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Cookie Fonster Comes to Terms with Eurovision 2024 (Final): The Year of Native-Language Bangers

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Intro Post

< 2024 Semifinals | 2024 Final | 2025 Semifinals >

This is it, everyone—the grand finale of my Eurovision blog post series. Till May 2025 anyway, but that’s a matter for another time. I hope you enjoy reading this post, but I’m not done just yet—I still have a few bonus posts to write!

Introduction

“It’s been quite an eventful Eurovision this year, but hopefully tonight, we’ll bring you the usual beauty, mayhem, madness, and of course male nudity.” Never change, Graham Norton. Never change.

After Joost Klein from the Netherlands got disqualified and the protests against Israel’s participation continued, the final of Eurovision 2024 felt like it could collapse any minute. In the dress rehearsals, some of the contestants (like Ireland’s Bambie Thug) refused to show up, others (like Norway’s Gåte) almost withdrew from the contest, and Slimane from France paused amidst his song to give a speech pleading for peace. This was not a normal Eurovision year at all, but let me tell you… I flew across the ocean to Malmö for Eurovision, so as salty as I was, I did not let the Eurovision drama or my personal drama dent my excitement. I went to a bar in Malmö to watch the grand final with a few friends and really did have a great time there. It was also nice to watch it in the warm indoors, since I had underestimated how much warm clothing I needed to pack.

We should all be very fortunate that this year had such talented hosts to keep fans’ spirits afloat: the queen of Eurovision hosts Petra Mede, and the Swedish-Canadian actress Malin Åkerman. It was the first time a pair of women hosted Eurovision, and the third time Petra was one of the hosts. Another thing that belies this year’s hectic drama are the postcards, which are simplistic in contrast to 2023: they show a map of where each country is, clips from two of each country’s prior Eurovision songs, footage of each participant in their country filmed on cell phones, and finally a dramatized shot of the artist. I feel like this is a very SVT style of doing postcards, since they love their efficiency and minimalism.

In spite of all the protests, Israel’s controversial entry landed fifth place thanks to televoters, and fans don’t agree on how it managed that. France achieved an excellent fourth place with a ballad by a man who sings his heart out, Ukraine landed third place singing in the language they used to be afraid to sing in, then the top two are both particularly special songs. The massive fan favorite “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” earned Croatia their best result in history, a second place. Switzerland won for the first time since 1988 with “The Code”, sung by Nemo Mettler, the first non-binary artist to win Eurovision. In this post, you better get ready for me defending Switzerland’s victory, though I would’ve been equally happy with Croatia taking the prize.

The grand final starts with Sweden’s twice Eurovision contestant Björn Hwifs… sorry, I mean Björn Skifs. Damn sj-sound, I’m still not over how many different spellings it has. Anyway, he performs his famous cover of “Hooked on a Feeling” to open up the contest, then comes the flag parade set to a medley of Swedish international hits in English. It has a more restrained feeling than the flag parade of the last two years, perhaps due to the nasty drama of this year, or perhaps because the contestants, audience, and production crew were all unusually cautious this year.

I should mention that as was the case in 2010 and 2011, viewers were allowed to vote since the first song started. Given Israel’s voting campaign I’m not sure it was a good idea this year, but I’ll get to that later. For now, let’s begin this unusually controversial grand final.

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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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Cookie Fonster Gets to Know Eurovision 2013 (Final): The Year of Gratuitous Dubstep Drops

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Intro Post

< 2013 Semifinals | 2013 Final | 2014 Semifinals >

Introduction

“Good evening, my name is Petra Mede. And we just—”

crowd cheers

If you need proof SVT picked the perfect host for 2013, here it is. The fans absolutely adore her.

The final of Eurovision 2013 opened with the contest’s first ever flag parade. Set to a choir number composed by Avicii (rest in peace) and Björn and Benny, all 26 finalists walk across a bridge meant to represent the Öresund bridge that connects Copenhagen with the contest’s host city: Malmö. I’ll be crossing that bridge many times next month. The parade feels rather solemn compared to the flag parades of later years, a bit too much like that of a sports event rather than a zany song contest. Still, this grand final has an admirably efficient introduction, especially compared to some years.

Just like last time Eurovision was hosted in Sweden, Denmark won with a radio pop song, more specifically one that I’d argue is a good radio pop song. Now the second place and third place… this hurts because Greece should’ve been AT LEAST top three, but I’ll list them anyway. In second place came Azerbaijan with some pop song much worse than “Alcohol Is Free”, and in third place came Ukraine with another pop song that doesn’t hold a candle to “Alcohol Is Free”.

To alleviate my dread of going through all these radio pop songs, I’ll take a different approach when reviewing this final. I decided to watch all the songs with my Swedish friend Liv, the watch-through broken into three parts. She’s the same friend I mentioned a few times in my last post, and we’re both going to Malmö for Eurovision 2024. I took notes on our opinions on each song, so that it’ll be easy to transform those into proper reviews. We watched the show together with German commentary, then I watched it alone with British commentary.

One more fact worth noting: The full points from the jury and televote (both in the semifinals and final) aren’t publicly known this year. The reason why is simple: Azerbaijan cheated and the EBU added new anti-fraud rules the next year. The best we have is each country’s average rank, which is a bit annoying but we’ll make do with it.

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Cookie Fonster Gushes About Eurovision 2009 (Final): A Spectacular Year Hard to Surpass

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Intro Post

< 2009 Semifinals | 2009 Final | 2010 Semifinals >

Eurovision season is really shaping up. We’ve now heard almost all the participating songs—only Azerbaijan is left, and their song will be out tomorrow. And an exciting change is coming to the semifinals: now the Big Five and host country will each perform in the semifinal they vote in, interspersed amidst the competitors. That should alleviate the disadvantage that the audience only hears their songs once.

Introduction

“Good evening and welcome to the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, coming to you live from Moscow. I’m Graham Norton… I, I miss Terry too. I’m sorry, he’s not here.” These are the first ever words from our new friend, the legendary Graham Norton. Well, not the first words he spoke after coming out of his mom’s belly, but the first words he spoke as a British Eurovision commentator. Like Terry Wogan, he’s originally from Ireland and has a famously snarky sense of humor. He makes an active effort to replicate Terry Wogan’s humor, but while Terry always had a love-hate relationship with Eurovision, beneath Graham Norton’s sarcastic jokes lies a genuine love for the contest.

The opening act blew my mind in so many ways: first a grandiose performance from Cirque de Soleil, then a reprise of “Believe” (the winner of 2008) with zipline stunts and crashing through walls. It continues to amaze me that Russia went all out with hosting Eurovision.

I’m not sure why Russia saved the actually good hosts for the final though. They’re so much more competent than the previous hosts and are much better with their English and French. One of the hosts is Ivan Urgant, a Russian TV host who ran a talk show that was canceled in 2022 because he spoke out against the war in Ukraine. The other host is Alsou, who sang for Russia in 2000 when she was only 16 years old and scored second place. She’s such a confident presenter, oh my god! These two should have hosted the entire show, not just the semifinal.

In third place came Azerbaijan, who debuted only a year prior and frequently sent songs intended to win, very much like Russia. Iceland scored second place for the second and latest time with a ballad that I have a surprising amount of thoughts on. Neither of those countries stood the slightest chance against Alexander Rybak from Norway, who won with a whopping 387 points. He broke the eight-year streak of countries winning for the first time; the only other first-time winners after this year have been Azerbaijan (2011) and Portugal (2017). I don’t know about you, but I think it’s about time someone new takes the crown.

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