#the translation from old french (flows better in modern English than it does in modern french apparently?)

[morningsaidthemoon]

Excerpt from The Song of Roland, translated by Norma Lorre Goodrich (Medieval Myths)

[white-eyed-girl]

My personal top 39 for ESC 2021  

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 26) Greece - Last dance - Huge improvement from last year, no doubt, still a tad insipid imo though

25) Czech Republic - Omaga - Being one of the few people (at least that I know of lol) who actually enjoyed Kemama, this is a bit of a disappointment because it's a bit less original

24) Cyprus - El diablo - Some parts of this are literally a patch of random cliché Spanish words? lol It lets itself listen to thought, and plus the upset religious freaks in Cyprus who were up in arms against this just because it mentions "el diablo" gave me a good laugh :"

23) UK - Embers - It's modern and listenable, which coming from the UK is a good thing I guess Buuuuut the song and the singer sound like they have nothing to do with one another And I don't think it's going to do half as well as people think it will :"

22) Azerbaijan - Mata Hari - I didn't like Cleopatra much and this is pretty much Cleopatra 2.0 (she even does a self-quote lmao), but I think this takes what Cleopatra wanted to do and does it a tiny bit better Also the mantra in Azerbaijani was a good addition, hopefully the next step is a song with more lines of it in it, please!

21) Serbia - Loco loco - I 100% think Hasta la vista was catchier, but this is the same kind of slutty fun and, while it's not my genre, it does it's job

20) Sweden - Voices - It's alright. I'm completely indifferent to it But Sweden loves their talented kids so it's a consistent choice

19) Ireland - Maps - Story of my life was my absolute gulty pleasure last year, and I have to say that while this isn't nearly as bubbly as that one was, it's still a song that I would listen to for a bit of energy The problem is always the same one, unless she made miracle progress in one year we know she can't sing it :"

18) Switzerland - Tout l'univers - Now, I have exactly zero problems with countries trying something very much on the same line of what they were going to do last year But I don't know, when the chorus is about to start in this one I can anticipate exactly last year's chorus starting :" maybe it's a tad too much? lol It's absolutely not that bad, there's just...something about this that doesn't sound 100% authentic I told this to a French friend and he told me it sounds like an English song translated into French - turns out, that's actually true, and I don't particularly dig this tbh, it makes it sound a bit fake-deep I'm of course happy we're getting more French than usual though

17) Albania - Karma - Albania going back to ethnic music in Albanian is something I am always happy to see!

16) Latvia - The moon is rising - This has...such a strange flow? Just like her song last year tbh so there's a pattern I guess lol but it's strange in a good way

15) Belgium - The wrong place - Let's forget about Hooverphonic's 2020 ESC experience entirely, shall we? They went back to their original vocalist and it's probably the best things they could do You can so hear she's extremely experienced on stage, and this song is much more captivating live

14) Bulgaria - Growing up is getting old - The first thing this made me think of, is that kind of lovely ambient music you hear sometimes in cooking videos lol no but it actually has quite good lyrics, it knows what it's talking about and it and creates its own mood Apparently, it also has a very cute and very fitting staging