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

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Intro Post

< 2021 Semfinals | 2021 Final | 2022 Semifinals >

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cookie Fonster Speculates on Eurovision 2020 (Semifinal 1): Five Countries’ Best Entries Ever

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Intro Post

< 2019 Final | 2020 Semifinal 1 | 2020 Semifinal 2 >

I’m convinced that Netta Barzilai incorrectly predicts the Eurovision host city on purpose at this point. Why else would she have predicted Geneva to host Eurovision 2025 when Basel was so obviously the correct choice? I’m very pleased with the choice of Basel; as I said, it’s relatively close to where my grandma and my mom’s German friends live, so I might end up going to the contest with my mother this time.

Introduction

After winning Eurovision for the first time in 44 years, the Netherlands was prepared to host Eurovision 2020, their first time putting on the contest in 40 years. The prior Dutch contests were all organized by the broadcaster NOS, but this time they teamed up with AVROTROS (the broadcaster who picks the Dutch entries) and the two broadcasters’ parent organization, NPO. Initially nine different Dutch cities bid, but then the potential host cities were narrowed down to five—none of which had hosted Eurovision before, so no Amsterdam, Hilversum, or The Hague. Then the shortlist consisted only of Maastricht and Rotterdam, and in the end Rotterdam won out, earning them the right to host Eurovision in the Rotterdam Ahoy.

Most of the same countries from 2019 sent an entry to Eurovision 2020. The only two that didn’t were Montenegro (who would return in 2022, then will return again in 2025) and Hungary (who still hasn’t returned). Ukraine and Bulgaria both came back after skipping 2019. This means that as with last year, 41 countries had entries ready for the contest. That is, until the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the entire world and canceled the Eurovision Song Contest.

When the coronavirus lockdowns started up, a few countries were still yet to release their Eurovision entries. Russia was the very last to do so, on March 12, 2020. In those first few days of the lockdown, everyone thought it would only last a few weeks, but quickly the world would be proven wrong. On March 18, the EBU announced their decision to cancel Eurovision 2020. This means we’re left with 41 songs that never got to compete on the Eurovision stage. Some of the contestants would get to perform in Rotterdam with new songs next year, but others would be replaced with different artists entirely.

This is going to be a really weird year to review. Instead of watching a TV broadcast of the contest, I’ll have to search YouTube for national final performances and music videos of the songs, as though I were ranking a Eurovision contest pre-show. Which is not easy at all—without a live performance to go off of, some songs just make me think “it’s dramatic I guess” or “it’s probably a good song”. But I will try my best!

I’ll go through the songs in the same order as in the Eurovision Song Celebration 2020 videos (1, 2). Both videos are in the running order the semifinal would’ve had, plus the three automatic qualifiers that would’ve voted at the end.

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