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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 Reacts to Eurovision 2016 (Final): A Controversial but Rightful Winner

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Intro Post

< 2016 Semifinals | 2016 Final | 2017 Semifinals >

I’ve planned out a schedule for when to watch the 2017 semifinals. If all goes well, I should be able to release the post no later than the morning of July 6, before I leave for a weekend trip to Pittsburgh.

Introduction

Välkommen till Globen i Stockholm, the arena where 26 countries would fight for the prize of the 61st Eurovision Song Contest, hosted by the iconic duo of Petra Mede (audience explodes into cheering and chants her name)

… and Måns Zelmerlöw. (audience cheers, but not quite as loudly)

To start off the final, we got a flag parade set to a medley of EDM songs by Avicii, Swedish House Mafia, and a few other artists, easy to bop your head to and build hype in the audience. The contestants don’t hold physical flags, but instead the colors of each flag are projected onto white outfits worn by background performers. A bit too avant-garde if you ask me, but otherwise a lovely opening.

The postcards this year are simple and ungimmicky. As with 2013, they’re just the contestants doing activities in their home countries. As much as I wish the recent SVT contests showcased Sweden in their postcards, and as disconcerting as the zoom-ins to standing contestants are, it’s good that they stuck to the roots of Eurovision postcards and didn’t do tourism ads or Bible animations. And in any case, I can pretend Hungary’s train station is the Malmö Centralstation if I squint hard enough. But my favorite type of postcards will always be flag-themed.

Russia sent a song blatantly designed to win and it won the televote but only got third place overall. Australia sent a song I would have never expected to do well that won the jury vote, but got only second place over all. The runner-up of both the jury and televote is an absolute masterpiece of a song called “1944”, composed and performed by Jamala from Ukraine, who gave her country its second victory.

The voting was totally revamped from Eurovision 2015. For the first time in Eurovision history, the votes were determined not by a mix of jury and televote, but by the sum of the two. The jury spokespersons announced each country’s 12 points only, and then the hosts revealed the points each country got from the televote one by one. For the first three years of this combined system, the televote points were announced in order from lowest to highest, in a “last man standing” type of system.

I watched the grand final together with Liv with Swedish commentary (not Edward af Sillén this time, but a female radio host who later got fired for sexual harassment), then by myself with British commentary (the usual Graham Norton).

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Cookie Fonster Reacts to Eurovision 2016 (Semifinals): A Quartet of Nordic Flops

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Intro Post

< 2015 Final | 2016 Semifinals | 2016 Final >

I’d like to ask my readers to be patient with my next few Eurovision reviews. My real life has been a bit turbulent lately, especially due to my new work schedule. Don’t worry, I am completely intent on finishing this project!

Introduction

Now that Stockholm had hosted Eurovision twice and Malmö twice, surely it was Gothenburg’s time to get their second turn? Nope, Sweden decided to host in the exact same building as 2000: the Globe Arena (or Globen as the Swedes call it) in Stockholm. It never takes long for Sweden to narrow down the options, because sports get in the way of most of the promising choices. The Tele2 Arena* looks like SUCH a perfect option, but noooo, those stupid goddamn football teams decide their games are more important than Eurovision. (You can tell I’ve been spending too much time around Swedes.)

An impressive 42 countries participated this year: four returned after skipping 2015, Portugal skipped the contest to consider how to revitalize Festival da Canção, and Romania was almost going to participate but financial drama happened—just one of many controversies this year. The returning countries were Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, and for the last time as of this writing, the financially troubled Bosnia and Herzegovina. This contest had 16 non-qualifiers, but I will cover 17 songs in this post because Romania had an entry ready.

To host the contest, SVT picked one of the most iconic duos in Eurovision history: Petra Mede who was the solo host of 2013, and Måns Zelmerlöw who was the winner of 2015. They’re just as charismatic and humorous as Petra is alone! And you can tell from their dynamic on stage that they really are good friends. Plus, Måns gets my stamp of approval for speaking German. I kind of wish I was obsessed with Eurovision back in 2016 so I could have as many interesting stories to tell as the friend I am watching this contest with, none other than Liv. We watched the semifinals with Norwegian commentary since not much else was available. She told me that as a Swede, she understands this commentary perfectly.

* Pronounced teletvå, like “tele-tvaw” in British English.

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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 Gets to Know Eurovision 2013 (Semifinals): Introducing the Queen of Hosts

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Intro Post

< 2012 Final | 2013 Semifinals | 2013 Final >

Introduction

Whenever Sweden hosts Eurovision, it never takes long for them to decide on an arena. The big three cities (Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö) all compete to host, a few other cities sometimes throw their hat in but never stand a serious chance, and most of the arenas are eliminated due to sports schedule conflicts. For Eurovision 2013, the winning building was a place I will be inside in less than a month: the Malmö Arena.

Inside the arena, we find 39 countries competing for the grand prize, directed by the most beloved host in Eurovision history. Say hello to our lord and savior Petra Mede (be sure to roll the R). That’s right: after all those three-host years, Sweden picked the first solo presenter since 1995. I could not be more thankful. Petra is the absolute perfect Eurovision host and I can see why she was brought back for 2016 and 2024. If she was a My Little Pony character, her cutie mark* would be the Eurovision trophy. She shares the honor of hosting multiple Eurovision contests with two other hosts: Katie Boyle (1960, 1963, 1968, 1974) and Jacqueline Joubert (1959, 1961).

Armenia returned to Eurovision after skipping 2012, while four countries chose not to return: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Slovakia, and Turkey. Portugal came back the next year, but we won’t see any more of the other three countries, except one last Bosnian entry in 2016. Eurovision came damn close to featuring a complete map of Europe, but for the foreseeable future that ship has sailed.

One change this year that I am very happy about is that the running order is no longer random! As I’ve mentioned way too many times, randomized song order will inevitably lead to strange coincidences and annoyances, like too many dance pop songs in a row or a ballad unfittingly placed at the start, so this is a very welcome change. Also, this is the first year where viewers could vote using the Eurovision mobile app.

I watched the first semifinal with Swedish commentary, and the second with Norwegian commentary. That’s because a friend of mine provided both videos in HD. This will be an adorably tiny post, covering only 13 songs.

* Colloquially known as a “butt tattoo”. It indicates a pony’s special talent.

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