#but it’s time for my annual wot era

[daveyfvckingjacobs]

tanner posting something other than newsies?? never thought I’d see the day but I have to let the wot hyperfixation win for a little while or I fear I may explode so hi wot fandom <33

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC

Good evening, folks! If you saw my first instalment of “Undo my ESC”, the annual feature where I make a year’s Eurovision better for me by making alterations in each country, you might have thought that ESC getting cancelled had dulled my edge, since, comparing to usual standards, I hardly changed much at all there. Well, that’s because, once again, we have seriously uneven semis, and Semi #1 would have been killer, whilst Semi #2 would have been dead. Here is what Í would have done to even those semis up! 🇦🇱 Albania: The Albanian delegation had seemingly done all it could to wash its hands of, well, two years of comparatively excellent results with authentic, melancholically poëtic and qualitative tracks, namely Malland Ktheju tokës. They brought in Byuckman, in whose interest it is for the contest to become as generically “radio-friendly” as possible, and the genius who brought us lyrics like “this is love/rain falls from above”. As judges. Of a serious musical festival. The foreign jurors did as expected, and voted for the appointed “bop”, but were foiled, however, by one of the minority Albanian jurors on the panel who put it  low in her ranks. An actual renowned music professor who got called all the names under the sun for doing so. And so, to an ensuing shitstorm, the classical and powerful Shaj prevailed instead. Unfortunately, the battle was won but the war was lost, because the representative herself took the lessons of 2018-9, threw them down the aeroplane toilet on the way to LA, and ripped the spirit out of the song, reverting back to the previous Albanian trend of terrible “revamps” and laboured translations into English. The result, Fall from the sky, is but a husk of the original. In my ESC, I’d probably simply keeping the original version of Shaj, which was my uncontested #1 of all songs, but part of me would opt for Ajër, which I love almost as well but which doesn’t carry the baggage of hanging over my head like the sword of Democles this entire season. 🇦🇲 Armenia: I’ve more often than not loved the entries of Hayastan, from the joyous Jan Jan to the soaring Fly with me and defiant Walking out. To say they took a step back this year is kind – it was more like a powerful jump backwards that landed them in the nearest ocean, where they sank like a stone. It was one of the most singularly unpalatable NFs that I have ever watched in this era. Rather than retraumatise myself by going into detail about it, I’ll just say, I would have sent Srbuk or Artsvik again to get the top 10 that I feel both warranted!

🇦🇹 Austria: What a journey for Österreich. From Conchita to this guy, a perky homophobe who explicitly said he wished his kids would not turn out to be gay. He comes up with a third-rate impersonator of a third-rate Benjamin Ingrosso impersonator’s third-rate impersonation of a Timberlake b-side. I would throw that in the bin and invite Pænda back from last year for a shot at redemption after her gorgeous Limits got slept on in 2019.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Some people had the neck to say to me “who needs Hungary when Bulgaria is coming back?” Well, I do. Hungary were constantly in the top of my rankings, and just quietly and consistently brought quality. Bulgaria has brought me one good thing – Poli Genova’s œuvre – and a tonne of hype. Their song this year was one of the favourites, and I still can’t wrap my head around how other than the force of PR. It’s a bizarre, unsettling combination of passive-aggressive “look how much you’re making me hurt myself” lyrics with Disneyish saccharine accompaniment, topped off with a key change?! For want yet again of a national final, I would bring Poli back – third time even luckier? 🇨🇿 Czechia: The Bohemians (and Moravians) keep it contemporary but superficial for a third year running, although, thankfully, for the first time since they began doing national finals, we finally have a song without a dubious attitude towards women in the lyrics. Not that there is much to analyse in those lyrics. It’s a merely ok song for me, no better, no worse: a superior alternative would have been Barbara Mochowa’s lush and contemplative second effort, White and black holes, or the glorious 90s British indie-influenced All the blood. 🇩🇰 Denmark: Did Denmark confound international monitors into calling it the world’s happiest country by exposing them to the relentlessly cheery songs that they pick for Eurovision lately? And yet – I really do say yes to Yes, To a certain extent, to a limited amount of exposure, and despite the fact that it leans a little too hard into the territory of sounding like a second Little talks. It was one of the few good songs from DMGP – I also liked the 80s shoegaze-ish Den eneste goth– and I feel so mad at DR that they won’t give Ben and Tan a guaranteed second shot to represent their country after they won in front of an empty crowd. 🇪🇪 Estonia: The days of Eesti being Beesti seem like from a distant memory to me, but there was some quality and quirkiness in Eesti Laul, buried under mountains of beigedom, like the rich-voiced Egert Miller’s soulful Georgia, the jazzy Write about me, or the feisty earworm that was Ping pong. Instead, we got a dreary dirge with sub-Hallmark lines about wot luv is, which would have sounded dated in a contest 30 years ago, sung by a repugnant guy who tried to get people to vote for him last year by leaning on the idea that he was the “only true Estonian.” I’d have Egert get his rightful place as Jüri Pootsmann’s spiritual successor. 🇫🇮 Finland: I was one of the few to be jubilant when a bizarre ode to an Italian porn star with a backing track sounding like a violated version of Eläköön elämä came second in the polls to its spiritual opposite: a shy and rather awkward guy singing a quietly moving song about the passing of time. I love Looking back and wouldn’t change a thing. 🇬🇪 Georgia: You never know what to expect from Georgia, except the unexpected, and yet even I was surprised by what they came up with: a close-shaven guy with veins popping in his head screaming “why don’t you love meeeee?” to a rocky, electronic backdrop. Me being me, I actually do like it a lot. “Take me as I am” sounds like a veiled potshot at the big 5 and a vindication of Georgia’s “keep it weird, send what we want” philosophy. I could suggest that the lyrics, that sound like those of a spurned angsty teen, change a bit, but that would be defeating the purpose of Georgia: one takes them as they are. 🇬🇪 Greece: So, somehow, despite S!STERS coming dead last with 0 pts in the televote last year, using exclamation marks to substitute the letter I is now a thing in Eurovision with the advent of Superg!rl. I spent an hour watching folk waffle on in Greek in its reveal show only for them to reveal the song literally at the very end, so after that, it was a little underwhelming, and nowhere near as good as Better love in 2019. I don’t hate it – and the music video’s concept of her being an amazing superhero who can change the world, but instead she’s stopping people slipping over bananas and rescuing cats from trees is weirdly endearing, so it can stay, but I’d improve the lyrics, particularly in the chorus. “I’m a supergirl, supergirl, in a crazy world, crazy world” is not much higher than “this is love, rain falls from above” in historically bad Greek lyrics at ESC. 🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr came back from near-victory with the delightful Is this love, added a lovely inspiration in his newborn daughter to a similarly funky and playful track, and came out with Think about things. Unlike what usually happens with songs that are a little bit odd, I was positively surprised to see it walk the NF, and become a phenomenon even outside the ESC fandom. This was perfect and joyous from beginning to end. I hope Iceland will not be like the other Nordics, and will invite Daði directly back .🇱🇻 Latvia: I have come to enjoy the bizarre chaötic energy of Still breathing, It’s a hot mess, but I take weird over dull any day. It wasn’t my favourite in Supernova – that would be the effortlessly cool Polyester, an earworm with a social conscience, written about the cost of fast fashion but dismissed by many people as “she luvs t-shirts song lol”. Given that Samanta Tina tried over half a dozen times to go to ESC, finally won and then had the chance ripped out of her hands by the cancellation, I don’t have the heart to remove her from my ideal ESC 2020 though. She stays, but maybe the staging changes? It’s odd to have what you believe is a feminist anthem but then relegate your backing singers to in the distance, their faces shielded away. 🇲🇩 Moldova: Life is too short to follow Moldovan national finals, especially when you know, lately, that whoever is backed by the hilariously inaptly named Dream team will win there. They are like a parasite, sucking out the colour and fun out of a country that once had plenty of both – cross-reference Hora din Moldova or Lăutar to name just two examples. I guess out of an uninspiring lineüp, I’d go for Moldoviţa for having at least a hint of the brassy folk that used to be their calling card. 🇵🇱 Poland: Speaking of calling cards, after a one year hiatus with an arresting combo of white voice and rocky instrumentation, Poland has returned to what it has most often done in recent years – presented us with an absolute dirge, Empires, which seems like it was written by an unenthusiastic English student whose homework assignment (for which they received a generous C-) was to write a poëm with a bunch of metaphors “we’re moths to a flame, birds to a pane of glass, gasoline and a match”. Despite having a big music industry from which to choose many gems, Poland offers me little alternative choice given that there were only three songs in their grand final – one by the Czech representative last year who, as you might guess from what I said literally a sentence up, isn’t even Polish!Horny Elf, who’s contractually obliged to write only creepy lyrics for songs, tried to represent Polska with a song inspired by a true-life situation where he went around Tel Aviv with a cardboard cutout of one of the hostesses of the show. It’s a love song inspired by gallivanting around with a piece of cardboard. Addressed to that actual hostess. And it’s an almighty earworm that hasn’t escaped my mind since. Amazingly, his Lucy would be my Polish representative. 🇵🇹 Portugal: Portugal is another country beloved by me by for dancing to the beat of its own drummer, or perhaps, rather shedding tears to the strumming of its own fado guitar. They struggled being different, they won being different, and for the last few years they’ve struggled again, despite having a lot of support for both O jardim and Telemóveis amongst fans. This year, the televote went for one interesting song, the charmingly Gallic, accordion-drenched Passe-partout, a song about a cultured girl shaking off her boorish ex who could “never even get into Piaf”, whilst the jury got behind another interesting song, Gerbera, an entrancing, arresting and poëtic song laden with metaphor about the idea of music competing itself. This let Medo de sentir,second in both polls, turn silver into gold. It’s a lovely, heart-felt track, but rather unexceptional - I would have had one of the other more singular songs win. 🇸🇲 San Marino: The weird boil on the face of ESC that somehow never pops, SM is back after its bewildering qualification with a tone-deaf dentist wailing to a microwaved disco song… with something actually palatable, sort of. The aptly named Freaky is dated, odd, overly busy, but Senhit has a lot of charisma, and the idea of “break[ing] all the rules, mak[ing] up some new [ones] and destroy[ing] all of them too” and “life goes by too quickly not to be freaking it up”, well, maybe we do get on board. 🇷🇸 Serbia: Serbia is usually a byword for quality at the contest – they won with one of the best 21st century winners hands down in Molitva, and also sent some of the most beautiful compositions in the contest’s history at the hands of Željko. This year, they decided to join in the leitmotif of reliable countries sucking by sending a group that sound like a third-rate mid-2000s girl band from Transnistria when beautiful songs like Cvet sa Prokletija were right there. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: Fair play to the Swiss for not doing a Cyprus and leaning in on their success with their male Fuego, She gat me, and instead going in a completely different direction with this moody effort. I’m not entirely convinced by the teenage emo-ish lyrics or the unnecessary falsetto, but Répondez-moi is a refreshing effort, and has the bonus of being in French too! And the automatic qualifiers: 🇫🇷 France: You’ve heard of France, right? You know, that wee country south of Belgium, north of Andorra, not much of a music industry… or so you’d think, given that the troolee jeenyuss new delegation, who abandoned their brilliant national final which showcased how diverse and qualitative their music scene is despite it being a huge success in the fandom, and instead reached out to the writer of last year’s last place song for the UK and a few other rentaswedes and they produced something that sounds like a b-side that not even Westlife would have recorded, replete with a stock key change. About as French as IKEA köttbullar. A real shame for one of Europe’s most highly esteemed cultural hotbeds. If they wanted to pick Tom Leeb, who seems like a nice guy and has written some lovely music, he could have made his own song and it would have indubitably been scores better than this. 🇪🇸 Spain: I’m going to apply this to all the automatic qualifiers voting on this semi-final: they scrapped a national final for this? OT was not an ideal format as last year demonstrated with its shit show of contestants sabotaging themselves so as not to get picked for ESC – but still. There’s not much I can say about this other than I don’t like it much and I’d rather Spain return to a proper NF. You don’t spend time trapped on a bus where this song with its torturous falsetto was on replay and emerge with fond feelings. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Usually, in this space, I can point to a song that the UK should have sent and that I fell in love with – like I wish I loved you more or You. Once again, though, another big 6 nation scrapped their NF after tanking it with a bizarre format last year. The BBC said nothing for months, then were unwilling to spend tv time on ESC this year so just blurted out an announcement of an announcement in  about 40 seconds after some dance show. And then they dropped this song. It’s… passable at best, with an annoying chorus (especially that beat in “my last… breath”) and a staggering amount of repetition in a song that clocks in at only around 80% of the standard Eurovision song length. James Newman surely could have come up with something better. It’s a baby step in the right direction, but one taken at the shore where you need to start running to avoid getting pulled away in a rip.