This is an anniversary post, I published my first review precisely a year ago. I’m so happy to look back and see how far I’ve come. But let’s do this sappy sort of stuff at the end of the post.
For 2009, Russia chose one of two cities that exists in Russia: Moscow. It makes sense that they’d host it in the capital for the first time - they probably would’ve held it in St. Petersburg if they won a second time. But they definitely wouldn’t have allowed those weirdos from anywhere else to host, that’s for sure. As always, there were some changes in the lineup, as San Marino dropped out and Slovakia returned. It was looking like it was going to be another year with 43 countries, but Georgia’s entry was disqualified for being “political” as well, and they decided to take a stand by not submitting a replacement, thereby making it the first of several years where the “curse of 43” kicked in. The juries were also brought back, who accounted for 50% of the results - even though the system used to get to the final result still wasn’t perfect, and it would take the EBU until 2016 to finally perfect it. This was also my first time following Eurovision before the show and picking my favourites (none of them qualified, which is what started my contrarian streak), as well as actually watching the semifinals since my favourites were spread out over them. I had five favourites (and I’m gonna be shamelessly biased towards them) - let’s see if you can guess which ones they were before I reveal them.
Now, I’m going to warn you right away: I won’t be very impressed with some of the interval acts, and I’ll be especially unimpressed with the hypocrites at the EBU for allowing them despite Eurovision being a “NoN-PoLiTiCaL eVeNt waaah waaah”.
That said, the stage is gorgeous. It’s clear that a lot of delegations didn’t know what to do with it, judging by some baffling choices some of them made. However, the ones that did use it correctly managed to elevate their performances significantly. Thankfully, the participants will get better at working with big stages as they, well, get bigger as well. But this is easily one of the biggest production upgrades in the history of Eurovision (only 1968, 2005 and 2007 are even bigger because of colour TV, widescreen and HD video, respectively).
That said, I really like the opening act and its lovely fairytale vibes. You can tell that Russia was eager to impress everyone, and, considering the time this was in, everyone was indeed impressed. The LED screens on stage are used to great effect right away, and the narrator has a really good voice and almost no accent (which makes sense as he hosted a TV show in the US in the 90s - look him up, btw, his name is Vladimir Pozner and he’s, uh, quite a character). I also like the firebird prop, it looks excellent. Overall, I definitely enjoy this opening.
The hosts (who come out on stage after the opening act) are pretty bad, though. They’re extremely shouty and have bad accents - both in English and French. In fact, I’d say that they’re the least likeable hosts we’ve had since 2001. Luckily, the Russian commentators kept talking over them for the whole opening, which is great (yeah, I’m still using the Russian commentary for the semifinal - even though I’ll be switching to other sources for semi 2 and the final). I have to question why they made only two of the AQs vote in this semifinal, even though it had one less country. By having three AQs vote here and just two in semi 2 would’ve made for an even 21 sets of votes in each semi. Of course, that isn’t a big deal, but it’s just a bit weird.
And we start off with the first of my five pre-show favourites, and I was really disappointed that it didn’t qualify. First of all, I’m surprised that my arch-nemses, Siegel and Meinunger, didn’t make another peace ballad and instead decided to make a very nice and upbeat schlager song. It’s hardly the most complicated piece of music, but I can forgive that because it’s enjoyable to listen to, especially because of those strings. It’s generally surprisingly well-produced by 21st-century Siegel standards: everything is mixed well, and the instruments complement each other. I also like the “girl power” lyrics, as well as the staging that manages to convey them, even though I don’t like that she says “or just stay” in the end, negating all of her previous statements. I know they wanted some sort of ending, but they went the wrong way about it. Not that I cared about that in 2009, thanks to not really knowing English all that well.
An interesting fact I found in an interview with her is that she believed that the message of the song was only possible to convey in English, which shows how different everyone treated native language songs back then.
I’m of two minds about this song. On one hand, it’s actually quite decent musically, especially for a joke entry. It isn’t irritating to listen to, in fact, it’s actually fairly decent musically - well, in some parts. And by that, I mean the chorus, which is decently catchy. Meanwhile, the verses aren’t interesting at all. Though that isn’t even my biggest gripe. My biggest issue is that it’s just painfully unfunny, so it fails at being a joke entry. This is why I just can’t rank it highly - it makes me cringe every time I watch it. Still, it would’ve been among the better joke entries in 2008, but that isn’t an endorsement.
This is another painfully unfunny joke entry, but it doesn’t even have the decency to have an interesting melody. It’s all just bland and boring, and it definitely deserved to swap positions with Czechia (Armenia found this just a tiny bit funny and gave it a single point, which saved it from being dead last due to the running order tiebreak). I have no idea why Belgium thought that an Elvis impersonator was the answer to not really doing that well for such a long time.
Belarus is now back to being Belarus. This was another pre-show favourite for me, and unsurprisingly, it failed to qualify. Sometimes I believe that if I choose something as a favourite, it’s guaranteed to get a poor result. That said, I didn’t know it was going to be performed in English at Eurovision since I didn’t follow NFs - I only relied on social media to get info about who was going. The group I was mainly following at the time posted the Russian version of this song instead of the English one, so I just assumed that it was going to be performed at Eurovision. So, imagine my disappointment when it turned out that Belarus had sent the English version instead. That turned me sour towards the song for quite a while, though I’ve come around to actually like the English version. Sure, he still has a bit of a weird accent, but the instrumental is really cool, I love the drama. The camerawork is also really good and engaging, with some really dramatic shots (and the longest continuous shot in the contest’s history - at least until Greece 2024 came along to snatch that record away). All in all, it’s a good effort, though I wish they’d kept it in Russian.
Sigh. Yeah, here it is, my third favourite that didn’t qualify. At this point, I’m wondering if this was prophetic. Clearly, I’d always end up picking something that’s about as far from a fan favourite as possible and end up being disappointed. Fifteen years later, I can understand why it didn’t qualify: the song is just a little bit too lowkey and understated for the voters to care. But I think it’s actually excellent, and I often seek it out. I really like the alternation between the Catalan verses and the English chorus, they feel very harmonious together, which means this is the second time Andorra has managed to execute a language change gimmick really well. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the fully Catalan version doesn’t feel as interesting (though it’s still good), but that could be just a matter of familiarity. This doesn’t surprise me as Susanne Georgi can speak five different languages (Danish since she’s from Denmark, obviously English, Catalan and Spanish since she lives in Andorra and German, which isn’t that surprising either since Denmark borders Germany). I also just enjoy the music, like I said, it’s a bit understated, a bit too radio-friendly and a little too unflashy to grab the viewers’ attention. After reading an interview with Susanne Georgi, I understand why: it wasn’t made for Eurovision at first. I suppose that’s another data point for the “I prefer Eurovision entries not made for Eurovision” theory.
After this failed to qualify, Andorra decided to call it a day and hasn’t appeared since. And yet, to this day, Susanne Georgi is leading the fight to get Andorra back into Eurovision. As they haven’t had a single miss for me in six participations, I’d love for that to actually come to fruition. They clearly have a large talent pool and were eager to showcase it to the rest of Europe. Sadly, with the semifinals being 100% televote again, they probably wouldn’t be particularly successful if they were to return.
This is my fourth and final pre-show favourite in this semifinal. You’d think that with 22% of the whole semifinal being made out of songs I like, at least one of them would qualify. But it just wasn’t meant to be.
Sadly, this is a case of a great song with a really bad live performance. Even though I’m not one to care about vocals too much, they really take all the energy out of it. According to one of the Russian commentators, they took vocal lessons before the contest, and when their song ended, he said, “The lessons must’ve worked out well”. I remember being very disappointed about this in 2009 because it was such a big letdown for me. This is the third year in a row of Switzerland sending someone who is pretty bad at performing live.
That said, I still think the other elements of the live performance were good. They actually made great use of the LED screens by showing a cityscape and, later, a mountainscape. It might be a bit simple, but it still manages to look impressive when they zoom out. And the non-vocal performance was really on-point too - it gives a proper concert vibe.
Yet, I don’t think it would’ve qualified even if the vocal performance was good. It’s just a bit too understated for Eurovision, especially this early in the running order. Still, it has a permanent place on my playlist, which is all that matters, I suppose.
I think this song isn’t too bad in some parts, but it’s overall just too much of a mess for me to enjoy. The good parts include them singing, “Give me, give me your time, show me, show me you’re mine”. Meanwhile, the bad parts include everything else. It’s just way too disjointed, and I don’t like his falsetto. Basically, every time I get into it for a couple seconds, something annoying happens that takes me out of it. I genuinely have no idea what the concept behind this was. Did they just have three one-minute demos and stitch them together?
Surprisingly, I have no recollection of enjoying this at all back in 2009, in 2020 during my rewatch or even a year ago when I rewatched 2009 again. And yet, all of a sudden, I’m quite enjoying this for some reason. It’s a really nice and competent rock song with a nice gravelly voice and a very cool light show. I’m now wondering why I didn’t give it a single thought before. I definitely would’ve preferred to have it in the final instead of Finland.
I felt very salty about the result of the semifinal for a long time - I’m nothing if not petty. But even I have to admit that the majority of the qualifiers were entirely deserved. There’s only one song I outright hate here, but I can see why it went through. Which one? You’ll see (but make a guess anyway, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult if you know my preferences).
I forgot how annoying the semifinal hosts were. They’re definitely my least favourite ones since 2001, though I think it’s mostly down to nerves. It’s one thing to host a show for an audience that already knows you, but it must be terrifying to present a fully live show in front of a multi-million audience from across the world. I know I probably wouldn’t be able to do it. And they got a lot better over time: they were a little funny by the time of the qualifier reveal.
As for the interval act, you know, call me biased, but I didn’t like it. I have no idea how the EBU let Russia get away with this after they’d invaded Georgia just 9 months ago. While the EBU was founded on hypocrisy, this is just a whole new level. They forced Georgia to withdraw because Putin’s fragile ego shattered from a simple song, but Russia could go on and hold a military parade at a so-called “non-political” event. Basically, this interval act gets -3 points from me, but mostly because of a huge amount of real-life baggage.
The commentators were genuinely happy about most qualifiers. The female commentator was extremely happy when Iceland, Malta and Israel were revealed, meanwhile the male commentator cheered for Romania and Turkey. They were both surprised when Finland was called and were disappointed for Belarus (same, same).
At least the interval act in semifinal 2 is better. And fewer of my favourites failed to qualify, so there’s also that.
I wanted to watch this with Lithuanian commentary, but the LRT website broke, so I couldn’t download it. Russian commentary wasn’t available, and neither was the BBC commentary, so I decided to go with German commentary. I won’t understand a thing, but oh well.
After watching the intro, I’d like to refute my previous statement. I actually understand some things; I caught something about “neunzehn landen” and a “Grossen Finale”, which is understandable enough: he’s saying that 19 countries will compete to qualify for the Grand Final. He also listed Spain, France and Russia, which were the countries that could vote in semi 2, but also mentioned Germany, presumably to say that they couldn’t vote here. Once the interval act started, he called out the songs being performed by name, which, again, I obviously can understand. So I feel like I’m going to grasp about 15% of what he says and fill in some of the blanks.
The choice of songs for the opening act also made perfect sense: Volare and Waterloo are huge, famous global hits. Meanwhile, Ding-a-Dong was insanely popular in the USSR (the company responsible for importing music from the West pressed 15M records with Ding-a-Dong on them, and it’s considered a golden oldie nowadays, with most people not knowing that it came from Eurovision). Diva isn’t a very surprising choice either, it was a pretty decent hit in Eastern Europe as well (though in English, not Hebrew, of course), so much so that Kirkorov covered it (search at your own peril).
And we start off with the fifth and final of my pre-show favourites. It’s a fun pumping pop punk song - a genre that I have a bit of a soft spot for - with lyrics that give off huge “Disney channel” vibes. And I don’t mean it in a bad way, it feels like a very nice teen-oriented sort of song with relatable lyrics. This is, once again, a song that doesn’t feel designed for Eurovision, which makes it that much better for me.
I like that it just kicks off right away, without a slow intro, which is a trope quite popular in this genre (though I’m also fond of slow intros). From the first note, we get swept away by something cool and energetic. The performance is consistently confident, with good vocals, both of which are important for a song like this. The staging is a bit of a letdown, though. It’s just too dark and unmemorable, completely failing to take advantage of the huge LED screens provided. I can’t help but feel like it needed something more.
With it finishing 11th, just eight points behind tenth place, it still came a little far away from qualifying due to the jury wildcard system, it would’ve needed to finish ninth and it was 14 whole points behind. Still, it likely would’ve got a much better result had it been drawn to perform in the final three as it’s a genuinely good song, just not particularly flashy.
I… don’t get why people hate this so much. It might feel a little frantic, but I think it’s a delight to listen to. The music just throws curveball after curveball, quickly changing its feel with every section. Sometimes, it’s pumping rock, then it’s a slow bridge, then it changes the key? I think? My hearing is failing me, and I refuse to look it up. Basically, it’s never boring. It’s also in 7/8, which gives it an extra unsettling feeling. I love the use of irregular time signatures in general, but this song uses it absolutely perfectly.
It makes sense that it creates a sense of urgency and unease because it’s about a traffic jam. I’m sure nobody likes traffic jams (in fact, they’re probably among the least-liked things in the world), so it’s a relatable song at its core. But it doesn’t just talk about a traffic jam, it adds a whimsical element of a woman jumping across cars to get ahead in the jam, with our protagonist joining her. It’s a weird concept, but it’s kinda funny.
Also, this, of all songs, shows the value of live backing vocals. It would’ve only been about half as great as it is if the backing vocalists were removed and prerecorded vocals were used instead. They really tie the whole song together by not just singing the same words but also by “ooooh"ing and “aaaaah"ing, as well as basically taking over the bridge altogether.
So, what went wrong? Why didn’t it qualify? Well, there are two simple reasons. First of all, it’s way too hectic. The singer jumps around the stage too much and sings in this weird, choppy way that I think fits the song really well, but probably sounds very off-putting to people hearing it for the first time. Secondly, despite being so “in your face”, it isn’t actually memorable from the first listen due to, one, being in Russian and, two, having a very irregular time signature. Granted, it was in Latvian originally, which theoretically might’ve hindered it, but I doubt that since, even as a native Russian speaker, I couldn’t understand what he was singing until I looked up the lyrics (and I’d bet that most Russian speakers had the same experience).
Serbia is done with ballads (for now), so they decided to send a joke entry instead. And, you know, it isn’t half bad. While it’s a little simplistic musically, it’s still quite fun - after all, not everything needs to be super complex. And it still manages to have some variation to keep me engaged. I can’t say I return to this all that often, but I think it has a place in this competition. Just like with the semi 1 wildcard, I would’ve rather had this in the final instead of what the juries decided we should have in the final instead. But that’s to be expected, the jury wildcard was a deeply flawed system.
“A ballad worked for us in 2008, so let’s try the same thing again in 2009,” was TVP’s (and the Polish people’s) thought. Well, it isn’t bad, there were worse songs this year for sure, but it’s just a total nothingburger. There isn’t really anything to hate here: the melody is alright, and her voice is good, but it just gets lost between everything else this year because there isn’t a lot to like. I also don’t really like the staging, it’s very distracting. Poland was clearly one of the countries that didn’t know what to do with the huge stage, so interpretive dancers were brought in to fill it up.
While this is cute, that’s about all it is. Christina really can’t carry the song with her vocals. It feels like she got on stage about a minute after an exhausting workout at the gym. She’s often off-key, and it’s just an overall mess. Which is a shame because the studio version is decent. Maybe it could’ve been much better live with some vocal lessons. It could’ve also been nerves - she was just 16 years old, after all. Even in her interview, she sounds very nervous.
Hi there, Slovakia. I’m excited you’re back to stay for a long time. Right? Right???
This is one of those “I like it, but” songs. In this case, I like it, but she should really learn to control her volume. She’s just way too loud, though it kind of fits with the topic of the song, with her screaming through the darkness. I can see why it failed to impress most viewers and I can also see why Albania gave it the most points. But it’s kinda neat.
Fun fact: Andrej Babić wanted to make this fully instrumental, but Eurovision rules prohibit this, so he had to add some lyrics. The guys in Quartissimo also wanted to play their instruments live, but, again, that wasn’t (and isn’t) allowed, so they had to mime them. I got all of this from an interview with them (well, it’s also just general background information as well). I think it’s a shame that Eurovision doesn’t allow contestants to play their instruments live if they want to. I know that it’s a logistical restriction, but it would be nice.
As for the song, well, I actually really enjoy it. It’s fairly energetic even though it’s classical-sounding. It has a decent amount of variation throughout, as well as a strong musical hook that kinda sticks in your mind. But I can see why it did so poorly, not having a lot of vocals is a big hurdle for a lot of people, plus it came before a long sequence of entries that qualified, so most people probably forgot about it by the end of the show. I would’ve liked to know the results of the backup jury for it, surely they rated it better (or maybe not - you never know with them).
Honestly, there’s nothing for me to say about this entry. It isn’t too bad, but it also isn’t good. It’s perfectly mediocre and unmemorable. Just like with a lot of entries of its ilk, I can’t come up with anything funny or insightful to say. Ok, there’s one thing: this was selected on Hungary’s MTV’s third try. The first song was disqualified for being released too early. Meanwhile, the singer of the second entry withdrew due to scheduling issues. Clearly, they really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find this. Oh, and it totally deserved the Barbara Dex Award.
This was such an unlucky way to close the semifinal, given that it’s so poorly performed and composed. In a way, it sounds like the file with the backing track was corrupted - or maybe they sent the demo version by accident. Of course, this is all a joke because it’s clearly the way it’s supposed to be. The performance is also pretty much entirely lifeless and boring, certainly not something that appeals to me. It’s a shame that the Netherlands couldn’t keep the same song quality from last year. I wish we could’ve ended this semifinal with the awesome song from Estonia instead - or maybe Moldova, that would’ve been a great closer as well.
It also somehow got 10 points from the Albanian backup jury. Either they were totally drunk by the end of the semifinal or the jury show performance was a lot better. I wish we had the footage for the jury show to be able to judge which one it was.
I think this semifinal was a lot better than the first one. The hosts felt a lot more confident this time around, which already helped the viewing experience. I also found the lineup of songs a lot stronger, even though a lot of the good stuff was in the second half (but the first half still had a lot of cool stuff).
The interval act was better, there’s no question about that. Instead of breaking the non-political rule of Eurovision that the EBU loves to sporadically enforce when it suits them, it’s a medley of folk dances from different European nations. It’s really bittersweet these days (mostly bitter though). In those days, Russia was considered quite liberal (because everything bad was purposefully ignored), so it isn’t surprising to see them embracing other cultures so easily. And they still wanted to make a good impression on everyone else, so there was another reason for them to do this. And if I sound too bitter, then that’s because I am. We (as in all of their neighbours) warned everyone else about Russia years ago, but people chose to fall for cheap (metaphorically) tricks like this.
The qualifiers were mostly expected. Even on the night, I can’t say I was too surprised by any of them. I was - and still am - disappointed that Ireland didn’t qualify, and I’ve grown to really appreciate Probka over the years as well, so I would’ve liked them to swap with Greece and Denmark (or Croatia, but it was a jury qualifier).
And here we are, the final of Eurovision 2009, held on 16 May (keep that date in mind, it’s gonna be important). It opened with the most extravagant circus act, with Dima Bilan descending from the ceiling (and having technical issues with his jacket - God must be real after all) and performing an even more overstaged rendition of Believe. The song really does get worse with every listen, there’s no doubt. On a technical level, I’m impressed, but overall, I’m left a little sour.
The hosts are better though, even if I didn’t mind the semifinal hosts anywhere near as much as everyone else I know. They’re quite a bit more affable and feel a lot less nervous, which makes sense - after all, one of them is a prominent TV presenter, and the other one competed in Eurovision before, so they’re no strangers to the big stage. Anyway, I’m quite excited to get to the final, so I’ll leave this intro short.
The first few songs are slow, which killed most of them in the voting. 2009 would’ve been much better if the running order was completely inverted, with the 1st song coming 25th, the 2nd one being 24th and so on. But I suppose that’s just the peril of the random draw (and it’s still more fair than producer-made running order, but more on that in my review of 2013).
Despite this, I don’t think it’s too bad of an opener. Even if it’s a bit slow in the verses, the chorus is kinda nice and memorable, and the repetition of the word “love” actually works pretty well. I also really like how the change into Russian is executed: it coincides with a key change, which makes both tropes feel a lot more palatable. In general, this has the better kind of language change: from English to non-English. I don’t like it when the songs do it the other way around, switching from a non-English language into English, but alternating between two languages or finishing with a chorus in a different language is cool. Apparently, he kept the language of the performance a secret until the semifinal.
This is probably the most political song of the year - definitely more political than the disqualified Georgian entry - but it was allowed to stay because the EBU is not consistent with their rules. If it were up to me, I would’ve allowed both entries to take part because people’s political views inherently leak into the art they create, and it’s impossible to analyse a work of art without analysing its creator’s views.
Now, I usually dislike or outright despise peace songs (and especially peace ballads) because they come off as too preachy and/or insincere. Luckily, this is one of about half a dozen peace ballads that manage to avoid this. It helps that Noa and Mira have fought for equality between Israelis and Palestinians before and have kept fighting for it even after this song. Therefore, it’s no surprise that they sound so confident and full of conviction.
But it’s also just a good song. It’s a ballad with a very interesting composition because it has to accommodate different languages. A lesser composer probably would’ve just composed it for one of the languages and tried to shoehorn the other two into the song, but clearly, this wasn’t done here. Each change in language changes the feel of the song, but not to the point where they sound like different songs. It’s always a genuine pleasure to listen to, and I’m glad the juries rescued it from finishing last in the final.
Most Eurovision entries feel very “of their time”. That is to say, the absolute majority of them have aged horribly. Even in a fairly strong year like 2009, most songs sound like they belong in Eurovision 2009 and nothing else. On the other hand, this song could’ve as easily been made in 2025 as in 2009. There’s a certain timeless quality to it that very few songs can achieve. The only other entry from this year I could say the same about is the Estonian entry, but I won’t get ahead of myself. I didn’t appreciate it back in 2009 at all, but it has grown on me immensely. It’s really more of a grower than an immediate showstopper.
Now, remember when I asked you to keep the date of the final in mind? Well, that’s because 16 May has extra significance for Patricia: it’s the anniversary of her mother’s death. In fact, according to her, she never performed on this date before Eurovision. Her first thought when she was told about the date of the performance was to ask for the final to be rescheduled, according to an interview with her (scroll down, that paragraph is below her photos taken in Estonia). I suspect this is why her live performance is extra raw and emotional.
I don’t think it would be too controversial to say that this is the most competitive entry France has sent in a long time by this point. Now that they got joke entries out of their system, they decided to go back to being incredibly French yet again. They also decided to go with a famous singer, which is a strategy that can backfire if they can’t back up their fame with talent (side-eyes the UK). Thankfully, this wasn’t a problem at all here, and she managed to convince the juries and some of the viewers that France was still a force to be reckoned with. I’m so glad that the jury saved her from finishing 17th because that would’ve been thoroughly undeserved and might’ve caused French artists to completely lose interest in the competition once again. I’ll blame the running order, however, as the song just isn’t flashy enough to succeed from the 3rd position.
It’s a song that I myself revisit fairly often. Of course, not every day - I need to be in the right mood for this, but it’s perfect when I want to be hit right in the feels. Perhaps that’s another reason why it failed to impress the viewers too much. People tune into Eurovision for fun songs and to have a party, with many Eurofans behaving like slow songs killed their families. So I suppose people just weren’t in the mood for this. Especially surrounded by other slow songs, as I said before.
The Belarusian commentators agreed with me a bit - they said that a lot of the past French entries have been “frankly bland” (Wiktionary suggests that the word they used is translated as “run-of-the-mill” or “unimaginative”, but I think that “bland” is the best way to covey its meaning). While I don’t think that their 2007 or 2008 entries were bland, I do think they weren’t appealing to Europe. Meanwhile, some of their previous entries were indeed bland.
Preface: yes, the opera parts are indeed technically impressive, I won’t deny it. With that out of the way, oh my god, these were the most miserable 3 minutes of my life. Of all popera entries, this is probably my least favourite one because listening to it just makes me feel like my teeth are being drilled by a dentist (ok, the one I dislike even more is still coming up). I’m not even exaggerating, this causes me physical pain every time I listen to it. At least there are schlager parts for me to enj- oh, they’re sung terribly. I get it: she’s a soprano, and it’s hard for her to sing low notes, but maybe the composers should’ve thought of this before? Because, as it stands, there are parts of these songs that I hate with every fibre of my being that are technically perfect, as well as parts that I could theoretically use as breaks from the opera parts that I still hate because they sound like she ran a marathon before singing them.
I’ll give this a little bit of credit: this is rather out-of-the-box for Sweden, so yay? Also, Kirkorov covered this song as well (in both English and Russian). Again, search at your own peril.
It has a decent start, but then fails to progress in any way, so I’m just left feeling like I’m listening to the same snippet of the song over and over again. I’m genuinely struggling to come up with anything to say here. It doesn’t stand at all, and I wonder what the juries saw in this since he’s also incredibly breathy.
Meanwhile, one of the commentators was super impressed by the song and gave him 5/5. Musical tastes are weird.
This is certainly one of the cutest songs this year. Everything about it just gives me positive vibes. And, you know what, I’m all for it. We need someone to spread cheer and positivity, after all. You also have to respect Portugal for just sticking to its own style most of the time. I also like the staging, it makes really good use of LEDs as well. I don’t really have a lot more to say about this though, it’s just good.
Iceland has certainly gone out of its way to impress everyone. While it’s a ballad, so it logically should’ve also got lost, especially since it was drawn to perform before a much flashier and upbeat entry, it actually managed to finish second (though by a huge margin) and even got a very respectable fourth place in the televote, one place ahead of Greece. How did it manage that? Well, it’s quite obvious to me: it’s actually really memorable. Let’s see why.
First of all, the song has a solid hook that you can easily hum, which is very important if you want to get votes from people. It also helps to have your hook consist of basic English words that most people can sing, and “Is it true” definitely falls under this umbrella. Even my grandma would probably be able to sing along with the chorus. The rest of the melody is just as good, however, with a lot of buildup and progression. It’s always a pleasure to listen to.
It’s also staged fairly intricately, with instrumentalists and backing singers adding a lot to the performance. Same goes for the LED backdrop, which I’d describe as simple but effective. All of this helps the song to stick around in your brain even more. It just gives a good first impression, which is the most important thing in Eurovision.
Sakis is back with another uncomplicated dance song. I have nothing against it, but it comes off as more desperate than his 2004 attempt, which was just fun. It feels overstaged to hide that the song is nothing special at all. But I can bop along with it for 3 minutes.
Fun fact: since he was a friend of Kirkorov, they didn’t allow Kirkorov to be a juror for Russia, since he could be unfairly biased towards Sakis.
This is just so much better than Armenia’s 2008 entry. It’s a proper fun folk-girlbop sort of entry that never goes amiss in Eurovision. I like that it isn’t overly hectic (even if I like some hectic ethnobops in Eurovision), which makes it a lot easier to digest from the first listen. That said, I can’t say I love it as much as other people. It just leaves me wanting more, like there’s something missing. I just don’t think it goes all out enough. If I’m listening to a song with folk elements, I want the folk elements to be way more pronounced than this. Additionally, I find the way they’re singing a little weird, and I can’t describe why. It’s like they’re pronouncing the words wrong, except they really aren’t.
Alright, this review will consist of 1.5 parts: one half of me covering the Ukrainian NF drama (the other half will be in the review of the Ukrainian entry), and the other part will be me fully reviewing the song.
So, first of all, let’s start with the drama. Anastasiya Prikhodko applied for the Ukrainian national selection together with 30 other people. After the semifinal had happened (where only the jury voted, among them Olexandr Ponomariov, our 2003 representative), she wasn’t listed in the list of finalists. Apparently, the juries protested her candidacy because, one, her semifinal song broke the rules because it was released prior to the show (even though she intended to change it for the final, as the rules allowed) and, two, they said she tried to “bribe” the juries (but failed to give any evidence of that). So she sued, and the court forbade our broadcaster from holding the final, but they did it anyway, without including her. So she went to the Russian broadcaster, was included in the Russian NF, won it and represented Russia instead. And honestly, good for her. She was right to do so.
I’ll talk a little more about this drama when I cover the Ukrainian entry. Let’s talk about the song itself. It’s really, really good! While hearing Ukrainian in this era of Eurovision feels weird, hearing Ukrainian in a Russian entry feels even weirder and seeing Anastasiya Prikhodko representing Russia is the strangest thing about all of this. It’s also odd to hear a Russian-language version of this song since I’m way more familiar with the one with fully Ukrainian lyrics. So there’s plenty of stuff that feels weird to me here, but does anything feel normal? Well, it feels like a normal Ukrainian song, perhaps a little old-fashioned for 2009, but still very authentic. Now, I’m obviously biased, but I think it really captures the kind of melancholy prevalent in Slavic folk songs. I also think the effect on the screens is brilliant and perfectly conveys the meaning of the song, even if it used to scare the shit out of me when I was a child. But you have to admit, it really is creepy. I think I used to have nightmares about rapidly aging like this after watching ESC 2009.
The translation to Russian was obviously done very well. The words that don’t sound the same in Russian were replaced with different ones, and some parts were rephrased to keep the flow natural but keep the meaning intact, which is how all song and poetry translations should be done. Still, my brain always feels a little funny every time I listen to this version. But I suppose that’s normal, that’s how people with perfect pitch must feel when a song is sung in a different key (one of my commenters will probably feel very seen because he often complains about that :p).
This was played for years on Ukrainian radio, so I have a bit of a soft spot for this. This was very clearly engineered to be a hit and do well in Eurovision, and it succeeded at both. That’s why I believe its result was still organic, people wouldn’t have kept requesting for it to be played on the radio if Azerbaijan just bought votes. But this is one of those songs that just don’t have a lot of depth to analyse, though I’ll always be happy to bop along with it.
After listening to this in the semifinal, I had a thought: this would’ve been better as a purely instrumental track. I went to search if an instrumental version existed out there and it turns out that yes, one does exist. And it turns out that I was indeed correct, it’s a lot more appealing to me. I suppose the core issue I have with this is the vocal, which has always grated me every time I listened to the song. Since the version at ESC had vocals, I’m forced to mark it down a lot for them, because I obviously can’t rate a song I find annoying highly. But it has a lot of potential.
Compared to Armenia, I like this a lot more. This really embraces the folk instrumentation and the fun hectic style and never lets me go. I certainly understand why some people would prefer it the other way around, but I just like this more. It once again feels like something I could hear at a festival, which is always a positive for me. I’d say that this is Bana Bana, but executed in a way that doesn’t feel overly hectic.
The one thing I want to remark upon before I forget is that it did better with the juries than with the televote: 10th with 93 points in the jury and just 13th with 66 points in the televote, only to finish 14th with 69 points. Combined voting was wack. And I think it kinda makes sense. After all, Nelly can execute the choreo while managing to sing this song perfectly, even though it’s very vocally demanding (I get out of breath just from listening to it).
But let’s talk about the composition a little bit more, since that’s what I primarily care about. Why does it work while some similar entries (like the aforementioned Bana Bana) failed in the voting? Well, I think it’s down to two things. First of all, the intro immediately grabs your attention and lets you know what to expect - and by that, I mean something just overflowing with energy. Secondly, I think its structure helps as well. It has a weird kind of structure, after her “rrrrahhh”, we get what I’d call a bridge, then a bunch of choruses, then a different bridge and then choruses again. Usually, that would be too confusing for casual listeners, but I believe this worked wonders for the show. Instead of focusing on having some deep lyrics, they focused on making everyone want to get up and dance the hora from Moldova ;).
I think the strong melodic hook also helps. The song repeats the same parts many times, so it just thoroughly gets stuck in your mind. Usually, that would’ve been a downside, but this is all accompanied by a very varied stage show, which makes me not care about the slight repetitiveness at all. As she said in her interview, the song, the performer and the show are all equally important, and she was totally right about that. Take away or change one of the elements here, and the whole package will suffer.
Fun fact: according to her interview, her musical influences are Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, and I can see that. She also has that powerful and loud voice, but she’s singing a completely different style of song.
Chiara came back to finally win it. After all, she got the bronze on her first attempt and the silver on her second try, so her third entry should bring her the gold, right? Well, no, it only brought her the 22nd place. Why’s that? Well, I have two theories. The first one is that 2005 had a lot fewer slow songs, so people who liked them only really had three choices: Malta, Israel and Latvia, all of which placed within the top 5. But that doesn’t explain 1998, which had a lot more ballads. So, my second one is that it just isn’t as musically engaging as her previous two entries. The melody just feels a lot less engaging to me, not as developed. It feels more like a demo than a finished track. And that’s a shame too because it has some nice ideas in it. The lyrics are also a little bit less personal. In her previous entries, she sang about you being the one that she loves and being your angel, but this time, the song just lacks that personal connection. I also don’t think she sounds as good as she did before, which is also a big downside.
Also, the Russian commentators in the semifinal said that she had to work as a secretary to supplement her modest income from singing. I think that’s a shame. She’s definitely one of the most famous Maltese singers overseas, and I would’ve hoped she’d be able to find music-related work. I wonder if she still does musical gigs. According to a Maltese friend I have, she doesn’t. The last song she released was this one, and it’s completely unlike any of her ESC entries.
Like I said in my review of the French entry, this is the other entry that just didn’t age at all. I could just as easily imagine it being performed at ESC 2025. But before I talk about the song itself, I want to talk about the staging because this is what I consider to be the best staging this year.
This performance shows you that you don’t need anything extravagant to make a big stage feel full. Just with some clever positioning of the background instrumentalists and backing singers, they already made it feel like the stage was fully utilised. They also made great use of the moving blocks on the stage to hide everyone apart from Sandra until the first chorus, to give you a bit of a surprise when the song picks up. Add to that some good camera angles with constant movement and very few wide shots, and you get a performance that feels very intimate and personal. That also makes the few wide shots used seem even more impressive: they capture the whole stage and the bright flash on the LED screens before the song transitions into the bridge, which somehow seems more impressive than anything else we’ve seen today thus far. The LED effects are both simple and elaborate, and the night sky effect really adds to the atmosphere. Oh, also, their outfits are on point, too: they’re elegant and classy - perfect for a performance like this.
Ok, but that’s only the show. Sometimes, a good show is used to hide a song that’s just so-so. Luckily, that absolutely isn’t the case here. Even without the visuals, the song grabs your attention right away. I really like that it doesn’t meander for too long since a longer intro would’ve made it worse and kicks into action right away. It manages to sustain a mysterious atmosphere without sounding either too pretentious or too boring, which makes it a pleasure to listen to. It’s also clearly designed to be sung in Estonian. The fact that an English version doesn’t exist at all easily proves it. Like most songs in Estonian or Finnish, it has a very steady, flowy sort of rhythm, which really lets the language shine. It also has a hook anyone can repeat: “see on tee”. It consists of very simple sounds and really manages to bury itself in your mind. The almost instrumental bridge is also great: that’s when they switch to a wide-angle camera to capture the whole stage and the huge curved LED in the background, which gives us a great overview of every instrumentalist. Even knowing that the instruments aren’t being played live, I still can easily pretend that they are. And, to be fair, they are being played live, nothing is capturing their sound, that’s all.
But how did Estonia manage to send something like this just a year after my beloathed Leto Svet? Well, they completely revamped their national selection, including the name. Whereas their NF was called Eurolaul between 1993 and 2008, now it’s called Eesti Laul. The name change really shows the big difference: the previous selection format was focused on European-style songs, while the new format was focused on Estonian songs (though not necessarily songs in Estonian). They also brought back a domestic expert jury with their votes being weighted 50%, just like in Eurovision. Meanwhile, Eurolaul often relied on 100% votes from an international expert jury or a televote. From this point on, Estonia would often go on to have the best national selection of each season, though the wrong song would often end up winning despite that.
This isn’t the kind of song I like, but it’s especially underwhelming after Estonia. It’s all just very generic and impossible to truly hate, but completely fails to stand out at all. And it’s easy to see where this style came from - this is made by Ronan Keating, the same person behind a lot of other generic boyband songs. This might not be a boyband, but it feels like a boyband.
This is fairly fun. I like the big band feel this has, it’s retro in a cool way. But the staging itself adds nothing. The most baffling thing here is Dita von Teese lying on the sofa for most of the performance but announcing her near the end of the song for some reason. Idk, it’s better than a lot of other German entries in this era, but it just lacks some spark of genius for me to truly enjoy it. I did stick it on my playlist a while ago, though, but I often skip it unless I’m in the mood for it.
This is one of those entries that score predictably well but don’t really interest me too much. It has that Turkish flair and a lot of appeal, but it just fails to interest me all that much. Maybe I just have to admit to myself that ethnobops just don’t interest me as much as other people, and they’re rarely what I watch Eurovision for. That said, I have to commend her for performing while ill. Sadly, it isn’t unheard of for artists to get sick before the shows, and some of them deal with it better than others. Hadise dealt with it admirably, I wouldn’t have been able to tell if I hadn’t known. Indeed, her performance during the rehearsal was noticeably better than in the final. And she fared better than Nicole and Hugo in 1971, who got replaced, or Tommy Körberg, who was also very sick and almost got replaced (we even have rehearsal footage with a stand-in singer).
I looked through my old predictions, and I predicted this to finish 7th (I posted my predictions after the songs but before the voting). Since it appealed to me, I reasoned that it would appeal to everyone else, too. It has a nice, memorable chorus, a cool instrumental bridge with some folk elements and a flashy staging that could’ve stuck in people’s minds. I think the main reason it didn’t was its running order: it came before the favourite to win with even more memorable staging. It also suffers from, say it with me, a bad revamp from the FiK version (I think approximately nobody is surprised). Purely musically, though, I think the English lyrics flow better. But the revamp had to cut the song by over a minute, which rarely works out well. In this case, they did the best they could and cut the bridge down a lot, but the bridge in the original version is just so good. However, I think the reason that most FiK songs sound better at FiK is the live music.
I think this was the most hype a song got before the show. Everyone everywhere said that this would be the winning song, and it turns out that everyone was right. I suspect that people who liked something else didn’t bother to vote at all because everyone said that there could be no other winner, while people who did like it voted for it in droves. That’s how it got such a huge margin. But the song is the one with the strongest winner vibes.
First of all, it’s a great show. People don’t just vote with their ears - they also vote with their eyes - and NRK was able to organise a true winning show. The backing dancers, the violin playing, the backdrop - they all contribute to the show. However, Rybak is also innately likeable and charismatic. You just can’t help but root for him every time you see the performance. Maybe that’s why I’m not salty or upset that he won, even though it isn’t my winner by far. I suppose the hype pre-contest helped soften it as well since I knew what to expect. And I’m serious about the hype, you couldn’t find a single person that didn’t have him as the winner.
The composition is simple but very effective, with lots of repetition for you to memorise it all and minimal melodic variation. This is probably the biggest reason why it’s grown off me so much. I don’t think I even have it in my top 10, and every time I listen to it, I start liking it just a tiny bit less. Now, it’ll be a long time before I start disliking it, but I just don’t return to it anywhere near as much now. It could also be the overexposure because it was played endlessly on the radio in Ukraine. I remember hearing it just out and about figuratively a million times. Also, the lyrics are a bit weird and cringy, which becomes apparent after you listen to this song so many times.
The Belarusian commentators were as positive about this as I expected. They both had to talk over each other at great pace to get out their admiration for it. They also said that NRK were so confident about winning that they pre-booked a stadium for ESC 2010 ahead of time. Clearly, that was a smart strategy.
After disqualifying the best entry in the NF, the juries and the televoters had to select something at least somewhat as good and I suppose they’ve succeeded. It’s a lot of fun, if a bit busy. It also has a very interesting backstory.
Of course, just like most countries in 2009, we were broke and definitely didn’t have any money to send anything extravagant to Eurovision - especially not any big props. On the other hand, Loboda was known to be very extravagant - her clips were always revealing, she already had a reputation as a “bad girl”, and so on. She had a very clear vision of what her performance had to look like, but it would’ve been very expensive to implement. Therefore, our broadcaster refused to give her the necessary money. Not to be discouraged, she mortgaged her home and sponsored everything herself. She also borrowed more money from other people and reportedly received a lot of threats from them after the show. But was it all worth it? Yeah, I’d say it was. All of the props and everything else definitely made it one of the most striking shows of the evening. There’s one element I would’ve liked to remove: her being dragged across the stage while playing the drum set. It just breaks the flow of the show for me. Otherwise, the “hell machine”, as she called it, actually bangs. It’s highly memorable and actually enhances the performance. Though I wish we had more close-ups of the gladiators.
As for the song itself, it’s a perfect representation of our late-2000s musical trends. I know some people believe that only folk music accurately represents someone’s culture, but that’s patently false because folk music isn’t very popular. Eurovision needs all varieties of music popular in a country, that would actually represent a country’s culture. But, since it’s a representation of our late-2000s musical trends, this means that I don’t find the song itself particularly inspiring. It also generally sounds like Loboda’s music, which has never appealed to me. That’s also why I won’t be recommending any of her music here - I’ve genuinely never sought out any track she released on purpose. All that said, the chorus is incredibly catchy - and I also like the change in the final chorus.
I will, however, say that she’s quite a controversial figure. From the start of her career, she cultivated an image of a “bad girl”, which gave her a lot of notoriety from the start. She was also one of those performers who didn’t stop giving concerts in Russia after 2014, which didn’t endear anyone to her, as you can imagine. She’s been trying to redeem her image lately, donating to charity a lot, helping other people and so on. From what I’ve seen, most people have forgiven her - or, at least, they believe that letting her do good is better than continuing to talk about her controversial past.
Is this a great song? No, not at all. Does it make me feel like a Balkan girl that likes to party? Yeah. It’s a very uncomplicated, fun bop that appeals to me more than the other uncomplicated dance bops this year for some reason. Maybe because this isn’t as over-the-top as the other ones were. But it definitely fits really well after Ukraine, that was a lucky draw for the viewers.
This is another entry that had a lot of hype around it at the time. Every newspaper was like, “Wowzers! Andrew Lloyd Webber will be in Eurovision!”. The UK also did a huge promotional tour over the whole of Europe: they appeared in other NFs, in talk shows, and just generally created a lot of hype. Result? 4th place. Even if only televoting had been used, they still would’ve placed 10th. And I think the reason for this is three-fold. First of all, yes, the hype. People went into the contest knowing about this song ahead of time, which always helps someone’s results. The second one is its running order. This was the only ballad between songs 15 and 25, which made it really stand out. While the ballads at the start all cannibalised each other’s result, this was easily able to stand on its own. And, of course, there are plenty of viewers who care about vocals the most, which she definitely has. Also, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s presence helped at all because a lot of people knew him before the show.
“Unlike most artists, she isn’t ashamed to sing in her native language,” one of the Belarusian commentators.
The staging is pretty cool actually, I really enjoyed the show. Meanwhile, the song is just super bland, and I don’t care about it one bit. It repeats the same 15-second melody over and over again. Did it deserve last place though? Eh, not really, but I’d argue that it was one of the least memorable entries in the final, so it’s understandable.
As soon as I learned that this was a Greek reject, everything fell into place. It really does sound more like a song Greece would send in this era than something from Spain. Just like with the Finnish entry, it isn’t all too bad, but it’s just super bland. Not a bad way to close the show though.
Let’s talk about the juries first, their influence on the contest, their criteria and if I think they’re a net positive for the contest. After that, I’ll do my regular general thoughts.
I believe the juries serve three important roles (at least in the mind of the EBU). First, they make sure that the more polished entries, with professional staging and vocals (the kind of performances the EBU wouldn’t be ashamed of showing to Americans who believe that Eurovision is like X-Factor), get better results. Second, they, as a supposedly impartial party composed of musical professionals (as well as irrelevant NF rejects), break up bloc voting since Western Europe was all up in arms about it back then. Third, they ensure that fun entries can’t win joke entries don’t do too well because otherwise everyone gets their pants in a tizzy.
Ok, jokes aside, I do think that these things are important. There’s one big advantage the juries have: they can view a performance multiple times before they make a decision. This allows them to fairly rate performances that would’ve otherwise slipped the televoters’ minds. I believe this is their biggest value. Even though they were the main reason why the 2010s were the second most boring and dull decade, I think they’ve really redeemed themselves recently. And, as much as I like to make fun of Western Europeans’ obsession with bloc voting, it was a real thing, and it was bad for the contest, so having a different set of people judging the competitors more objectively is also good. They also often make sure that entries don’t finish with zero points. Since they were introduced in 2009, there have been 23 instances of a song getting 0 points from the jury or the televote (if you count UK 2021 twice). Of those 23, only four came from the juries. It’s just way harder to get nothing from the juries, especially with the exponential system. You’re basically guaranteed at least a couple points if one single juror enjoys your performance enough to put you in the top 3.
On the other hand, that makes it easier to get super high points from the juries. Since they have objective criteria to rank with, a country can easily create an entry that will tick all of their boxes. Of course, not always, but it’s fairly common, sadly. And it’s not like the televote is resistant to bait of its own, it’s just a different kind of bait. So, on the whole, I’m happy with the juries existing and believe they add to the value. Though I would expand the juries to 10 people instead of just 5, I think that would lead to more interesting rankings.
Now, the interval act. It felt surprisingly short, even though it took as much time as the previous interval acts. It started out a little slow, but I really liked the part where the ladies in the water came down from the ceiling to interact with the audience. I think more intervals should involve the audience, that makes them a lot more interesting.
Now, I’ll do something interesting: I’ll post my prediction for the top 10 that I posted back in 2009, right after the songs finished.
My prediction was:
And I don’t think it was such a bad prediction, though it aligned with the televote a lot better than with the combined score (and my inner patriot still sneaked in). Still, not too bad for an 8-year-old, eh?
Now, the voting was probably the least exciting out of them all. Norway got into the lead right away and never dropped away, only extending the lead with each set of votes. I don’t think this surprised anyone, the Belarusian commentators definitely behaved like it was going the way it was supposed to. In fact, they pretty much dropped any pretence of impartiality and openly stated that he was their favourite and encouraged every Belarusian watching the broadcast to vote for him. But can you really blame them here? I certainly can’t. With the votes from the Netherlands, which was the 30th set of votes to come in, it became mathematically impossible for anyone else to catch up, and every journalist was proven right. I still was very pleased with it and can’t say the win was undeserved.
I’m also really happy that I managed to get through so many shows despite a lot of instability in my life. I really do find happiness in writing these reviews, and I’m glad that there are people that read them. I started this to make it easier for me to rank all 1769 entries of Eurovision (well, it was 1732 at the time), but I’ve grown to really enjoy the process of writing itself. Sometimes, I want to go back and rewrite a lot of my reviews, which I might end up doing at some point.
But I’ll see you all in Oslo, in an arena NRK booked before the 2009 edition even started.