Yes, it’s finally time to do a review of 2011. I was putting this off for long enough, but I finally have to sit down and review these, oh god, 43 songs. A quick rundown of the contest: hosted in Düsseldorf by Stefan Raab and two other people (Anke Engelke and Judith Rakers), nobody withdrew, while Austria, Hungary, Italy and San Marino all returned after realising that Western European countries weren’t, in fact, at a disadvantage as long as they sent good songs. No more waffling from me, let’s go.
The Russian broadcast has swapped channels, so the commentator team has changed as well and I’m back to watching it with the commentators that have acocmpanied me throughout so much of the 2000s contests.
There’s an introduction, of course, but I only half-listened to it as it didn’t give any information I didn’t know about previously, although I found the remark from the female commentator about how the songs this year are “very diverse” to be very optimistic. But I definitely need some optimism for this year.
I really wish the live performance was much better because the song it actually kinda fun. Not great, but it’s nice and dancey, which puts it way above quite a few of the songs this year. Unfortunately, the live performance was just bad. It had absolutely no energy at all, which means the fairly decent quality of the song gets completely lost, which is a huge shame. Still, props to her for trying, especially with a self-made song.
You can tell that Stella Mwangi is a true Norwegian at heart because her song is just as annoying as the majority of Norwegian entries. Again, the vocals are so off that even I can notice this. And while I don’t exactly mind the chorus, which has a fun summery vibe, the verses are awful. And this was one of the fan favourites (and still is, kinda) just goes to show why I don’t trust fans’ opinions.
I appreciate the rock vibes, which Albania often removes from their entries during revamps (seriously, the number of times they made a good rock ballad in Albanian into a regular ballad in English is… well, not that high, but it used to be a regular thing). Unfortunately, my complaint is, once again, vocals. This time, I think she just struggles with singing in English, in which case why would you translate the song into English. Just why. Just stop it. The FiK version had a much better instrumental too (though that might be partly thanks to the live orchestra being awesome) and a much more confident performance. Basically, I would’ve liked it much more if they didn’t touch the song at all.
I hate being so pessimistic, but can we stop alternating between songs that are weak (Poland, Albania) and annoying (Norway and now Armenia)? This is kinda catchy for all the wrong reasons, and Emmy’s vocals, once again, are basically nonexistent, which is surprising as she’s been a professional singer for several years before this show. Maybe the nerves got the best of her? Whatever it is, this is very difficult to listen to. The staging is on the wrong side of campy, and the song is catchy for all the wrong reason.
Armenia made a really bad choice in the NF this year, because Emmy (who was selected internally as an artist) had several more options, among them was the song Ayo. It would’ve been a considerably better choice as it actually was a contemporary pop-rock track that could’ve easily appealed to both the public and the juries, at least enough to qualify. I find it a huge shame that it didn’t go to Eurovision, as we would’ve had one more good song in addition to around six other good songs this year.
This commits the biggest sin a rock song can commit: it’s rather boring. It completely fails at hyping me up, unlike Turkey’s previous entry (which, despite my problems with its fandom, is an awesome song in and of itself). Plus, musically, it reminds me of Austria 2007, which isn’t a very favourable comparison. At least these guys can obviously sing, so thank god for small mercies like this.
On a completely unrelated note, the Russian commentators had connection issues and the home commentator based in Russia had to take over between Switzerland’s and Georgia’s postcards while the problems were being resolved.
After a string of actually good qualifiers (as well as one really bad qualifier), we’re back to insanely irritating songs. There’s something about this chorus that makes me want to strangle someone (maybe myself, just so I could stop listening to it). This is exactly the kind of Eurodance that I find purely and irredeemably awful. At least he had good vocals, I guess? Not that it saves this song much.
Okay, even though Senit’s vocals weren’t particularly great on the night, at least they weren’t as egregiously bad as a lot of other vocals in this show. And I actually really enjoy her song. It has a lovely laid-back lounge vibe to it, and it’s just overall very cute. I can see why the televote treated it so harshly, but I actually really enjoy this.
Well, at least this is kinda funny in a campy sort of way. It’s totally over-the-top, of course, but, unlike Armenia, it just barely manages to stay on the entertaining side of campy instead of verging into cringe. Yeah, the costume changes are very extra, but I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t entertain me. I used to stan this ironically, until I kept up the game for so long that it became entirely unironic. It was actually enough for me to check out the studio cut and I surprisingly ended up enjoying it quite a lot. It’s a shame the live performance was so bad, but then, a lot of performances this year were.
Is this “objectively” good? Eh, no. But it does entertain me, which is enough for me to have a positive opinion of this entry. At least it’s some lighthearted fun and not some tryhard, overchoreographed piece of crap.
At the end of the performance, Yana joked, “Struggle is happiness? That’s our life motto, too! " At this point, I can definitely say that she’s been the best part of the show by far.
Ugh, this was mostly dreadful. I’m glad that most of the songs I liked qualified, but wow did this make writing these reviews difficult. At least I managed to knock these out in a single morning since I already knew what I wanted to write about each song. It seems like Eurovision shows hosted in football arenas are cursed to have a weak lineup (2001 and 2011 so far, let’s pray this doesn’t happen again).
I liked the postcards, I guess? In general, the production was pretty good, though the low resolution of the LED panel made camera zooms break the illusion every time (but that’s the best the technology had to offer back then, so whatever). Oh yeah, and the interval act was alright: a nice percussion ensemble, nothing too flashy, but decently entertaining.
The commentators also made the qualifier reveal much more interesting. They were very happy when Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Finland and Iceland qualified, and, of course, cheered when Russia qualified too. I kinda regret dissing them at the start of this post, they made the show a lot more enjoyable.
Ok, next semi-final, same commentators, same arena, same presenters, let’s go.
There’s absolutely no way this deserved last place in this semi-final, especially not if you consider the kind of entries that placed above this (or even qualified!). But I can totally see why it slipped through everyone’s cracks: it’s basically the definition of “cute but uncompetitive”. This kind of mellow, folksy pop just isn’t flashy enough to get a good result. Though I know someone who has it as his fourth-best entry of all time (yes, that’s fourth among 1769 other entries), which is honestly really based. It definitely doesn’t appeal as much to me, but it doesn’t mean I can’t like it anyway (at least a little bit).
This definitely didn’t deserve to stay in the semi-final. Compared to the last attempt at acapella music from Latvia in 2006, this is considerably more elaborate. The singers have much stronger harmonies, and the melody is generally more interesting. While I wouldn’t call myself a fan of acapella music in general (as in, I wouldn’t seek it out on purpose), I have some appreciation for it and the skill it takes to perform it. Personally, I just can’t sing if I can’t hear any music to get me on track, so acapella singers performing without one will never not be impressive to me. Plus, I always enjoy the fun jazzy feel of acapella music when I do encounter it in the wild - and these guys actually have a pretty good stage presence that enhances these vibes.
This really reminds me of Disappear (the German entry from 2008). Except, of course, it’s performed much better. But it still sounds like fairly generic radio-friendly pop music of this era. Both of these things still put it above many other songs this year, as it’s just mildly boring, not actively bad.
Fun fact: this was one of only two times a Slovak entry got 12 points from someone (in 1994, they got 12p from Malta). This time, it was Ukraine that gave them a 12. Yeah, I don’t really get it either. But hey, I can always get behind giving 12 points to unexpected entries.
This is a surprisingly nice song, although the ballady and rocky parts don’t really fit together too well. They need a better transition between them because it feels like they glued two different songs together. Still, it’s pretty good by this year’s standards, and I like the harmonies between the singers. The woman swinging a light on Stage B also adds at least some flavour to it. Though I definitely won’t cry about its non-qualification either.
Now this definitely should’ve qualified. It could be my nostalgia speaking because this sounds exactly like the kind of music I used to listen to back in the day. I always try to judge songs in the context of their time, not in the context of today, as music is usually made to be popular, which requires being contemporary. This doesn’t mean I’ll love all music, of course, but being “dated” has never been a big deterrent for me.
I really like that it integrates the piano in the instrumental, as it gives it a very nice vibe, certainly making it stand out from a lot of other rock entries. I also love her precise vocal delivery. In a year of fairly inept vocalists, her flawlessly delivering this quite challenging song feels like a total breath of fresh air. That said, Bulgarian is just way too removed from Ukrainian for me to actually understand more than 10% of what she’s saying (though reading written lyrics is much simpler as I can mostly understand ~60% of what’s written). The lyrics are nothing special, just some fairly generic self-inspiring stuff, but hey, not all of us are poets.
While this really isn’t a masterpiece, it’s a hell of a lot better than the absolute majority of songs this year, so I find the fact that it didn’t qualify quite weird. But oh well, Eurovision results never make sense.
The best part about this is the really elaborate LED backdrop and the accordion-based bridge. It really promises a lot with its intro, and even the first verse is pretty decent, but the chorus brings us back into the supermely annoying territory. It’s insanely repetitve and the “hop-hop"s deal psychic damage to me every time. Plus I just don’t like his voice.
Yana was unbelievably positive about this song, she eagerly talked about the backstory, about Dana winning Eurovision for Israel in 1998, called her brave for doing this and was generally very enthusiastic. After the performance, she called it “magnetic”. Oh, how quickly times change. But it makes sense: she was really popular in Eastern Europe in the 2000s and very early 2010s, even collaborating with one of our biggest bands at the time to release a song called I Need Your Love.
On the other hand, I don’t find it magnetic at all. This is an insanely generic and unappealing Eurodance track that does nothing to rouse me. In fact, just like so many other songs this year, it’s very annoying and a total dud in comparison to Diva. She really deserved a better song, something a lot more contemporary and rousing.
This starts out really good and immediately gets worse when the singing stars because omg, our Nastya here really can’t sing. It’s a real shame because the instrumental here is awesome, which still elevates it above most other songs with inept vocalists because the music is just so dynamic and well-composed. I also have to give props to the male backing vocalist to her left for that awesome long note in the middle of the song. Coincidentally, that’s Uzari, who’d go on to represent Belarus in 2015.
The final non-qualifier is this song from Latvia, and it doesn’t provoke any strong feelings in me, neither positive nor negative. I simply find this bland. I certainly won’t cry over its non-qualification, but even worse songs managed to qualify, so eh.
No thoughts, really. This was a little bit better than the first semi-final on average simply due to having fewer bad songs, but it also had fewer good songs. Small mercies and all, I guess.
At least the interval act was cool: the hosts started by naming things that don’t go together, which then transitioned into breakdancing and classical music (two things that don’t go together). It was really cool, but I really want to get done with this review as quickly as possible, so I won’t spend too much time on this.
Now, it’s time for the qualifier reveal. The commentators were very alive during it: Yana cheered for Estonia, Moldova and Ukraine. They were really surprised that Romania, Denmark and Austria qualified, but they acted completely unsurprised that Ireland and Bosnia had made it through. When there were only three qualifiers left, Yana said that it would be a shame if Eric Saade and Mika Newton weren’t in the final. When it was down to the final qualifier, they really started to worry and thought that Sweden might not have qualified after all. Luckily for them - and unluckily for all haters of swedopop - he was announced as the 10th qualifier.
When they flashed the table of finalists, the commentators both said that the Saturday evening will be exceptionally good. And you know what, I believe them. It’s a wonder what an enthusiastic commentator team can do for my enjoyment of the show.
It’s the final, yayyyyyyy… Ok, to be fair, the semi-finals have filtered out most of the really bad songs, so this should be quite a lot better - and the automatic qualifiers are mostly really good this year.
Another really good thing I have to mention is the opening act. It’s a very cool jazzy rocky cover of Satellite that, to be honest, is even better than the original song. It also features 43 Lenas: the original one and 42 of her clones from other countries.
After this, there was a little more talking, which is to be expected, but it still only took 13 minutes for us to see the first postcard.
Yana, the female Russian commentator, was very enthusiastic about this song during the semi-final. She eagerly explained the whole backstory of the song, the fact that it wasn’t even written for Eurovision, complimented Axel and basically heaped praise and love on it. She then did the same in the final and emphasised that he was wearing clothes made out of recycled materials and also said that this had the best message out of all songs. I have an inkling that she likes the song.
I’ve always appreciated it as well. It’s just so nice and genuine that I can’t help but fall for it. It really reminds me of Latvia’s 2005 entry and Belgium’s entry last year, both of which also managed to charm me with their simplicity and sincerity. I’m glad that there’s a place for entries like this at Eurovision, even if this finished in a rather disappointing 21st place, which is all down to its unfortunate running order (first and preceding one of the big favourites).
I think Bosnia’s postcard is the prettiest one. The forced perspective in it really makes this look like a toy set. Idk, it just makes me feel all cosy.
It’s another song that really relies on its lyrics, but at least Dino has name recognition across a lot of Europe, so he was always going to score well, despite his abysmal luck in the contest - he had to open his semi-final and then perform second in the final. According to him, this song was dedicated to all middle-aged people looking back on their life and judging it (hence, “in rewind”). It has a really nice flow to it, though I’m not entirely convinced by it on the whole. But it does have a nice anthemic feel to it, and it’s one of those songs where having “ooooh” parts adds to the feel. Even his whispery (slightly spoken-ish) vocals kinda work here. This is certainly considerably better than the majority of songs this year, even though I don’t really return to it.
And we’re back in the annoying territory. Ok, well, this is a bit unfair because it isn’t actively unpleasant to listen to: he has a fairly nice voice, and the instrumental is pretty good, too, but oh my god, these lyrics are so saccharine and schmaltzy: I had t check if Bernd Meinunger wasn’t involved with this. The performers have none of the charm of Axel (the Finnish entrant) to pull something like this off. It also just feels like a song I’ve heard a million times before, there’s barely anything original here.
It’s quite nice, but just lacks a spark of greatness to elevate it above just being nice. She does give it her all, and I like the addition of the sign language, but I’m just not sold on the (tiny) French part in the chorus. It feels a little tryhard for my tastes, and I kinda wish this was fully in French, because why not? Latvia sang in Italian just four years before this, and Estonia would sing in Italian seven years after this, so why shouldn’t Lithuania have sung in French? I think that would’ve given the song a certain je ne sais quoi (god, I’m hilarious) and made it stand out. Still, it manages to stand out because Evelina can sing, which already puts her above half of the other performers this year.
This is a fairly pleasant, but ultimately unremarkable song. It’s impossible to dislike, because the song is pretty well-made and Kati performs it well, but it’s very hard to truly love because it just isn’t a very gripping entry. It’s just fairly simplistic and straightforward, though I definitely wouldn’t turn it off if it came on though, unlike so many other songs this year, so there’s an achievement.
In 2011, I was only vaguely aware of Jedward’s existence. Basically, the only thing I knew about them is that their music was supposed to be bad (not that I’ve listened to any of their songs). So imagine my surprise when this song was… good! Oh, it definitely isn’t great and these are some of the worst backing singers in Eurovision, but the song is fun, catchy and feel-good. Even with all its flaws (the beat is a bit annoying, the lead vocals drift off, the abrupt ending is kinda meh and the LED backdrop is a bit trippy and headache-inducing), it manages to have good vibes, which is important in a year like this. This definitely isn’t a song I revisit too often, but I’m glad we had it this year - it was much needed.
This starts out innocently enough but gets more and more annoying with each second. The looped sample from Rasputin, the beat that keeps pounding on my brain, the overchoreographed performance, the pointless glass cube thingy all make this really dislikeable. While I’m happy that Sweden got a good result after a string of not-so-good results, I’m also disappointed because this song begins their annoying streak (with some exceptions I’ll be glad to mention).
I also want to spend some time bashing the lyrics. They’re so bad, though looking at the songwriting team reveals Fredrik Kempe, which explains everything. And I don’t just mean the rhymes being cringy, like rhyming “possible” and “impossible”. Have you noticed how creepy they are? Well, at least they aren’t as bad as I thought because I always believed he was singing “Nobody wants you, girl” instead of “My body wants you, girl”. It isn’t a huge improvement, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. Still, this isn’t even the creepiest Swedopop song in the final, ouch.
And we go back to blandness, which is at least preferrable to annoyance. It’s a very standard Eurovision-style song that kinda fails to interest me, though it isn’t half-bad: the lyrics are kinda inane at times, but the verses have a pretty cool instrumentation (it’s a shame that the chorus is much less interesting).
Yana said that this was her favourite entry of the year, but I think it’s very disjointed. Unlike most songs, which are either bland or annoying, this one manages to be both at the same time: the rap parts in English are annoying, while the parts in Greek are bland.
Take Eric Saade, clone him four times and make his pronunciation of English worse and you have this. Oh yeah, also give him a song that’s much less catchy but no less annoying. And turn up the creepiness scale. This is just purely painful, Alexey has a severe case of stage repulsiveness, which makes these three minutes an insanely unpleasant experience. Thank god we have the length limit. Also, he seemingly says something in Russian at the start, but it’s entirely unintelligible to me and I won’t even bother looking it up. I wish the rest of the song was just as unintelligible because I can make out the English lyrics quite well and hearing them would make me get a restraining order against him if I was a woman. He definitely wins the “Creep of the Year” award.
Overall, this is a truly loathsome song blatantly designed to score well, which it didn’t because fuck you. The juries get a lot of hate these days, but they were entirely correct to rank this last in the final and 16th in the semi-final.
Now this, unlike most other songs this year, is neither bland nor annoying. It’s epic, a bit anthemic and has a very spectacular, dreamy backdrop and a strong vocalist. Unfortunately, they decided to shift the key down, which made him really struggle with this song. A song like this really relies on him having a truly exceptional vocal performance, but he just didn’t deliver this. It’s a real shame because everyone hyped it up so much before the show, and even I went in expecting him to win. And I like it even as someone who isn’t particularly fond of opera because he manages to perform this in a way that really charms me.
Italy is back, which means we finally have an automatic qualifier that takes this competition seriously every year. Their secret? Sanremo. It’s a true musical powerhouse that will exist regardless of Eurovision’s existence. Italians take it so seriously that there are noticeably fewer people outside during the Sanremo week. It’s designed to select the most broadly appealing Italian song of the year, so their success shouldn’t surprise anyone. Though they used a bit of a different method in these early years after their return: a separate committee would select one participant across all participants, including people in the New Artists category, while these days, the winner of the Big Artists category is the one who gets the right of first refusal. Still, other Big 5 countries could definitely benefit from working on creating something like this, even if it’ll only pay off in a decade.
Now, despite all of my praise for this, this really isn’t a song I return to particularly often. It works well as a live performance but certainly not as a studio track. And, you know what, that’s actually ok. This is a live show, after all, which means that there are several songs that make no sense outside of the context of their performance. And, to be clear, this is a really good performance. Even the bilingual performance works here, which is high praise, coming from me, someone who doesn’t like the way most bilingual songs in Eurovision are executed. I guess the difference is that this song naturally mixes both English and Italian, instead of having different parts in different languages that feel like two different songs stitched in. So yeah, well done, Italy. I’m happy to have you back, and I definitely understand why this won the jury.
Is this a bit cheesy? Yes. Do I like this? Actually, surprisingly, yes. It’s just so cute and nice that I can’t hate it. While last wasn’t deserved for this, it’s understandable as it’s a rather unremarkable song on the whole sandwiched between two considerably more memorable songs on both sides. But I just really like the vibes of this song and I can’t do anything about it.
Fun fact: if the post-2016 system was used this year, then Switzerland would’ve still finished last, but with an insane 55 points in total, 51 points behind 24th place Estonia. Yeah, the point spread would’ve been insanely even, but I’ll talk about this a little more later on.
I remember watching song previews for this year about a month before the show and this was by far my favourite at the time, so much so that I even downloaded it on my phone (which had a very limited storage capacity, so I had to delete another song to put it on there - this should show just how much I loved it). It just really clicked with me at the time, and I begged my mum to vote for them (she did). I was really disappointed that not only did they not win, but they didn’t even break into the top 10 (although at least they just barely managed to get a triple-digit score).
And it would’ve been hard not to fall for this at least a little bit as the BBC finally learned a working strategy: you have to promote your act. I’m pretty sure the music video for this song was played fairly regularly on TV, which, of course, meant that a lot of people would’ve already known this song by the time of the contest and voted for it as a result. I don’t have anything against promotion, you gotta do what you gotta do to win, but the days of the “no international release until after the final” were a little more fair, in my opinion. At the very least, that rule evened out the playing fied a little. Though, of course, that’s basically impossible to enforce with the internet being everywhere.
Now, did my love for this remain the same over the years? Well, no, not really. My musical tastes have moved on from this kind of music, though I can’t deny that it’s a nice, well-produced song. It’s a shame the vocal performance was really bad on the night - and, apparently, it was even worse during the jury show because Blue didn’t know that the juries would be voting based on that performance. At least the guy doing the high notes gave it his all, which is good, he’s my favourite part of the performance anyway. And, despite all of this, I still have a bit of bias towards this, I just like it.
According to the male commentator, the song was chosen by the lead singer’s 3-year-old son (who’d be 16 now, dear god), and the hats were knitted by the grandma who beat the drum in 2005. That’s very cute and all, but is the song any good?
Well, actually, yes. It’s a total acid trip, but in a fun, enjoyable way. Its structure is clearly designed to make this as palatable to people as possible. It starts out sounding like a normal punky song that threatens to transition into more chaos, but instead throws a calm section at you. This is actually a good trick to make it feel like the song has more progression than it actually does, and it works really well here. If it stayed at the same level of energy throughout, it probably would’ve been just way too much of everything.
It’s interesting that two returning winners this year went for a completely different approach: Dana International decided to have a song that was basically a (worse) sequel to Diva, while Lena went with a song that was entirely different to her previous effort. We can see which approach worked.
In general, I want to spend some time talking about returning winners, given that we’ve already had our experience with Johnny Logan, who won with two (relatively) different ballads, and we’ll get to experience the first of Loreen’s two wins in the next review. Both of them entered with an evolution of the song that brought them the win on their first try (ok, that isn’t very fair to say about Loreen because she tried with a song that couldn’t be more different from Euphoria in 2017 but was killed in the Second Chance round). But this doesn’t always work, of course. Dana International didn’t even qualify with a similar song to Diva; Charlotte Nilsson/Perrelli only got 18th place; while Niamh Kavanagh finished 23rd. On the other hand, both Anne-Marie David and Isabelle Aubret managed to finish third.
The other category of returning winners is people who brought something entirely different to the contest. An example is Elisabeth Andreassen, who returned with two songs that had nothing in common with La Det Swinge or Lys Assia, as Giorgio had as little similarity to Refrain as possible. Still, this doesn’t always work, as Alexander Rybak only got 15th place with this method. Lena firmly belongs to this category, and former winners who come back with something entirely new almost always tend to become fan favourites.
Case in point, a lot of people prefer this entry over Lena’s winning entry. And, to be honest, it’s quite easy to see why. While her previous entry was a really good but ultimately standard, radio-friendly pop song, this has a much more interesting and mysterious vibe. Even Lena’s whisper-singing-talking, that would normally irritate me, actually elevates this song. The stage performance is also weirdly compelling, it’s like one of those high art installations that only convey the vibes of its meaning and leaves the interpretation up to you. I don’t know what’s up with the 90s CGI-looking dancers, but I really like them. In general, this is just simply enjoyable, interesting and competent - something most other songs this year aren’t. I don’t understand why it only finished 10th, below much poorer acts.
Well, and we’re back to annoying songs. Ok, the verses are actually fairly nice, but the chorus is a headache-inducing menace. It just pounds on my brain with that horrible loud piano. And the annoyance levels don’t go down after it either, so just throw it into the “songs that make me glad that the length limit exists” pile. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but the choruses of this song and the Croatian entry sound completely identical.
During the postcard for this entry, the commentators once again reminded the viewers that they could already vote and said that they could either vote based on geopolitical principles or simply out of love for the music and to choose their approach on their own. I love this sort of blunt dry humour where the person’s tone of voice doesn’t change at all.
Welcome back, Austria, I guess? I’m part of a Discord server where we rank random NFs, so I had the misfortune of experiencing Austria’s 2011 selection. It was absolutely awful, there were Trackshittaz, who were unbelievably popular in Austria for some reason, so it’s really understandable that they picked a competent pop ballad performed by a good singer amongst all that crap.
Now, this isn’t the kind of song I usually like, and I’m not a fan of the acapella opening at all, but the song actually becomes really enjoyable once it gets going. I specifically want to give a shoutout to the backing singers, who really elevate the song and give it gospel vibes, but in a good way. Also, this is one of those Eurovision songs where the chorus is much better than the verses, while it’s usually the other way around.
Thinking of it, the last few Austrian entries I liked were mostly gospely. It just seems like it’s a genre they’re good at pulling off. And I think I agree with the juries more than with the televote when it comes to this song.
Also, she’s my candidate for this year’s Anja Nissen award because that black dress is nice and elegant and her bob cut fits her too.
In the semi-final, Yana (the female Russian commentator) said that Azerbaijan is also known as the land of fire and my reaction was “eyyy, now this is what we call foreshadowing”.
This won? Really? I mean, it was one of the favourites behind France (the runaway favourite), Ireland (the what-if favourite) and the UK (well-established names), and even jumped up to first place after all final performances, but I simply don’t see it. This is nothing more than a painfully average and mediocre lovesick duet with nothing exceptional going for it. They don’t even have particularly strong vocals, so how the hell did the juries rank them second? I know the juries judged the vocals more than anything else in this era. Surely there must’ve been something fishy going on? Azerbaijan did get its second 12p from Malta for the second time out of 4 (hmmmm, I wonder what people think of Azerbaijan’s practices in 2010-2013, surely there was nothing else suspicious going on).
It’s considerably harder to judge whether they cheated or not without full split results by country (which weren’t published between 2010 and 2013), and the pattern doesn’t fully fit. After all, cheating usually has very clear and obvious pattern where a country gets a lot of high points from countries with low voter numbers (go look at the semi-final results for Moldova in 2021, that’s a prototypical cheated result). While Azerbaijan only got 12p from Russia and Turkey, which are way easier explained by, as Yana put it earlier, geopolitical voting, as well as Malta, which is the only suspicious 12p vote they got as Malta gave 12p to Azerbaijan every year between 2010 and 2013. On the other hand, you have results like 7p from Slovakia, 6p from France and 8p from Albania, which all really raise my eyebrows. Certainly, some of them can be explained by diaspora voting (mostly in France), but these are all countries with very low voting numbers, which makes it very easy to manipulate their results.
Even with that, I’ll avoid making a direct accusation of cheating for one simple reason: fan polls. As I mentioned earlier, the fandom was entirely different from what it is now and preferred polished pop and ballads. It finished in 7th place in the OGAE poll and, like I said, was always high in the odds. People pretending that nobody liked Azeri entries is simply historical revision because they were basically always fan favourites.
It’s quite easy to see why this is one of the 2011 fan favourites. It’s a really strong performance of a really good, if a bit too American, soul/R&B ballad. I don’t have much to say about this, but it’s dramatic in all the right ways and quite pleasant to listen to. On the whole, I don’t have many thoughts about it, just that, once again, the backing singers really elevate this. I think it’s a little better than the Austrian entry because of the added drama though. I also think that her dress is really bad, but, as always, that won’t affect my ranking.
The backstory for this song is certainly sweet, but the song itself isn’t anything mindblowing. I like the way they play with the tempo and I’m happy to see it in the final, but I can’t say I ever revisit it. Though it’s certainly way above most of the field.
While this isn’t the most elaborate song or performance, it’s the song with the most positive vibes. In a year where the vibes were mostly off, we all needed something like this: a lighthearted, fun song that’s just, well, fun to listen to. There’s very little to pick apart here, but I simply enjoy it.
The best part about this performance is the sand art. Coincidentally, the only good part about this entry is the sand art. Ok, that isn’t really fair because Mika has a good voice and a really cool dress, but the song itself is blander than the pasta I boiled without salt one day (I just forgot). It’s just a really boring and predictable (although not actively bad, the composition is relatively pleasant). The sand art really elevates it, though: Kseniya (the sand artist) is a true talent and deserves a lot of credit. It’s really impressive and really makes me glad we have LED screens in Eurovision, when used right (like here), they can really enhance the performance.
The national selection was, as tradition demands, rife with drama. Mika won over Zlata Ognevich and Jamala, who both alleged that the voting was rigged. Our broadcaster wanted to organise a superfinal of sorts between the top 3 acts, but they both refused, with Jamala saying that it’ll still be rigged and Zlata simply being busy. So, Mika remained our representative. Clearly, it all worked out fine and I do think that the final version ended up being better than the 2nd (Zlata really ruined her song by translating it into English) and 3rd places. Still, all this drama ended up ruining the interest in the contest even more.
Finally, a song I genuinely really enjoy. It’s crazy how long it has taken for us to reach one. This gives me slight Tina Turner vibes, in a good way, of course. It’s clearly designed to be a musical throwback to 60s-style music (ye-ye and stuff like that). It’s a shame ESC didn’t really embrace those styles back in the day either, but I digress. This is just majorly fun to listen to and so groovy that I can’t avoid moving my body to it.
Also, I really appreciate the lyrics here. She sings too quickly for me to make out most words (Serbian and Ukrainian aren’t mutually intelligible after all, though I can make out enough words to get the gist of stuff while watching PzE), so I have to rely on a written version and a translation (it really makes things much easier) and while they threaten to become too twee, they fall just short of that. We have so many songs about breaking up, failing relationships, and generally poor romantic situations, that something like this really stands out. We need more songs that praise healthy romantic relationships where both people are madly in love with each other, like here. But only if the song itself is good too, which it really really is.
My only real complaint is the LED backdrop, which is a bit too trippy, to the point where it makes the whole package just a little off-putting. Luckily, I can just look at her backing singers doing all sorts of silly dances and moves to take my mind off it, so it really doesn’t change my opinion a lot.
Thankfully, we’re ending on a positive note. If you know anything about my tastes, then it should be very easy for you to guess that this is my winner. If there ever was a song targeted specifically at me, then this is it. It’s a very dramatic Linkin Park-esque piece of nu-metal that really manages to hype me up. It has some proper build-up, with a comparatively mild first verse (relative to its genre, of course), and the first chorus really bringing the energy and drama levels up.
I also really like her vocal performance. Sure, it’s quite unusual for its genre, but it definitely brings the song up for me. It makes it feel a lot more emotional, although it also makes it harder to understand. I thought this song was in Georgian when I first heard it (I didn’t know how Georgian sounded). After the show, this was the other song I put on my phone, and I even managed to learn the lyrics for this as this was my 10-year-old self’s winner (I guess some of my musical tastes haven’t changed in the past 14-ish years).
I also specifically want to call out the breakdown part as an example of great use of vocal effects (which, as I won’t get tired of saying, are allowed in Eurovision as long as they aren’t used for pitch correction). It wouldn’t have sounded anywhere near as good if they kept her natural voice, but maybe I’m just used to it being this way. It sounds like she’s singing through a megaphone, except without any actual voice amplification. Also, this is one of the few songs where the rap part actually adds to the listening experience instead of detracting from it.
The staging itself is a bit mixed though. On one hand, a church/cathedral backdrop is very cool and helps with the atmosphere. The camera angles are also good and help make this a lot more dynamic. But the costumes, man, the costumes. They’re really bad and definitely deserved the Barbara Dex award. I wish they went with the outfits from the music video instead (speaking of the music video, her singing is somehow worse in it than live, which is why I wasn’t convinced by this when I watched the previews, but then, her best vocal performance was in the live final), they’re actually cool, especially her scarf. Still, you all know I don’t mark songs down for costumes, though I reserve my right to make fun of them.
I’m genuinely happy that my winner was drawn to perform last. Sure, it was a long wait for it, but at least we’re ending on a high note, unlike these days because the producers keep insisting on putting the most annoying song last nowadays.
Phew, this is done now. Well, it can only be up from now, right? Right? Well, at least the production was good. I liked the postcards a lot, and the hosts were nice and pleasant. And the Big 5 did exactly what they were supposed to do all this time: they actualy brought good songs that made the final considerably more enjoyable.
The interval act was just some singing, which was a bit of a letdown for me. I didn’t really enjoy it all that much, but I can’t deny that the songs were still good. I also liked the jokes they did to fill in the time to let Jon Ola Sand (and the “official voting partner”) verify the votes. The rendition of Te Deum on an electric guitar was a cool touch.
The voting was ordered to make it way more exciting, and I’d say they succeeded at this, as the winner only became apparent after the votes from Moldova came in, which was the 41st country to vote. But the general scattershot nature of the voting helped too. The way the audience reacted to high points to Azerbaijan gives me even more of an impression that they didn’t cheat.
To talk more about the voting, the overall results would’ve been ridiculous even if the post-2016 system had been used. Switzerland would be last with 55 points, Estonia would be 24th with 106 points, the 18th place Russia would have 163 points, Serbia would be placed 12th with exactly 200 points, while Azerbaijan would still be the winner with just 405 points. Meanwhile, 55 points would’ve been enough to finish 17th in 2024, while 405 points would’ve only put Azerbaijan 5th. And you know what, I prefer results like these to the current results. This way, everyone gets a decent amount of points, the spread is nice and even, and it just feels fair. While the system would’ve changed some placements, it wouldn’t have changed them too much, as the 2009-2012 method of combining points never caused anyone to lose out on a lot of points. The UK and Austria would both rise three places, while Lithuania would drop three places, which would’ve made the UK finish in the top 10 (8th, to be exact), while Greece would’ve finished in the top 5 instead of 7th.
Now that this is all done, I’ll see you all in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Land of Fire.
Ok, maybe I was a little bit harsh on this year because my top 17 is generally pretty good and my top 4 is really good.