Eurovision 2022: Turin (May 10, 12, Grand Final 14)

[Ran]

It's that time again: Eurovision!!!

This year's batch of songs are actually not filled with that much crazy. 

Ireland's performer, sadly, has decided to go all Geordie Shore-inspired with her excessive spray-on tan and pajama-like clothing:

Here's an interesting one: Moldova. We first saw it in this version, and knew it was a loser:

However, we then saw the video and... it's good? Like, the video is very charming! And makes its subject plain: an ode to the joys of train travel... and, in particular, a paean to the brotherhood of Moldova and its neighbor Romania:

One we do rather like is the entry from Czechia. The band, We Are Domi, has  Czech lead singer while the other band members are Norwegian. 

The rap section of Malik Harris's "Rockstar" for Germany is as close as we'll ever get to having Eminem participate in Eurovision, I suspect:

Latvia's song is basically a green, recycling, vegan bro who also eats <insert cat emoji here> so long as it's fresh and juicy. He also has a large (tofu?) sausage and a very long tongue, apparently. Classy.

From Estonia, Stefan performs "Hope" with some real Spaghetti Western vibes (which the video makes even more explicit):

I kind of like Cyprus's entry, "Ela" by Andromache (very classical name, that!)

But this reminds me of the video for Albania's "Sekret", sung by Ronela Hajati. Spot the pseudo-Dothraki khal in this revival of early-00's "harem pop" (e.g. Sertab Erener's winning "Everyway that I can")

San Marino sends an Italian performer, known as Achille Lauro, who seems to be for some reason doing a Daminao of Måneskin impersonation. Strangely, he could have been Italy's contender, as he competed in the Sanremo festival this year. This song, "Stripper", has a bit of a punk vibe to it:

Quite possibly the most bizzare song of the whole competition (well, there may be one rival) is Serbia's "In Corpore Sano" by Konstrakta. It is... avant-garde, beginning with question "What is the secret behind Megan Markle's healthy hair?" before informing us that it's probably deep hydration, that dark spots on your skin might indicate an enlarged spleen, which is of course not a pretty thing for a singer who must be healthy. Oh, and it's good that our heart beats thanks to the autonomic nervous system, otherwise we'd have to control our heart beats consciously!

 

Finland of course sends something with some rock to it: "Jezebel", from The Rasmus:

Linda and I were remarking of Portugal's generally very poor record at Eurovision over the years -- partially due to the fact that it had no voting block other than Spain for the years it mattered, but it also had generally just ... not great songs, with a couple of exceptions. But I think MARO's "Saudade, Saudade"(a particularly Portuguese word meaning a deep longing for a person or a place that you won't experience again) is a keeper. Very pretty.

I don't understand France's ethnic drum and bass thing at all:

Quite the voice on Australia's Sheldon Riley, singing "Not the Same":

Spain has sent a Cuban-born performer, Chanel, who apparently was in the final five performers considered by Spielberg for the role of Anita in West Side Story:

 

S10's "De Diepte", for the Netherlands, is one of the most beautifully sung songs of this year's competition:

Here's another weird one, that squarely aims at capturing the hearts of the Internet, Iceland style, but I think they're overdoing it. The performers of Subwoolfer have hidden their identities and pretend to be ancient anthropomorphic wolves for some reason. The song itself is deeply silly:

Poland has sent someone trying to replicate the magic of Switzerland's Gjon's Tears:

And the top four according to the current odds makers, in reverse order...

Sam Ryder's "Space Man" (though, awkwardly, the actual lyric is "I'm up in space, maaaaaan") is nicely sung, great voice.

Naturally, my personal favorite this year happens to be Sweden's Cornelia Jakobs singing "Hold Me Closer", partially because I felt that her actual live performance was magnetic and full of stage presence, helped by the (typically) great camera work. The focus on just a single performer, the intimacy of the camera's regard for her, reminds me of how Barbara Pravi's wonderful "Voilà" worked last year when it landed in second place. Is it a perfect vocal performance? No, there's some imperfections, but it makes it feel more authentic, IMO. She had quite the reaction to winning -- she was absolutely sure that an extremely popular personality, Anders Bagge, was going to take it, and basically collapsed into tears for a bit.

This is not going to win Eurovision, but proud we sent it:

And then Italy's Mahmood (who placed #2 in 2019 with "Soldi") joins Blanco to perform "Brividi" ("Shivers"). As always, there's things about Italian songs that I tend to love, and this has it in spades... but I personally don't think the two singers pair together that well. Mahmood's vocal range is more limited than Blanco's, and it shows in the live performance they did at Sanremo, IMO:

Still, the lyrics are beautiful, as they generally are out of Italy.

And finally... #1 with the bullet according to the bookies at present at 32% to win... is Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra, with "Stefania". No, who dares suggests that the current crisis in Europe has anything to do with it? This one... they do a Go_A and present some Ukranian folk music to begin with, and that opening is quite wonderful.

It's everything else -- the Ukranian rap, the one figure wearing some sort of printed folk embroidery getup that also, unfortunately, looks on camera like he's in blackface -- that boggles me. I won't begrudge Ukraine a victory with this, all things considered -- a sign of solidarity from their friends and neighbors in Europe (not Russia, by the by, who were removed from the competition when all the sanctions came down; and, BTW, this was not Ukraine's first song choice,  the first one was sung by Alina Pash, who had to withdraw over the controversy of having performed in Crimea in 2015 after the Russian annexation).

For the full list of competitors -- a couple countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia) haven't selected songs yet -- and the current aggregated odds can be found here.

[Ran]

The excitement for this year's Eurovision is palpable!

Armenia just released the audio of their song, Rosa Linn performing "Snap". Apparently among the writers is a performer from Armenia's 2015 entry.

A bit in the Lumineers or Mumford & Sons vein.

The last remaining entry to this year's contest will be Azerbaijan's, and I think I read that they'll be releasing the official video for it on the 21st.

Odds haven't really changed much in the week - right now Ukraine is favored at 34%, and I think Italy may have slipped a couple while Sweden is firmly in third place with 12%.

[Ran]

And the last entry has released, from Azerbaijan:

 

Kind of meh to me, personally. But that does complete the 40 songs that will be competing this year. The Eurovision odds still heavily favor Ukraine, but we'll see where we're at in a couple of months.

[Heartofice]

UK’s entry is surprisingly good this year. It will be a shame when it doesn’t get a single point.

Moldova again putting its Romainian neighbours to shame, with an effort that won’t win but is a lot of fun. Why are they always so good?

[BigFatCoward]

Even ironically, I don't understand this, it's fucking garbage right?

[Ran]

I think the UK will get at least one point for sure.

I do wonder what Moldova's actual stage show will be. The live performance I linked was no fun, but the video is fantastic. If they can do a staging that conveys the imagery and humor and charm of the video, it should do well. If they do what they did for their previous live performance, it'll do poorly (except with Romania).

@BigFatCoward

Is that a reference to the Ryder song or to Eurovision in general? Heh. Can't help you with the latter. As to the former, I don't know, I don't love it but I don't think it's terrible. He sings the song very well.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

 

@BigFatCoward

Is that a reference to the Ryder song or to Eurovision in general? Heh. Can't help you with the latter. As to the former, I don't know, I don't love it but I don't think it's terrible. He sings the song very well.

Eurovision in general.

Also I haven't forgiven you for the geordie shore dig either. 

[Heartofice]

Us Brits generally have a pretty dismissive view of Eurovision, and rightly so because the songs are mostly rubbish.

I have come around to it over the years though, once you realise that at least some of the participants are in on the joke, and then when you find a song which is genuinely good it can feel pretty special

[Ran]

I think Eurovision is quite fun, but some of it is the enjoyment of watching a trainwreck, sometimes, and some is enjoying deliberate camp, sometimes, and some of it is just that there's some genuinely good performances.

The ESC official Youtube channel has posted a recap of all 40 entries, offering brief excerpts from each:

 

[Ran]

And for those curious as to which semi-final countries are in, see here. I don't think final running order will be determined yet, if I remember how it was done last year. There's a prediction game on Reddit, though, where the perceived strongest songs generally end up being placed near the end.

Ukraine has picked up another percentage point in the odds, now at 35%. I do hope things return a bit more to reality and there's a genuine competition at the end, or that the odds are just way overestimating sentiment. Going into a Eurovision with a foregone conclusion would take a lot of wind out of the sails for enthusiasts.

[Galactus]

So are we going to do a watch together thing? Here? On discord? Somewhere? 

[Ran]

Discord seems better suited, but if people want to spam this thread, works too! Reminds me that I had some more videos I wanted to share, as some more live performances have been taking place over time. Also learned that France's official selection video actually substituted the studio track over their live performance (I believe the video linked above has the live track) because the live performance was shaky. Apparently the only country to have done that, though I suppose it's because they haven't bothered to spring for a separate video.

Here's the Netherland's S10 (pronounced Steen) in a live performance with a pretty cool laser display. Not sure if they're thinking of doing something like that for Turin:

They had a pre-Eurovision party, Israel Calling, with some performances that have made people change opinions on some pieces. Probably the biggest hit was to Austria's entry, as the singer Pia Maria was very out of tune on stage, and ran out of breath at several points. Apparently some feel the Czech entry also wasn't that great live. That said, there's weeks yet and a lot of fiddling goes on right up until the show itself.

[Ran]

Not much movement in the odds, Ukraine still thought the winner by a long distance by oddsmakers at present, Italy has tightened its grip on #2, Sweden is #3, UK #4.

There was this "House Party" event with some varieties of performances from contestants, some doing different songs, some doing acoustic versions of their entries, and some covers (Sheldon Riley of Australia revealed he is, apparently, completely obessed with Sweden's "Hold Me Closer", and does a nice cover of it):

Riley's cover of "Hold Me Closer":

S10's rendition of "De Diepte" for the event was lovely:

 

[Ran]

In the home stretch. First semi-final is tomorrow. There's been a lot of rehearsal drama, with multiple delegations upset about RAI's camera choreography aligning with what they asked for, the center-piece rotating LED archway wall is only semi-functional, and other problems (notably, for Sweden, pretty much all the camerawork was wrong, and technical difficulties on RAI's side were so overwhelming that Cornelia Jacobs got only two, not three, dress rehearals, plus the camera man tripped on her mic cord at one point, making her jerk forward at one point; the delegation got a committment from the hosts for her to get a makeup rehearsal at some point).

Odds have moved a little bit, most notably seeing Sam Ryder of the UK now in the #3 position behind Italy... but mostly Ukraine has gone even higher for some reason. Hardcore Eurofans are disbelieving this, that even if they take the televote there's no way that juries will agree enough... but are they wrong? We'll see. 

Here's a summary of the rehearsals over the last days:

 

 

 

 

As a bonus, the Czech Republic's We Are Domi performed a very interesting cover for the House Party event a few days ago:

 

[Mentat]

On 3/14/2022 at 9:45 PM, Ran said:

Spain has sent a Cuban-born performer, Chanel, who apparently was in the final five performers considered by Spielberg for the role of Anita in West Side Story:

Spain's selection was pretty controversial. We held an open song contest (Benidorm Fest) to pick our representative in Eurovision. The professional jury picked Chanel despite an overwhelming popular support for either

Rigoberta Bandini's Ay Mama (a reivindicative feminist song about motherhood)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_WqBxwAbJY

or Tanxugueiras' Terra (a folk song in Galician)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uGN9efcACw

[Ran]

Yeah, I heard there was a lot of drama in Spain. I'll be honest, Bandini's song feels sort of too avant garde for Eurovision.. but then we have Serbia, so what do I know?

Tanxugueira's song would have been interesting in a year where France has sent a song in Breton.

[Maltaran]

8 hours ago, Ran said:

Yeah, I heard there was a lot of drama in Spain. I'll be honest, Bandini's song feels sort of too avant garde for Eurovision.. but then we have Serbia, so what do I know?

Tanxugueira's song would have been interesting in a year we France has sent a song in Breton.

I keep thinking the UK should send a song in Welsh just to see how it does

[Mladen]

I could not have been MORE PROUD of Serbia for sending Konstrakta, She truly mesmerized Serbian public two months ago, especially the crowd which generally is not that much into Eurovision. Suddenly, in competition where we had the usual folk powerballad and modern disco beat, Konstrakta blew away both the juries and the televote in Serbia. Rapidly, she became quite the name in Ex-Yugoslavia and the response from Turin seems to be great. 

 

As for those wondering what the song is about... Konstrakta raised awareness that Serbian professional musicians and overall cultural workers don't have health insurance. 

 

And if she wins, I will have the story that will trump the legendary "who went in same high school Måns Zelmerlöw attended" tale

[Buckwheat]

Hi! So where is the chat going to be tonight?  

[Ran]

I'd say the Discord for live chat (see link at top right), but folks should feel free to post here as well.