Guess who’s back, back again. Denmark’s back, tell a friend. Sorry, I really wanted to do this joke. But yeah, Denmark is finally back. And so is Turkey. Surprisingly, nobody withdrew, bringing us up to a historical high of 20 countries participating. Yes, 20, crazy numbers, I know. I wonder if Eurovision will ever exceed this number.
Quite surprisingly, it’s taken us this long to get to Paris (and we’ll never go there again, there’s no chance France will host it in Paris if they win). We open with a shot of Paris from a gondola riding down the Seinne, with shots of the Triumphal Arc and the Eiffel Tower, is there anything more French than this? Fun fact about me: I once got lost in Paris, which wasn’t very fun.
This year is historical for one reason: it’s the first time we have two hosts, namely a male and a female host as is very common these days. The name of the female host is Denise Fabre and she mainly spoke French, while the male host - Léon Zitrone - spoke English in addition to French. But I watched it with the BBC commentary, by Terry Wogan. I’m not a fan of his commentary later on, but it’s fine right now.
Also, welcome Frank Naef. Clifford Brown retired as the scrutineer, so it’s up to Meester, sorry wrong year, Mr. Naef to start making sure every vote is given correctly.
We also have a very iconic orchestra located in a rotating daïs, which apparently made some musicians dizzy, so it probably wasn’t a great idea. And we had footage of each representative (and the rest of the delegation) coming up on the stage via a lift.
The song isn’t really anything exceptional, but man he’s a great performer. He’s so energetic and captivating, it’s a pleasure to watch. And I’m always willing to give extra points to a fun performance.
Well, and here we have an absolutely iconic performance from Jahn Teigen, who was protesting against being forced to use a more “epic” and “bombastic” arrangement by throwing it completely. He picked the most garish clothes he could think of (oversized sunglasses, suspenders, red trousers), performed it in the most bizarre way possible (lots of weird hand gestures and generally weird movements - and, of course, the split at the end).
Sad thing is, the song is actually really good. I recommend watching the MGP performance, with its intended arrangement and performance - it’s actually great. And the performance on stage (intentionally) ruins it, though I can’t help but find it charming anyway.
As a huge Ricchi e Poveri fan (btw, go check out their Sanremo 2024 song, it’s amazing and I love it), this isn’t really the kind of music I expect of them. I mainly know them for upbeat and fun music, which they absolutely excel at, this fell just a tiny bit flat for me.
But honestly, I still like it a lot. Seeing them with four members is always a bit weird as well, since Marina (the woman on the left) left the group in 1981, long before I was even born. It;s a nice laid-back ballad, even if the lyrics are a bit banal.
As I’ve said several times before, I’m a total sucker for piano ballads and this is no exception. It feels very genuine and heartfelt. Finland was very underrated in those days, especially when they sung in Finnish, which is extremely unfair, they’ve already had some winner-worthy entries (and they’ll have more winner-worthy entries in the future).
But yeah, I like this one a lot. It appeals to me a lot.
This isn’t a style I’ve come to expect of Portugal, but it’s actually really fun and joyous. It’s a very cool blend of jazz and contemporary pop, but the constant repetition of the title (which is a nonsense phrase) gets on my nerves a bit.
France decided to go with something more old-fashioned this time, but I think it works really well. It’s very reserved, but it doesn’t make it feel unemotional or fake, absolutely not. That makes it feel more longing and melancholic if anything.
Ouch, the backing vocals don’t work for me at all. They make me feel uncomfortable and the song is very unpleasant to listen to as a result. Though I don’t think I would’ve liked it very much anyway, it’s a pretty generic waltzy song we’ve heard a million times before.
This is a historical reason for all the wrong reasons. It’s the first time the UK finished outside of the top 10 (though just barely, 11th by a margin of 4 points) and you can see why. The song just isn’t very good. It’s just kinda bland and boring, completely uninteresting and unexciting. And of course Terry Wogan was very confident about its chances, that’s so typical of him.
Switzerland decided to go for something more “classy” as well, so here we have a chanson in French, except it’s updated for the 70s, there’s definitely some blending with contemporary 70s pop as well. And Carol is a good performer who elevates this song with her performance too. But I just wish it was more interesting musically, it’s still fairly average.
Unlike Belgium, who decided to update the chanson formula for the 70s, Belgium firmly stuck to the genre - and it worked out, surprisingly. And honestly, good for them. It’s a lovely song and stands out a lot from all of the upbeat entries this year. Jean has a great voice and the composition of the song is actually pretty interesting, which helps it stand out too.
I’m happy to see the Walloon entries are finally starting to become good, let’s hope RTBF can keep this up.
And here we see the Netherlands trying to replicate their 1975 success a bit, though this one is just OK (sorry, I really couldn’t resist making this joke). There’s nothing special about this song, but nothing horrible either. It’s competently composed, written and performed, but it’s also understandable why it failed to stand out to most juries (except for Israel, who gave this 12 points).
This absolutely didn’t deserve to score so poorly. Though I can understand it, the entry has the worst sound mixing out of all the entries so far (and most of them have been mixed awfully). But if you get past that, you realise that this song is an absolute gem. The performers are fun and charismatic (and dressed really well too), the instrumental is bouncy and fun, heavy on brass, but with short string-heavy instrumental breaks.
It’s an all-around banger and it makes me sad knowing that it would take Turkey a lot of time to finally turn their luck around.
But here’s an even bigger banger, this time from Germany. Ireen Sheer is back, this time singing a song that suits her much more, in a language she’s much better at. So it’s no surprise that she completely nailed this performance.
It has a very synth-heavy feel, despite being performed entirely by an orchestra and not even featuring any performers mimicking a synth to a backing track. I consider this to be a huge achievement as it managed to preserve the song’s intended feel without making it any worse (we’ll see some songs that got killed by their orchestrations later - or by the rule about all vocals having to be live).
I’m also happy this wasn’t entered a year earlier, as there’s no doubt it would’ve been performer in English - and the English version isn’t as good as the German one in my opinion.
This is another lovely entry from Monaco another good entry. It’s very playful and fun, heavy on strings and just makes me smile.
The thing I find most interesting is the structure of the song. It feels like it’s built like a dialogue, and the singers are conversing between one another. That adds a decent amount of flavour to the song.
“There are extremely finely muscled Frenchmen wheeling out the famous grand piano again”. Terry, do you want to talk?
Wat’s it with this year and having really fun and charismatic performances? Tania is overjoyed to be performing this, which is reflected in her performance. It’s impossible to dislike this, though I can’t say I loved it too much either. It was fun and charming, but not outstanding.
An, welcome back, Denmark. It’s really nice to see you again. It’s especially nice to you see you because you brought a pretty good song. It’s fun, the hook is catchy and the drum gimmick actually works. Good job on your return, it’s clear that there was passion involved in it.
The studio version of this song was about 4 minutes long, so instead of cutting it down a bit, they just sped it up. This didn’t work at all and gave it a very frantic and anxiety-inducing pace. Or maybe it’s just me, since I know the studio version well. But the performance was great and I like the song itself. And the dance break was a nice touch as well, though maybe they should’ve cut it out and sped the song up less.
And yeah, they do have a Spanish accent in French, but I find it much less distracting than when French has an English accent.
This has an amazing catchy singable chorus with an insane hook, but the verses are average at best. I’m also not a fan of the bridge between the second and third choruses, it feels like it loses the energy the song had up to this point.
So idk, I’m not a fan, which is a shame because I liked most Israeli entries up to this point.
And Austria returned too, also with a pretty fun rock song and a nice likeable performance. It’s a pretty simple, but fairly effective composition that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I’m glad it was in the competition, but it probably could’ve used a bit more weight behind it.
The most interesting thing about this entry is the story behind it. Björn was going to sing in English as a protest against the language rule, but changed his mind at the last possible second (some people say that it was when he was going up in the lift). This caused him to forget the start of the song and he improvised some Swedish-sounding sounds instead.
Apart from this, the song is insanely average and uninteresting. It’s an alright ballad, something we’ve heard done better both in this contest and overall. But I have to commend his performance, improvising something on the spot can’t be easy, especially when you’re doing it in front of a few hundred million TV viewers.
And Germany joins the three-time winner club, together with Luxembourg and France. Good job, Germany.
As Terry Wogan said after the final entry, the performances were all good, but the songs were weaker compared to the ones last year. But it was still a strong contest overall and an enjoyable watch.
The voting sequence was good too, it felt like there were several contenders for the win. Israel had a decent lead at first, but got overtaken by Belgium for a while (and France and Monaco weren’t too far behind). And, of course, poor Norway failed to score a single point, which the new voting system was supposed to prevent.
I’ll see you all in Jerusalem, as the contest leaves Europe for the very first time.