part of the song, where she sings higher and higher as she foreshadows her iconic high note… and then she delivers it, and the audience cheers. If that wasn’t enough, she delivers a second even higher note, and my jaw always drops at this part. Overall I do enjoy this song, but I can’t pretend it’s anywhere near as good as her last entry. Still, I’m glad she qualified to the final, she has such an infectious energy and always owns the stage.
I love that at the end of the song, Eden Alene says “thank you” in all four languages of “Feker Libi”: Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, and English. Delightful callback right there.
Belgium: The Wrong Place
Artist: Hooverphonic, returning from 2020 but with a new lead singer
Language: English
Key: G minor
This is the only veteran entry this year that one could argue is actually a hybrid newcomer/veteran entry, because Hooverphonic switched their lead singer in November 2020 from Luka Cruysberghs to their previous singer, Geike Arnaert.
Anyway, this song has a rather different vibe from “Release Me”, in part because this has an older singer with a deeper voice. But I don’t mind that it’s different, it showcases the band’s versatility! I am also obsessed with Geike’s sparkly black dress, I love how it looks like outer space.
This is a lovely indie-sounding song that mixes rock, blues, and mellow pop very nicely. Compared to Luka’s sensitive breathy voice, Geike has more of a rough voice that sounds like a woman who’s had a tough past ten years, and it suits this song really well. Whenever she sings “that’s why” or “opening line”, the chord progression goes somewhere surprising and backing singers join in, which always makes my face light up. The song’s composition has the perfect mix of predictability and curveballs. I can see why it landed on the right side of the scoreboard, since its appeal is rather niche compared to others this year. I wouldn’t have voted for it myself, since it’s nowhere close to my favorite. But the important part is that the song qualified, which is good enough for me.
Russia: Russian Woman
Artist: Manizha Sangin
Language: Russian, plus a few repeated lines in English
Key: F♯ minor (intro), E minor (the rest)
And now we’ve reached the final Russian Eurovision entry before they were banned from the contest. Given the themes of this song, it feels so strange that this contest was less than a year before Russia began their invasion of Ukraine—a war that caused almost the entire continent to turn against Russia.
Knowing Russia’s prior approach to Eurovision, and the fact that Putin’s government already had a tight grip on the state media in 2021, I’m surprised that their final Eurovision entry is sung by someone who’s got the perfect package of traits that people who believe (and create) Russian propaganda would not like. Manizha is an activist for women’s rights and LGBT rights in Russia, her descent is from the former Soviet country of Tajikistan, and she spoke out against the war in Ukraine on Instagram the day it began. She’s very popular among Eurovision fans and must have felt right at home in Rotterdam, but as Graham Norton mentioned, in her home country she was a polarizing figure.
This is different from most of Russia’s Eurovision entries in so many ways. First off, it’s one of only three post-language rule to be sung in Russian, and all three had a clear logical reason to be in Russian. “Ne ver, ne boysia” was sung in Russian to showcase the popularity of t.A.T.u, “Mamo” makes sense to be in Russian because it’s the host entry, and “Russian Woman” is aimed specifically at Russian viewers. This country didn’t host national finals most years, but for reasons unclear to me, they did so this year. That’s another unusual thing about this entry: most Russian entries were internally selected and clearly designed to win the contest, but on a handful of years Russia did a national final instead, and that’s a much better way to get to know the tastes of Russian viewers. The only years where Russia chose their entry through a national final are 1994, 2005, 2008-2010, 2012, and 2021. This year had a national final of only three songs, and the other two were in English. I don’t know what the other two songs are like, but it’s clear that this one clicked with Russian viewers the most.
I’ve heard conflicting stories on why Russia didn’t select Little Big again, and I’d love to see someone give a reliable source as to why they didn’t. Some say Little Big declined to participate again because they wanted someone else to get the spotlight, others say Russia just didn’t want to send them again. Even though I wish Russia could have sent Little Big (who are also opposed to the war in Ukraine), their 2020 entry ended up giving them such a huge boost of popularity that I can forgive Russia not doing it again.
I don’t speak any Russian, even though the language has fascinated me since childhood and is responsible for my existence, but the song’s snarky sense of humor gets through thanks to the way Manizha expresses it, as well as the staging. She starts the song inside an enormous traditional Russian dress, as she sarcastically pretends Russian women will need to wait for a man to reach his hand out to accomplish anything. But then she hops out of the dress and the bulk of the song begins. Soon enough she sings the first English-language portion, which goes: “Every Russian woman needs to know / You’re strong enough, you’re gonna break the wall”. It’s clever of her to include lines in English to make international viewers know what the song is about, but keep the bulk in Russian. That’s because the song is designed not necessarily to win Eurovision, but to click with Russian women and send them a message of support. And the best way to transmit this message to Russians is to say it in their own language.
The second verse in Russian, going by translations, is pure fire that snarks at the way Russian women get treated—“You’re in your thirties, now where are your children?” “Wear something longer! Wear something shorter!” for instance. Be sure to check out this translation which explains the cultural references woven into this song. This type of rapping isn’t ordinarily my thing and while this is far from my favorite song, I do love her snarky delivery and can’t help but bop my head. And after a spoken word interlude comes the Russian chorus of the song, which is musically the best part and surprisingly easy to sing along to. She sings more lyrics in English, then the Russian chorus one last time as something truly special happens. The screen shows a growing mosaic of hundreds of Russian women, presumably those who sent Manizha videos to be featured on the Eurovision stage. This is a perfect example of Russian ambition and a great way for the country to end Eurovision on a high note.
This is an absolutely perfect final entry for Russia and bookends their Eurovision history in a lovely way. Their debut entry, “Vechnyy strannik” from 1994, feels like a showcase of the kind of music Russia had been making all this time while western Europe was competing in Eurovision. While “Vechnyy strannik” reflected on the past of Russian music, “Russian Woman” represents the anti-war activists in 2020’s Russia who look towards a brighter future. It’s a perfect representation of the side of Russia that does NOT agree with the actions of their country’s dictatorship—every country, no matter how authoritarian, has such a side. Coincidentally, Russia’s first and last entries both landed ninth place.
And with that, I say do svidaniya to Russia’s presence in Eurovision. While most of their entries are too blatantly designed to win Eurovision for me, there are some true gems that show off what has always fascinated me about Russians: their ambitious projects that no other country would create. Maybe someday in the future, if Russia gets its shit together and becomes an upstanding member of the Western world, we could perhaps get more such songs in Eurovision.
(By the way, did you ever notice the microphone stands had Russian folk art wrapped around them? I didn’t notice it until I wrote this post!)
Malta: Je me casse
Artist: Destiny Chukunyere, returning from 2020
Language: English, plus a phrase in French
Key: G♯ minor
Possibly the biggest fan favorite Maltese entry of the 21st century, I wish I liked this a bit more than I do. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the song and Destiny once again has an exceptional voice, but I just do not like electro-swing as a genre and this song leans into that style a lot, particularly the verses. I can’t explain what’s annoying about electro-swing; maybe it just sounds too cheesy and tacky. And I find the talk-singing here a bit cheesy too, sorry to say.
With all that said, it’s a clear crowd pleaser and most certainly deserved its top 10 result, which by 2020’s standards is a huge accomplishment. It also has an interesting multilayered message: it’s partly about women saying no to men who try to seduce them, but also tells women that they should be proud to show off their looks without it having to be to seduce men.
This is another song where the performer ends the song with an extra-loud thank you, which is understandable because as with all 2020 performers, she had to wait an extra year to make it to Eurovision.
Portugal: Love Is on My Side
Artist: The Black Mamba
Language: English, a first for Portugal
Key: B major
This is the first and so far only time Portugal has sent a song to Eurovision entirely in English. Unlike so many other instances of Romance language countries switching to English (e.g. Divine, Say Yay!), it doesn’t feel weird or wrong that Portugal sang in English this year, and it didn’t really invite any outcry among fans. That’s because given all the Portuguese entries I’ve heard from Eurovision, this still feels very much like the kind of music Portugal would make. I lowkey wish most countries in Eurovision were naturally inclined to sing in their own languages more often than not, so that they could sing in English or another language if it still reflects their country’s music scene.
Why does this song still feel like Portugal’s musical output, you may ask? I’d say it’s because the song is understated and melancholic, and because it takes an unusual approach in storytelling—the Portuguese from what I can tell love being unusual. It’s sung by a bunch of men from the first-person perspective of a female sex worker whose life broke into hell but still believes that love is on her side.
This is the song that the German commentator Peter Urban really hoped would qualify, and lucky enough it did! I’m glad this made it through, it’s a very classy song as Erica said in her review. But I also agree with her in that this isn’t the kind of song I’d come back to. It’s a ballad heavy in piano and strings and I am charmed when I do listen to it, but I never feel much of a need to revisit it afterwards. I’m impressed that Portugal landed in the top half this year, and I’m always happy for them when they do.
The first minute or so of the song is broadcast in grayscale on TV, with a narrow aspect ratio reminiscent of early Eurovision. There’s a little detail here that I really love: the text “07 Portugal #POR” moves to the left when the screen expands. It’s a better execution of the grayscale gimmick in “Et uus saks alguse” from 2013. The grayscale gimmick suits the old-timey nature of the song really well, and the narrow aspect ratio makes for some unique camera shots.
Serbia: Loco Loco
Artist: Hurricane, returning from 2020
Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian), plus very short phrases in Spanish and English
Key: D minor, E♭ minor
“Sanja and Ksenja have been friends since 19… sorry, 2017. (laugh)” –a slip of the tongue from Peter Urban, translated to English. That’s how you know he’s an old guy.
This year, Serbia wins the prize in most blatantly sending a rerun of their 2020 entry. The other two contenders are Slovenia and Azerbaijan, but I’d say Serbia replicated what worked about their previous entry most successfully. It’s exactly the same musical rollercoaster that their last entry was, but with a slight extra cherry on top. I never knew I needed a trio of Serbian girls singing lightning-fast lyrics to dancey synth music in my life, but apparently I needed two such songs! This is even better than “Hasta la vista”—the synths sound more professional and the drum beat is quite a lot more varied.
But the real cherry on top that we didn’t have last time is the key change. I can’t explain why, but I absolutely fucking love the key change in this song. Maybe it’s because unlike power ballads, I’m not used to hearing this type of fast dancey pop have a key change, so I don’t view the key change here as clichéd. This key change does what key changes are normally supposed to do, which is give the song an extra juicy layer of hype.
I should mention I love the three different hair colors on each of the girls—they almost look like three flavors of ice cream. I also love watching the wind machine fly their hair everywhere.
United Kingdom: Embers
Artist: James Newman, returning from 2020
Language: English
Key: F♯ major
Now we have the only entry in Eurovision history to score zero points from both the jury and televote. This had never happened in even the semifinals before, and in fact many fans doubted that would even be possible. But it did in fact happen, and sadly it was the UK who met that fate.
I actually have a fun little story to tell related to this song. When I went to Malmö for Eurovision 2024, one of my favorite memories was meeting a British-Greek kid while waiting in line outside the arena for semifinal 2. He was about ten years old and knew all the trivia about Eurovision. He was such a lucky boy, getting to see the contest live at such a young age. His mom (who was also very nice and told me about the Greeks’ favorite entries) kept telling him he should take breaks from blabbering to me, but I genuinely didn’t mind. One part of the conversation that stood out was when I asked him what his favorite British entry was. He said something like, “OK, I know this is a weird choice because it got zero points… but I absolutely love Embers.” And you know what? That’s a sentiment I can get behind. I would say this is the best UK entry of the 21st century till this point, and maybe the second best from 2000 to 2024. It’s a fun upbeat party song with brass and a bouncy beat, exactly the kind of lighthearted fun the world needs amidst a pandemic—which is exactly what James Newman intended with this song. It’s also easy to sing along to, which is a big plus! The biggest problem with the song is that it’s rather repetitive, and has the exact same mood in every verse and every chorus.
I feel so sad for James Newman that he got zero points. I know he was really chill about it in interviews and kept saying that he had a wonderful time in Rotterdam despite the zero points, but I feel sad for him regardless. It makes sense that he had such a calm reaction, since during the postcard, Graham Norton described him as “unguarded and genuine, and such a happy guy”.
Just a few years prior I could have imagined this reaching the top 20 or so—I think scoring last place came down to three factors. From most to least impactful, I would say the reasons are: (1) almost everything else is more competitive, (2) he sounded breathless and shaky throughout the song, and (3) the televoters were biased against the Big Five except Italy. Maybe the third point is petty of me, but I genuinely believe it’s true, because those are the only countries whose entries don’t receive the extra layer of hype from being in the semifinals. I think adding the Big Five songs to the semifinals while keeping the automatic qualification in 2024 was the perfect solution to this problem.
Although I can see why this honest effort scored last place, zero points was WAY too harsh and other UK entries deserved that so much more, like “That Sounds Good to Me” or “Bigger Than Us”. I get why this song gave the UK yet another last place, but I don’t get why this was the one that got zero points.
Greece: Last Dance
Artist: Stefania Liberakakis, returning from 2020
Language: English
Key: D minor
From this song’s postcard, I get the impression that Stefania loves all things Greek—particularly from the Greek food on the table. I’m curious about the pair of Dutch and Greek passports in the postcard. Does she actually have passports from both countries? There’s not much of a need to have two EU passports as far as I know—one is already one of the most OP passports in the world. I’d be jealous of those who have a European Union passport if I didn’t have one myself.
I’m not too big a fan of live performances that are designed too heavily for the TV audience. I know the Eurovision producers love to prattle on about “putting the TV viewers first”, but the performances should also make for a good in-person experience, because the attendees paid tons of money and traveled from all over the world to be there. Luckily most entries from Eurovision 2024 made for a great in-person experience, but there were a few that relied too much on camera shenanigans. And this song is on another level… the live audience saw Stefania dancing in front of a green screen and instead had to look to the monitors in the arena to see the intended visual effects.
This gets off to a sluggish start, but once it’s going I quite like this—nice dancey beat and synth design. I also absolutely adore Stefania’s purple catsuit. The green screen effects I’m not so big on, I feel like they were designed solely to make the song more memorable like an imitation of “You Are the Only One”.
Switzerland: Tout l’univers
Artist: Gjon’s Tears, the absolute legend returning from 2020
Language: French
Key: A minor
“Now if you think we have bad luck… Switzerland, they won the first Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956, won again in 1988 with Celine Dion, but for the last sixteen years, they’ve failed to qualify for the final eleven times.” –Graham Norton three years before Switzerland’s third victory
“Nach elf Jahren schickt die Schweiz wieder einen französischsprachigen Künstler, und Künstler ist das richtige Wort für den 22-jährigen Gjon Muharremaj aus dem Canton Fribourg.“ (After eleven years, Switzerland is once again sending a French-speaking artist, and artist is the right word for the 22-year-old Gjon Muharremaj from the canton Fribourg.) –Peter Urban saying something surprisingly elegant
“Gjon’s Tears is a fucking legend.” –Cedric Fausey completing the rule of three
I love how the postcard tells the story of how Gjon’s Tears got his stage name: he sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley (shown by a record) and drove his grandpa to tears (shown by a childhood video clip), and must also be an accomplished pianist going by the piano in his mini-house.
Everything about this song is absolutely perfect—if “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” didn’t exist, it could be a strong contender for my favorite Eurovision song of all time. I heard the song for the first time while reviewing 1988 and mentioned in a footnote that it blew me away, but didn’t want to get ahead of myself. This song still manages to blow my mind every time I listen to it. The magic of this song is that it’s extremely modern and musically interesting at the same time. This is not to say that 2020’s music normally is bland, but rather that musicians are always going to find a way to tickle my ears.
I’d like to analyze this song’s composition in detail, particularly focusing on the instrumental. Gjon starts by singing the lyrics over simply an A note repeated on the piano—the root note of the song. This lays the foundation of the song from square one and begins it on a mysterious note. It could turn into just about anything, much like a baby human who could grow up to be a million different people. The instrumental builds up a little bit when he sings “c’est l’aube qui décline”, adding the chords of A minor, F major, and E minor—all entirely in the A minor scale, which in this song means white keys.
But then the song adds a new note to the scale in the pre-chorus where he sings “je vois derrière nous des morceaux de toi”. The chord progression mixes in D major, which adds a note outside the A minor scale (F♯) that’s not too unusual to hear, since it does appear in the melodic minor scale. The instrumental of the first section is entirely piano and it doesn’t feel empty, but rather like the beginning of a song bursting with potential. The song deviates from pure piano when he sings the first chorus (tout l’univers) and gains some lovely synths and strings, a very natural buildup.
And then, oh my god, can I fucking talk about that amazing D♭ major chord? Even if you don’t know anything about music theory, you should be able to tell that when he sings the first syllable of “sans toi”, the instrumental throws a big curveball. That’s when the D♭ major chord appears (more precisely a major seventh), and it’s something I distinctly remember surprising me when I first heard that song—akin to the chord progression curveball in “The Wrong Place”. Two of the three notes that make up a D♭ major chord are entirely outside the A minor scale, which is why it sounds so unusual in this song. Yet the song elegantly leads into this chord thanks to the descending vocal and piano notes, so it’s not entirely out of left field.
When the second verse begins, the song gains a cinematic drum beat that grounds it firmly in the 2020’s. I didn’t even really think of the 2020’s as having a distinct style of music until 2023, so it’s pretty awesome that the song sounds THIS forward thinking. I bet that a typical cinematic song in the 2030’s will also sound quite like this. The instrumental progresses similarly to the first verse, but the composition is more fully realized thanks to all those extra instruments. The pre-chorus has some lovely repeating string riffs.
And then the drop of the second chorus, oh my god, the drop! It uses cinematic percussion in the absolute best way possible, in a far less clichéd way than Arcade (which does have some of the same composers). The abstract art behind Gjon drifts apart (more on that later) and then comes another special moment: all instruments except the piano pause at “point d’impact” just like it did at the first chorus, except more instruments had to stop what they were doing. This pause in instrumentation allows the song to hold in the tension throughout the bridge section, then release it in the final chorus. I should also mention I love how I can very crisply hear the last two letters of “impact” here. Something about hearing those two sounds is really satisfying, I don’t know why. Maybe because French is normally so obsessed with silent letters, so this word is a refreshing exception?
Anyway, about the bridge section… as I said, this is where the song holds in its tension. It cycles through the descending chord progression that has the aforementioned D♭ major chord and plays with the string parts a little more. The lowest notes of the chords almost play a chromatic scale but skip one note: F E (skip E♭) D D♭ C, and hidden chromatic scales are a great tool for musical tension.
And then the final drop is such a satisfying release of all the tension: it feels like a pot of water finally boiling, an airplane taking off, or even like the thrill of returning to an event after COVID-19 canceled it. Gjon shows off his lung capacity with his high notes, not in an annoying cheesy way like Albanian singers sometimes do, but rather in a way that fits the tension of the song as the backing vocals sing the lyrics. Then he sings the rest of the chorus lyrics, and the song simply ends with an unaccompanied “tout l’univers” which is good enough for me.
That was a long analysis of the composition, but just you wait, I have even more to say about this amazing song. For one thing, “Tout l’univers” (the entire universe) is a badass inspiring title that gives the viewer high expectations. A song where he feels the pain of the entire universe thanks to romantic breakup better be damn good, and it IS damn good. Dare I say, it’s extremely fucking damn bloody good. You know shit got serious when I pulled out “bloody”, a word that normally only Brits get to use.
Switzerland has had a pretty consistent style of staging from their trying to win Eurovision era, 2019 to 2024. Their style of staging is abstract art which doesn’t relate to the lyrics directly, but rather is meant to be appealing to look at and captivate the viewer. The painted bars forming some kind of cube probably don’t represent anything, but they certainly let Gjon shine! Or, hmm, do they represent the remaining fragments of his love (morceaux de toi, “pieces of you”) when they drift apart behind him? The good thing about Switzerland wanting to win so badly is, it suggests to me that they came well-prepared to put on a good show in 2025. I have high expectations for Switzerland as a Eurovision host, so they better not let me down! And unlike certain other countries that have internally selected as of late, Switzerland always makes sure their contestant can sing live. You know, the UK could really learn something from them!
Gjon’s voice crack when singing “thank you so much” is such an endearing moment, I absolutely love it. We’re so goddamn lucky his voice didn’t crack till after the song ended; that takes some superhuman talent. It’s also a special moment seeing the Serbian ladies cheer for this song. I absolutely love the producers’ touch of showing the contestants cheer for each other’s songs, it makes this contest extra special.
At the end of this song, Graham Norton said that he thought this song could have the right balance between jury and televote appeal to win Eurovision, which is funny because that was exactly my reasoning behind (correctly) predicting Nemo from Switzerland would win 2024. I’m happy with Måneskin being this year’s winner and Nemo being the 21st century Swiss winner, but my god, how much of a deserved winner THIS would have been!
This is now my longest Eurovision song review ever, surpassing “Guildo hat euch lieb!” from 1998, which was 1306 words. It’s also my first review to pass 1500 words. I was so sure I wouldn’t surpass that record until I reached “Europapa” from 2024, but I was wrong! I knew my review of “Tout l’univers” was going to be long, but believe me, I didn’t think it would be THIS long. I suppose it shows that for me, this song is truly something special.
Iceland: 10 Years
Artist: Daði Freyr, returning from 2020
Language: English
Key: D minor
An easy way to tell that I really love a song is if I did an 8-bit cover of it, which I did for “10 Years” last year. One of those days I should also cover “Think About Things”, perhaps after this blog post series is over. I had fun making that cover and you should definitely listen to it!
Among the Nordic countries in 2021, Iceland is unusual because they’re both the only one to send the same artist as in 2020, and the only one to internally select this year. All the Nordic countries take their national finals seriously (Denmark in recent years is debatable), so the fact that Iceland internally selected Daði Freyr instead of hosting Söngvakeppnin goes to show how insanely beloved his last song was.
There are two other ways this song is unusual: first, it’s the only Icelandic entry from 2011 onwards that doesn’t have a version sung in Icelandic. It didn’t need to have an Icelandic version because it didn’t compete in Söngvakeppnin. Second, it’s one of two this year that didn’t get to be performed live on the night of the final (the other is Australia) because one of the band members in the song caught COVID-19. Australia competed using a live on tape performance, which all countries had prepared under the event that some (or all) wouldn’t be able to perform in Rotterdam, whereas Iceland competed using rehearsal footage.
Daði Freyr himself seems like a quirky guy, going by the postcard and the song. The postcard features board games, Lego sets, and cups stamped with the singers’ faces. The performers of this song, besides Daði himself, include his wife, his sister, and three of his childhood friends. From interviews I’ve seen and his demeanor on stage, I get the feeling Daði is an introverted guy who finds music the easiest way to express his feelings on life. As well as his feelings on his wife.
As a song, this is a perfect sequel to “Think About Things” and I think I like both equally, although Daði Freyr’s indie synth pop style sounds a little more mature in this one. It starts with a lovely strings intro then dives into the song proper, which has a funky techno bassline (a plus for me!) and a really nice dancey beat. Then the beat slows down and the chords get groovy in the pre-chorus (we started out so fast), and then comes a short portion I really love: the ultra-low notes when he sings “cause it ages like wine”. It’s so rare for Eurovision singers to showcase how low they can sing instead of how high, and it amazes me that he sings this low and his voice still sounds clear and smooth. It’s lower than I can sing, that’s for sure.
After the second chorus, the song goes in extra cool directions we didn’t hear in his last entry: a short drum solo, then a glorious synthesizer solo, and finally an awesome choir section that showcases a plus side to the new rule on backing vocals. Daði Freyr proved that the rule doesn’t have to be just a COVID-19 safety measure, but it also invites new creative possibilities. The choir has way more voices than six people could sing and it gives an extra layer of life into this song. Then he performs one last chorus and the song ends just like that.
The performance of the song has so many great visual moments worth noting. The silhouettes at the start, the synth solo where three of the singers play their fake keyboards in a circle, and the end where they all freeze in place. The whole song beams with quirky Daði Freyr personality, just like his last entry did, and I love it for that. I also love their teal outfits that each have pixel art of their faces.
Oh yeah, I also need to talk about the lyrics! This song completes Daði Freyr’s trilogy of Eurovision songs. While “Is This Love” reflected on the beginning of his romance and “Think About Things” looks to the future of raising children, “10 Years” focuses on the present state of his marriage and reflects on how good it has been. In 2020 he sang about his daughter and in 2021 he sang about his wife, and both are just as heartwarming. The lyrics are a well-written and eye-opening description of what a happy marriage looks like. I say this because my parents’ marriage has always come off to me as strained and tense, even in the best of times, and I spent my whole life thinking of it as normal till they divorced in 2022. I love my mom and my dad so much and I’m close with both of them, but in retrospect it’s hard to remember them fully getting along with each other.
So when I heard this song for the first time over a year ago, I instantly paid attention to the lyrics and they totally blew my mind—it turns out THIS is what a healthy marriage is supposed to look like! The lyrics are just as well-written as his last entry, simple and easy to understand, yet full of deep meaning. It’s got some great passages like “How does it keep getting better? / Every day our love finds a new way to grow” or “You’re so fascinating / I can’t remember the last time I was bored”. As someone who had no interest in romance for the first 20 years of my life (unusually long, I know), songs like this, and other works of media about romance, have always given me insight on how relationships are supposed to work.
Although Daði Freyr never got to win Eurovision, he landed with a respectable fourth place—impressive for someone who didn’t even get to perform live, and second highest of all the returning contestants. His Eurovision story arc doesn’t end here: we’ll see him again in 2023, but not as a competitor.
Spain: Voy a quedarme
Artist: Blas Cantó, returning from 2020
Language: Spanish
Key: E♭ major
Now we have the second of four songs to get zero points from the televote. I don’t get why Spain sent so many power ballads in this era—is it because “Quédate conmigo” from 2012 did fairly well? In any case, I’m still not big on these Spanish power ballads, even though he’s a pretty good singer. It just sounds too ballady and I especially don’t like the vocal solo in the intro; it just sounds as though the backing track was turned off. I’m also not big on his shouty notes near the end, and it again feels here like the backing vocals are sung by ghosts. Maybe that last point is something I’ll just have to get used to.
I’ve noticed a pattern among all the Big Five entries that scored near the bottom: the UK, Spain, and Germany. If they weren’t automatic qualifiers, they probably wouldn’t have qualified, so they feel out of place in the grand final. This song isn’t bad or anything; it’s just one of those ballads that I sit through till I can get back to the good stuff, which includes…
Moldova: Sugar
Artist: Natalia Gordienko, returning from 2006 and 2020
Language: English
Key: F♯ minor
… this boppy party bop of boppiness, for one. Right as Romania’s entries were getting worse, Moldova’s were getting better and better. This is by far the best of Natalia Gordienko’s entries, it’s not even a question. It’s also the final one composed by Philipp Kirkorov, since his home country (technically not his birth country) was banned the next year, although his dream team would continue their influence in Eurovision.
Anyway, this is an uncomplicated dancey bop about the singer wanting some romantic sugar that’s a tad groovy and utterly bouncy and fun. It has a bit of an unconventional alternation between verse, chorus, pre-chorus, and perhaps even parts that would ordinarily be a bridge. That’s a good thing for me, because it means the song throws curveballs throughout. Natalia is hot, I must admit, and she beams with positive energy throughout all three minutes and is obviously joyed to be on stage.
I love the visual effects on stage and the choreography is so fun to watch. Also, props to her for quickly bouncing back from the microphone drop as though it never even happened. Her ultra-long note near the end shouldn’t be humanly possible—it might be even more mind-blowing than Eden Alene’s long note, I can’t decide. “Was it the longest note? It certainly felt like it.” Ah, good old Graham Norton.
This song also has a Russian version called “Туз буби” (ace of diamonds) and I’d say this song fits the Russian and English languages equally well. The Russian version is heavier in consonants and has a fast pace of lyrics, thus it gives me fairly similar vibes to “Loco Loco”.
Germany: I Don’t Feel Hate
Artist: Jendrik Sigwart
Language: English, sigh. With a spoken sentence in German I guess, not that this counts.
Key: B♭ major
I feel bad saying this because Jendrik seems like a lovable guy, but… I am incredibly ashamed that my country sent this to Eurovision. Especially in a year as strong as this. I get that Ben Dolic didn’t want to return for 2020, but why couldn’t we have been like France and thought, “everyone’s jazzed up about Eurovision returning after COVID, so why not send something designed to win that’s as shamelessly German as possible?”
But nooooo, my country would prefer sending songs that are all sappy and saccharine and in English. This hasn’t just been a thing in the 21st century, Germany did the same shit for like a whole decade after winning with “Ein bisschen Frieden”, an iconic classic that every German knows. I get an uncanny valley feeling from the German words in the background and the spoken sentence in German, because Germany is acknowledging their language in a way but still refusing to sing in it.
Graham Norton said that this sounds like a children’s education song saying things like “don’t play with matches” or “don’t eat soap”, and you know what, HE’S 100% RIGHT. Everything about the song is so damn hard to take seriously. The transition from the twee guitar to crazy funky rock, the extremely abrupt transition back to twee guitar, lines like “I don’t feel hate, that’s the whole point of this song”, the weird middle finger costume that’s technically a peace sign with the index finger controlled by an arm*, just everything about it. This song is extremely out of place in the grand final, which has been common sometimes with Big Five entries, but here it really sticks out like a sore thumb (or sore middle finger?) because pretty much everything else is so good. This is just how it feels to be a German Eurovision fan these days: you get jealous of pretty much every other country because their entries are so awesome and so much more fitting representatives of their country.
Basically the only good part about this song is its message: that you shouldn’t spew angry words at those who hate you, because that’ll just make them hate you more. Instead, you should let yourself smile and be invulnerable to hatred. It’s just that no one will ever take this song’s message seriously. This got a pitiful three points from the jury somehow, and an unsurprising zero from the televote. When watching it, all I can do is put my palm on my forehead. The only thing preventing me from doing a full facepalm is that Jendrik actually seems like a pretty cool guy. In a nutshell, I get what this song was going for but it just doesn’t work.
* A clever loophole to let it on stage, I’ll admit.
Finland: Dark Side
Artist: Blind Channel
Language: English
Key: B minor
In the words of Peter Urban in the semifinal: “Jetzt wird’s laut—die Finnen kommen.” (It’s about to get loud—the Finns are coming.)
Somehow both in the semifinal and final, Finland is sandwiched between two songs that I can’t stand. Well, I’m clearly not in the majority for not tolerating Bulgaria, but I’ll get to that later.
Finland is one of two countries this year that hosted a national final where their 2020 entrant participated but didn’t win. Aksel sent a generic soppy ballad this time and since his national final victory caused uproar last year, it’s no wonder that this won instead. After all those non-qualifications and poor results, Finland landed an excellent sixth place this year: 11th place in the jury, 4th in the televote. They sent the kind of song they do best, making a perfect rebirth for them in Eurovision.
This song is a bit derivative of American nu-metal bands like Linkin Park, but I absolutely love it anyway. It’s so much fun to blast as loud as possible and bang my head to, exactly as a good rock song should do. It immediately dives into that awesome chorus and then has a verse with great interplay between rapping and speaking, with some synth riffs and guitars to tie it together. I also love the “hoo hoo” chanting, reminiscent of “Dschinghis Khan”. This song has quite a lot of different singing styles actually. If only more rock entries in Eurovision were as awesome as this… though it makes sense that Finland does it this well.
Bulgaria: Growing Up Is Getting Old
Artist: Victoria Georgieva, returning from 2020
Language: English
Key: G major
The arena had a lot more empty seats than were usually visible—one of the few times we saw empty seats was during the interlude where Edsilia interviewed commentators, between Finland and Bulgaria. It’s been so long since we last saw commentator booths, this really brings back memories. Especially from 1991 when RAI decided the booths were more important than the scoreboard. Graham Norton waffled over the commentator interviews, as one would expect from him.
The moment this song began in the semifinal I already wanted this to end, and the same is true in the grand final. I can’t stand her breathy voice and weird pronunciation of vowels and I don’t understand why she’s on stage in her pajamas. And she sings this way for the entire three minutes, never letting me focus on the instrumental which is probably supposed to be emotional or something. I just don’t get these dreary sadgirl ballads or why people like them. I’m sorry to anyone who loves this song (which is a lot of fans) but I really hate this song. It’s not quite as horrendous as Latvia, but definitely worse than Germany, so it’s the low point of the grand final for me.
Lithuania: Discoteque (surprisingly not spelled as Discotheque)
Artist: The Roop, returning from 2020
Language: English
Key: F minor, same as 2020
I’m surprised Lithuania didn’t internally select The Roop for 2021, given that their 2020 entry was so popular. This song won the national final by an enormous landslide, earning 87% of all the votes. I feel bad for all the other contestants who obviously stood no chance in hell to represent their country.
Anyway, we’ve now reached the BBBFF of Eurovision 2021! The phrase stands for Best Baltic By Far Forever, not Big Brother Best Friend Forever. If you put all Eurovision songs this year into a triangle shaped like ◁ where the corners are good (top right), bad (bottom right), and boring (left), Estonia would be on the left corner, Latvia bottom right, and Lithuania comfortably within the top right. I kind of want to make triangle diagrams for every Eurovision year, but that would mean going through chanson fests and ballad soup all over again… maybe someday. The only two other years that I’d say have a BBBFF are 2009 (my beloved Estonia) and 2018 (my beloved Latvia). Wait actually, The Roop are also the BBBFF of 2020. BBBFF doesn’t just refer to the best Baltic country’s entry of a given year; rather, it refers to a Baltic entry that is infinitely better than the other two.
The Roop had already sent a fan favorite song in 2020 and this time, they totally outdid themselves. I’m glad Cyprus was drawn into the second half of semifinal 1 because that means the producers weren’t able to do a painfully obvious girlbop opener (they did so in the final). Instead they had to settle for the absolute perfect song to open the first Eurovision contest after COVID. Technically Cyprus ended up in the first half (slot 8 out of 16) because the slots were originally going to be divided into 8 and 9 songs but Belarus, who was also drawn into the first half, was expelled from the competition.
I really cannot overstate how amazing it felt when I watched the first semifinal of Eurovision 2021 and got slammed in the face with this absolute banger. It starts out simple enough, but after the first chorus once the song enters that incredible synthwave bass beat, that’s how I knew Eurovision 2021 was going to be something special. I mean that when I was writing this blog post series, because I sadly didn’t follow this year live. It’s fun and danceable and the synthy drop in particular never fails to wow me. The Roop are masters of making catchy singable songs and I love how they kept a similar vibe to “On Fire” but made the lyrics tie into COVID-19, since they’re about dancing at home.
Given that both their entries are so popular among fans, I’m a bit sad they scored only 8th place, but at the same time, this year was filled with competitive entries and three even bigger crowd pleasers (Ukraine, France, and Italy) came later. Such is the nature of post-COVID Eurovision: the competition has become so fierce that a top 10 result is something any country should be proud of. Also, I find the finger dance easy enough to do with my left hand, but if I try it with my right hand then my fingers quickly hurt.
Ukraine: Shum (Шум)
Artist: Go_A, returning from 2020, and they’re still absolute geniuses
Language: Ukrainian
Key: E minor
Words cannot express how proud I am of my country for… wait, I’m not Ukrainian, never mind. But oh, how I wish I was right now. Or Finnish or Icelandic or Albanian or hell, any of the actually cool countries this year.
This song is fucking amazing and everything I want out of a Eurovision song. It’s cultural, it’s the kind of song I would’ve never heard if not for Eurovision, it’s surprisingly fun to sing along to, and it’s well-written and full of musical depth. I love the way the song gradually speeds up, the rhythmic folksy melodies, the variety of instruments both synth and ethnic, the little grace notes in the flute parts, just the way the whole song builds up and everything about it. The staging is awesome and fits the song really well. It showcases the perfect mix of folk culture and modern dance music, and I love the detail that the guy running the turntables turns a knob at the speedup. Also, Kateryna looks and sings like a badass. I would’ve totally thrown votes at this but I’m happy enough with fifth place, because all the songs that surpassed it are awesome too.
One could argue that Go_A have not one, but two songs called “Shum”. The original version (made for Go_A’s post-Eurovision concert before Eurovision 2020 was canceled) is four minutes long and has some musical elements in common with the Eurovision version, but it was heavily rewritten (both the music and lyrics) to be more suited to Eurovision. The rewrite makes the song more melodically varied and gives it a greater range of notes, which helps make the song appealing to Western European ears. I’ve heard the Eurovision version enough times that the original version sounds a tad restrained.
Part of me is a bit sad “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” exists, because that means if I ever make a video listing my favorite Eurovision song from each country (which I do want to do), I can’t include this masterpiece. This song is the first that comes to mind when I think of Ukraine in Eurovision, whereas “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” is the first to come to mind when I think of Eurovision. I’m also disappointed my wall of text about this song isn’t as huge as others this year. Maybe because I’m not much of an expert in Ukrainian folk music, but I do know someone who is. 🙂
France: Voilà
Artist: Barbara Pravi
Language: French
Key: D minor
I’ve just read that France wanted Barbara Pravi to compete in Eurovision 2020, but she felt that she wasn’t ready for it back then. I never knew that, but it explains a lot about their Eurovision history.
A problem with France in Eurovision is that for the past few decades, their Eurovision entries never ended up popular in France (with a few exceptions)—most were forgotten after the contest. On the other hand, “Bim bam toi”, a Junior Eurovision entry from 2019 that Barbara wrote, became a viral song in France that everyone and their cousin talked about. So is it any wonder that France wanted her to compete in adult Eurovision? I think that most countries stuck in a Eurovision slump want to win again deep down, they just don’t know the right way to do it or are afraid to take risks. I imagine that France’s broadcaster was dead set on bringing Barbara Pravi to Eurovision, so when she declined the offer in 2020, they decided, “well shit, that was our only good idea” and picked up a Melfest reject, then partly localized it into French.
Six months after the planned dates for Eurovision 2020, a song that Barbara Pravi wrote won Junior Eurovision 2020. This woman singlehandedly transformed France into the most overpowered country in the JESC, which is the most successful of all Eurovision spinoffs. She even gave France another Junior Eurovision win in 2022. I’m surprised France didn’t internally select her in 2021, but it’s possible that the success of “Bim bam toi” made more French musicians interested in sending songs to Eurovision. She won the French national final of course, and sent what I would say is their most competitive entry since 1991—the year where they lost a tiebreaker to Sweden.
This song is absolutely stunning, regardless of my feelings about France doing best when they’re stereotypically French. Barbara Pravi gets all the chanson tropes down to a T: she sings freeform over piano and strings music about her real-life romantic troubles, and embraces the painful dramatic feelings that this causes. She’s an absolutely perfect performer, to a degree usually unseen among Eurovision artists, or any musicians. She’s also a crazy talented lyricist and composer. As can be seen from this song and her Junior Eurovision entries, her style of lyrics is artistic, dramatic, and filled with clever rhymes that make the viewer feel her romantic pains. This song is about her standing up for herself amidst a relationship with an abusive partner, while also admitting that she thinks life would be so difficult without him. Everything about the song is so insanely perfect and always gives me shivers. The melodies, the low-pitched string instruments, the gradual speedup near the end, the conviction in her voice.
Even though (spoiler alert) this isn’t my number 1 favorite of the year, Barbara Pravi is too good for this world and this would’ve made such an incredibly special winner. Don’t get me wrong, I think Italy’s a super special winner (their first since 1990), but France had gone even longer without a win—20 years longer than the UK, as Graham Norton pointed out—and in the old days of Eurovision, French-language winners were abundant. This song was designed to WIN Eurovision and even though it didn’t, I’ve been told the French were absolutely shocked that they got second place. They genuinely thought they would never achieve a result this good again. The last time they had landed in the top three was the tiebreaker back in 1991, and it had felt to them as though Europe no longer gave a fuck about French music. It turns out that they still do! So long as France sends the right kind of song.
As a French friend of mine told me earlier this year: “The French started taking the contest more seriously a few years ago and playing to their strengths, and the country had their jaws on the floor when Barbara Pravi took 2nd place. We just couldn’t believe that we would be successful in the contest ever again.”
Azerbaijan: Mata Hari
Artist: Samira Efendi, returning from 2020
Language: English, plus a repeated chant in Azerbaijani
Key: B minor
As much of a fan favorite as “Cleopatra” was, this song didn’t actually do so well, only 20th place. I think this song tried too hard to be a copy of “Cleopatra” without considering if it’s an appealing song in and of itself, which is what Serbia did right and Azerbaijan did wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like the song and find it fun to listen to, just not as much as Efendi’s last song. I think the problems with it are that it has too much of a consistent 3-3-2 beat (except near the end) whereas the beat of “Cleopatra” varied more, and that the pre-chorus doesn’t have the exciting buildup chord progression. The best part by far is the stompy bass section at the end, which I’m glad was carried over from “Cleopatra”. It’s also nice that Azerbaijan is inching closer to acknowledging the existence of their language—they put a chant in Azerbaijani instead of Japanese. They’d finally show Europe what their language sounds like in 2024.
Norway: Fallen Angel
Artist: Tix (Andreas Haukeland)
Language: English
Key: D♭ major, E♭ major
As of this writing. this is the last time that any country besides Albania localized a native-language national final winner into English. This song won the Norwegian national final as “Ut av mørket” (out of the darkness). This is a song that relies heavily on the lyrics and while I don’t have a strong preference for either language version, it makes me nostalgic hearing the Norwegian language sung again.
Erica is right about this song: Tix was unmissable with his angel costume and crush on Efendi and all his honest talk about struggles with depression, but it really does sound like a middle of the road boyband song. I’m thankful she described it this way, because otherwise I would’ve had no idea how to describe it. The lyrics are about Tix getting rejected by his old crush and I feel extremely mixed about the way he puts his crush on a pedestal. On the one hand, his songs tend to be about mental struggles and his intention is to show his fans that he has to deal with depression and tough emotions just as much as they do. On the other hand, I’m just a tinge creeped out by his attitude of “she was the greatest woman in the universe so obviously a weakling like me couldn’t be with her”. He seems like such a sweet and genuine guy, but I just can’t help the way I feel about the lyrics. I want to like this song way more than I do.
Oh yeah, the moment where he takes off his sunglasses and reveals the effects of his Tourette’s syndrome is great and iconic.
Netherlands: Birth of a New Age
Artist: Jeangu Macrooy, returning from 2020
Language: English, plus two repeated phrases in Sranan Tongo
Key: B♭ major
Now we’ve reached the final, and in my opinion, the least deserved of the televote zero-pointers. From most to least deserving of zero points, I’d rank them as Germany, Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands. This is also the only entry whose running order slot was chosen in 2020, since it’s the host entry.
I can kind of see why everyone forgot to vote for this, but come on guys, zero points is SO HARSH! This is a really well put together Afro-Caribbean cultural song that works perfectly as a sequel to “Grow” and as a host entry. While “Grow” is about the uncertainties of adulthood, “Birth of a New Age” is about adulthood allowing people to start a new era of history. It’s inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, but it could also be taken to relate to a post-COVID world, or even a post-COVID Eurovision.
The song has lovely vocal harmonies that are performed live, which is good because harmonies are the whole point of soul music. It seamlessly alternates between electronic soul music and traditional Caribbean music heavy in percussion. I love how the song starts with the electronic beat, later transitions into the Caribbean beat, and combines both beats in the final chorus. “Grow” and “Birth of a New Age” tell a story together so well; definitely the best storytelling duo of 2020/2021.
I always get a bit miffed when a song is said to represent an unusual language but only has one or two lines, but I can forgive it in this song because Sranan Tongo is an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. And the lyrics it does have in this creole are proverbs that tell you a bit about the history of the region: “yu no man broko mi” and “mi na hafu sensi” (you can’t break me, I’m half a cent).
I do like this song, but would I have voted for this? Probably not, unless I was a Dutchie abroad, which I am not. At least it got 11 points from the jury, but that’s still really paltry. I’ll blame it on the curse of automatic qualifying, a curse that we might finally be done with thanks to the rule change of 2024.
Italy: Zitti e buoni (the winner)
Artist: Måneskin, the first Eurovision winners to be (partly) younger than me
Language: Italian
Key: E minor
I recently learned that the title of this song doesn’t technically mean “shut up and behave”, which is how it’s usually translated. “Zitti e buoni” on its own means “quiet and well-behaved”, and it’s part of the line “Vi conviene stare zitti e buoni”, which means “You better shut up and behave”, or more literally “you better be quiet and well-behaved”. I don’t actually speak any Italian, but I can put two and two together thanks to my knowledge of French.
I’m so much in two minds about this song’s victory, because on the one hand I love Måneskin and their musical style, and them winning Eurovision gave them an ongoing wave of international popularity, not far from the levels of ABBA and Celine Dion. They have so much musical talent and they thoroughly understand the style of old-timey rock and roll and adapt it into totally their own personality. My mom is a fan of the band too and has a few of their songs on her Spotify playlist, such as “Vengo dalla luna” and “Gossip” (plus their Eurovision song). She loves their musical style but has told me she finds their English lyrics childish at times, which is fair and perhaps inevitable. She’s originally from Germany but has lived in the United States for so many years that she speaks English like a native.
On the other hand, France and Switzerland would’ve both made more special winners, not just because they’re in French (a language that hasn’t won Eurovision since 1988), but also because they’re exceptionally great songs. You could make a case for either song deserving victory more: France has the perfect style of French expressiveness and they’ve been waiting longer for a win, but Switzerland’s style of instrumentation is more forward-thinking and innovative. Switzerland got their long-awaited third victory three years later, but France still hasn’t won since 1977, and I can only hope they keep the momentum from “Voilà” and “Mon amour” till they win.
Part of me wants to say Italy won over France and Switzerland because they were later in the running order. Italy got fourth place in the jury and won the televote, whereas France was third in the televote and Switzerland was sixth. Maybe I’m spitballing because I would’ve wanted one of the songs in French to win slightly more, but I feel the producers decided Italy needed more of a boost than France did. Was it because of the betting odds, perhaps? I purposely try my best to tune out the betting odds because I feel that takes away all the fun from Eurovision.
In any case… I can tell from this song’s postcard that the members of Måneskin love nothing more than to make music. Other postcards feature niche hobbies of the singers or their favorite foods, but theirs entirely features musical instruments and speakers. Their love of making music comes across on stage too. They deliver a genuine rock and roll performance filled with awesome guitar riffs and basslines and drum fills, and Damiano David has such a great rock and roll voice which works both in Italian and English. It takes an ungodly amount of skill to sing all those Italian lyrics so quickly, I could never imagine pulling it off. This song jams a ton of musical ideas into just three minutes, and I mean it in the best way.
But… this just isn’t my winner of the year, and there are other songs that would’ve made better winners. That’s not Måneskin’s fault, I love them and they deserved their victory, that’s the fault of this year for being so damn competitive.
One more fun fact: the original version of this song has two lines with profanity, and in Eurovision they’re censored by editing the lines without breaking the song’s flow. That’s exactly what songs should do, I really hate when singers omit swear words live, like “No one gives a (pause) about what’s soon to come” from “Always on the Run”. Måneskin performed the uncensored version of this song for their winner’s reprise, and probably got away with it because only English speakers care this badly about swear words.
Sweden: Voices
Artist: Tusse (Toussant Michael Chiza)
Language: English
Key: A minor, B♭ minor
Melodifestivalen is such a huge cultural event in Sweden that canceling it in favor of internally selecting the Mamas would have been unthinkable. The Mamas participated with a song called “In the Middle” and ended third place in Melfest, so they’re the second contestant from 2020 that didn’t win their national final this year. “In the Middle” feels like it came from a parallel universe where Sweden did internally select the Mamas, since it’s in a very similar style but a little more melancholy.
I know Melodifestivalen is the competition where the wrong song wins every year, but this year it must have really been the wrong song. I’m not even familiar with the lineup of Melfest 2021, but I just know that if I was following the contest live, especially if I was Swedish, I would have been so salty this won. It’s just a generic nothingburger pop song with a generic beat and melodies that is not good or bad in the slightest, just inoffensive at best.
I find it strange that the producers decided to put this of all songs into the life slot. Were they biased towards Sweden? Did they feel putting Italy into the life slot would have boosted them too much? Did they think Sweden needed a good running slot or else they would’ve scored near the bottom, which would’ve made Swedish fans pissed? This landed 14th place, Sweden’s worst result since 2013 (same ranking), and only their second time on the right side of the scoreboard since 2010.
This song also has a French version, and it reminds me of “The Best in Me” because it really doesn’t want to be in French and has most of the chorus in English. And the studio version isn’t even in the same key. I hate when producers can’t decide what key a song should be in and that’s common with Swedish entries. See also “Heroes” and “Unforgettable”.
San Marino: Adrenalina
Artist: Senhit (returning from 2011 and 2020) featuring Flo Rida
Language: English
Key: B♭ minor
After that boring-ass Swedish pop song, we have the type of bouncy fun song that the producers predictably put in the final slot. This actually works well as both an opener (in semifinal 2) and a closer. At the start, it gets listeners in good spirits and excited for what’s left, and at the end it keeps them in good spirits as they vote and wait for the results.
Even San Marino took Eurovision seriously this year. San. Fucking. Marino!!! So why didn’t Germany? … OK, fine, I won’t be a party pooper. This is Senhit’s redemption arc, finally a song that fans generally like and has wide appeal. It has similarly whimsical lyrics about obsessive attraction to her love interest much like “Freaky!”, but the genre is completely different. It’s a hip hop dancey song that sounds a little Latin American, a little Turkish, and all around loads of fun.
This song didn’t necessarily need Flo Rida in it, because Senhit is a gem who carries this song on her own. She does a lot on stage and for once I mean it in a good way. That said, Flo Rida’s style of rapping fits the song like a glove, and plus, I love telling Americans who know nothing about Eurovision that Flo Rida competed in it. Not just because Americans know who he is, also because this fact perfectly encapsulates the weird, whimsical spirit that Eurovision has had since it began in 1956.
It’s a shame this song only got 13 televote points, but considering four entries got zero, that’s not actually too bad! It means there are fans here and there who liked it enough to vote for it. I would have possibly thrown a few votes at San Marino in 2021, but viewers from the rest of the world couldn’t vote until 2023 anyway. This is by far the best Sammarinese entry, zero question.
Who’s my favorite?
Out of the many great songs in the grand final, I think my three biggest favorites are the hypnotic folk dancey banger from Ukraine, the shiver-inducing chanson from France, and the just as shiver-inducing cinematic ballad from Switzerland. For most of the time I wrote this blog post series, I had thought for sure I’d choose Ukraine as my winner this year. But over the past month or two, I became obsessed with Switzerland, Tout l’univers so I’ll choose that for my winner. France is almost my winner too, but it’s not quite as much a song I can casually listen to.
- 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)
- Russia, 1 (2020)
- Serbia, 3 (2004, 2011, 2012)
- Sweden, 3 (1974, 1996, 2018)
- Switzerland, 2 (1986, 2021)
- Turkey, 2 (1978, 2010)
- Ukraine, 2 (2007, 2016)
- United Kingdom, 2 (1962, 1981)
- (22 winners)
Ah man, I feel bad for not picking Ukraine or France as my winner. But my heart knows that Switzerland is my favorite entry of the year.
General thoughts:
Show as a whole:
Oh my fucking god, this is such a wonderful year in every way. The Netherlands knocked it out of the park with their hosting, it’s absolutely unreal. They’re the first country to pull off the four-host formula in a way that works for me. Chantal and Jan were usually paired together as the normal TV hosts, and Edsilia and Nikkie were paired together as the Eurovision nerds. Edsilia brightens up any room with her positive energy, and Nikkie just beams with a love of all things Eurovision. I also love the billboard teasers for interval acts and just the overall positive vibe. The lineup of songs is fantastic, almost all the right songs qualified, and I love that we saw so many shots of the contestants enjoying each other’s songs.
Remember the triangle I talked about in Lithuania’s review? Although Switzerland is my winner of the year, eight other songs are comfortably inside the top right corner: Albania, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Serbia, and Ukraine. In other words, this year has no less than nine songs that I completely, utterly, absolutely fucking adore. That’s almost a quarter of the entire contest! During the recap I tried imagining who I would’ve voted for: let’s say 5 votes each to Switzerland, Ukraine, Iceland, and France. This grand final has so damn many great songs that I would’ve probably stuck to who I’d have wanted to win. (EDIT: Wait wait, Belgium is on the top right corner too, so make that ten songs. See what I mean by this year being too fucking good?)
OK, enough positive gushing, let’s dissect the rest of the show as usual.
Interval acts:
The first interval act starts as a pre-recorded film but transitions to a live show in the arena—been forever since that happened. I think the same was done in the 1996 and 2010 interval acts, and probably some I forgot about. It’s essentially a well put together video show with English-language pop music by Dutch DJs, which is fun to watch so it’s good with me. Even if I wish the Dutch acknowledged the existence of their own language more.
After another skit with Nikkie comes a behind the scenes film about Eurovision 2021. Graham Norton said that even though this film would normally just be time filler, the Dutch team really deserves appreciation this time. He also went off about how much of a miracle it was that the show could be put on, especially since the UK’s relaxation of lockdown rules hadn’t happened in the Netherlands. He was so positive throughout the show and everyone else was too. The COVID-19 pandemic made Eurovision recover stronger than ever and elevate the songs to a new standard of quality that we’ve seen every single year since. I hope the 2024 drama doesn’t weigh down this high quality standard!
The skits going down memory lane (an annual tradition at this point) and featuring prior winners were all surprisingly sweet and not trying too hard to be funny. The Rock the Roof interval act is fun, one of the better “old Eurovision winners” acts because it goes way back in time and features great rooftop scenery. I sang along the Dutch lyrics of “Ding-a-Dong”, and speaking of Dutch, the rearrangement of “De troubadour” is some refreshing representation of music in Dutch! Lenny Kuhr is still a great singer and guitarist after all those years. Then comes the obligatory “last winner sings their old song and a new song” act, which is fine enough even though both are piano ballads, and had to be pre-recorded because poor Duncan caught COVID.
Even though the final has multiple interval acts, the first one feels like the interval act, which is good because I like when one interval act feels like the main one.
Voting:
Let me start by saying the human dancers forming numbers 10 to 0 in the countdown was a fun surprise, it actually made me laugh. They touched each other a lot and I hope none of them caught COVID! But I assume they all tested negative beforehand. Oh, and I didn’t know until today that Martin Österdahl was an author! I thought he was only a TV executive, nothing more. Chantal Janzen mentioned the guy was following the footsteps of Jon Ola Sand, but come on, no mention to our good friend Frank Naef? Every time I hear the obligatory “you’re good to go” speech, I think about Frank Naef whose role as a scrutineer was so much greater.
Obligatory list of spokesperson shenanigans:
- That poor 10-year-old boy from Greece got the honor of announcing his country’s twelve points, only for it to be Cyprus yet again.
- Cyprus’s spokesperson said in Dutch, “Goede avond Rotterdam, bedankt voor het opnieuw openen van ons leven vanavond met muziek!” (Good evening Rotterdam, thank you for opening our life anew with music!) This guy loves showing off his foreign language skills and this time he was actually pretty decent.
- The lady from Belgium said: “Goedenavond beste noorderburen, wat hebben jullie dat allemaal weer fantastisch gedaan vanavond, proficiat!”* (Good evening dear northern neighbours, you’ve done another fantastic job again tonight, congratulations!) (Thanks Erica Dakin for the translations!)
- I was so hoping Barbara Schöneberger (the German spokesperson) would give twelve points to Barbara Pravi, and I was right! Now if only Pravi also got the Barbara Dex award, the trio of Barbaras would be complete.
- Not for the first time, Russia gave twelve points to a song that Philipp Kirkorov composed. I caught Natalia Gordienko saying “спасибо”.
- Carola from Sweden gave a minute-long speech with slips of the tongue and it annoyed the shit out of me. She was so goddamn self-indulgent.
Graham Norton kept good spirits during the voting, despite the UK keeping zero points, and despite his home country of Ireland not even qualifying. He was as happy as anyone else that Eurovision came back. But he really was sad about the double zero points and tried his best to stay positive.
* I’m told that “proficiat” is a very Belgian way to say “congratulations”, and the Dutch would instead say “gefeliciteerd”. There’s your language lesson of the day!
The televoting section was an emotional rollercoaster—OK, to be fair, it’s like that every year. It started with the infamous quadruple zero points, of course. In order from least to most surprising, I’d rank them as Germany, the UK, Spain, and the Netherlands. I forgot that I already knew about the zero points for a second, and said “what?!” when the Netherlands got zero. Serbia’s 82 points cheered me up, but Albania’s 35 bummed me out again. Sweden’s 63 I feel was too much.
The first three-digit televote score went to Lithuania, which got 165 points. You could hear the audience cheering when their score was announced. I feel they deserved a bit more than that, but top ten is still pretty good. Then my mood was weighed down when Belgium got just three. Finland was the first to get over 200 points, and that’s when shit gets real. They were in the lead but Ukraine took them over—Kateryna Pavlenko looked absolutely shocked to get 267 points.
I’m surprised but relieved Bulgaria got only 30 televote points, because fans tend to be obsessed with that song. Iceland briefly in the lead is a great moment but it didn’t last long, since Italy was the only to get over 300 points. Then it was clearly hard for anyone else to surpass them. Malta’s 47 points is shockingly low, whereas France and Switzerland got respectable three-digit points.
In the end I’m happy enough with Italy as a winner, but as will be true for the next three years, the runner-up winning would’ve been so much more special. I’m also over the moon that none of the top three are in English this year. Native-language music is cool, you guys! That’s the cherry on top of the wonderful year that was Eurovision 2021.
I’ve outdone myself yet again! At 14,302 words, this is now my longest Eurovision blog post. I don’t know how I pulled it off, but apparently I did. I definitely need a little break now that this is done.
See you next time as I complain about “Disko” and “Lock Me In” getting last place.
Cookie Fonster's stuff 
Good evening! After a long while of regularly reading l̶u̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ a̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶, I’ve finally gathered the courage to actually comment and say hi. Your analyses of Eurovision songs are deeply interesting to me as someone with absolutely no musical talent, I don’t even know how to extract that kind of detail from music so it’s really fascinating to read someone who can, gives me a whole new perspective on tunes I love I’d never have thought about otherwise ☺
I love 2021! Such a brilliant, diverse year. It was the year I got back into Eurovision as a casual hobby – back when I was a child/young teen in Poland I watched it fairly regularly, but after moving to the UK in 2007 I fell out of it for 12 years due to… life getting in the way I guess. The last edition I watched in full before 2021 was 2009, and even then it took my recent rediscovery of how much I love this contest to remember that songs other than Fairytale existed that year. While living in fairly severe isolation (with my only human interaction being an NHS worker) during the worst of COVID in 2021, I randomly stumbled upon Shum, which was an utter revelation to me at the time and is still a song I happily listen to very often. I’m really, really glad it pulled me into following Eurovision 2021, which ended up being a highlight of that dire year and Go_A’s catalogue certainly earned a permanent spot in my playlists.
That’s not to say it was the only amazing song that year, I’m not even sure if I’d consider it my winner (it was such an open competition that I still don’t know what actually is my personal winner haha):
France and Malta are the “fan favourites” I don’t personally get – Barbara Pravi is brilliantly talented and brings oodles of suitable drama, but something about Voila as a song just doesn’t speak to me. I want to say I don’t like chansons, but then Slimane ended up being one of my favourites in 2024 so maybe it’s just that particular song that doesn’t click with me, it has a certain overwhelming, shrill quality to it that I just don’t enjoy. Meanwhile, Malta’s song I just find painfully generic, which is sad as I actually really enjoyed All Of My Love’s groovy Aretha Franklin-like energy and Destiny is certainly an exceptionally capable singer. I think part of it is also that I don’t tend to gravitate towards girlpower songs, the “I’m so awesome, hop off you puny man” kind of song needs to be done extremely well to click with me and this didn’t. I would have preferred to see Croatia in the final instead of this, it was no winner but I just enjoyed it a lot more instrumentally and lyrically as far as girlbops go, or failing that I’d also accept Denmark since their joyful “middle aged men reliving their youth” energy was a lot of fun and I think deserved to qualify, I think they’ve done this shtick a lot better than Nebulossa did 3 years later.
I’ve gone on for quite long with this, so I will take the opportunity to say thanks on your good work with this blog, and I will certainly look forward to the next post 😀
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Yay, I have another new commenter! I’m glad you’ve chosen to awaken from the shadows, because I love getting comments on my Eurovision reviews. It’s been a pleasant surprise getting this much traction on my last few posts.
I feel like Eurofans who had to experience the cancellation of 2020 have a different perspective than I do—they all tend to point out that in 2021, the audience was craving something light and fun that could make them party, which is why the slow songs didn’t do so well. On the contrary, as the German commentator pointed out, slow songs did surprisingly well in 2022 (at least the semis). I’m almost done with my 2022 semifinals post actually, you’ll see it soon!
And Lithuania would make a great next first-time winner. After sending a whole bunch of weird baffling entries for so many years, they’ve been taking Eurovision seriously this entire decade so far.
My mom actually has the opposite opinion from you on Måneskin’s English skills: she’s told me that they speak and sing in English surprisingly well for foreigners.
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I’m glad, I genuinely love this contest and since I don’t have a lot of people to discuss it with in my life (the only other person I know irl who likes Eurovision is my brother, who I’ve watched the last few contests with, hoping to convert my boyfriend eventually but his very specific music tastes are a bit of an obstacle) the three blogs I’ve stumbled upon that you were one of were a breath of fresh air, even if I didn’t agree with the stated opinions. The diversity of thought makes it more fun, and I definitely had good laughs even at rants that tore into songs I liked 😀
I’m sure there are some people who think otherwise, after all there’s plenty of hardcore slow ballad fans (and I don’t really hate them overall myself, it’s a very case by case basis on whether I do that depends very much on whether the performer is capable of making me feel what they’re singing about), but I think most people in 2021 were just so unhappy that they were craving something that would bring some light, and Zitti E Buoni was in the right place at the right time to deliver just that. Voila and Tout L’Univers may not have been quite as bouncy, but they were also quite rousing and energetic examples of their genres that were performed by exceptionally gifted, convincingly emotional singers which is why they placed very high. Even though I don’t love all songs in the year, there’s pretty genuinely no song I hate either, my worst rating in 2021 is just “generic” which is wonderful and means I’m generally capable of listening to the whole roster with no skips. I’m not sure what’s the magic behind slow songs doing much better overall in 2022, but I know I certainly don’t get why that Australian entry became such a hot fandom subject, I can get along with some waily ballads but definitely not that one :S
They certainly have been responsible for some very questionable entries in the past, but for the last few years Lithuania has been quite literally on fire (hehe), and I keep all of my fingers crossed that they’ll continue this momentum. I’ve watched 2023 contest in full with my brother and I actually remember not liking Stay that much while he loved it a lot (he’s normally a hiphop/EDM guy so it really shocked me), but after a while it managed to really grow on me and I really love it now. We both placed Luktelk in 2024 high on our lists, and hopefully in 2025 they release an entry I can firmly root for.
That is quite surprising, perhaps it’s just my brain not quite getting along with their English stuff then? I’ll admit I’ve been warming up to some of their songs in English recently due to one of my best friends (who normally doesn’t like rock/metal at all) suddenly picking up a liking for Maneskin, and I’ve had to concede that Honey (Are You Coming) is brilliant. It’s not that I think they’re a bad band at all, I really don’t, it’s just that something about the vocals was irritating me but at this stage it seems to be resolving ☺
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I barely know anyone in real life who’s into Eurovision either. The closest would be my mom, who watched the contest for the first time in probably 25 years or so because I went to Malmö, and now she’s interested in going to Basel with me! But honestly, I don’t mind not knowing many people IRL who share my nerdy interests—that’s why it’s so special to go on trips and meet people who do.
And spoiler alert: I find “Not the Same” a slog to listen to as well. I plan to go in detail about why that is, but the biggest reason is title repetitis.
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I will look forward to your proper analysis of why, but I have a feeling it will heavily overlap with my own too – it’s that kind of waily, dreary ballad that I simply cannot connect with, it goes on too long with what it’s trying to do and its subject doesn’t connect with me either. There was not a lot of ballads in the 2020’s, but this one was unlucky to coincide with a few other very dreary ones. Thankfully, 2022 is the year that my native country releases an entry that is actually amazing for the first time since 1997’s Ale Jestem. I wish Anna Maria Jopek was interested in competing further, her music style is soooo up my street 😦
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Ah. Now we’ve reached the final. This year was so packed with several entries that I liked. This year, my favorite was also Switzerland, for no reason other than that it just is the one that stuck out to me the most. I also liked 22 of the 26 songs in the final (with the coincidental exception of the bottom 3), but I would say my personal highlights are France, Italy, Ukraine (my 3rd place), Finland, Lithuania, Iceland, Serbia (my 2nd place), Russia, and Cyprus.
I can see why the bottom 4 got 0 points in the televote. At best, I would say that the Netherlands deserved at least 1 point, because I at least liked the live performance (not necessarily the studio version). But I couldn’t really put myself into enjoying Spain, Germany, or the United Kingdom much. Therefore, I totally see why those 4 countries got 0 points in the televote.
About Albania…. I honestly do not see how it’s an issue that the EBU or the organizers of the contest would always put Albania (or as a matter of fact, just about any country) in a mediocre-at-best running order position. Last year, Ukraine got put in the 2nd slot and placed 3rd. Albania was also in the grand final in 2015, 2018, and 2023 and they were drawn in rather great (by their song quality’s standards) R/O positions (26, 12, and 10, respectively). That being said, I totally understand if people have grievances about this phenomenon.
Even if this year is stacked, I wouldn’t really personally change any of the results (in both shows).
Good luck with 2022!
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About the death slot… I just don’t think it’s fair for the producers to put the same countries in the death slot most year, which is why I found it a good thing that they gave the slot to a country with a positive reputation and they managed to score well. I think Eurovision voters are biased towards Ukraine, and for good reason: they have such a strong track record in Eurovision. I think their love of Ukrainian entries is due to a mix of that and the war.
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You’ve reached some really good years. Now, I’ll try to keep my comment comment brief(-ish) because I want to save some thoughts for my own blog. But first of all, congratulations on such a long post.
Albania. It seems like the EBU, the juries and the televoters all hate Albania. They’ve only ever had one top 5 result, two top 10 results and NQd about 50% of the time. It doesn’t matter that they keep sending great stuff, everyone always ignores them. I feel like it’s all down to almost impenetrable cultural barriers because, for example, Ukraine has never given points to Albania in the final. It seems like they’re destined to keep doing poorly until the end of time because FiK selects songs most of Europe doesn’t care about (I do, but I’m not “most people”).
Belgium!!!! Belgium is my winner this year!!!!! It took me a little bit to get there, so I didn’t vote for it in the final (but I did vote for it in the semi), but I should’ve done both. It makes me proud that Ukraine gave it 33% of its televote points (in general, a lot of Eastern European countries had it pretty high, but not in the top 10, which just shows what I’ve been talking about all this time – we like this kind of songs). In general, I almost always agree with the Ukrainian televote the most (we always give points to at least one underdog entry, which is so based), which is good, I suppose. Still, other countries should’ve given them more as well.
I loved your analysis of Russia. I love everything about it and if I didn’t always send only one vote back in the days, I would’ve spared some votes for it as well. I’m so glad that Little Big didn’t return becaue it’s a way better ending to Russia’s participation than whatever telebaity bs Russia would’ve sent otherwise. Russian Woman, on the other hand, is close to being my favourite Russian entry. The only reason it isn’t is because Vechnyy strannik edges out a little bit. Why? Well, you’ll have to wait for my 2021 post to learn that (whenever that happens).
I think you’ve overestimating how much of a fan favourite Je me casse is these days. Ask any fan and they’ll likely be gleeful about its televote result. The advertising campaign already soured a lot of people on it, but a lot people have been downright vicious towards it ever since the fact that Malta’s broadcaster was manipulating the odds before the shows came out.
I admit, I was among the fans that were sceptical about Portugal’s chances to qualify this year. At the same time, I was desperately hoping that I’d be wrong and it turned out that I was. It sailed through the semifinal without any issues.
Now, since I barely give a shit about most girlbops, I’ll cover them all in one paragraph, breaking the order of my reviews. Cyprus so bland as shit, Fuego clone #74882001290. Serbia is a lot more enjoyable than their 2020 effort, I feel like I could put this on voluntarily if I felt like it. Greece is bland as hell, of all the entries in the top 10, this one deserved it the least. Moldova is one of my least favourite entries of the decade. Words can’t describe it how awful I think it is – and the Russian version is even worse btw. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is just charmless and bland, it’s a huge downgrade of Efenti’s 2020 entry which already was far from a favoruite from me. And this time, I’m not a hipster for having a lot of these opinions because even the biggest girlbop lover I know doesn’t like Azerbaijan or Moldova this year. The only good girlbop this year was from Croatia, but it NQd, so whatever.
Now, as for Tout l’univers, I actually prefer Repondez-moi, which is a lot more undrstated, which makes me connect with it more. That’s not to say that Tout l’univers is bad, of course it isn’t. It just isn’t as good for me. The same goes for Shum, which is great, but I still prefer Solovey.
With Iceland, I keep going back on which one I prefer: Think About Things or 10 Years. I feel like musically, Think About Things clicks with me more, but 10 Years has better lyrics. Both are really good though, even if I don’t return to either one pretty much at all anymore.
I love Finland though. Finally, they were back on track and sent a genre they’re great at: metal. Despite some of the cringiest lyrics in the history of Eurovision (written by an edgy tryhard teenager as one of my friends described it), I still enjoy it a lot. It sounds exactly like the kind of music I used to listen to when I was 13 or 14, so it scratches that nostalgic itch.
I’m also surprised you think that The Roop outdid themselves this year as I find Discoteque to be nowhere near as good as On Fire. It’s still good, fun and groovy, but On Fire just felt a lot more irresistible. I’ll compare both in my own blog at some point.
France, for once, didn’t fumble it with anything. Everything about this entry was designed to win and attract as many votes as possible. And yet, I just can’t help but feel like it’s a retread of music I’ve already heard. That prevents me from fully clicking with it, it just feels like something already familiar to me. And that’s the pitfall of France being ultra-French: they risk sounding too familiar.
I actually liked Grow in 2020, it felt like a good host entry (a country showcasing a style of music different from what they usually send to Eurovision). Birth of a New Age was a good host entry as well, but I don’t think it was anywhere near as good of a song (sadly). Still, of all televoting 0 points, I feel like this was the most undeserved one.
Now, Italy. That actually was the song I voted for on the night. I just feel like it leaves the biggest first impression and that’s why it won. A lot of the other songs have more depth, but it takes several listens to finally get to them, while Zitti e buoni shows everything it has to show right away. That’s the best formula to win in Eurovision, even though it often leads to people saying that a song “didn’t deserve” to win (I think that every winner deserved to win, even ones I dislike). But it doesn’t happen with Zitti e buoni too often, thankfully, even though I know several haters of it. While it’s grown off me over the years a bit, I still think it was an absolutely worthy winner. Besides, like I said in one of my DMs, a ballad could’ve never won in 2021, people wanted something energetic and fun.
Phew. The “ish” in my promise to make this “brief(-ish)” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but can you really blame me. I guess I’ll wrap it up here.
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I’m really curious if the next three grand final posts will surpass my 2021 review in length! I doubt it personally; it could happen for 2024, but the biggest bombshell of the year got disqualified. Part of me wants to discuss “Europapa” in its grand final running order slot, as a middle finger to the EBU for disqualifying it, but I think I’d rather have it end the semifinals post for the sake of my sanity. Because my review of Europapa WILL be absolutely fucking huge.
Belgium is seriously such a hidden gem and the televote did it so dirty. I imagine that a Eurovision viewer in 2050, when they get to 2021, will reach Belgium and think “oh my fucking god no one told me this song existed, why does nobody talk about it, it’s great!” It has such a different personality from “Release Me” and I love both.
As much as I love Little Big, “Russian Woman” was a far better final entry for Russia. 1994 and 2021, their first and last years, are the years where I feel Russia was truest to itself, and not pretending to have a different musical culture for the sake of winning Eurovision.
Malta is why I always get skeptical over phrases like “this was one of the favorites to win” because half the time it makes no damn sense why. I haven’t actually seen that many fans talk about “Je me casse”, so I’m curious to see some more criticism of it.
I completely disagree with you on the “good girlbops” of 2020—I’ll go with Serbia first, Moldova second. Then I’ll rank the other girlbops from best to worst as Azerbaijan, Croatia, Greece, and Cyprus.
And you have a good point about Italy’s victory—the winner of Eurovision is definitely about who gives the best first impression, especially to televoters. Because most televoters are clearly casual winners. I think that’s part of why Bambie Thug did so well, most viewers did not care about or even know about Bambie’s controversial behavior, they just saw a surprisingly exciting song and gave it votes.
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I was on a high after the 2021 contest. It was a such a strong year in all the ways, and the year off did wonders in terms of what was brought to the table. I haven’t rewatched it since, though in my current re-watch of every Eurovision, I’m saving it until the very end.
I’m surprised you have “Tout l’univers” as your winner, especially as “Shum” seems to be more on your street. I prefer “Repondez-moi” in terms of Gjon’s Tears songs, as it feels a bit rawer and cuts a bit harder for me. Love your musical analysis of it, though.
But my overall favorite is “Voila”, as it just hits all the right spots. The song is fantastic (I always interpreted it as Barbara coming into her own as a singer, though), the staging exquisite, and Barbara performing it as if it were the last time she would ever sing. Everything about it was perfect.
That said, I can never get mad about “Zitti e buoni” winning. I felt like Maneskin hit the right nerves for Europe (along with “Shum”–my second overall favorite!) in terms of wanting to get out of the house and scream. “Voila” and “Tout l’univers” don’t really have that. (and if you have the chance, check out the Sanremo orchestral on YouTube–that is divine)
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Shum is a very “me” kind of song, that’s for sure. My winner is an extremely close call between Ukraine, France, and Switzerland, and I’m not quite sure which is my second and which is my third place. I love songs that surprise me musically, and that’s how “Tout l’univers” really shines. If I was watching in 2021 I would’ve 100% expected France to win and been a little sad they didn’t.
And “Zitti e buoni” sounds so good with proper live instruments and an orchestra! I can tell that performances like this are what the members of Måneskin were made to do.
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I’m a little surprised that you say Karma is better than Ktheju Tokes, but that’s mainly because I don’t agree. It’s a great song, but to me it’s not as much of a masterpiece as Ktheju Tokes. Why? I don’t know, I’ve got musical talent, but I’m not able to pick apart songs musically like you can, so all I can do is go by gut feeling. Albania do keep getting shafted by the death slot though, and they ought to complain.
I’m also glad that Belgium qualified over other, more ‘fan favourite’ entries such as Denmark (though I can’t remember if those were in the same semi) because I think it’s a beautiful song. Of course, I belong to that slightly older demographic that likes songs like this, but screw you, youngsters! 😉
Russian Woman is a prime example of a song that made it to my playlist purely on the strength of the chorus. I don’t really like the rappy bits, but the chorus is gorgeous, and (as you say) very sing-a-long-able.
Serbia is great, and I remember seeing footage of Hurricane practising their song while running on a treadmill – that’s how you learn how to not get out of breath when singing while doing complicated dance choreography!
Tout l’Univers is a beautiful song, even though it has all the elements that normally make me hate a song. Just goes to show that there’s always exceptions to the rule!
Shum is an absolute masterpiece, and I kinda wish that Go_A had competed in 2022 instead, so they’d have won rather than Kalush. If Alcohol is Free is my favourite ever Eurovision song, Shum is my favourite post-2020 one.
It’s funny how you say that Americans would go ‘oh, Flo Rida was in Eurovision?’ because I’d never heard of the guy. I know I’m not a particularly good example of modern music knowledge, but I’m pretty sure that many others would have thought the same – who is this dude? Or maybe I’m deluding myself, I don’t know.
You’re welcome on the translations! I’m actually a little disappointed that there were only two people who chucked in some Dutch.
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Flo Rida was an act far more known for individual singles rather than albums or tours (he had 3 U.K. number 1 singles from 2009-2012 and a further 2 from features on songs by British X Factor UK alumnus acts, but never had a hit album here in U.K. or back home in his own country), given that he was a dance-pop aligned rapper who did lots of random features in dance pop songs throughout his career, so Adrenalina isn’t that surprising when you consider this.
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Man, it’s so weird to revisit my video file of Eurovision 2019 to relisten to “Ktheju tokës”, because 2021 is such an enormous step up in quality. I think Albania’s 2019 entry is a gradual grower whereas 2021 has more instant wow factor because it’s more punchy and melodic. Both are gems that did NOT deserve the death slot.
I’m surprised to hear Russia made it onto your playlist, because most of the song consists of rapping! That must mean that you love the singing parts more than you hate the rapping parts, as with “Origo”.
Considering Europeans tend to get exposed to WAY too much American pop music, I’m actually relieved you hadn’t heard of Flo Rida! Honestly it feels weird to type his stage name, it looks like Florida with a space thrown in.
And Shum is such a “you” kind of song, no wonder it’s your favorite of the decade. I’m still split on my favorite entry of the decade, it might be “Tout l’univers”, or “Cha Cha Cha” or “Europapa” or something else entirely.
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Well, unsurprisingly he was from Florida, and that was inherent to his sunshine rap music…
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This was a very strong final. My fave was Malta, in part as it was probably the closest we had to a Chains On You this year, both as a song and a theme, though also a bit like Mikolas musically, as well as Christina Aguilera and Lizzo.
Russia is my 2nd fave and you state the reasons of its appeal very well. It was so true to itself and she was so true to herself. It was never designed to win and it turned out to be for the greater good!
my third fave was Italy, the guitar solos were great and it was fantastic to see a White Stripes/Hives/Strokes like garage rock band win Eurovision, and Italian Be a language that genre was sung in.
Iceland was 4th. It was a weird thing to discuss. Firstly as the performance was so good, no one knew they had COVID and it was hence prerecorded. Secondly, as they went so hard with that staging, and it had so many unique surprises, Particularly given that they said in 2020 that Think About Things wouldn’t have changed much from its Songvakeppnin staging in the theoretical 2020 contest (you forget Power and Scared of Heights are other exceptions along with Titan as the 3 entries that have been completely translated since Fallen Angel, though, like with Fallen Angel, these were before the final), though I would have loved to have seen an own language version. Thirdly, my twin brother called it the “Into the Unknown to (think about things’) Let it Go” – it was a brilliant song but in the shadow of the one before it as Dadi’s niche is pretty clear, and it was aimed at fans of the previous one with appeal for fans of the new one. I’m surprised Lithuania (who regressed by a similar level to Iceland, meaning they did, but not in a way that would have alienated anyone who liked the original) beat this to 12 televotes from us, Ireland and Norway, changing my hypothesis for 2020 (where I thought Anglophones – except Malta – and Nordics would unite to all give it 12, making it 7 each though it wouldn’t get any from other televotes beyond this 7, and would get 200-250 televotes overall) slightly. It is worth noticing that I told you previously it was the only Nordic not to replace a shameless jury bait with a shameless televote bait for 2021.
I certainly agree with what you have to say on us, Netherlands and San Marino amongst others. Regarding our entry, Embers is a song that never fails to raise a smile when I listen to it, even though the clunky performance and gag trumpets meant it looked silly (though My last Breath, which he admitted was easier to sing and had a promising concept, could have fared better, like Always On The Run in 2024, which sounds similar). Birth of a new age showed Jeangu’s cultural heritage well, and both his songs were SO underrated. I mean, Grow is in my top 8 for 2020 with Armenia, Iceland, Malta, Lithuania, Serbia, Germany and Bulgaria.
Albania is a weird case, it wouldn’t have qualified if Armenia sent Athena, Czech or Latvia sang in tune or jury gave Denmark and Austria more points, but the performance of that was fantastic. I found it Khteju Tokes retrodden, but she performed it with a lot of style and panache, so it was a deserved qualifier in that sense.
Whilst it didn’t showcase her heritage much as a song, Eden Alene’s performance of Set Me Free was fantastic and its result was deserved, though it is still hard to tell if Feker Libi’s would have been worse or better.
Greece and Serbia I found weaker than 2020 as they felt less Rnb to me than 2020’s did despite the massive Armenia shaped shadow that year (particularly with Serbia, which I was treating as a new Fuego for 2 days before I first heard Armenia, which does new and original things which Serbia doesn’t really do, try to do, or need to do). However, both Hurricane and Stefania performed them fantastically.
I personally liked Bulgaria, but it was too low in key and try too hard. People wouldn’t have wanted the same type of winner twice in a row.
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I see what you mean by Iceland being designed for fans of “Think About Things”, but I’ve actually shown “10 Years” to a few people who never heard his previous entry and they loved it too, so I think his second entry stands on its own too! If there’s any 2021 entry that I think is designed too much for fans of the previous entry, it would be “Mata Hari”.
Ah sorry, my wording at the start of Norway might not have been clear, so I edited the first sentence. I don’t count Söngvakeppnin winners as native-language NF winners that were localized to English, because most of them already won their national finals in English.
And it hurts my soul how close Albania came to not qualifying. Do the televoters just have no tastes?!
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I do explicitly state 10 years was still with appeal on its own without its predecessor’s spectrum, but it was a logical next step from it that was easiest to get for fans of the original, but it also may have undermined its chances (would it have been winner material if it was the first one?). It was still my second fave entry from such an act behind Je Me Casse, an entry further away from All Of My Love
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furthermore, I bet you mean that Tix’s song was translated after the first round, whereas English versions of SK songs are released with their own language ones.
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