Intro Post

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Introduction

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

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

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

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

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Albania: Sekret

Artist: Ronela Hajati

Language: Albanian, English, and a tiny bit of Spanish

Key: F minor

Many Eurovision fans I’ve talked to have said that they loved the studio version and the performance from Festivali i Këngës but hated the live performance, so I’m watching those before I rewatch the Eurovision performance. Honestly, I can’t say the studio version or FiK version do much for me. There’s too much spoken word, the beat sounds too much like trap music such as “Chains on You” or “The Moon Is Rising”, though it’s nowhere near as bad as those. It has some potential with those ethnic elements, but the bulk of it is a fairly annoying trap song.

And the live performance… dear god Albania, what were you thinking this year? Why is it so over-the-top sexualized? The national final performance looks way stronger and more confident, and even though it couldn’t have been fully replicated for Eurovision since it has way more than six dancers, I don’t get why the performance was completely redone into this steaming garbage pile. The song and performance both come off as unfocused to me. It doesn’t help that none of the meaningful lyrics are in English, so I don’t get why these English parts were included.

I already know that “Duje” from 2023 is the Albanian formula done right, whereas “Titan” from 2024 is the meh type of Albanian entry, so it looks like starting from 2019, Albania has been amazing in odd-numbered years and weak in even-numbered years.

Latvia: Eat Your Salad

Artist: Citi Zēni

Language: English

Key: E minor

Now THIS song, on the other hand? I absolutely fucking love this, honestly. Just like the grand final of 2021, the second song of this semifinal is the first to wake me up.

I don’t care how corny this song might be. You’re not supposed to take it seriously, you’re supposed to laugh with their campy lyrics about environmentalism and eating healthy. It does go a little too far with sexual lyrics, but I love it anyway. The audience are legends for completing “instead of meat, I eat veggies and” with “PUSSY!”

I haven’t actually listened to this song in months, I forgot how goddamn good it is. It starts off with a glorious series of jazzy synth chords and then dives into this really cool bouncy beat. It does the great trope of changing up the beat for the second verse, it has a cool saxophone solo and na-na-na-na in the final chorus, and it’s overall a fun happy journey for my ears. I also love the guys’ colorful suits and their energy on stage, especially the lead singer. His thank you message amidst the song is great too.

This is exactly the kind of song that I love but can never show to almost anyone I know in real life, because I already know they find this type of music to be tacky trash. Well guess what, everyone else is wrong about this song and I’m right. I think that depending on my mood, either this or “Funny Girl” is the best Latvian entry. It depends on whether I’m interested in something classy, or something doofy.

Peter Urban said at the end (translated to English): “I’m sure that this Latvian retro funk has brought Stefan Raab out of his basement. And yes, the singer is the younger brother of Joko Winterscheidt (another German TV host).” You know, this TOTALLY sounds like the kind of song Stefan Raab would write. It absolutely matches his sense of humor. How did I never think of that? (For reference, Stefan Raab had been retired from appearing on TV for seven years, but he’s currently starting a comeback.)

Slovenia: Disko

Artist: LPS (Last Pizza Slice)

Language: Slovenian

Key: E minor

I AM SO FUCKING HEARTBROKEN THAT THIS GOT LAST PLACE!!! Seriously, just as heartbroken as Filip Vidušin was when his girlfriend left him for another guy at the disco. Well OK, I’m not so heartbroken about this song not qualifying that I wrote a song about it, but I’m still heartbroken.

Why did the juries and televoters hate fun jazzy disco so much? I remember hearing this song for the first time and I instantly became obsessed with it. It overlaps in my head with a Love Live song called “Soldier Game”* (also a banger; title is formatted in lowercase because anime is weird), so much that I made a mashup of the two once.

This song is a three minute-long feast of jazzy chords and groovy basslines. It’s like ice cream to me. More specifically it’s like mint chocolate chip ice cream, because I love it but some people hate it for some stupid reason, including both of my siblings. Actually, I can’t think of a single other person I know who loves mint chocolate chip ice cream even half as much as I do. These guys are such talented composers, especially for their college age!

The trumpet parts of this song are great, they remind me of the band Cake which I’ve grown up with my whole life. The song goes in so many surprising directions and tells a sweet but heartbreaking little story based on the lead singer’s love life. It’s melancholic and upbeat at the same time, perfect for a song about the gloom of his girlfriend dumping him without a goodbye. It also has an English version which translates the lyrics faithfully, give it a listen!

I manage to get surprised every time I listen to this song, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. I love jazzy chords and basslines, as I just got done mentioning. I have a secret soft spot for trumpets, and another secret soft spot for the string melodies in the background. I also love the guys’ suits in subdued colors, and the lead singer’s cute red scarf.

And the slow bluesy section near the end… oh my god, that is heartwrenching in the best way. It matches the story of Filip’s girlfriend remaining in his dreams, even though he knows she’s never coming back. This song’s last place is heartwrenching in the worst way. Why did no one except Croatia give this song respect? This song got 8 points from Croatian televoters, 5 from Croatian juries, and one each from the Dutch and Moldovan juries. My theory is that the TV viewers heard a dreary half-hearted attempt at a power ballad in Slovenian instead of this delightful masterpiece. Either that, or the voters are a bunch of philistines, which is actually the truth.

(Fun detail I never noticed before: Žvižej, the keyboardist, pauses playing and shrugs during the lyrics “Žvižej’s solo was a mess”.)

* I would link the song, but YouTube uploads of Love Live songs get taken down very frequently. Just look it up yourself!

Bulgaria: Intention

Artist: Intelligent Music Project

Language: English

Key: B minor (verses), A major (chorus)

Now we have Bulgaria’s last entry as of this writing—these days, the country is one of many holes in the map that doesn’t have enough money or the right degree of interest. But Bulgaria still is home to plenty of fans: I met a Bulgarian guy in Malmö (Eurovision 2024) who did volunteer work for the contest, and he mentioned he was bummed out he wasn’t allowed to bring his flag into the arena.

This is an extremely “who the hell are these guys and why do we care about them” type of entry. It’s clear that Bulgaria didn’t know who else to send and needed someone who can finance themselves, so they picked a band started by a random-ass businessman whose lead singer is Ronnie Romero, some Chilean dude who hops between bands that have no one better as a lead singer. If that’s what floats his boat, I’m happy for him I guess? Apparently Stoyan from the duo behind “Water” is in this band too, for some reason.

This song isn’t as bad as everyone says, it has some good ideas hidden in there and I like the key alternation between the verses and chorus. But it’s also very middle of the road and anonymous. The lyrics are supposed to tell some kind of story about growing up from youth, but they don’t speak to me at all. I feel like the lyrics could’ve been about anything and it wouldn’t have affected my opinion on the song. Also, the bird at the end looks disconcertingly like the Twitter logo before a narcissistic manchild who thinks he’s the smartest person in the universe took over. (Though the website was a hideous cesspool even before him.)

Croatia: Guilty Pleasure

Artist: Mia Dimšić

Language: English and Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: F major

I won’t lie, it feels so weird that Croatia sent this gentle understated song considering the next two years, they went full-out chaotic and that’s now the style I associate Croatia with in Eurovision.

This song has a fully English and a fully Croatian version, but in Eurovision the song uses English in the first two-thirds, Croatian in the last third. I always like “half English, half native language” songs better when English comes first, so that the native language comes as a pleasant surprise. That’s what this song is to me—pleasant, nothing more. It has good melodies and nice guitars and drum beat, but it just doesn’t quite grip me. Still, I think I enjoy listening to this. She has a pretty hair style, but I really don’t like her hot pink dress. I also don’t like that she shoves aside her guitar after the first verse, given that it keeps playing. This isn’t even the only song this year that does that. glares at Armenia

I have to agree with the common fan opinion that this sounds like something Taylor Swift would write. It’s often been compared to her song “Willow”, and people are right to compare the two. I’m willing to believe Mia didn’t intentionally rip off the song, but was probably inspired by this genre of American pop.

Strange fact: The English lyrics are addressed to the guy the singer is cheating with (I’m with him and you’re a secret pleasure), whereas the Croatian lyrics are addressed to the guy she’s cheating on (Someone else is now stealing my heart / You’re wonderful, but there’s no justice here). So in the mixed language version, it’s like she’s talking to her boyfriend in English, then to her secret second boyfriend in her native language. If I was able to speak Serbo-Croatian, that’s probably how I’d interpret the song. Maybe she’s dating a British guy who visited Croatia on a study abroad, but is secretly in love with some dude she knew in childhood from a Croatian town across the country? (EDIT: Oops, pretend her boyfriend is Croatian and her secret love is British, I mixed them up.)

Also, I like the song’s Croatian title (Netko drugi, means someone else) way better than the English title because it’s less generic.

Denmark: The Show

Artist: Reddi, an all-female rock band

Language; English

Key: C major, D major

The most interesting thing about this song is that it’s an all-female band, I’m afraid. Denmark’s amidst their slump era now and I don’t know how the hell they’ll get out.

I get what this song was going for with its bait-and-switch where it starts as a piano ballad, but it just doesn’t work for me because the intro is overly long. It then evolves into an OK enough girly rock song with really weak flat vocals, but we barely even get enough time to try to enjoy the bulk of the song before that painfully cheesy truck driver’s key change, then the song ends before I know it.

A few other things about the vocals annoy me: every time she sings “this is all me”, it sounds like she’s saying “this is so me”, and she weirdly pronounces “the show” as “the shyow”. Overall this song has some potential, but it sounds more like a demo than a full-fledged song. There are too many things that sour it for me, so overall I don’t like this at all. I really feel for Danish fans in the 2020’s; I’m sad for them that their country has turned into a punching bag.

Austria: Halo

Artist: Lumix (Luca Michlmayr) featuring Pia Maria Außerlechner

Language: English

Key: E minor

As with Albania, this is another song where some fans love the studio version and hate the live performance, but both have always been sour to me. The studio version is a run of the mill techno dance song which is alright enough but just missing that extra spark of greatness; it’s not as dismal as “The Moon Is Rising”, but it ain’t no “Uno” or “Cha Cha Cha”. And I absolutely hate the section near the end where all the instruments drown out and the percussion is replaced with a stompy drum beat. It’s copying the bridge of “Arcade” from 2019, which is a ballad, and it just doesn’t fucking work at all. I like it better when the bridge of an electronic song gets rid of the percussion and builds up using (for example) keyboards or strings.

Now for the live performance: I kind of like the staging with Lumix pretending to operate a DJ set, and the halo flashing white and red. And even though I don’t like contestants shouting near the midst of the sound, I like the interplay between him hyping up the audience and Pia singing. It’s too bad that her live singing is so painfully bad. She sounds so damn out of breath and off key. And in the live performance, the stompy section destroys the pace and sours the mood.

Semifinal 1 thoughts:

My first impression of Eurovision 2022 (in terms of production) is that the Italians still aren’t that good at hosting Eurovision. The hosts spend half the show flirting with each other and Alessandro’s English skills aren’t the greatest (Laura is better and Mika is more or less native in both English and French), but at least that’s better than Toto Cutugno flirting with every woman he came across. I like the stage design with the sun and waterfall, it feels very Italian—it was designed by an Italian for once, instead of Germany’s Florian Wieder. It’s just too bad that the sun didn’t even work correctly. Oh, and we see lots of gridlines and a bit of dust on the floor which really bugs me. I’ll save further criticisms of the hosting for the grand final.

The opening and interval acts are the usual showcases of Italian modern pop music, OK enough but not particularly interval act-y. The opening act is pretty good and ambitious in an Italian way, but the interval act with the DJ music feels like the bathroom break type. As if the TV is telling viewers “OK, you can do something else now till the qualifiers are revealed, take your sweet time”.

I’m also surprised this many of the interval act songs are in English, in contrast to Portugal whose opening and interval act songs were all in Portuguese. We did get an Italian-language song after the voting, and that’s “Fai rumore” by Diodato, the ballad that would’ve represented Italy in 2020. The audience sang along like crazy, so it must be a really beloved song in Italy, but I still don’t like it, sorry. The history skits this time aren’t good either.

And remember when I praised the producers of Eurovision 2021 for showing the most flattering snippets of each song in the recap? Eurovision 2022 sadly didn’t do the same. Albania’s snippet has only the bridge and no actual lyrics, and Slovenia has half of the slow section for some reason. All in all, aside from the songs this semifinal was a bit of a drag to watch through. Such is the price I pay for going back to watching Eurovision alone.

If I was watching 2022 live, I would’ve been surprised at the first three qualifiers (all slow songs), but then excited that Lithuania and Portugal made it through. Peter Urban said after the fifth qualifier (translated to English): “Now when I look at the list… Lithuania, Switzerland, Portugal, Iceland… these are all very quiet songs. Back in the day, people would have said these don’t stand a chance, but the times have changed.” I think he’s right, the times have changed, and now Europe is more appreciative of calmer native-language songs.

The last two qualifiers were two of the biggest bombshells: Moldova and finally the Netherlands, which must have been SO nerve-wracking for Dutch fans. As much as I’m sad Slovenia and Latvia didn’t make it, the Netherlands is absolutely the right choice. I’m super excited to review both these songs.

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Israel: I.M

Artist: Michael Ben David

Language: English

Key: G♯ minor

Out of the Israeli dance entries from 2015 onwards, pretty much every fan agrees this is the biggest miss. The instrumental is a fine enough instance of the modern style of Israeli dance entry, which by this point I’m getting tired of. It’s basically just “here’s three minutes of overproduced dancey pop that changes the beat like ten times, plus a ten-second-long Middle Eastern melody thrown in”. Given that the lyrics of this song mention the current year number, which “Set Me Free” also did, I’m surprised the two songs don’t have any writers in common.

This dude has an annoying flamboyant style of talk-singing and overall comes off as totally self-absorbed. From everything I’ve heard about him, he is extremely self-absorbed and has zero concept of personal space. Actually I don’t even need to hear about it, you can see him shoving his face amidst the hosts after all the songs end. So yeah, this is a deserved non-qualifier.

Georgia: Lock Me In

Artist: Circus Mircus

Language: English

Key: D major

GEORGIA WAS SO FUCKING ROBBED!!! HOW ON EARTH DID THEY GET LAST PLACE IN THIS WEAK-ASS SEMIFINAL? I agree with Erica’s review: most Georgian entries are endearingly weird but not that good to listen to, whereas this is bonkers in a Georgian way AND an absolute blast to listen to. A former friend of mine told me that “Midnight Gold” from 2016 was Georgia’s eccentric style perfected, but I don’t quite agree. I think this is the perfect realization of Georgia in Eurovision. AND IT GOT FUCKING LAST PLACE. Below some truly godawful songs like Israel, Malta, and Australia which somehow qualified with ease and was the runner-up of the semifinal???

As for the key: the intro section’s key is really hard to pin down, due to the eccentric guitar melodies and lack of chord progression. But since the rest of the song is confidently in D major, I’ll list that as the whole key of the piece.

Anyway, I love this song and no one can tell me it isn’t great. It starts weird (in a good way) and dissonant (in a good way), gets a tinge more melodic in the verses (take me to the spacecraft, take me to dance club), then becomes a properly melodic banger in the chorus (lock me out, lock me down). The chorus is genuinely well-produced and has a simple but unusual chord progression, lovely rising and falling synths, and the same pumping rock beat from the rest of the song. I love the band’s name and the eccentric visual design on stage. Both this and “Midnight Gold” have Nika Kocharov as a band member, so you get some of the same quirky personality, but I think I like this way better. I also absolutely love the shouted “Circus Mircus!” with a strange pronunciation.

Malta: I Am What I Am

Artist: Emma Muscat

Language: English

Key: G major

And now we’re back to a boring-ass song from boringville. I don’t understand why Emma Muscat won the Maltese national final with one song and then replaced it with a totally different song. It’s one thing if the national final was an event that predates the country’s time in Eurovision, like Sanremo or Festivali i Këngës, but her final is called the Malta Eurovision Song Contest for fuck’s sake! The point of the event is to choose Malta’s entry in Eurovision! It’s selfish of her to swap out the song that everyone voted for with something totally different. Her original song “Out of Sight” is actually a pretty good minor key pop ballad, so why did she have to replace it with a generic feel-good anthem? Especially considering her previous song won a song contest? It’s no wonder the replacement song didn’t qualify.

This is extremely generic and four-chordy, kind of like the chord progression of “Bigger Than Us” but with the third and fourth chords swapped. Credit where it’s due, the chords change a little bit once per chorus, but this is still boring as hell. I’m also annoyed that she starts by sitting at her grand piano and then ditches it for the rest of the song. I’m really not a fan of her disco ball dress; Monika Liu pulled it off so much better. Basically, this is background noise with a severe case of title repetitis,* and I don’t come to Eurovision for background noise, god dammit! Oh god, and it has the stompy final chorus trope that I also hate.

* Thanks Erica for inventing that term!

San Marino: Stripper

Artist: Achille Lauro

Language: Italian, plus a bunch of phrases and lines in English mixed in

Key: E minor

I still don’t understand why any song ever needs eleven people to make it. That’s entirely too many if you ask me. I don’t even know how that works—is there a project file that gets passed around between all 11 people and they all revise it as needed? I think this song is a case of too many cooks spoiling the soup. It’s just a boring, forgettable attempt at an Italian rock song with bad vocals, kind of like “Zitti e buoni” if it was bad. Such a downgrade from San Marino’s last entry. At least I don’t have to hear this in the final!

Hold on, let me listen to a certain song from Eurovision 2022 for ear bleach. I had to hear these last two boring songs twice because of my stupid self-imposed rule! I won’t spoil which song I’m talking about, because I don’t want to make my winner obvious.

Cyprus: Éla (Έλα)

Artist: Andromache Dimitropoulou

Language: English and Greek

Key: E♭ major

As with the last entry sung in Greek, this is a song that tries to go for Greek drama but doesn’t quite reach that spark of greatness. Some people insist that the studio version is great and the live performance ruined it, but even the studio version is no more than OK to me. That said… the live performance really ruined this. She sounds so shaky and breathless and a little off key at times, like she used up all her lung capacity covering “Suus” right before this.

OK, I’ll say some nice things about this song. The Greek instrumentation is very nicely integrated into the song, and it blends with the girlbop elements well. I also like that the English sections and Greek sections have a different lyrical rhythm—exactly the right way to mix languages. And I can infer from context that her ending message means “thank you so, so, so much!”

Ireland: That’s Rich

Artist: Brooke Scullion, who was born three days before me

Language: English

Key: B minor

My god Ireland, what the hell are you doing? What is it with all this radio pop that obviously no one will vote for? And can you please promise you won’t go back to this style now that you did so well with “Doomsday Blue”?

It’s always been obvious to me what the problem is with this song. It’s supposed to be a sassy breakup song where she’s pissed off at her ex, but Brooke looks way too happy for this song. She looks like she’s having the time of her life on the stage, which means she can’t stay in character. This is yet another case of Ireland trying to save a mediocre song with complex staging, and it didn’t work. Oh, and I totally forgot she starts the song lying on the floor. That still irritates me. And the rap section bugs me even more. I just can’t find anything to like about this.

This year’s non-qualifiers have been such a slog, which is understandable because semifinals are supposed to filter out the crap, but still makes it annoying to write this post.

North Macedonia: Circles

Artist: Andrea Koevska

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor

The slog continues with a song that I can’t hum from memory, but I remember being an “I went to therapy” ballad. She’s basically giving a speech about her mental health struggles in musical form, which just comes off as preachy. I’m glad she’s improving her life and all, but I don’t want to hear her sing a ballad about it.

I do have one positive thing to say about this song. She comes off like she’s telling a personal story and I actually believe the lyrics she sings, which you can’t say about most soppy ballads. Otherwise this is way too soppy and ballady for me. The one year North Macedonia REALLY struck gold, it had to be 2020, ugh.

Oh yeah, now that I’ve reviewed North Macedonia, I have just 100 songs left till I’m finished with this blog post series!

Montenegro: Breathe

Artist: Vladana Vučinić

Language: English and Italian

Key: G minor

The most interesting thing about this song is that Vladana recorded it in three languages: English, Italian, and Finnish. She sang this mostly in English with a portion in Italian for Eurovision. I have absolutely no idea why she recorded a Finnish version—if she just has a soft spot for the language, then I do too!

A sweet but sad backstory (the song being about her mother dying from COVID-19) will not change my mind on this song, which is a boring 6/8 ballad with a tinge of cry-singing. Also, I don’t get what the hell is with her satellite dish on her back, nor have I met a single fan who understands why she’s wearing that distracting thing.

Even though I can’t speak a word of Finnish, I’ve heard enough songs in the language that I can sense a heavy accent in the Finnish version. She heavily aspirates the P, T, and K, pronounces Ä, Ö, and Y as A, O, and U respectively, and doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on vowel or consonant length. To be fair, that last one is hard to do in singing, but still, I’ve heard plenty of better alternate language versions than this. Still, props to her for recording this in such an unusual language.

Semifinal 2 thoughts:

The second semifinal is where all the boring stuff lies, so the qualifier reveals weren’t that exciting. My favorite song there is easily Serbia, and thankfully it qualified. Georgia is my second and I’m baffled it got last place.

Unfortunately this semifinal has a dark cloud over it: Azerbaijan fucking cheated. Again. They roped five other countries’ juries (Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, San Marino) into a scheme where their juries would all vote for each other, and the EBU caught onto their antics and voided the votes of all six juries, then invalidated their votes in the grand final too. Instead, we have six countries that used an aggregate vote based on countries with similar voting patterns. I really don’t like this band-aid solution, because the votes from these countries represent absolutely nothing. I get why the EBU did this solution, because it would be awkward to skip those juries’ votes entirely in the final, but I still hate it. I would prefer to either double the televote or remove the cheating juries entirely (more power to the people!) over this stupid fucking fake vote. Ah well, at least it didn’t affect any songs I care about in the semifinal. But in the grand final, the fake votes could have affected the runner-up of 2022, and therefore the host country of 2023. If Romania used their real jury votes in the final, the second place would’ve gone to Spain, and then they’d have hosted Eurovision for the first time since 1969. Alas, Romania is the only country that revealed their originally intended votes in the grand final.

The interval act is more songs in English, sung as duet from two of the hosts, and this time I quite like them. Why the hell does Mika have only one style of suit in every single color of the rainbow??? I’m going to guess he did that because he thought it was funny, and admittedly I do think it’s funny. Then comes a rehash of “Grande amore”, an Italian entry I never understood why fans love so much, except that is also half in English. I still don’t like the history skits this year and I’m still not impressed by Italy’s hosting efforts. The Netherlands’ hosting last year was so much better.

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Well, these non-qualifiers were a real slog to get through, and Italy’s mediocre hosting didn’t help matters. The plus side is, almost all of the good stuff made it to the final! See you next time as I stop complaining about crap songs and start gushing over the many absolute gems of 2022.

>> 2022 (Final): The Year of Moody Guitar Songs