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Eurovision 2024: #10

10. UNITED KINGDOM Olly Alexander - "Dizzy" 18th place

Decade Ranking: 35/153 [Above Last Dance, below Monika Linkyte]

Gotta love the commitment to the art here, it's really giving:

I'm getting ahead of myself, but yeah I fucking loved "Dizzy". It was a really good entry that of course, was never going to get a single televote. They exist, and this is one of them.

But first, let's get the unfun bit out of the way: Olly Alexander was bullied. I'm not going to address that any further. Those responsible need to dc from the internet, because it clearly brings out the absolute WORST in them.

In these times of overwhelming negativity, I find it important to be POSITIVE whenever possible, so here we are - 'Dizzy" was far from perfect, but I love it nevertheless. SOMETHING GOOD to come out of Olly's miserable ESC journey.

At the core lies a really, really good song. I'm biased, obv - basic Synthpop IS my safe zone, and "Dizzy" is basic synthpop that perfectly articulates what I want / am missing from my intimate life.

"Why don't you make me DIZZY FROM YOUR KISSES

Take my hand AND SPIN ME

Round and round 'till this MOMENT NEVER ENDS

:sadsynth:"

It's unabashed in its hopeless romanticism, in it's naive optimism and in it's tragic, inevitable conclusion.

Okay, now we address the performance. The vocals, let's get that out of the way, we're not good, but they weren't detrimental enough for me to care. They were a step up from Mae, and the overall packages was still enjoyable, so whatevs.

The staging though, ho boy I have all the opinions. The bottom line is that i LOVE it but I'm also shocked they went with something so... QueerTube coded?

I don't CARE that it was on-stage seppuku.

I don't CARE that it was the raunchiest thing in the goonerverse.

I don't care that it served "Inclusivity, but only for queen men".

I get it, I understand, I accept it. Single Gay Men such as myself and Olly often deeply crave unrequited emotional affection, tenderness, a lover's gentle caress, but as Gay Men have learned to repress those cravings and not speak of them. Including to others.

So instead, we often default to the easiest alternative: Grindr, and all the depravity that comes with it. Kinkster-tinged debauchery as a form of escaping the lonelyness we feel in our hearts.

AND THAT, I think it was what Ted Uni Dom King were intending to convey with their staging. It's a tragic, but poignant combination of inner brittleness and outwards brutality and vulgarity that is so painfully real for so many (too many) strong codependent homosexuals.

THERE ISN'T AN END

THERE ISN'T A START

I DON'T WANNA STOP

I CAN'T GO TOO FAR

Ironically, he took the Sexual Thing way too far, bless. 😍 Literal cowgirling in a family show <3 If the objective was to score televotes they definitely shouldn't have went there. Inclusivity is achieved through including everyone, not by specifically showcasing your marginalized group (hopeless homosexuals => so, me). Considering that the majority of the viewing audience this year were wine mom karens and their tory husbands, it didn't go down quite as well, but like who cares? "Dizzy" pissed off all those that spend their afterlives within the nine circles of hell: bigots, karens, tories, pearl-clutchers, zionists, bleeding hearts, keyboard warriors, eurosnobs and LBG-without-the-T Cigarettes. Press their (nonexistent) hearts, King.

Also, I refuse to call the staging bad, because "Dizzy" frankly, was a bit basic as a song. It NEEDED to go big and take a huge risk, and it took it, fuck the consequences. It showcased a boldness that I can respect.

Furthermore, I just love the concept and how it flows? Like yeah it was erotic, but it was still doing with a sense of aesthetics. The showerroom shenanigans, the shaky cam, the topsy-turvy angles. Olly DESPERATE search for some level of intimacy from his collective of xwitter oomfbots. This was a much better representation of eroticism and desire compared to say, Sekret. (then again, I think "Sekret" borders on harrassment ♥) It suited the song and made it better.

So in this end, yeah. This entry is for me and people like me and NOBODY ELSE lmfao. 😂 Its low placement in the televote is also a massive defeat for the contest, but that's a whole nother discourse and I refuse address that. I'm still looking for a kind, cute beefy himbot who wishes to make me dizzy with his kisses, so DMs are open for applications. The only requirement is that you like Sebi...x

THE RANKING.

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Eurovision 2024: #11

11. GREECE Marina Satti - "Zari" 11th place

Decade Ranking: 38/153 [Above Pasha Parfeny, belowGjon's Tears]

The internet is sometimes so strange yo. Fans went ABSOLUTELY FERAL over "Zari" over release, were sacrificing their firstborn sons (metaphorically. most of them -thankfully- won't ever procreate) declaring it a POTENTIAL WINNER, A CLEAR TOP TENNER. Even now, the chants of ZARI WAS ROBBED are still ongoing even if they calmed down a bit since the Final last month.

Meanwhile, I was sitting on my island thinking "um why do these human skidmarks enjoy that horribe cacaphonous abortion of a song?"

YES, that was the take preshow, and I'm not sorry about it. "Zari" was a lot of shit and most of it was... well... shit. Ethnic instruments that were thrown together with zero regard for harmony, pivoting between "edgy" hiphop and "romantic" downtempo bits at the drop of a pin. The TA TA TA? A throbbing MIGRAINE of a chorus (I guess? I don't get headaches, I only cause them). "Zari" was tailored for Zoomers so again, why is this OLD ASS MILLENNIAL (lol she's three years older than I am) playing up to people half her age... by using TikTok memes? Stick to your generation, nerd. It was like a dozen Greek clichés haphazardly strung together as the ultimate clickbait. Borderline un-fucking-listenable.

Now, I am FULLY aware that take puts me in mortal peril since the first and only step in Marina Satti fandom is to make it your personality. I've accepted the fact that a gang of Zari Zombies will be standing at my front door all

but it's MY TRUTH, children and the truth WILL out!. The song was a mess in studio version and that a hill I'll happily die on! Annoying song + obnoxious fanbase => I was SO ready to rank it low and be veeeeery petty and supercilious about it!!! You know, the usual Me Stuff.

But then... we get to the semi and turns out "Zari" t actually works really well and its fans were right all along lmfao oops!!! MORPH!!

Yeah, "Zari" was just the contemporary and Greek equivalent of "My Slowianie", wasn't it? (you'd better say Yes, because I'll compare them for the rest of this post...x) Esothertic ethic mess that somehow functions as a Stage Piece. Obviously NOT AS GOOD as "My Slowianie" (a social media overlay does NOT compensate for the lack of butter churners - where are the olive press workers, hmm?), but it was a decent enough forllow-up, on the clock ten years after Cleo.

Not a large part in the live being good was Marina herself though. Laryngitis or not, she went HARD.

GIRLBOSS

GASLIGHT

GATEKEEP

This is loads of fun!!! I hear the Satti Stans were disappointed by the stage presentation and that is fuckin' daft. The act was honestly... hot and slay and sold the song. It wasn't without faults (the styling and social media overlays were SOOO tacky lmfaooo), but christ who the fuck cares about a few inaccuracies after Marina took the camera (literally? lol) and ran away with it. Second most charismatic on-stage personality in this year after Ladaniva.

The one-shot camera

into the choreographies

into the explosion of colour

into a diffusion of energy that interacted with the audience-

heralded the metamorphosis from an obnoxious TikTok degenerate into a very well-executed Eurovision entrant that - despite possessing multiple ideas that shouldn't work on paper - got most of its shit right, in the correct dosage. It was more than enough to drag me on board, and I was a massive fucking sceptic! It worked, period.

At the end of the day, 11th place is actually a perfect result for Marina.

First off, it's where I've ranked her myself. (which was unplanned, since i fold the songs into my excel first before I look at their overall placements)

Secondly, I never thought she would be top 10 (then again, the only people who thought that were the contingent of her fanbase that thought she was the main character of Eurovision 2024 (over... Eden, Joost, Baby Lasagna and Nemo? lol.), and also thought she'd WIN which is a whole nother slice of insanity ham.)

And thirdly, some of the things Marina did were better executed by some of the remaining artists so it makes sense she didn't outrank them, here or on the scoreboard. She wasn't the biggest revelation (Ireland was), nor the most charismatic (Armenia were) nor the best girlbop (Italy, sort of), etc. She was very good at all of those things, but not the top dog.

In sum, "Zari" is just too um... unconventional to win many juries over. It did as well as it could have done, and still got left side thanks to a beefy televote. That's a good result in my book. It's good when my negative first impressions are proven unfounded by a strong and engaging live, and even better when these growers are rewarded with highish spots. Such results can only benefit the battles, which needs all the small victories it can get.

Pity I'm really that keen on dragging Olly Alexander into my top ten, huh?

CONGRATULATIONS TOP TEN!!!

(not in order...x)

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12. ESTONIA 5Miinust & Puuluup - "(nendest) Narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi" 20th place

Decade Ranking: 40/153 [Above Trenuletul, below Pasha Parfeny]

For those of you who don't speak Estonian.

This is message for those that didn't believe in them.

Guess where they are honey.

They're in the final.

and they're here to stay 💋 :dramatic tallharpa:

YES, I KNOW, they're out this early. Honestly, It feels incorrect to rank 5M&P anywhere other than right above Trenuletul (their spiritual ancestor), and we've already reached them point on the spreadsheet, so... Blame that year for producing 11 better entries.

I don't think Estonia warrants an introduction this year. From the second ANY of us heard :inhales: nendestnarkootikumidesteiteameküllmidagi, :exhales (this may seem difficult to type out, but I speak a language that has words such as meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornis and arbeidsongeschiktheidscommissie. Pity for the five readers I get from countries such as Romania and Portugal). Anyway, from the second any of us heard [LongestTitleEver], we all knew we were going to be in for a WILD ride.

And indeed, if there's anything you can say about Estonia is that their song went HARD in basically every live performance.

THE MEMEDANCE

(symmetrically branching out 😍)

THE TAVERN BRAWL INTO FRATERNIZATION NARRATIVE

OLD FARTS CARRYING ♥ ♥ ♥

(Yeah he does look like VSauce, i knooow...x)

Shenanigans coated by song whose lyrics effectively boil down to "Don't do drugs! Drugs are bad! Allow me to demonstrate all that can go wrong. :demonstrates absolutely nothing wrong: " 😍. This entry is hotter than a stovetop.

Never forget that they qualified, fairly comfortably, from the semi of death, with an absolutely FOUL live performance! 😂 (no wonder that Sofia Coll comparison came naturally...x). Sometimes the song and concept are good enough to carry a televote, take notes countries with no idea what makes a televoter tick (Belgium, Austria, Azer...x).

All in all, it was a really fun ride, so why not higher?

Well... You know I love a good trainwreck and Estonia provided one... but it's the same deal as Raiven and Kaleen in a sense. I think the song's really good on its own. It's a rich composition that masterfully showcases Estonia's musical tradition. No other country in the WORLD could present an entry like (Nendest) Narkootikumidest.

Yet, I found that the lives didn't do it as much justice as I would have liked. (Nendest) Narkootikumidest's first live I saw (the one at Hommik Aniga) remains the best one, largely because they managed to curb the chaos for just the right amount of time before unleashing it into a psychedelic shitstorm. What we got in Malmö was very fun too, but not quite as epic.

It's a little bit nitpicky, I know, but bear with me. I really like everyone left in the ranking. It's the little details such as "this doesn't reach its full potential" or "these vocals are kinda crooked" (both of which apply to Estonia 💔) that are going to make or break your further survival, alongside my personal whim. (Nendest) Narkootikumidest was good, and I cherish it, but I know it could have been better (case in point: Finland beat them by a handful of points 💀), and that realization sealed their fate for me.

That said, MEGA STOKED Estonia qualified (and some of my friends got to hang out with them during the off-time in Malmö you can imagine how jealous I am), so let's hear the song one last time, with THIS handy format so you have no excuse to misidentify Marko, Ramo, Lancelot, Kölver, North Korea (lol) and Päevakoer ever again!

and um lol yes another year with Lithuania as the top Baltic. Funny how that remains a constant over the years. (#LETTHEMHAVETHEIRFIRSTWINSOON)

THE RANKING

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Eurovision 2024: #13

13. LATVIA Dons - "Hollow" 16th place

Decade Ranking: 43/153 [above Duje, below Tick-Tock]

ALL HAIL KING EGG 👑🥚

Stanning Dons like was not a development I expected, but here I am. He's precious, he's flawless, he's a walking green flag and should be protected at all costs.

How can you not like him now? Dons is THE biggest shock qualifier of all time. "But Boris, what about-" nope, I won't hear your flimsy suggestions - Robertoad, Sergej Cetkovic, Raiven, Valentina, Eugent- None of them were as jaw-dropping to me as Dons was. I immediately got up and grabbed a (non-alcoholic) drink when it happened. I needed one. My brain could not process it without hydration. Bro qualified from LAST PLACE IN THE ODDS, representing Latvia, the ONLY country in all of Eurovision that failed to reach the top 10 in a semi televote every year since 2016. WITH ONLY ESTONIA AS ALLIES.

Like, yeah hindsight makes it clear why made it in, but come on now. If you thought Latvia were making it before the Thursday show, I would dismiss you as a naive wishful thinker. Regardless, it was very earned. "Hollow" was a diet Hozier song, and that's basically the equivalent to gold dust in Eurovision. It was a SONG, and a good one at that. We collectively assumed Belgium would snag his votes away. Pity most failed to consider that Belgium did not have a song.

However, the painpoint always seemed to be Dons's perceived lack of charm and appeal, and that was not a small concern. Despite being a very capable vocalist, Dons lost to Aarzemnieki in 2014 and to AISHA in 2010. He always has the air of a funerary director to him, and his current bald look (which vibed as part Who / part Syltherin) didn't help matters, nor did a plethora of REALLY DEPRESSING LINES ABOUT DEATH and DYING EARLY.

His looks said ET phone Hozier his facts said ET go home.

And even as "Hollow" played during the semi I still thought he was 100% out, as Dons performed it with the lifeless of one reluctantly going through the motions. You might as well be a nondescript businessman with a briefcase commuting to their underpaid 9-to-5 job. This man's a sitting duck and he knows it, and no amount of BesaBreastplates™ is going to protect him.

But then, excelsior! Dons miraculously made it (by being announced FIRST) on the strength of voice and song and biceps and right in that moment, something changed.

Immediately after qualifying Dons transformed from someone with the same joie de vivre as a palliative care patient into an absolute demigod and icon?

IT STARTED at the press conf when he said "Latvia has the shape of a butterfly, and butterflies symbolize freedom and all countries deserve to be free 🦋🍉" and was the ONLY person from that press conf to shade Israel without any repercussions or harrassment later. (SOCIAL GAME KING ♥)

But then he followed it up with that live performance in the finale and... OMG.😍

That live is why we're this high on the list.

That live... was ALIVE.

For the first time in his life, homeboy SERVED ON A STAGE.

Like yeah sure, Dons being unable to contain his rapture absolutely did NOT fit the song at all, but who the fuck cares. Qualifying rejuvenated him by at least ten years on the inside. Once you realize the emotions stem from the pure joy of finally having made the final, after months of dismissal and mockery, and weeks of being told that he's outclassed by Mustii of all people (imagine that.). it's only human that he cannot contain himself anymore. One HAS to let go, serve, spill, and so he did and it was glory.

"I move with my face and... emotion comes out? and I'm LIKEABLE?!"

I won't pretend this was some AMAZING revelation, but like... who cares? It's rare you witness someone discover the gift Emotions live on stage, which is beyond any price. The positive transformation Dons underwent in a mere two days as the contest collapsed around him is one of the most beautiful and wholesome takeaways from this dark, depressing edition.

Also, finally, Eurovision is not in a good spot right now, and Hollow's lyrics are perfect allegorical representation to the situation going on. The EBU's decision to sell themselves out as something so hollow is killing the contest slowly, and currently show no sign of improvement. (They're professional bureaucrats scared to give up their well-paid jobs. figures.) Which almost makes me bump Hollow up a bit higher given how much resonance the message has with me right now. But at the end of the day, one must remain hopeful. Dons’s journey was a comeback, a triumph from a horrible situation like you rarely see at a competition such as this. It was a sign that the song matters, and that one should never give up. If Latvia can experience such a miraculous turnaround in the face of adversity, I think we must harbour a hope that Eurovision can as well.

THE RANKING

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Eurovision 2024: #14

14. SLOVENIA Raiven - "Veronika" 24th place

Decade Ranking: 48/153 [Above Lesley Roy, below Diljá]

Dammit, Raiven.

Sometimes the headcanon is superior to reality. That's what The Euronet seems to think about Raiven. I also sorta subscribe to that sentiment. When I first heard "Veronika", my imagination about it ran WILD and I quickly grew obsessed about its potential, tumbled headfirst into stan mode, and became hyperprotective of her. Raiven had to qualify. AT ALL COSTS. NOBODY was allowed to stand in her way to the final!!!!!!

And thankfully, she didn't fail (because she's both a nudist AND a demon...x) and yet her qualification didn't feel like the big moment it should have been.

You see, going into the contest, "Veronika" hyped itself up as one of those build-into-a-climax pieces, and one of the better ones at that. The intrumentation is immersive and dramatic, and builds up loads of tension. That's fantastic, because I don't want to trudge through two minutes of ennui before the big payoff. "Veronika" suceeded at setting up a really big showstopping moment..

and then it discharged into a PAUSE...

Let me just repeat that

Veronika built up into a PAUSE.

and then disassembled itself into an overtly bright, overtly screamy slugfest. :sigh:.

Like damn, that's... fizzling out if ever it was.

When the clips came in, so came the irrepressible feelings of EXISTENTIAL DREAD. Slovenia had not fixed their song's biggest, most glaring weakness and it showed. The five stages of grief, with the final stage being ~aiko~ RESIGNAL for Slovenia's inevitable fate in the semi.

Like, I get it, the budget just wasn't there, but christ like... YOU NEED A BIG MOMENT RIGHT THERE WHERE THE PAUSE IS. Was this not the plan? Give the woman some leds. A choreo with momentum? Pyros? ANYTHING? Dress her dancers up like actual merpeople (scales, make-up, etc) rather than in featureless body suits. Hoist her up into the air like she's ascending to heaven directly from a whirlpool, which how I would have staged it. (how expensive are four ropes and a harness? Something for the Darklands gays to answer cuz I am innocent enough to not have a clue ^_^).

Do SOMETHING to create some sort of payoff and avoid making this beautiful rhinemaiden look like a hunchbacked sea witch emerging from the Mariana Trench.

(anyone who thinks grillz improve a look need to be slapped; HORRIBLE, fashion trend (as are most fashion trends, sadly).)

However, isn't that it, in terms of neg? The worst (only bad) thing about "Veronika" to me is that I imagined it as better in my head. That is on me, not her, and I should get a grip.

The final minute doesn't take away that:

(1) Raiven herself delivered FLAWLESS vocals. Her hump-backed wailing was on point on both nights and Veronika is one of the few songs i've regularly revisted for background music during this... i'd say PED, but lbr it's only D this year. It's the opposite of Luna - it looks dirt cheap and sounds INCREDIBLY good.

(2) I still get a massive kick miming out "NAJDI ME RANI ME BRANI ME" and "OGLEEEEEEEDAAAAALUUU SEM BREZ RRRRRRRBOOOOOV" late at night doing the exact same poses. (She's doing it for the gays, which counts for something since it's Pride Demon Month...x)

(3) The staging leading up to the bridge was pretty good. Not excellent because good christ do you want immersion or do you want bright-ass wideshots because you cannot have BOTH!!! (seriously 32 cameras and none of them positioned to take a good close-up between cuts?), but the smoke, the faces, Raiven's RAIVENESSS

(4) IT STILL FUCKING MADE THE FINAL ANYWAY.

Even during the trainwrecky bits, Raiven kept on serving possessed witcher juju and hand choreos even if Slovenia's offering looked a bit damp squib compared to Ireland's showstopping spectacle. (not a sentence you type every year, let me just say that.)

Ultimately it boils down to, at least for fans that loved the song on sight like myself, to accept its place in the canon, and not the headcanon.

In the headcanon, "Veronika" has a creative budget and sweeps the jury vote into the same 6th place Ireland got.

In the actual canon, "Veronika" pulled a Systur: A pleasant, fun and criminally underrated gem that made the final in the face of adversity. The newspaper articles I read all cited her as the (pleasant) surprise finalist of SF1. (similar to Mimicat last year.)

She was perhaps not the showstopper we desired, nor got the end result her efforts deserved (oh wow ANOTHER year where Slovenia were bullied. Colour me not shocked), but it is something I can embrace and live with. The battle was the qualification, and the rest is catharsis. She was a nearly universally approved of Eurovision Finalist, and that is still a win for this Raivenhead.

THE RANKING

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Eurovision 2024: #15

15. AUSTRIA Kaleen - "We will rave" 25th place

Decade Ranking: 50/153 [Above Systur, below Lesley Roy]

WHEN THE DARKNESS HITS AND WE CAN'T BE SAVED

WIRAM WI DAM DAM DA WE WILL RAVE

Fucking AMAZING chorus. At this stage of the ranking, I don't really give too many shits about the flaws in the product. And that's for the best because Holy Hell Kaleen that was NOOOOOOOT GOOOOOOOD (objectively). Fortunately it was still very entertaining (also objectively?), so.

Also at this point, you may expect some real emotional investment from my part and Kaleen is clear example of that too. SHE, more than anyone else, was the uncrowned queen of Millennial Monroehood this year. Not only did she provide a fucking BANGER from the time I was a middleschooler, she also SERVED:

LOOKS

PERSONALITY

POISE

JE NE SAIS QUOI

ATTITUDE

and also NONE OF THE VOCALS. 😍 😍 😍

And this comes on top of her song being leaked two months in advance off Marvin Dietmann's laptop, and becoming a viral hit among millennial eurotwitter BEFORE its full release ♥ (and I fully buy into the conspiracy theory that the leak was intentional to build hype.)

But yeah, this performance was heavily flawed, I won't deny that. "We will rave" is a great song and it's only 15th on my ranking, that's how far south that went.

It is equal parts comical and tragic that Marvin Dietmann arranged for his PARTNER (I assumed "business partner" at first, but apparently also partner in a domestic sense? Yeah I'm as surprised as you are that he likes the clam.) to be cast for Eurovision and then failed to provide staging for her that capitalized on her strengths.

Kaleen is a professional dancer and dance instructor.

She runs Marvin's Dance School FOR HIM, FOR A LIVING.

The leak showed a vibrant dance choreography that allowed her to (barely) provide passable vocals.

She's a natural born performer of the ~rhythmic arts~

So what does Marvin do?

HE REDUCES HER DANCE ROUTINE TO THE TYPE OF TARD DANCE ANYONE CAN EXECUTE.

HAS HER WALK AROUND THE STAGE. NOT DANCE. WALK.

AND HAD HER DANCERS SHIMMY HER AROUND IN LIEU OF A DANCE BREAK.

ALL SO THAT SHE CAN DELIVER THE BEST VOCAL PERFORMANCE... WHICH IS... WORSE THAN IN THE DEMO BECAUSE UM HELLO EARTH-TO-MARVIN:

YOUR GIRLFRIEND IS A DANCER, AND NOT A SINGER.

And all of that, I mean I'm sorry, is fucking hilarious, foremost. I know the live was "bad" but god it was really good at being bad. Casting your girlfriend and then FAILING to take her skillset (anything involving movement) into account is so uproariously funny to me. The staging was not bad on paper (it tried to increase momentum via the lasers and looks good if you mute), but it featured a slow, aenemic choreography that couldn't keep up with the music's light speed pace. That same dichotomy killed Halo, killed Edgar and almost killed "We Will Rave" too. This is the choreo you'd give to someone who cannot dance either due to being a block of wood (Dons) or old (Meri Bas.).

Even Firefighter, which is a fucking abortive attempt at a "dance song", had more tempo and life and let Nutsa (who is NOT a dancer) perform a break by herself. Christ Marvin.

(Granted it may be the outfit that forced Kaleen to perform a pantomime rather than a dance, but if that's the case... change the outfit? If those boots restrict your mobility, then don't wear them AT ALL, you know?)

However, as much as my appreciation for the live is based on irony and schadenfreude, I also just really love the song that much. "We will rave" is the best written girlbanger of this year - catchy, infectuous, smoking hot, and a wonderful throwback to the good Flemish techno of the early aughts. It's such a fucking banger in the style of Milk Inc, Lasgo, X Session, Touch of Joy, 2Fabiola, etc.

The prechorus and lyrics are delectable, and Kaleen is, despite her vocal inaccuracies, a charming hostess and style icon. Her personality is the saving grace of this live performance and the reason why I still embrace it in the face of its many mistakes. As disrespectful as Marvin's choreography was, she was flawless in its execution. SHE is what turns "We Will Rave" into a ride. The choreo and the results both did her dirty, but eh. Someone had to finish near the bottom. This year, that was Austria.

Now SAVOUR this last ever instance of them being fun in Eurovision because they'll only send salvaduncans from hereonout. If Eurovision isn't cancelled first, of course.

THE RANKING

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Eurovision 2024: #16

16. PORTUGAL Iolanda - "Grito" 10th place

Decade Ranking: 56/153 [Above Circus Mircus, below Alika]

OH NOES THE FINGERNAILS!! SO BLATANTLY POLITICAL!! I legit had to zoom and enhance to even NOTICE, jesus christ EBU.

For an entry that I have ranked relatively high, Iolanda is such a pain to write about? I feel like the appeal and placement are both obvious? There are also no real fun things about it? It's all fairly cut and dry (hence why I skipped yesterday to give myself extra think time for the write-up).

I find it hard to believe that anyone can muster up feelings beyond 'yah this is good, next one please' for a song of Grito's calibre. Especially over the more immediate (read: better) "Pelas Costuras"?

That said, I must soldier on and write a few more words. "Grito" is actually a pretty competent Growth Ballad. It starts slowly but then gradually builds up the tension. It handles the overcoming of inner demons with a beautiful touch of melancholy (it IS Portugal after all), and never stays too long in its phases.

In other words: it dodges the main pitfall of many other cerebral ballads: Despite what Joel and Myff were insinuating (Aus NQ'd, in your FACE) Grito is not boring.

But it's also not that engaging of a composition. My gripe with it is that it banged the hardest in studio for me, and studio cuts just... don't matter to me? At last not post-show. I get all of my listens from Youtube, not Spotify. In the studio version, "Grito" goes from zero to hero IMMEDIATELY at the first chorus, and doesn't back down. It goes quite hard. Live, the transition is more gradual and subdued, which pulls me into the immersion at a later point. Almost too late? "Grito" is a slow burner, and I'm not a patient man. You need to make me care about you immediately, not until you're halfway through the song.

It makes sense that Iolanda was sort of the Alika of the year resultswise (getting a good amount of jury votes into a negative televote) but she had the opposite problem for me. Alika came across like she was aimlessly screaming at a mic without any sophistication. Iolanda came across as frosty introvert who deliberately held back on purpose to sound frail before the big note. BELT WOMAN, YOUR SONG DEMANDS IT.

Eventually, she did. And it was pretty good.

That was a really good climax. Grito succeeds where Ramonda and Before the Party's Over (and in a sense Veronika which I'll address in a few days) struggled with or even outright failed to do.

So going into the contest from FdC, I always expected Portugal to be a qualifier (why were SO many people sleeping on it? I know a lot of eurofans are dumb (sadly, not of the mute variety), but also hard of hearing?) but I was hoping for Iolanda to inject more life into her song. This was why I had difficulty getting into her at FdC.

and she... sorta did?

Like, if I'm honest, the performance wasn't enough to fully win me over. It went from a 7 to a 7.5, it's not the LEAP forward I had hoped.

However, Portugal managed to elevate the act from its FdC counterpart, and respected the song's strengths. Befitting the lyrics, Iolanda ~transformed into a better verison of herself~, serving personality.

The staging in Sweden was also better - the use of the cubes to create a confined space for an intimate performance, the interactive choreography and the camerawork that framed it beautifully were great. In FdC, it felt like Iolanda had too many ideas for her staging, and they were poorly implemented. In Sweden, it clicked together smoothly. Her styling was great (die Joel!). She got the message across, while staying classy and sophisticated, which I suppose is Portugal's entire spiel at Eurovision nowadays.

In terms of my personal preferences though, it doesn't set my soul on fire, or makes me raise roofs tonight. Iolanda was good across the board, so she makes perfect sense as a high jury carry, but at the same time she also makes perfect sense as a televote bottomfeeder. It cuts both ways - "Grito" is good on all accounts, and outstanding at none, nor particularly is it particularly high on Fun Factor. It's too polished and competent for that. Like, "Grito" is not Eurovision. it is a well-executed live of a well-written song that found it's way there by winning the NF. It's highbrow. And I can appreciate that, but ultimately, others this year have delivered entires that were more to in line with the vibes I like to receive from my Eurovision entries.

AND NOW WE'RE MOVING UP A TIER. Here are whoever's left:

Which one is #YOUR favourite?

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #17

17. MALTA Sarah Bonnici - "Loop" 35th place

Decade Ranking: 64/153 [Above Hooverphonic, below RAFAL]

TAKE A VIDEO, WATCH IT ON LoOOOoOoOOOP~

Officer, I'd like to report a robbery. Because THIS is not a last placer in Eurovision, are you fucking shitting me. Who the hell sees that performance and thinks "well this is obviously worse than Albania"?

Granted, Honeypie's struggle to climb off the bottom was always a steep one, long before Christer put the finale stake in her heart by having her open the strong semi. Malta's selection was the expected unwatcheable shitshow (amazing that somehow, Lux, Denmark AND Germany all managed to be worse) and it was a small miracle they picked something decent.

In this case the "decent" entry was shallow slutpop - LOOK I KNOW that term offends some people (get a life) but, that's what Loop was ok?! An anthem for the manwhores (or in my case, wannabe manwhores, in fact de facto hermits with a crippling fear of rejection) to be their salacious slaggy selves to. It's trashy and fun and as shallow as a puddle, which is how I like to see myself as. Under the guidance of Malta's lavish budget, "Loop" then blossomed into a budget SloMo and was the unexpected, but deserved winner of MESC.

(and she aborted that afterbirth Satan Banan in the process thank Mother Teresa for that)

Of course, "Being A SloMo" always comes with diminishing returns since the original holds such massive standards. Chanel to this day has the best live execution of a flirty girlbop. (evidenced by her clowining on Eleni during the opener of semi 1 ♥) "Budget SloMo" is going to struggle even harder than a regular clone with the powercreep, along with the Maltese flag, ALONG with the garbage R/O based on assumptions and betting odds (isn't it time we return to FULLY RANDOMIZED R/Os?) and along with the myriad of girlbops in the 2nd semi, most of which weren't outright trashfires.

However, despite "Loop"s many flaws, Sarah was always a shining beacon of grace and slaytitude. No matter what you think about the song (it's fine), that woman KNOWS how to put on a show, and that's precisely she did.

SARAH

FUCKING

SERVED

HUNTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Seriously, Aiko was good, but a lot of that the surprise factor of her discovering her newfound talent of breath control. I knew Sarah was good going into the semi, and she promptly proved that yes, all the diva's were born as a human beings. She was drawfucked, and that all it was, rly. (at least compared to Nutsa who had a similar package and a worse song). Sarah's✨ ditzy personality ✨ really shone through as she queened her way through her quartet of meatsack himbots.

(speaking of ditzy omg remember when all the dystopian joost shit went down on friday and sarah innocently announced amongst the confusion she had an IMPORTANT UPDATE TO MAKE AT 18:00, and it was her NEW SINGLE "Lose", ♥♥♥ every twitter dummy jumped to the conclusion that she was the 11th placer because her live had just been THAT GOOD ♥ and ofc she won the semi because she got to move on from eurovision 2024 fewer than 24 hours after her elimination, while the losers of the semi such as nemo contemplated quitting altogether. Slay, sister. 💋 )

"Loop" was also one of the rare instances of Malta nailing staging. I say rare and I mean it. Name two more examples? It's just both Ira 1.0 and Michaela, am I misremembering? Copy your homework from Chanel and you'll be good, lol.

So yeah, she came last in the semi. An NQ I can live with, but last is... unfair but hey, SHE WASN'T A DEMON OR A NUDIST or whatever the equivalent for semi 2 was (a traumatized zoomer monsterclown or a zionist nepobitch?). It's certainly was no help that Malta somehow decided to designate A DANCE BREAK (I initially wrote "the dance break" but lbr, Loop has at least five of them ♥) as the recap footage (pro-tip: the audience doesn't tune in for dance routines, but for the songs around them), but everything else was.. good? Vocals, act, even the song after a few retouches? There's obviously a ceiling to how high I can carry a "Loop", because it was never an actually good song, just a very fun empty vessel for Sarah to fill with her Ditzy Diva Deva personality. This spot (17th) is that ceiling.

For I recognize what "Loop" truly was.

The best NQ of the 2024.

THE RANKING

And that's indeed ALL of the NQs of the year eliminated before the verdant green (strong like) tier! I believe it's the first time that's happened since I started ranking ESC on tumblr? (it might be the first time ever ~ usually someone excellent is robbed). Hooray for (mostly) correct eliminations? And we have one more finalist to eliminate before we get there.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #18

18. SAN MARINO Megara - "11:11" 33rd place

Decade Ranking: 66/153 [Above Aiko, below Hooverphonic]

Soy "Otra Gente".

Yes, ~Megara & Aiko~ back-to-back as a tribute to the blossoming new relationship. (how cute that these are the two LAST EVER entrants for both of those countries ♥). Star-crossed pansexuals forever tethered side-by-side in this ranked afterlife. THIS is how you do serendipitous running orders, Christer, fucking take notes. (Another fragment of my neurodivergent soul destoyed when he decided to put Megara 10th in the r/o and make 11:11 the 12th overall song to be performed that night).

But Aiko and Megara also represent the duality of modern day NQs. While Aiko delivered a good vocal, glammed-up to a 7.5/10 and still died (lol though luck fighting those bookmakers, girl), Kenzie delivered an ABSOLUTELY ROTTEN VOCAL, downgraded to a 7.5/10 and logically died because it's San Fucking Marino. 😍

Like, idk how to break it to you, but for once, San Marino actually earned the Ironic Standom label. Let's start with the fact that they're repped by my fave act from last year's Benifest with a song about how unfairly robbed "Arcadia" was. ♥

M E

P E L A

M E P E L A

Y si tú no me quieres otra gente me quierian

This year's line-up was so up my alley even the fanfiction was fucking me-coded.

And a fanfic it fucking was because in order to rep Scam Marino, Megara had to beat the following at Una Voce:

Jalisse, Italy's 97's reps (and erstwhile BubbleFaves) who TVSM found in a dusty retirement home somewhere in Italy, recruited as a Big Name, and who reportedly stormed out of the venue as soon as they were eliminated by the jury. (😍)

David Bowie's former flame Dana Gillespie, who sang an AI-written composition about climate change called "The last polar bear" (sample lyrics:" I'm just a polar bear trying to survive :old:" // "Is there someone out there who has mercy on a polar bear?" :old:) (and they HAD to admit this in the final because Una Voce's main sponsor was the company that wrote the AI script which composed the song lmfaooo ♥)

Nusa Derenda's son, who was part of a three-himbot boyband and was absolutely HORRIBLE (the other two did ALL of the lifting ♥), only for them to be completely omited from the first recap of the night (WILL THE BULLYING OF SLOVENIA EVER END?!)

Loredana Bertè, Mia Martini's estranged blue-haired sister who crossed over from San Remo for the sole purpose of terrorizing her ex-husband Björn Borg, and performed in her usual style: dressed as a schoolgirl (she's over 70 btw), hands in her pockets, fully disassociated, sounding like she was halfway through her fourth bottle of Disaronno.

How is ANY of this a waking reality?! Megara beating Loredana last-minute was the icing on the cake because while the notion of Pazza is funny enough (it rhymes "artifice" with "toothpaste" <3), Megara at least had... a concept? an Idea? A song?

And then we got to the contest itself. The preview comes in and has THE EXACT SAME IMPACT ON ME as Bambie's did in the first semi - STOP ALL THE PRESSES, I WANT TO SEE THIS IN FULL IDGAF ABOUT ANY OF THE OTHERS OR MY PERSONAL HEALTH AND RESPONSIBLIITIES!!!! you know, the usual hinged eurofan stuff.

When we finally got to the full live omg ♥ A fantastic act completely PULVERIZED into death by Kenzie's inability to perform ♥ From actually WALKING OFF THE SCREEN

to having her own small Emily Roberts moment in the second chorus

Shittastic. it worked because, thankfully, the song WAS fodder to begin with (no losses there) and the staging -conceptually at least- was visionary. This is probably the best San Marino have ever staged.

The delectable Dias De Muertos flamengo break ♥

the haphazard trigger happy hazbin hotel fuschia fiesta freakshow aesthetics ♥

the silly overlays that actually WORKED BETTER THAN LUX'S ♥

THE DEMON RABBIT INTO DEMON CORPSES DANCERS ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

This (metaphorical) shit was masterfully staged and Kenzy still served LOOKS AND ENERGY despite failing at everything else.

If you're going to be hopeless, then be hilariously bad at giving hope, is what I say.

11:11 was pure chaos on a black-and-pink demon barber pole, which for experimental art rock serving as a middle finger to Spain's lack of taste, is a pretty good medium of expression. The way Megara were guaranteed double digit points because the Mericones (this year's honorary name for Cigarillos/Spanish Fags btw..x) were casting votes in this semi (♥) allowed them to give zero fucks. ♥

Of course, if Megara (and specifically Kenzie) had been in any way competent, then 11:11 could have qualified with that act, and that would have been ICONIC. But they weren't and we missed out on another SF2 epic turnaround, which is probably why I'm not ranking them amongst the very good entries this year. (also, if I did I'd be compelled to rank 'em 11th and LOL @ bumping Aiko up to 12th place). I'm accepting of 11:11's shortcomings, but also acknowledge that it has them. The quality standards were surprisingly high this year, and I enjoy the remaining entries sufficiently that I don't need to cling to Megara as hard as I normally would. Fun filler it is, and that's the perfect endpoint for San Marino's journey.

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #19

19. CZECHIA Aiko - "Pedestal" 28th place

Decade Ranking: 67/153 (Above LPS, below TBA)

PUT! MAH! SELF! ONAPEDESTUL

Every once in a while, you're thrown a curveball that you don't quite know how to respond to. Aiko is one of mine.

Imagine someone who was the surprise winner of their NF because they ran out of breath three seconds into the performance.

Imagine that someone becoming the butt of many joke due to their proven lack of vital capacity over the next months, being ruled out as a qualifier immediately.

Imagine that someone going into the semi dead last in the betting odds, and still looking very much like a sitting duck because she decided to go topless with clamps that looked exactly like nipples? It became a question not of qualification but of whether she would hit double digit points.

Imagine that someone getting sicc'ed an "As We Reach The Equinox"-style narrative by the producers in the previews where "she and her dancers represent the five stages of grief, with Aiko being ~acceptance~" (BULLSHIT! UP TO YOUR EARS!! -- Scout Cloud Lee), foreshadowing a nonsense cover-up for a weak performance.

Imagine that someone then delivered a GOOD live and ALMOST QUALIFIED WITH IT?

Like what the actual FUCK?! Latvia qualifying was shocking enough, but Aiko wasn't far off in terms of pure WTH factor. Ahmad needs to stop, he's putting most of these foolish HoDs to fucking shame with these left-field glow-ups. First Domi, then Vesna, now this? Christ.

It doesn't feel like such a turnaround should be possible. It's similar to how Andrea almost qualified in 2022, but that was due to aggregate weirdness. Andrea was never reaching the final with genuine results. Aiko's 11th place in the semi was a genuine result.

And I mean, why not? I always liked "Pedestal". It was the of Aiko's vocal.... um... challenges, and where they would inevitably lead that hampered me from fully embracing it. The hook is SO fun and the track is pure unfiltered britrock with Avril undertones. A perfect break-up anthem that converts screentime into Me-Time 💅.

The live performance was good. Not great, not outstanding, but solidly good. The staging, the camerawork, the break into the high note. Everything about it helped sell it.

But none of that compares to Aiko. It still hasn't sunk in that she... sang in tune? Nailed the high note? Served? HAIRFLIPS, CHOREOS, FIERCENESS GALORE? ALL OF THOSE THINGS? And made them look effortless too?

WHERE HAS THIS AIKO BEEN FOR THE PAST FIVE MONTHS?! If she had turned up earlier she would have been higher in the odds, given a better R/O spot and MADE THE FINAL!!!

Yeah, all of that juicy improvement hoodoo STILL wasn't enough to reach the final. Granted, SF2 was strong, and "Pedestal" had a terrible draw and was definitely outclassed by most of her competitors. But come on. If you're that much better than expected, you should be in the final. Not all of the qualifiers outclassed Czechia. Surely they could have been in over Georgia? I love Gåte dearly but I'd almost burn them for Aiko just for the thrill of having THREE crazy shock qualifiers from the semi of death. (and NRK eating humble pie).

I'm still not fucking sure how exactly I feel about Aiko but she was solidly good. Not as good as poor Sarah Bonnici, but we'll get there soon. if I compare her to the qualifiers that made it in, Nutsa is the only one I strongly prefer Aiko over (Israel and NL were locks anyway), and Nutsa at least broke an eternal NQ streak. Aiko's NQ undercuts the epicness of her sudden turnaround. I'm more flummoxed by her being good, rather than by how good she was, so let's park her here for now and move on.

BUT AT LEAST SHE WON WHERE IT MATTERS.

Ugh they're so perfect together, I HATE THEM!! jk. LOVE THIS, obvi. 😍 Getting over toxic pole by taking a slice of wholesome clam. Living the story of her song in real life, when will YOUR faves (mine => all the time as you'll see). Slay bitches ♥

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #20

20. LUXEMBOURG Tali - "Fighter" 13th place

Decade Ranking: 73/153 [Above Electric Fields, below Emma Muscat]

For a grand, greatly anticipated return, "Fighter" has always been just there for me. It's summery, upbeat, lightweight and frivolous. Not a shabby, nor a moneymaker. This entry is an FFF (Fun Finale Filler) and it knows it.

How do I know that it knows itself? Well,

BADLY ANIMATED CGI LEOPARDS 😍 😍. You know how I feel about staging tricks like that. They're tacky and ugly and stupid and transparently try to cover up a middling composition.😍 idk, I love Leopards and I love the colour purple, so maybe it was just tacky ENOUGH to be funny, but I stan the decision-making because Tali > Ochman.

It was quite amusing 2 me that Luxembourg made their grand return after 31 years, only to try to throw vast swaths of cash at unnessecary embellishments because they KNEW it wasn't a high flier and needed to throw in SOMETHING, ANYTHING to make it work. Shirtless sexy dancers, badly animated VR, all the pyrotechnics in the world. It feels... very emblematic to them as a country even though this was their first ever modern era contest? "Money fixes everything", no wonder the EBU wanted their opulent arses back.

And it is funny they staged "Fighter" like that because "Fighter" always kind of worked, anyway? It was a plucky power-up song, and a clear qualifier in semi 1 no matter from which position it performed.

It didn't NEED the leopards

it didn't NEED the gratuituous sexual tension lmao

The way to go with a song such as "Fighter" is by finding a balance between tough and cute. The balance swung a bit too heavily in favour of "tough", because "Fighter" just isn't that kind of song, despite the reworks Lux tried to force. It's whimsically French foremost and while "France was historically a militaristic powerhouse,"toughness" suits France historically, nearly everyone associates it with cultural sophostication and romance. (hence why France is always culture focused in Civ, and never the feudal, chivalry-themed warmongering menace it actually was for most of its history ♥)

As ridiculous Fighter's staging got (and how lowkey BAD Tali'Golergant vas Eshkoli's styling was), it still vibed as a fun time. It might just be my latent alcoholic ass imprinting on the tequila sunrise colous scheme, but still. Tali took command of her dancers, showed her inner strength by fistpumping the air and thickened her braids so they no longer resembled antennae.

And she kinda ate those lives, yo.

In semi 1 Lux made for an excellent palate cleanser, a burst of energy after the period of inaneness Rim Tim Tagi Dim left in its wake. I love Raiven dearly and I really like Iolanda, but excitement was not their game. Tali came to the rescue when needed.

In the finale it was less necessary, though it did make Israel stand out as even more miserable to me, so there is that.

Sigh, I have to address the Israeli thing, don't I?

Look, I don't fucking CARE that Tali is proud of her Israeli-Jewish heritage. Nor that she visits the fake country twice a year. Nor that her song was produced by that other israeli Tali. I think her views on the matters are misguided and warped, but I get it. She's going to stick up for her OG country and her people, and we'd be foolish to expect her to do a 180° turn just because we believe she should. She has her stance, I disagree with it, but I can respect it. Civilians aren't responsible for whatever bloodthirsty maniac rules the roost or their actions, regardless of whether they elected them directly or not.

(though I will say that her transparent and overtly cheerful agreement with Joost's DQ all "YAY! HE BROKE THE RULES AFTER ALL ^_^ :claps:" made me ALOL. That DQ is still a grim affair, but lmfao what a scrump cheerleading bitch ♥).

But in a sense I wish Tali had been Israel's entrant himself. The only thing that erases Israel's controversy is their withdrawal, true, and Tali would have beenthe perfect horcrux, but if we WERE to have that country at Eurovision, I'd rather have them with Plucky Apolitical Filler (ft. Three Giant Leopards) rather than Teary Propaganda Ballad (Eurovision Reskin), y'know?

Also note, dear Israeli's, that -by my knowledge- Tali was NOT shunned by the other acts or the fan community, nor by the media and the professional juries, despite being half-Israeli and Jewish and zionistic. The few strays that she did end up catching were by the usual dumbfuck bigots on social media and amounted to nothing. So much for antisemitism, huh?

It's difficult to end the write-up after that rant that had little to do with the performance, so I will just say this: Tali's placement, while a tad high, proved that there's always a place for positivity and acceptance at Eurovision, no matter your background or your political colour.

With retrospection on our side, it makes sense juries would vote for "Fighter" as everyone agreed Nemo should win anyway, allowing them to siphon away twelves like a vacuum on amphetamine. With Croatia, Italy and France picking up the scraps, anyone with a modicum of inoffensiveness would be favoured to do well, (since this finale was HIGHLY jury unfriendly) which also favoured Lux because of the novelty coming with their return.

Ultimately it's our choices in life that define us, and Tali's were to give us a fun time unburdened by shackles of war, and that, in THIS FUCKING YEAR, was worth a lot to me.

THE RANKING:

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #21

21. AUSTRALIA Electric Fields - "One Milkali" 27th place

Decade Ranking: 74/153 [Above wrs, below TBA]

We're on a gravitron as it tangles through them billions, illions of arseholes and angels. 💋 -- Michael Ross.

I'll open by pointing out that Zach's dress reminds me of those sail-backed tetrapods all mammals have descended from:

BorisBubbles.tumblr.com satisfying your autism AND paleontology fixes since 2017.

On other news, I'm happy to report I've never bought into the "Electric Fields Are Shock Qualifiers" hype. They had a song nobody cared about upon release, to represent a country nobody particularly wants in Eurovision. I'm AMAZED they almost floated into the semi over Serbia.

My personal feelings on the song are quite mixed, mostly because I always recognised "One Milkali" as both a televote flop and a missed opportunity. I always love when countries inject their music traditions into the entries they send to Eurovision, but in "Australia's "One Milkali'"'s case it was a fairly sloppy fusion. The soundtrack opens via Nokia ringtone before it explodes into a digital fart and segues into a generic, catchy EDM track that is in a constant state of competition with it's own background didgeridoo.

On top of that comes a libretto that, using a lot of confusing metaphors and dated pop culture references that border on nonsense, express a utopian vision of Universal Kinship that most people know to be factually untrue. None of us value life equally. I know SOME people find that offensive because they delude themselves into thinking they're good people, so allow me to demonstrate;

IMAGINE your least favourite famous person in the world; a politician or businessman or musician or actor, or writer of certain wizarding novels. Someone you strongly dislike and don't necessarily want dead, but say you'd would be very pleased if this person had chosen to be an accountant over their actual profession, obsessing over NUMBERS rather than their current trade. Now compare THAT person to your favourite people in the world: your parents,siblings, other halves, friends, pets, children (lol this is tumblr - exactly three of you will spawn offspring, the rest of you will grow old with two cats named after fictional characters such as "Khaleesi" and "Deban Aderemi".) You cannot put this person on the same level as them. You will not value this person's life AS much as you value your loved-one's lives, and that's perfectly normal human behaviour. We hold different standards for different people. Anyone who does not is a walking red flag.

With this in mind, you just know that One Milkali would be a hard sell because not many people connect with its intentions, especially now that Eurovision has made a shift towards Tory-ness (💀). It's naive, utopean and out of touch for those that get it and very confusing to those who do not.

I'm making it sound like I dislike Australia, but I actually really like the studio cut (it's better when you don't look). The studio version... well doesn't slap but at least swats? It was a sanitised, tranquilized version of "2000 and Whatever", which I LOVED, and I gave 1M(1B) a few loopings. I, like many people that remembered Electric Fields fondly, and was hoping they would die for Raiven for a live outsell.

Unfortunately, the live of "One Milkali" was not an outsell. If anything it undersold? It was lowkey a tranwreck?

Like, when your top moment of the performance is THE COLOUR PROJECTION AT THE START

(this bit actually ate! pity it happens literally within the opening seconds.)

and the second best moment is a literal ijbol moment when the didgeridoo player (this man is a LIVING DEITY btw) PLAYS HIS INSTRUMENT LIVE RIGHT INTO ZACHARIAAHA'S MIC, DROWINING HIM OUT.

IT'S RAININ' LO- :didge noises:

AND THEN HE HITS HIM WITH IT ON THE HEAD 😂😂😂

Yeah, a few choices were made which were a tad off. The worst one is allowing Michael Ross to vocalize because the man does NOT HAVE A GOOD VOICE. You have three backs, let them sing his bits. Not doing that is the second worst decision. The third worst is poorly mixing those backs in with a very strained Zachariaaha? Also, why are they strutting on the stage like models on a catwalk? Did Aisel have a few on sale from her X My Heart era?

The staging did a few things right - it was colourful, used the space well and had good camerawork. It got the basics right, at least.

It was a sloppy execusion of a clumsily composed song, but, I still enjoyed it overall. "One Milkali" is naive and utopean as fuck, and embraced that vibe and I appreciate that. The Yankunytjatjara bits are great and synergize well with the English. The song was an adequate representation of aborigine culture, hampered mostly by the fact that it didn't go hard enough when it needed to.

It ranks this high because putting it lower makes no sense to me. Unlike Poland, the vocals were acceptable, and the staging was linear and clear. Unlike Moldova, they had a song and a vision and displayed creativity? Unlike Azer and Iceland, Australia managed to fill the stage with some semblance of life and momentum. It still had flaws, but they were easy enough to accept. It makes sense that Aus were the highest NQ in the first semi, as they are on this ranking.

But lmao @ allowing any SF1 NQ to enter my top 20.

THE RANKING.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #22

22. MOLDOVA Natalia Barbu - "In The Middle" 31st place

Decade Ranking: 78/153 [Above Anxela, below La Zarra]

Inconsistency strikes again! Let's talk about Moldova.

I'll be honest - "In the middle" lives up to it's title. It's so... mid? mid as in "mediocre", not "median". It's uninspired generic ethnopulp, a massive downgrade from "Fight".

And yet, it's always been a notionally funny entry for me. It started at the NF, where Natalia beat Valeria Pasha and the two IMMEDIATELY entered an embittered, catty fued (the type you'd see on Big Brother between the first and second boot), where Valeria, who had won the televote, accused Natalia of bribing the juries and the TV station to declare the tiebreaker in her favour.

And then TVM came with these receipts:

ACCUSING NATALIA OF CHEATING WHILE SHE WAS CHEATING HERSELF ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Additionally, "In the Middle"'s chorus -the lyrics are otherwise 90% jibbertalk disguised as English- read like a Japanese water demon commanding her children into contentment. Oh to hear these sweet words be performed with barely restrained menace.

I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY ALL OF YOUR LIFE 👹👹👹 MY BEAUTIFUL ANGEL MY WORK OF ART 👹👹👹

YOU WILL BE HAPPY DAMMIT!!! YOU WILL BE OR ELSE I BRING OUT THE BAT WITH THE NAIL IN IT!!!

Other than that, :crickets: I had nothing to give Natalia, and she gave nothing to me other than the hope she wouldn't get into the way of Raiven's qualification.

But then she showed up in Malmö making FACES AND GESTURES, and it was SENDING ME.

and then she proceeded to be swallowed up by an LED backdrop, the pure unfiltered distraction of PRETTY COLOURS, VOTE FOR ME!!!

(except for the wings they were HIDEOUS)

It was fairly emblematic of Natalia's psyche and attitude towards the song - she genuinely thought she had something good on her hands ♥ DELUSIONAL CRAZY BITCH ♥

Fortunately the ONLY way this entry works as an enjoyable piece is if you see it as a crazy lady doing weird smarmy things on the stage against a cute-creepy backdrop, and that ticks it off as "Good Filler" to me. It's tame for Moldovan standards but, yeah I could dig it ironically, and even unironically sure. She needed to NQ and she did, so no complaints from me.

Once she NQ'd Natalia showed her TRUE Oni colours by ranting about HOW THIS CONTEST IS NOT ABOUT SONGS, IT IS POLITICAL, and provided her elimination as evidence. This ofc... makes her even more of an ironic fave :GASP: bet ur shocked. Like the zionists that posted splitscreens of Eden and Bambie capped "has there ever been a more obvious showcase of Good vs Evil?", she was technically correct and yet so deeply mistaken due to a complete LACK of selfawareness. ♥

In Natalia's mind she was robbed because she wasn't A NUDIST OR A DEMON.

In reality, she died because her song was irredeemably hopeless and she tried to patch it up with expensive LEDs ♥ She died *because* she attempted to divert attention away from her song while competing in a song contest and wasn't in a position to be carried by her flag ♥ RIP my sweet unselfaware delusional queen ♥

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #23

23. POLAND Luna - "The Tower" 29th place

Decade Ranking: 85/153 [Above Luke Black, below Tvorchi]

POLITICS CLAIMS ITS FIRST VICTIM!!! ORACLE NATALIA WAS RIGHT!!

JK, I wish that were canon, but I cannot reverse-engineer our reality into a fiction where Serbia qualifies over Poland by a hair because they blanked them after Xi's visit hijacked the live broadcast.

Anyway, this section of the ranking is always chaotic and inconsistent. Bad songs with acts that made me lol, alongside kind of charming hopeless filler, alongside great songs with painfully bad lives.

Enter "The Tower". People been saying it's a bland, generic song and as is often the case in a democracy, the people are fucking WRONG!!!! Quirky indie wenches with brittle voices singing metaphorical build-me-up synthpop is MY safe zone and you won't make me leave it!

This came with the addition of Luna having the best warbled pronunciation since Maggie Burger ("BREAUXKEN BAWDEEZ SCAATERT FRUE MAHISTERRY" OB*SESSED*.) and being relatably bad at chess (same, girl.) I refused to believe Luna was birthed into this world. She emerged fully formed from a pod, (designed by the same crazy medical students that have now captured Slimane to use his live voice as ethical (for the patient) cancer therapy), created with the sole purpose of fitting the template of a Bubblecore Fave. Luna represents EXACTLY the sort of act I would love to overrate at my leisure.

Sadly... nope. It all kinda went the way of Roxen in Malmö. It was badly performed and badly mixed. I feel like a lot of Poles (I'd say "people" but do "Poles" count as such? Isn't selling your entire soul for the first bad banger a mandatory initiation for Eurofan Poles?) would just scapegoat Luna because THAT WITCH BEAT JUSTYNA, but I disagree. I sympathize with her and I think her team did her dirty. This Polish NQ was a group effort and Luna was only one cog in that machine. 🙂 Besides, Justyna deserved a break from the spotlight so she can enjoy her four remaining Christmases.

The capital mistake was to not recognize the level of performance maturity Luna had. She's fairly inexperienced and not the most powerful vocalist. She's also NOT a dancer. At the time of the contest she was at a level of "can hold a tune when standing still, on a good day."

So if she struggles to perform the act you've planned, somebody's got to step in and make it so she can perform it every time.

Simplify and practice it until she's able to do it.

and do not, for the love of Sennek, make her MOVE WHILE SINGING?!!

LET HER CONCENTRATE ON HER VOCALS, YOU SHITS.

WE ALL SAW HOW ROXEN MURDERIZED FOUR SONGS INTO AN EARLY GRAVE FOUR YEARS AGO AND THEN DIED THE FOLLOWING YEAR WITH AMNESIA UNDER AN ELABORATE CHOREO.

HOW HAVE SOME DELEGATIONS STILL NOT LEARNED THIS EASY, ESSENTIAL STAGING LESSON?!

IF YOUR PEFORMER CANNOT SING + MOVE, PICK ONE ("sing" unless she's Kaleen) AND STICK TO IT. FIND SOME OTHER WAY TO ADD IN MOMENTUM.

(lol sorry for the rant but i'm writing these late at night on whatever energy reserves I have left so I can to keep up with 1 update per day. Anger's all I have left. 😔)

It's not like the MV didn't offer an easy way into good Eurovision-friendly staging. Dear TVP, what exactly was wrong with this?

Just stick her in the middle of the cross on a podium, and drape finery around her until she resembles the titular tower. The song was about self-discovery and growth, and that would send the message across with minimal confusion.

But Poland went with what they went with and sigh. It was the opposite of Slovenia, really - it looked AMAZING but didn't really compensate from the fact that it sounded VERY BAD.

But if the staging looked that good, then why was it bad? Well, Poland had a concept, an idea and it could have worked, but it didn't.

Conceptually, this is good staging. The backdrops and floordrops were rad and the chess-themed styling worked gave it a beautiful and unique feel like we'd never seen before.

However, it came across as Poland making an attempt at directing the part of Europe that weren't on Xi Jinping's visit schedule away from their song, and this an erroneous display of disrespect. Visualize according to what the song needs in order to shine as a song. Don't obfuscate it with flourishes that don't synergize with it.

There were too many elements. You don't need three chess piece dancers, AND LED sorcery AND an elaborate choreography AND two giant rook props AND two fucking dress changes (one of which happened in wideshot because ofc it did).

The beauty of Art is knowing what elements you can keep and which you can (and should) take away. (does not apply to "minimalist art" which lands somewhere between "decoration" and "scam".) Simplify, rather than complicate. Don't thrown in all the ideas you have as a Hail Mary (notice that this route is often taken by desperate countries that are notoriously shit at Eurovision - Poland, Denmark, Malta, etc). Test out which elements work, and choose those that suit the artist the best.

Poland's failure is choosing excessive staging that pushed too hard for (1) a performer who was not ready to execute all the pieces (2) a really simple, fun basic synthpop song. It overwhelmed both Luna and "The Tower".

It was not Luna's fault. Not entirely. The Polish creative team had a series of lapses in judgement, and it ended up in a shock NQ that I didn't see coming until it actually happened. Even though I like the overal package (the song's really that good!) I didn't feel it was an undeserved elimination.

What killed Poland wasn't just inexperience, politics or overambition.

It was foremost a lack of confidence in their own product.

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #24

24. DENMARK Saba - "Sand" 30th place

Decade Ranking: 87/153 [Above Fyr og Flamme, below Luke Black]

SAND! SAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!!!

You know the drill. We've arrived at the stage of "mostly enjoyable", and there's no better opener to that than "Sand". It's so delightfully average. Nothing but the recognisable sound of a "Scandinavian Eurovision song", something we all know and like to hear.

And its comes with a multipurpose hook too. Allow me to demonstrate:

FRANCE!!! FRAAAAAAAAAANCE!!!!

SCREAMING AT A MICROPHONE STAAAAAND

FRANCE!!! FRAAAAAAAAANCE!!!

I GUESS THAT ALL THE JURIES VOTE FOR FRANCE 😶

Of course "Sand" sounds like it comes out of a can (SPAM!!! SPAAAM!! BARELY MEAT THAT COMES OUT OF A CAN!), because it was one of those scandiblandi pop nothings that were bounced around internal selections for several years. (I hope you like those because I'm expecting 2025 to be infested with them) Remember how "Colours" was peddled first to Michela and then to Destiny to no avail, so that frumpy bat Bernarda was forced to sing it herself in the following Dora? ("NOW ALL I SEE IS COLOURS, YOU TOOK ME FROM BLACK AND WHITE" :is blind: ).

Likewise, the songwriters of "Sand" first tried to sell it to Emma Muscat when she tried to pivot away from "Out of Sight" before she chose "I am what I am" (MAN!!! MAAAAAN!!! I WILL TAKE ONE CUZ THAT'S HOW I AM!). Yep, an Emma Muscat hand-me-down, that's the level of Denmark at Eurovision right now. HOORAY for everyone who is not a Dane!!

So in that sense, it was the perfect match for DMGP, which was the usual depressing affair. So bad people were gravitating towards Basim cheerfully singing about a man dying from cirrhosis, an entry that demonstrated a near Israeli level of unselfawareness and moral corruption. But he lost (ANTS!!! AAAAAANTS! HIS HOPE HAS BEEN CRUSHED LIKE SOME ANTS! :victory dance: ) to Saba, and all was perfectly average in the world.

At Eurovision, I always assumed Saba would be in contention for a spot in the finale simply because of how catchy the hook and melody were. Unfortunately, Servephobia is a Scandinavian illness and both Melanie Webhe and Saba are patients.

Not that Saba didn't attempt to serve.... but um... judge for yourself:

work those armpit fetishists, girl! IMBUE them with the power of irate sexfaces! Like idk, it's "serving" in the same sense of "the headcanon slaying" you and I would do in our bedroom acting out these songs like the useless homos- Zorra stans that we all are. It looks great in your imagination but in reality, :eek: . Kind of how this year's Belgian entrant thought he nailed the performance each time yet never rose above a level of:

Also the staging, um... Look I know the song is called "Sand" and that she sings it's slipping through her hands, but everyone knows it's a metaphor? "Oh we've broken up? I guess that sucks :shrug:" Like the zoomer thing where life sucks I guess but it's not a big deal cuz we'll all die (eventually.)

So why make it so... (g)lit(t)eral?

Literally shooting cgi sand from her armpit in the last shot <3 told you this was aimed at fetishits <3 (PITS!!! PIIIITS!!! the hottest gay thing that ain't bara tids!).

What really killed Saba's chances at Eurovision was the staging. Sure the faces and subpar vocals were already... not helping. (they were entertaining me though, I'll give her that). Still. Denmark have proven once again that they have no ability whatsoever to discriminate good ideas from bad ones. They added so much shit to the NF's performance that made it look worse ♥ and fixed NONE of the issues ♥ The song's uptempo, and restricting Saba's movement to a space smaller than most countries' postal stamps may not have been the most prudent choice here (maybe i should add small platforms to the list of Massive Staging Faux Pas alongside sunglasses, unnecessary headset mics, selfie backdrops and turntables?)

Oh and one of those faux pas was ofc also present like why is this a shot?

YOU CAN SO CLEARLY SEE it isn't her. 😂 😍

Before rehearsals I was on the fence whether Denmark could qualify or not but as soon as I saw the tiktok that showed the backdrop clone and the effects I knew she was gonna be out. Oh well. Time to hop on the MALTA QUALIFIES train I gues.

All in all, "Sand" pretty much what you would expect from Denmark. An average, not unpleasant (and memeable) song that was somehow the only acceptable option in an horrible NF. They tried VERY hard to elevate into goodness, and completely failed. ♥ I love "Sand"'s journey ironically and kind unironically enjoy it for its incompetence, which makes it a good opener for this year's Green tier.

Btw: with Georgia, ☘Ireland☘ and ❤Latvia❤ all reaching the finals this year (EGGS! EEEEEEEGGS!!! DONS'S CLUTCH QUAL IS BETTER THAAAAN SEX!), Denmark now have the longest NQ streak out of all the active ESC countries. Cannae wait to see what creative new way they'll figure out to accedentally get level with Montenegro's as well. ♥

THE RANKING

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2023: #26 & #25

26. AZERBAIJAN Fahree ft Ilkin Dovlatov - "Özünlə apar" 36th place

Decade Ranking: 98/153 [Above James Newman, below The Roop]

We're nearing that point of the ranking where I'm feeling "okay this is enjoyable moreso than flawed", but there are a few entries on that cusp that just fall short.

And I think Azerbaijan are a very good example of that, actually. If you wanted to know the entry that is the most smack-dab-average of the year's musical representation look no further. "Özünlə apar" is the posterchild of this contest - an entry that showcases its home country's musical traditions while also not being particularly competitive.

On a bad-to-good scale,"Özünlə apar" lands at "Not Bad". Which is... fine? But is that something Eurovision songs should strive for?

Well, staging and context can improve matters, but in Azer's case those worked against them. Semi 1's second half was a weaksauce affair, and I felt like Azerbaijan were one of the main contributers to that. You have this not uninteresting ethnic mugham song with two conventionally attractive vocalists that -by their sheer appearance- exhude massive sexual tension (both of their looks are so gay-coded lmao <3). It can become good, if you give it the right care.

This is not the right type of care:

Those visuals would work for Veronika maybe (god Raiven WOULD kill for that backdrop wouldn't she?) but for an ethnic ballad, eh. Wouldn't it be better to just focus on the main vocalist? Try to make it intimate rather than have him swallowed by the LEDS (i am SO not marking Natalia down for the same thing btw, dwi) The "big prop on an empty stage framed by copious wideshots" staging is not one that suits the genre.

(tho lol at how you can see the crew WHEEL THE HANDS ON THE STAGE in the background of this gif)

We saw with Hersi's "One Night's Anger" and Blas Canto's "Voy a quedarme" how the deadly combination of slow + empty can murder an average song's immersion, and I felt like this was one such example. Staging that outclevers the audience is a thing of the past, Azerbaijan. Back to the "Miracles", I think, or you will not see a final for a long, long time.

And since this one was a short write-up, let's add in a second:

25. GERMANY Isaak - "Always on the run" 12th place

Decade Ranking: 93/153 [Above Malik, below Sudden Lights]

Like Fahree and Ilkin, Isaak is right on the cusp of the Green Zone, but falls just short. I feel like the year was good enough for me to not cling to a "Not Bad" banger.

That said, I did feel like Isaak was marginally better than the average German entry - half a decade behind the pop curve, as per Germany's usual (I mean, the German jury 12'd Sweden. SWEDEN!!) but catchy enough. The real ringer was always Isaak himself. I don't know why the Germans were so outraged about when the international jury put him first (esp since Isaak also won the Televote? lmao). When in doubt, pick someone who can perform, you dipshits. I saw the German NF live (it was -mothershocker- really bad) . The only two that came anywhere near "serving" (SMFD RYK & MARIE!!) and didn't have a song that made me wish homicide on the composer/performer (DIE MAX!!) were Isaak and Bodine Monet? And Germany were NEVER going to pick an individual with a vision and a personality, let alone if that person is Dutch, not Deutsch, so~

Indeed, it was always Isaak's ability to sing while emoting that made me question whether I just liked him or liked the combo of him + the song, but I now know it's the former. "Always on the run" is -again- Not Bad, but we've had so many fucking Counting Stars pass pver the counter over the years (the fact that I've spent YEARS headcanoning "Counting Stars" as ID despite KNOWING it's a 1R song says enough for how fucking interchangeable these "indie" poprock songs are). How can one be excited by one at this point, I don't understand.

However, if Isaak's live skills were my main draw, then we must also admit that the performance in the Semi (the non-canonical one) was better than the one in the Grand Final. The one in the GF felt like one where Isaak went through the motions of Having To Perform. Maybe it was the backstage tension, maybe it was because Tuesday had a piss-poor line-up that made him look better, maybe it was the bad R/O that put him behind the far more exciting Ukraine, but Finale Isaak was just kinda there for me, singing his song one final time, neither adding nor detracting from the proceedings. That is hand-on-heart a high yellow, not a green, so here we are.

But I do think it's good the juries handed him a 12th place (is 12th the default placement all the generic dated radio pop gets nowadays? Cannot wait to confirm that again with 2025's inevitable Pompeii clone)(sent by Denmark, bank on it), because (1) AOTR was well-staged with respect for its introspective narrative, which is rare for GERMANY (2) Germany needed some sort of pick-me-up after the Ryk fanboys terrorized everyone for not getting their way (3) the surprise left-side result FINALLY PROVES THAT SANDBAGGING RYK WAS THE CORRECT CHOICE, EAT A MOULDY DYK!!! It's MY meta now, and Bubblevision has no time for your shitty also-ran fanfaves...x

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 24 GOOD(ish) ENTRIES OF 2024

The efforts to improve the year despite the ongoing shitstorm have been noted and appreciated. ^_^

THE RANKING