Tag Archives: eurovision 2023

Cookie Fonster Fondly Recalls Eurovision 2023 (Final): A Duel Between Jury and Televote Bait

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Intro Post

< 2023 Semifinals | 2023 Final | 2024 Semifinals >

With the release of this post, I’ve finished my original goal back when I started this blog post series! But now, I have one more year left to review. Be patient for my 2024 posts, OK?

Introduction

Liverpool, England got to host the final of a special edition of Eurovision, the first to be co-hosted by two countries. The presenters consisted of three women, the same ones who hosted the semifinal, plus one man who joined them for the final. We have British actress and TV host Hannah Waddingham (or as I like to call her, the British Petra Mede), British singer Alesha Dixon, Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, and for the final, the BBC commentator for Eurovision who’s originally from Ireland: Graham Norton. His presence among the hosts parallels Terry Wogan in 1998, the last time Britain hosted. Terry and Graham both alternated between hosting and commentating, because for the Brits, Eurovision wouldn’t be what it is without a sarcastic Irishman in the commentator booth. While Terry Wogan commentated solo in 1998, Graham Norton alternated with one of the semifinal commentators, Mel Giedroyc. I’ll be watching their commentary for the grand final.

The postcards did something special this year: they showcased three landmarks in Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the country about to participate that each had something in common, such as universities, opera houses, or botanical gardens. In the third country, we see the contestant performing an activity of their choice, and oh my god they’re so fun to watch. They’re my favorite Eurovision postcards of all time and I’ll discuss further why they’re so great in the general thoughts.

The final results were a battle between two strong competitors: Sweden’s song that was blatantly designed to be popular, and Finland’s song which naturally became an enormous fan favorite. Sweden won the jury vote with 340 points and Finland won the televote with 376 points, but despite Finland’s bigger televote score, Sweden earned their seventh victory. Finland’s fan favorite got second place, and third place was somehow a girl bop from Israel. I won’t even mention which country got last place. It breaks my heart too much.

Ah yes, I remember the opening film and act with its new arrangement of Stefania! The BBC tricked me into thinking every past contest would be as good as this, god dammit. And the early contests with their orchestral reprises of the last winner tricked me into thinking every contest would open with a lovely rearrangement of the past winner.

That was an absolutely perfect flag parade and intro with the hosts—I stayed engaged all the way through. I love the parade alternating between British pop hits and Ukrainian Eurovision entries—an admission that Eurovision is far more influential to the Ukrainian music industry than to the UK’s, but the British music industry is still nothing to scoff at—and I love the 2023 flag parade in general. And the hosts’ opening is perfect too, I love that they tied it in with an announcement that Luxembourg would return next year. Before too long, we get to the first song of the evening, which is…

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

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Intro Post

< 2022 Final | 2023 Semifinals | 2023 Final >

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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My quick thoughts on Eurovision 2023

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I just got done watching my first Eurovision Song Contest live! The finals just happened, and Sweden won as I expected but didn’t hope. My favorite this year was Finland. As promised, I will now discuss what it was like watching it.

It was super fun!!! As cheesy as a lot of the show was, it was also oddly charming and served as a great way to root for countries and banter about music. I watched the contest through the Swedish broadcast, which is one of the few that makes the stream publicly viewable worldwide. I will definitely continue watching it in the future; maybe next time, I’ll try using a VPN to catch the German or French broadcast, which would be a cool opportunity to sharpen my skills in their languages. I discussed the contest live on a Discord server focused on… sigh… Homestuck. Yes, everything in my life comes back to Homestuck, whether I like it or not, but that’s beside the point.

I won’t review every song in this post; that’ll be after I have reviewed every contest from 1956 to 2022, probably at least a year from now. I suspect that by then, I’ll write sprawling, overly detailed paragraphs about every song. For now, enjoy some quick and loose thoughts about the highlights!

Semifinal 1 (non-qualifiers)

  • Latvia deserved better and should have qualified. However, I mentally prepared myself for the likelihood that their gorgeous indie rock song in unusual time signatures wouldn’t, because it’s pretty niche. Why do they have so much bad luck lately? They haven’t qualified once since 2016.
  • Otherwise, all the songs from semifinal 1 that didn’t qualify are ones that I expected not to qualify, though I did enjoy Malta’s a lot. The qualification I least expected was Switzerland, who had a tacky ballad about war that felt rather impersonal.

Semifinal 2 (non-qualifiers)

  • Greece’s performance was unintentionally funny. It was a 16-year-old boy singing melodramatic English lyrics about how depressing his life supposedly is, but contradictory to the text, he danced like a goofy teenager at a party. It was pretty adorable.
  • I knew from the start San Marino wouldn’t qualify because their lyrics are bizarre animal metaphors for sex. Shame, because I genuinely like their rock song.
  • For this semifinal, I had predicted which songs wouldn’t qualify. I got five out of six right; I predicted Cyprus wouldn’t qualify, but they qualified and Iceland didn’t. Not bad, I’d say!

Finalists

  • Austria was a big fan favorite, singing about the unrecognition and low payment that songwriters face with exactly the right balance between comedy and bitterness. And yet, they scored around the middle in finals.
  • Portugal’s song was a lot of fun! It feels so extremely Portuguese to the core, with a characteristic Hispanic sound plus lyrics clearly in a Portuguese cadence. Mimicat is a great performer who never broke character once in the song—impressive because once she thanked the audience, she was audibly overflowing with nervousness. How did she keep her composure through the performance?
  • In contrast, Poland’s song is obnoxious generic radio pop music with a grating voice, my least favorite of the contest. I don’t know how the fuck it made it into the contest, but I had prepared myself for its qualification. Shows the value of pessimism!
  • I had prepared myself for Sweden being the winner, again so that I wouldn’t be too disappointed if it happened, which it did. That’s why I’m not that pissed off about it like so many fans are. “Tattoo” is an alright, marketable EDM song, and Loreen will go down in history as the first woman to win the contest twice…
  • … but I think Finland, the runner-up, will go down in history even more. They sent a masterful rap song reminiscent of Gangnam Style, and it was entirely in Finnish!!! Keep in mind that the winner of a Eurovision contest won’t always become its most iconic song. Think of the gorgeous classic “Eres tú” from 1973, the legendary “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” from 2007, “Run Away” from 2010 which became an Internet meme, and “Snap” from 2022, a super-popular radio song. I think Käärijä’s “Cha Cha Cha” will remain a beloved Eurovision classic for years if not decades to come. I hope this makes people who wanted Finland to win feel better—I wanted them to win too.
  • Czechia’s song was awesome too! I love how multilingual it is, and the chorus in Ukrainian is my favorite part.
  • When Belgium qualified to the finals, I screamed “YES!” louder than I have in years. Their song is so catchy, uplifting, and fun to sing along to with a great 90’s vibe, and I was worried it wouldn’t perform well since I saw people call it “dated”. It was a pleasant surprise to see it reach the top half in finals!
  • Norway’s representative, Alessandra, was really funny and cute. She made some goofy gestures pointing at herself in the interludes between songs, as if to say “vote for me! I know I’m your favorite anyway.” Her song was cool too.
  • OK, now here’s what I am pissed off about. HOW DID GERMANY GET LAST PLACE AGAIN WHEN THEY ACTUALLY SENT A GOOD SONG THIS TIME????? They deserved so much better! I know Germany has had a rough track record for the past decade or so, but this year they sent a total hard rock banger! And it got last place in the finals anyway for some stupid reason! Regardless of the bad results, this song makes me proud to be (half) German. Lord of the Lost, ihr wart wunderbar.
  • Israel’s song would have been my favorite when I was a teenager. I find it extremely cheesy, but undeniably fun, and that dance break made my jaw drop both times.
  • In Eurovision, Slovenia seems like the kind of country that doesn’t care about winning, but does care about having fun and showcasing their culture. This year, they sent a charismatic rock band of five guys in their 20s who like to party. Among the boys, they win the cuteness prize. Their song was entirely in Slovenian, intending to adapt it into a language of entertainment that everyone can understand, and it worked so perfectly! It’s a blast to listen to and always puts a smile on my face. I wish Germany in Eurovision was more like Slovenia.
  • Holy mother fuck, Croatia’s song was unhinged in the most wonderful way. Their song is shameless political satire in their own language, by a bunch of middle-aged guys who take pride in the outlandish and controversial. Also, the 3D animated ŠČ! on the backing screen absolutely KILLS me.

Who I voted for, if you’re curious

This was the first time people outside of participating countries got to vote, and as an American, I seized the opportunity. Each person got a maximum of 20 votes to spread across contestants, costing a euro per vote. I only used all 20 votes in the finals.

  • Semifinal 1: Latvia 2 votes, Portugal 1 vote, Czechia 1 vote, Finland 1 vote (I felt Latvia needed a little boost.)
  • Semifinal 2: Belgium 3 votes, Slovenia 3 votes, Australia 1 vote (Oh yeah, Australia sent a surprising banger too. I think they’ll stay in Eurovision for the foreseeable future.)
  • Finals: Germany 5 votes, Slovenia 5 votes, Finland 5 votes, Belgium 5 votes (You can sense my increasing investment in this contest from the increasing number of votes I sent each time.)

Concluding thoughts

Well, not so much concluding thoughts as introductory thoughts, since this is the beginning of my journey through Eurovision history.

Every year of Eurovision, there is something, or rather many different things, that fans are going to get salty about, and I’m not immune to that. While I had prepared myself for Sweden winning, an outcome I didn’t want, I did NOT prepare myself for Germany getting last in the finals. Still, I’m going to handle this salt like a mature adult would. *ahem*

I got so mad, was gonna cuss the jury out outside my house for everyone to see.

Wanted to trash their cars, tell the Eurovision fans how cruel they were to Germany…

Instead, I wrote a blog.

OK, in all seriousness, it was tons of fun to follow Eurovision for the first time, and I think I’ll have to accept it as my latest obsession. After all, I have over 60 blog posts about the contest to write! Surely this can’t be bad… right? …

*gulp*

We’ll see, OK? We’ll see.

A year later, I went to Malmö for Eurovision 2024. I wrote a blog post about the trip too!