“And I can’t deny the fact that you like us! Right now, you like us!”
25. Switzerland (Marius Bear: ‘Boys Do Cry’ – 17th place)
There was a little window during the tail end of the show this year where I wondered if anyone would get the dreaded “sorry, zero points” in the televote, and it turned out that dubious honour went to Switzerland. It’s not hard to see why – it’s an okay song, sung competently enough, but my God it was boring. (Incidentally, the only country they beat in the televote in the semis was Slovenia, so they should be very grateful for juries for getting them here at all.)
24. Finland (The Rasmus: ‘Jezebel’ – 21st place)
Not to get all “play ‘Jaja Ding Dong’!”, but was there anyone watching this performance who didn’t just want to hear ‘In The Shadows’ instead? (Also, did anyone else think this song sounded vaguely like ‘Girl Overboard’ by Girls Aloud, or was that just me?)
23. Australia (Sheldon Riley: ‘Not The Same’ – 15th place)
Well if nothing else, it’s always funny seeing the extremely stark contrast between how much the juries want Australia to do well at Eurovision and how much the public do. Speaking of things that amused me, I did get a chuckle out of hearing Sheldon bellowing “I’m not the same! I’m not the same!” when the audience had already endured about 36 identical earnest glumsongs of this nature by this point in the evening. But you are, Blanche! You are the same!
22. Belgium (Jérémie Makiese: ‘Miss You’ – 19th place)
I feel like I bring this up every year, but… at what point do we have the serious conversation about the way that Black artists tend to perform very badly in the televote at Eurovision? This might not be the most pertinent example to demonstrate the point (it was a glumsong in a night absolutely stuffed with them, coming right behind another glumsong in the running order and in front of yet another glumsong that at least had some interesting staging), but it definitely points to a broader pattern that indicates an overall problem. Then again, I ranked it low too, maybe I need to have a word with myself.
21. Czech Republic (We Are Domi: ‘Lights Off’ – 22nd place)
One of my favourite Eurovision traditions is the inevitability that one act, having worked so hard to qualify for the final, will underperform when they get there because they absolutely blew their voice out in the process. That was poor Domenika from We Are Domi this year, who was definitely having some trouble getting those high notes out on Saturday night. Still a bit of a banger, and a good choice to open the show, but not as good as it was in the semis.
20. Germany (Malik Harris: ‘Rockstars’ – 25th place)
With the UK actually stepping up and taking the competition seriously this year for the first time in over a decade, it fell to Germany to shore up the traditional Big Five role of sending something that might have been vaguely contemporary 20 years ago and finishing in last place as a result. According to my stats-minded husband, Germany has now overtaken the UK as the Big Five country with the worst overall performance in the last 10 contests, so is the stage set for a Germanaissance in 2023? That’d be fun.
19. Azerbaijan (Nadir Rustamli: ‘Fade To Black’ – 16th place)
As much as I enjoy the Eurovision Grand Final itself, my favourite moment comes shortly after it goes off air, when they release the full results and you can see exactly what shenanigans went down in the semis. Azerbaijan, it turns out, qualified despite getting zero televote points on Thursday night. That’s right, zero. Something a bit suss there, surely? Still, I enjoy Azerbaijan’s habit of being accidentally homoerotic at Eurovision and, while not quite up there with Farid Mammadov’s glass box of repressed homosexual longing, this certainly met the brief.
18. Greece (Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord: ‘Die Together’ – 8th place)
No, no, it’s German for “the together”, see? (Yes, that’s the third time I’ve made this joke, and I will keep making it until it stops being funny to me.) Anyway, I just couldn’t really get behind this one because while she had a lovely voice and the staging was kind of cool, it just felt particularly relentlessly bleak in a night that had more than its share of relentlessly bleak songs.
17. Romania (WRS: ‘Llámame’ – 18th place)
This, on the other hand, was a delight, a perfect bit of fairly disposable pop nonsense with a deliciously catchy Spanish refrain. And, I suspect, if it had been placed in the second half of the show when that kind of energy was really needed, it probably would have ended up a fair bit higher in this ranking, but them’s the breaks I suppose.
16. Poland (Ochman: ‘River’ – 12th place)
I have absolutely no idea whose idea the Microsoft Movie Maker visual effects were, but hearty congratulations to Poland for the best unintentional comedy of the evening. (Also hearty congratulations to Gráinne on Twitter for her intentionally hilarious interpretation of what it would have looked like if Ireland had taken this approach with their entry this year.)
15. France (Alvan & Ahez: ‘Fulenn’ – 24th place)
Full disclosure: I ranked this one only having seen half the performance because this was the point in the evening when my Deliveroo arrived, but I liked what I saw of it. I guess maybe France got a little bit carried away with the success of the non-English entries this year and pushed their luck slightly too hard by singing in Breton, but I thought the song was kind of a bop nonetheless. (Also, after their romp to second place last year, I wonder if this is a preview of how things will go for the UK in 2023. Maybe we’ll send a song in Cornish.)
15. Iceland (Systur: ‘Me∂ hækkandi sól’ – 24th place)
Iceland qualifying from the semis this year was a wonderful surprise because honestly this felt fairly wilfully anti-commercial from a Eurovision point of view, but I rather liked its low-key hypnotic energy on both occasions. Also, I feel like Marie from Kenickie absolutely nailed what they were about when she described them on Twitter as “Scooby Doo Haim”. Absolutely great to see them walking on waving a trans pride flag at the start too, absolutely sterling work Systur, we stan.
13. Armenia (Rosa Linn: ‘Snap’ – 20th place)
My notes from the evening read “I like this one, it’s very sweet” which I appreciate is not exactly Pulitzer-worthy music criticism but I think sums up its appeal quite well nonetheless: in a night where so many of the songs were decidedly pessimistic, this one took some sad emotions but delivered them with a lightness of touch and an anthemic, singalong quality that left me feeling decidedly warm towards it.
INTERVAL
So this is the bit where I take a quick sidebar to discuss the event as a whole, and in particularly the host country’s presentation of it – I mostly glossed over it last year because I didn’t feel it was particularly fair to critique the Netherlands on a unique and obviously challenging set of circumstances, but since we’re back to semi-normality this year, let’s go for it. On the whole – despite some sound issues and some very wonky camerawork – I think RAI put on a good show, and it was a credit to them that they managed to get the results done fairly efficiently and bring the show in with only a small overrun. I also felt that a lot of the criticism from the UK commentators, in both the semis and the grand final, tended towards the snide and mean-spirited – having seen some of what passes for filler in our own Eurovision coverage on BBC3, we’re in absolutely no position to point fingers.
That said: I don’t think this was a particularly strong presenting team. It was very obvious that Alessandro Cattelan was the only professional presenter of the three, because he was the only one who seemed calm and unflappable throughout (also very much enjoyed seeing him in a skintight lycra suit for a green screen gag, but that’s by the by). Laura Pausini seemed to come in for a particular amount of venom from our commentators when I think really her biggest problem was just that she was a bit wide-eyed and overenthusiastic, but Mika was by far the weakest link in the team – no presence, no charisma, absolutely no ability to think on his feet, and just a bit of a millstone around the neck of the whole evening. Still, at least he left ‘Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)’ out of his hits medley, and I thank him for that. Okay, onward.
12. Portugal (MARO: ‘Saudade, saudade’ – 9th place)
Maybe it makes me a terrible pseud but I just really liked this unashamedly muso offering from Portugal. It wasn’t the most interesting song of the night by any means but it was just very simple, straightforward and sincere and absolutely beautifully sung, and sometimes that’s all I’m looking for, you know?
11. Moldova (Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers: ‘Trenulețul’ – 7th place)
Honestly, if you weren’t there, I don’t think I can describe the feeling of this jolly fiddle-diddle-diddle slice of Europop kicking in after five back-to-back ballads. It was so needed and so much fun and just an absolute tonic, God bless Moldova and their ability to (mostly) send exactly what we need to Eurovision.
10. Spain (Chanel: ‘SloMo’ – 3rd place)
So I might get some brickbats thrown my way for ranking this quite low (but it’s still in my top 10! If I were a national jury it would still get a point!), but I didn’t like this as much as a lot of people seemed to. Chanel? Yes, absolutely – an incredibly charismatic performer, an incredible dancer, and clearly no slouch as a singer either to deliver live vocals like that on top of such a demanding dance routine. The song, though? Just didn’t do it for me. It needed a chorus, or something, an echo and a dance break wasn’t enough. Still, though, in the general genre of pneumatic performers elevating mediocre songs through sheer force of performance, this is head and shoulders above ‘Fuego’ for me, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit moved by Chanel’s incredibly sincere “thank you! I will remember this for the rest of my life!” at the end.
9. Norway (Subwoolfer: ‘Give That Wolf A Banana’ – 10th place)
This year’s most overtly gimmicky song, which was obviously relying on the televote rather than the juries but ended up lagging behind some other niche/novelty submissions that simply landed better with the public (Moldova and Serbia) and receiving a solid but unspectacular placing in the final. Still a lot of fun though, and I maintain that “I want your grandma, yum yum” is still one of the best lines ever uttered at Eurovision. Also, it gave us some great memes on the night, and that way we’re all winners.
8. Lithuania (Monika Liu: ‘Sentimentai’ – 14th place)
I’m still struggling to put into words what it was I liked about this one, but there was something about its slightly spooky lounge singer energy that really hit the sweet spot with me. Something about the vocals really reminded me of The Pierces, and I love The Pierces, so maybe that was it.
7. Ukraine (Kalush Orchestra: ‘Stefania’ – winner)
Absolutely unassailable on the night, as many people predicted it would be – the absolute curb-stomping of the competition in the televote was predictable enough, but they were extremely popular with the juries too, so it was a comprehensive victory however you slice it. And while it’s probably not going to end up being my favourite winner of all time, it’s still an infectiously catchy song, performed with sincerity (I’ve used that word a lot in this ranking but honestly, there was just a lot of sincerity to go around this year), and just seeing their reaction to the amount of love they were getting was incredibly heartwarming. Also, there’s something pretty cool about a song that didn’t even win its own national final going on to win Eurovision outright – what a Cinderella story! (It’s still no ‘Shum‘, though, and that’s why I just can’t bring myself to rank it higher.)
6. Italy (Mahmood & Blanco: ‘Brividi’ – 6th place)
So this one was being touted as being capable of pulling off the lesser-spotted win by a host country, but didn’t quite clinch it in the end – but hopefully Italy can still be proud of taking home the best result by a host country since Sweden in 2016. This was a lovely song, and obviously it’s been a huge hit across Europe already and deservedly so, but I think you could definitely hear the strain that months of promo had put on Mahmood’s voice, because those high notes just weren’t quite there in the same way that they were at San Remo. Still an absolutely beautiful song though, and an incredibly moving performance.
5. Estonia (Stefan: ‘Hope’ – 13th place)
Was I distracted by the fact that he is apparently officially the Sexiest Man in Estonia? Well, I’m not made of stone. But despite the technical issues (I’m still not sure what was apparently supposed to happen during the performance, but apparently this wasn’t it) I just really enjoyed this Wild West-infused ode to optimism, and it was such a good note to end the performance half of the show on.
4. Netherlands (S10: ‘De diepte’ – 11th place)
This one was a little bit ropey in the semis but I thought it really came to life on Saturday night, and that haunting chorus gave me goosebumps. Another point for ‘sometimes a really moving song, performed well, just does the job’.
3. Serbia (Konstrakta: ‘In corpore sano’ – 5th place)
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the night – did any of us predict Serbia in the top five this year? Absolutely deserved though, an iconic performance with a serious message behind all the memeability, and I’m glad that the voters responded as enthusiastically as they did. (claps hands, washes them again)
2. Sweden (Cornelia Jakobs: ‘Hold Me Closer’ – 4th place)
Despite the stumbling blocks in the road (apparently a lot of technical problems in the rehearsals, and a staging that turned out to not be quite as effective in a giant arena as it was at Melfest), I thought Cornelia absolutely nailed it on the night. She was always Sweden’s secret weapon this year – as beautiful as the song is, it’s Cornelia’s delivery, always right on the cusp of her voice cracking with emotion, that made it ‘Hold Me Closer’ so effective and I absolutely sobbed watching it.
1. United Kingdom (Sam Ryder: ‘Space Man’ – runner-up)
I mean, it had to be, didn’t it? What a night for the United Kingdom. After years upon years upon years of people grouchily insisting that we’re hated in Europe, that no one will ever want to vote for us, that we could send Adele and still finish last, it turns out the naysayers were wrong, that actually the only thing in the way was our inability to understand what works at Eurovision, and all we had to do this whole time was send a likeable, charismatic, incredibly gifted singer with a song worthy of his talents. (Hearing the crowd in the arena singing along so passionately! Could you ever imagine it?!) By all accounts Sam’s been an absolutely fantastic ambassador for the UK, radiating positivity throughout and genuinely seeming absolutely thrilled to be there, and it was so, so heartening to see him rewarded for it on the night. I screamed, and I cried as the jury results rolled in, and even though I feared a plummet in the televote, it turned out we did incredibly well there too (fifth place overall, with points from 34 out of 39 countries – just an absolutely fantastic result that proves people will vote for us if we give them cause to). An incredible performance on an incredible night, and I only hope we can take all the right lessons from this and not have it be a fluke. But even if we flop again next year, we’ll always have 2022.
Steven Perkins 