The National Selections Of Eurovision 2022 (Romania - Ukraine)
- Dec 28, 2022
- 36 min read
Updated: Dec 28, 2022
Originally published: 20th of September 2022
So, uh. This is kinda awkward. I got so long and cumbersome that I genuinely hit the Wix word limit. So here's part 2, detailing the last few countries. For a refresher, here's my season overall top 20:
Death Of Us - Elsie Bay (Melodi Grand Prix)
Jezinky - Giudi (Eurovision Song CZ)
Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors - Alina Pash (Vidbir)
Ram Pam Pam - Bess (Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu)
Kuuma Jäbä - Isaac Sene (UMK)
What To Make Of This - Minimal Wind ft. Elisabeth Tiffany (Eesti Laul)
Sun Numero - Younghearted (UMK)
Calle De La Lloreria - Rayden (Benidorm Fest)
Terra - Tanxugueiras (BF)
Thank God I'm An Atheist - Olivera (UMK)
Girls Can Do Anything - July Jones (EMA)
Muškarčina - Sara Jo (Pesma Za Evroviziju '22)
Ciao Ciao - La Rappresentante Di Lista (Sanremo)
Heaven Is Sin - good job nicky
Call Me From The Cold - Rūta Loop (Pabandom Iš Naujo)
Raffaella - Varry Brava (BF)
I Suck At Being Lonely - Charley (Australia Decides)
Secreto De Agua - Blanca Paloma (BF)
Anxiety - Felicia Lu (Germany 12 Points)
Regret - Jessie (Selecţia Natională)
I'm reposting it because several of the songs will be mentioned in the last few countries, not least the next one coming up.
Romania
Selection method: Selecţia Natională
OGAE Second Chance pick: One Night - Gabriel Basco
My pick: România Mea - Cream, Minodora, Diana Bucşă / Regret - Jessie
Wishlist: Olivia Addams
General thoughts: with Romania, we had the national final Selecţia Natională, which, yes, just means national selection. It was as chaotic as you would expect from an eastern European Eurovision national final. Rigging accusations, accidentally leaking the entire list of songs, fan favourites not getting in (if you're wondering, Trei Degete)...so on and so forth. The selection itself has been surprisingly long-lasting for a Latin country national final - it started in 1993, when they debuted, and only experienced interruptions in 1995, 1997, 1999 (I don't know their results from then but I assume they were relegated?), 2001, and 2021. Otherwise it's been running the whole time, albeit as a rather chaotic show. For this year, we had 46 songs, making it the definitively largest national selection this year. And as someone who had actual things to do with life, I didn't really bother with listening to all the songs. I will talk about a few of them that I still remember here.
The first one is "One Night" by Gabriel Basco. It's the OGAE Second Chance choice, because...I'm not really sure? It came 4th, and not a whole lot of people really cared for the song on Twitter. Hell, I don't even remember what the song sounds like, so I can't even give a comment on it. Apparently according to my initial listen which I detailed on Twitter, I called it "another snorey ballad", and "minus points for C major". Yeah. Doesn't sound great.
Then we have "Malere" by E-an-na. I don't really get the song, to be very honest. Twitter LOVED it, and I still see it on the timeline from time to time about hardcore stans shouting about it being robbed and whatnot. Again, I don't get the song. It's characteristically eastern European chaotic, but I don't really think it worked out with this song. The lyrics are sung so quickly that you can't really make out a whole lot of it. The song structure is all over the place. The main melody is repetitive as all hell. I sincerely do not get the hype behind this song. I don't get the song, and I suspect I never will. Do get in touch if you would like to explain the song's merits. I'm all ears.
After that, "România Mea" by Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucşă. It's a folk-type song? I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. The music video was interesting, but I completely have zero recollection of watching the live performance, so if that says anything. There were also accusations that they were advocating for reintegration of Moldova into Romania, but I think they denied it. But yeah, really do not remember the live performance at all. But it's one of the few songs which I can remember the main melody of, so I guess it could be a pick for second chance.
Also one song that I guarantee at most 3 people still remember: "Regret" by Jessie. It was part of the 46-song pre-selection, and it's this cool dance-pop song with an interesting music video that had a bit of production value that went into it. Unfortunately the live performance was a bit of a flop, so it didn't even make the semifinal, but initially, when I listened to the main favourites from the poor souls who sat through all 49 songs, I identified two good songs, at least in my eyes. The first one was Regret, and the second one - Llamame. And of course we know what happened with Llamame. So I liked the song, even though the live performance was rather mediocre. It also happens to be the only Selecţia Natională song that remains on my Spotify playlist, after I removed WRS' songs due to him doing blackface on the Romanian version of Your Face Sounds Familiar. So that would probably be my pick for second chance. But if I had to pick something that actually made it to the semi-final, then România Mea.
Honourable mention to "Ana" by Dora Gaitanovici, which I initially described as them managing to make a rock song boring. There was however some hype on Twitter for it, and ultimately it won the televote, being one point ahead of WRS, and came third overall. So, good for the people who liked it I guess. I didn't, and still don't.
Another honourable mention: "Do Svidaniya" by Aris, the title of which of course comes from the Russian "До Свидания", which means "goodbye". Initially it was hilarious because it was this fan favourite and another Paranoia-type Eastern house track, but according to rumours, the jury were trying to rush the voting for some reason, and started printing the qualification cards before all the songs were even performed. And Do Svidaniya was performed last. Also worth noting that in the studio cut, Aris mispronounces the title as "Do Svidonya". Fortuntely she rectifies that in the live performance, but I guess the jury really wanted to rush the voting, so RIP to that.
And finally, "Llamame" by WRS, which of course won the whole selection. Honestly, I kinda lost hope initially when I saw the pre-selection performance, but of course it was improved, and by the time it went to Turin I was actually somewhat hopeful that it would qualify. And of course that he did. Some Twitter Eurofans were angry that this qualified over older Romanian entries that they deemed to be superior. Well, I think it's just a case of right place, right time. And a right mood. Unfortunately WRS then had to go and do blackface on that Romanian show, but it seems that even the broadcaster realized the error and have been taking down the performances on Youtube left right and centre. Maybe we'll see an apology from WRS, maybe we won't. But at least at the time I was over the moon that Romania qualified, but also heartbroken that Brooke NQed. But getting back to the NF now.
For 2023, Romania has confirmed participation, although they're allegedly still looking to sue the EBU over "defamation". If all goes as it should, then we should be seeing Selecţia Natională return. But what names will we see? One name that I will offer is Olivia Addams. She's a pretty big Romanian pop star, who also enjoys some degree of popularity in Poland apparently. Her style is just general electro/dance-pop, and recently she's expressed interest in sending a song to the selection. Most notably, she is signed to Global Records, which is the same record label as WRS and Roxen. Like I said in the What We Know So Far blog post, allegedly SN is being rigged for Global Records singers, so let's see what happens there. Roxen also expressed interest in returning, but I feel like that's way too soon. I personally would say no one who's already participated in Eurovision from 2020 onwards (except the ones who never got to go to Rotterdam) should return to Eurovision before 2025. But anyways, Olivia Addams expressed interest, and her music is pretty cool as well. She's also allegedly someone who is capable of singing live, so let's see what happens there.
With that said, let's move on to a national final that I didn't actually watch.
San Marino
Selection method: Una Voce Per San Marino
OGAE Second Chance pick: Heartless Game - Cristina Ramos
My pick: DKDC
Wishlist: more Sanremo names (La Rappresentante Di Lista?)
General thoughts: this is probably gonna be the shortest one. Some national finals I just outright didn't watch at all, and this is one of them. Nonetheless, I'll go through the format very quickly. For 2020, and for most of San Marino's relatively short Eurovision history, they used internal selections to select their representative, sometimes even repeating names such as Serhat and Valentina Monetta. For 2018, they hosted a national selection named "1in360", but results-wise that certainly didn't work out very well for them.
For 2022, they announced a brand new national final named Una Voce Per San Marino, or A Voice For San Marino in Italian. Like with 1in360, anyone of any nationality was allowed to apply for the selection, although some slots were reserved for native Sammarinese acts, i.e. acts from San Marino itself, which are few and far in between as you can imagine. As a result of the lack of restrictions on nationality, they received this year applications from the UK, US, Malta, Austria, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy (obviously) and even a particular one from the Czech Republic. I'll get onto that later.
Either way many people from many countries applied and auditioned, and then those were whittled down to 60 international acts (mostly Italians) and 6 Sammarinese ones for the semi-finals. Among them was a certain Eliška Mrázová, more commonly known by her artist name, Elis Mraz. She of course participated in ESCZ (the Czech selection) with her song "Imma Be" and came second, just like her previous attempt in 2020. It appears that this year she was determined to go to Eurovision, and since ESCZ ended so early, there was still time for her to apply to UVPSM. And that's what she did.
Elis Mraz did not do so well in UVPSM however, as she only made it to the second chance round of her semi-final. There, she was eliminated, although there were rumours that some other band got her disqualified because Imma Be was too long or something. But one way or another she did not make it to the final of the "emerging acts".
And what other acts are there, other than emerging acts? Well, we have the established acts. Akin to the pre-qualifiers in MGP, these are big artists (relatively speaking) who would receive a free pass to the final. Among them was of course Achille Lauro, who earlier on in February had participated in Sanremo with "Domenico", during which he genuinely baptized himself onstage whilst half-naked, and has now to many people's surprise shown up in San Marino. And on a very cramped stage, he would perform Stripper with just some guitarists and a drummer as accompaniment, and win the selection. Whether he won it legitimately or he just had the biggest budget is another story, and one that I'm 100% not qualified to talk about.
But what I can talk about is another established act, which was Cristina Ramos (who's actually Spanish) with her song named "Heartless Game". When the established names were initially revealed, there was a little bit of hype surrounding her because she has an excellent soprano voice. Now, I didn't listen to the entirety of Heartless Game, and I don't ever plan to, but from the tiny snippets that I saw on OGAE SC recap videos, it didn't sound great. Perhaps there was never a qualifier in UVPSM 2022 to begin with. I will say, there was some hype on Twitter surrounding a certain Aaron Sibley, who is a Brit who came with a song named "Pressure". Ultimately, he came third in the final, behind Burak Yeter (a Turkish DJ) ft. Alessandro Coli with their song "More Than You". Cristina Ramos in comparison only came 11th in a *5-way tie* among 18 songs. Worth noting though that in OGAE Second Chance, there's no OGAE San Marino for pretty obvious reasons. So Heartless Game is representing OGAE Rest Of World, and I think the vote for the candidate probably happened there rather than in a theoretical OGAE San Marino.
Honourable mention to a certain Christopher Grevener, whose audition footage was published in full. He's a German Eurofan, and decided to audition using Loco Loco from Serbia 2021. Eurofan Twitter went nuts for this and used the whole range of stan Twitter terminology. Of course he didn't make it through the audition round, but before it happened, he said that he had gotten a Eurovision songwriter to write a song for him in the event that he successfully goes through. He didn't go through, but he nonetheless revealed the song, which was named "Worth The Wait", and was composed by, wait for it, Mørland. Norway 2015, and subsequent songwriter of many an MGP song, not least in 2022. His Twitter tag is @christopherg91, and as of writing this he actually just confirmed that he will be heading back to San Marino for 2023. Let's see how he slays this time around. Anyways, you can find Worth The Wait on streaming platforms I think. I'm not gonna bother with it.
With that, let's move from one national final that I didn't watch, to another national final that I didn't watch.
Serbia
Selection method: Pesma Za Evroviziju
OGAE Second Chance pick: Muškarčina - Sara Jo
My pick: Muškarčina - Sara Jo
Wishlist: Sara Jo, Sanja Vučić?
General thoughts: with Serbia, we had the national final Pesma Za Evroviziju, which translates to "(A) Song For Eurovision" in Serbian. Before this, there were various names for their selection, but the most common one was Beovizija, referring to Beograd, the Serbian name for Belgrade. It is not yet known what the name for the Serbian selection will be for 2023, but we do at the very least know that a selection is planned and submissions are open.
There were an entire *36* songs in the selection, so you can imagine I haven't really gone through all the songs. There were two semi-finals, each obviously consisting of 18 songs, 9 of which would then qualify and go to the final. Like I mentioned at the end of San Marino, I didn't watch this. Unlike San Marino however, I did go through a few of the songs, and I think there's 4 that are noteworthy, which I'll talk about below.
The first one is Origami by Angellina. Truth be told, I don't remember a whole lot of this, but it was a pretty catchy pop song in Serbian, and I believe the performance was very tinfoil-y. Judging from Eurofans' reactions to this song, I knew that it would do quite well in the selection, and indeed it ended 4th, out of 18 songs. I remember the song having a relatively positive reception on social media, and I guess our intuition turned out mostly correct.
The second song I wanna talk about is Zorja by Zorja Pajić. Yes, a self-referential song. But beyond that it's...a Balkan ballad. I remember half of Eurofan Twitter going crazy over this, and then some Serbian popped in to say "it's nothing new". But certainly I think it's a solid formula to go off of. The vocals were good, and the staging was striking - I recall her wearing some sort of elaborate golden crown and some dramatic lighting too, I think. Wouldn't have gotten anywhere NEAR Konstrakta did in Turin, but a reasonable qualification à la 2019 would have been expected, I reckon.
The third song, is, well, the winning song. In Corpore Sano by Konstrakta. Very striking, very stern. Many Eurofans on Twitter bang on about how the juries "couldn't appreciate art" while the audience (televote) could. If I'm being honest, I think it's the catchy factor that brought this to such high levels, like with Llamame. Same reason it went viral on TikTok and such. You REALLY think the masses care for social commentary in songs, instead of just blindly clapping along? No shade to Konstrakta here - the song is certainly unique and not necessarily in a bad way - but I really doubt 95% of televote voters cared for, or even knew about the message behind the song. It's not even REMOTELY comparable to Telemoveis. That had a sophisticated message, but the production and staging was off-putting, so of course it didn't qualify. In Corpore Sano had the catchy factor, as did Llamame and Trenuletul. Anyways, rant over. Back to PZE22. The funny thing about this, is that it only really started picking up traction after the semi-final. Zorja actually placed higher than ICS in the semi, but got third in the final.
And what song got second in the final? Well, it's the OGAE Second Chance pick, and also my personal pick for second chance, and it's Muškarčina by Sara Jo. ("Jo" here is pronounced as "yo", since it's a clipping of her surname, Jovanović, and J is pronounced like English Y in Serbian.) In fact, Sara Jo has actually already done Eurovision for Serbia, as part of Moje 3 in 2013. Of course they didn't qualify back then, but Ljubav Je Svuda has become something of a Twitter favourite. Nonetheless, Sara Jo is now pursuing a solo music career (as is Nevena Božović, who sang Kruna for Serbia in Tel Aviv and was also part of Moje 3), and had rapidly became a favourite in PZE22. Muškarčina translates roughly to "manly man" or "macho man", and the lyrics describe a steamy secret relationship. Now, normally Eurofan Twitter wouldn't flock to something like this, especially considering the lyrics, but one has to admit that the presentation really was something else.
First off, the song was written in a VERY unusual time signature. Most pop songs these days are written in 4/4, 2/4 or 3/4. Occasionally you might have the odd 2/2 or 3/2, but the bulk of commercial music these days are written in those time signatures, since they're very easy to clap to. Muškarčina was written in... 9/8. That's 9 eighths or quavers per bar. Try clapping to THAT. I've got Grade 5 in ABRSM Music Theory and I've got no clue. So it clearly stands out in this regard.
The vocal range in the song is also crazy. It starts off around Ab4, but later on, she does a high note in, wait for it, E7. Provided the last chorus is largely only one octave above the initial chorus, but the vocal range required to pull off that high note is still insane.
In terms of staging, some have criticized her revealing outfit as trashy, but given the lyrics of the song, I think it makes sense. She also wore bangs in the performance, although I think I preferred her hair just laid out long, like in her performance of the song at Stockholm Pride. (Don't ask me why she got invited to Stockholm Pride - I'm just as clueless as you are.) On the stage there was also this kinda stone structure with a cylindrical hole punched through it, inside which Sara Jo would do various poses while singing. One that got memed for a bit was when she posed like a letter T or some such? And she also had a bunch of male dancers. Again, given the lyrics, makes sense. There was also pyro, but ironically I think the staging was a tad too dark. Nonetheless, a very sensational performance.
Would it have done as well as In Corpore Sano? I don't know for sure. I think it's possible, given a stronger jury vote, but it doesn't have the catchy factor. In fact, quite the opposite. How do you even clap to this thing? But if executed properly, I think this could have still hit top 5 in Turin.
Which is why I hope she returns to PZE (or whatever the Serbian selection is gonna be named) in the near future. Great vocalist, and great performer. Another singer who I'd like to see return to the Serbian selection is Sanja Vučić. As you may or may not know, Hurricane (SRB Eurovision 2021) in its current form has now split up, and its members gone their separate ways. It's not even like Sanja hasn't done Eurovision before as a solo vocalist - remember 2016? She's also a great vocalist and performer, and it would be great to see her at least attempt to represent Serbia again.
But now, let's move on to a country that didn't actually take part in Eurovision 2022.
Slovakia
Selection method: internal probably? Or maybe a cheap national final named Eurosong as in 2010 and 2011
OGAE Second Chance pick: N/A
My pick: N/A
Wishlist: just return please
General thoughts: it seems like a ridiculous idea to want a country that hasn't done Eurovision for a decade running to suddenly return. But there's a valid base for this, at least I think.
Since 2017, RTVS have only had one director-general, which was Jaroslav Reznik. Under his premiership, it was reported that there was manipulation of news content, not least Eurovision content. The Eurovision Song Contest was in fact allegedly viewed by Reznik as "the worst thing the EBU has made". Reportage on the contest was suppressed, and as such very few people in the country cared or even knew about Eurovision. This naturally led to low interest in the contest, which became the broadcaster's go-to excuse whenever they are asked about their non-participation.
Since the end of June however, there appears to now be a ray of hope for Eurofans wanting Slovakia to return to Eurovision, which is the election of Ľuboš Machaj as the new director-general of RTVS. He has worked in broadcasting for decades, not least with RTVS, and will now lead the broadcaster. Relevant for us is the fact that in 2011, he in fact oversaw the participation of Slovakia in Eurovision. Although part of this was due to the fact that RTVS had forgotten to withdraw before the stipulated deadline.
So, mixed news from Machaj, which is even more concerning as RTVS had expressed interest in participating in Junior Eurovision in 2019 and 2021 even back when Reznik was director, but it'd been crickets from them this year, and ultimately we will not be seeing the debut of Slovakia in Yerevan. Furthermore, Machaj was allegedly supposed to make some sort of statement regarding Eurovision participation in August, but of course we haven't gotten that, and the Reznik administration statement back in June of non-participation so far remains valid. Nonetheless, given Machaj's previous experience overseeing Eurovision participation, there is still a chance we could see them return to the contest in Liverpool, but it's too early to tell at this point. I'm writing this in mid-October, and as I understand it the participant list is due to come out either late this month or early next month. We'll just have to see what happens I suppose.
Of course I get that money's tight around this point in time, but it's certainly possible for them just to internally select some act. Or throw some sort of cheap national final together, North Macedonia-style. I don't really have a wishlist per se, but there are tons of talented musicians in Slovakia, some of which might have interest in participating in the contest. Or even just have Kristina come back and avenge her non-qualification with Horehronie.
But now, back to countries that actually took part in Turin 2022, starting with the other country that starts with "Slo" and ends with "ia".
Slovenia
Selection method: Evrovizijska Melodija (aka EMA)
OGAE Second Chance pick: Mim Pravil - Batista Cadillac
My pick: Girls Can Do Anything - July Jones
Wishlist: July Jones, LUMA
General thoughts: with Slovenia, we had the national final EMA, which has been running almost entirely uninterrupted since 1996. Somewhere along the line, a "junior" format was introduced, named EMA Freš (pronounced "fresh"), where the top 4 participants of that (which tend to be less experienced artists) would get to participate in the main show. One of those participants this year was of course LPS, which stands for Last Pizza Slice. The group was formed by five high-schoolers, with all members being between 16 and 18 in age if I recall correctly. Their initial performance was just pre-recorded, and took place in their little studio. Of course they would then go on to participate in the main show, and even win the show. But I don't think they were really on anyone's radar.
I don't really think the selection was particularly strong. There were two clear standouts as far as most Twitter Eurofans were concerned, and, well, neither of them won EMA. But before we get to those, let's quickly go over the OGAE Second Chance pick. Mim Pravil by Batista Cadillac. The song title translates to "follow the rules" in Slovene. I'll be honest, I remember almost nothing from this. All I remember is that it was a band, and the whole group was male. Perhaps that's why in my Twitter review thread, I wrote that it felt "very FIK and not in a good way". I'm generally just not a fan of middle-aged male bands, which might explain my partial confusion at the hype over Mall (Albania 2018). I don't have much else to say about this, so let's move on to the two standouts.
The first one is All In by LUMA. Someone on Twitter described them as a "reverse zalagasper", and that's a pretty good description. What they had in common was a female vocalist, and a male producer and keyboard player, as well as a certain tension in the air between the two. But where they differ is in language. As the title suggests, All In is in English, while Sebi was obviously in Slovene. Also Sebi was largely staged with a dark purple-like motif, while All In was closer to pink. But it was nonetheless a very eye-catching performance. Had this gone to Eurovision, I reckon it would've replaced Iceland as a 10th place qualifier and then get a similar result to Sebi. Perhaps the memory of Sebi was so recent that the Slovene public didn't want to send something like this again in such rapid succession. But a very enchanting entry still.
The second one, and my pick for second chance, is Girls Can Do Anything by July Jones. Interestingly, July Jones is Slovene-born, but lives in London. Nonetheless, she has Slovene citizenship, so she's eligible for EMA. She's also made a bit of a name by penning some songs for K-pop group BTS. When the first snippets of the EMA songs came out, Eurofan Twitter went WILD over this. (As they should.) Remember that Eurofan Twitter creams itself over every single girlbop on the face of the Earth. Sometimes I don't think it's really justified, for example Fire by Elysa in Eesti Laul 2022, but here? I get it. Totally makes sense. It's like Siren Song in a way, except the singer isn't a pro-Russian POS. Also arguably GCDA is more repetitive, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly the performance was very...slay. Really can't put it any other way. It's VERY different from everything else that was in EMA, and had it gone to Eurovision then it would've differentiated itself greatly as well. Probably wouldn't have won Eurovision but definitely would have stolen a chunk of points away from the likes of Chanel. But the Slovene public just vote for whatever the hell they want, and then pretend to be surprised when their little band of high-schoolers being followed by UKRAINE failed to qualify. But I really do think July Jones can do great at Eurovision, really hope she returns to EMA in the near future.
With that said, let's move from a long-lasting national final to a literal brand new one.
Spain
Selection method: Benidorm Fest
OGAE Second Chance pick: Ay Mama - Rigoberta Bandini
My pick: Terra - Tanxugueiras / Calle De La Lloreria - Rayden
Wishlist: I trust RTVE :D (but Blanca Paloma come back please)
General thoughts: with Spain this year, we had Benidorm Fest, which is a brand new project by RTVE which was loosely based on the Benidorm Song Festival that was held up till the mid-2000s. The old festival attempted to emulate the Festival di Sanremo in Italy and create a national phenomenon, however from what I understand it largely failed to do that. This time however, it seems to be succeeding. Certainly one year is far too early to tell the success of a project, but according to longtime Spanish Eurofans, this hype generated in the country is like nothing before. So at least in the short term, it's already starting to do what RTVE set out to do. For a first-year national final to be considered one of the strongest by the vast majority of Eurofans, and then select a commercial and catchy winner which then goes on to be the best Spanish result in over 20 years? Other national finals could only DREAM of it.
I'll go through every single entry, but for most of them I'll just drop one or two lines. Saving my second chance nominations for last.
Azucar Moreno - Postureo: very classic Spanish, but it's past its heyday.
Blanca Paloma - Secreto De Agua: excellent ballad with a Spanish flavour. Creative staging, REALLY good vocals, and possibly could have been Spain's best ESC2022 result that wasn't Chanel. Easy top 10 in Turin, possibly jury top 3. And to think this was essentially her debut single! Would love for her to return to BF, and in fact there are rumours of her submitting an entry for 2023, along with another BF2022 participant.
Chanel - SloMo: basic pop song performed like CRAZY. Turin staging and revamp elevated to no end. Probably the moral winner of Eurovision 2022 if we're being honest.
Gonzalo Hermida - Quien Lo Diria: shame he never got to perform live, but given what Spain sent in 2021, it probably wouldn't be a wise choice to send this anyway.
Javiera Mena - Culpa: an acid trip, in the best way. Robbed of the Benidorm Fest final if I'm being honest. Maybe the staging wasn't the best, but the song goes hard as hell. Thunder, harpsichord, "save it"(?) sound effect, all in a rave song. Batshit crazy but it's amazing.
Luna Ki - Voy A Morir: I don't like autotune. Even putting that aside, the song felt very repetitive and overly edgy. The English stuck out like a sore thumb and just did not fit at all. Probably an unpopular opinion but I was not a fan.
Marta Sango - Sigues En Mi Mente: nice 80s vibes. The outfit in the live performance was slightly questionable though. Also not particularly competitive, as far as prospective Eurovision songs go. She's the second BF2022 participant who is rumoured to have submitted another song for BF2023.
Rigoberta Bandini - Ay Mama: official OGAE Second Chance pick, and because it took me this long to write, third place in OGAE Second Chance 2022. I do not get this track AT ALL. I already wrote a strongly-worded thread back in January, but basically I likened it more to I Don't Feel Hate than really anything else. I mean, IDFH was also a song with a profound message, but it had ridiculous staging and flopped. How is Ay Mama any different? Spanish Eurofan Berme Rubio explained its high points in BF as fanaticism, and I think that's the best explanation for it. I really don't think this would've done well in Eurovision at all, and as such my relief upon it not winning BF2022 was immeasurable.
Sara Deop - Make You Say: funny meme, but the actual live version was disastrous. The song really wasn't all that substantial either. Can't believe some people thought this was superior to SloMo in the studio cut.
Unique - Mejores: I can't remember anything from the song other than the ay-oh ay-oh, and anything from the performance other than the random kiss. :/
Varry Brava - Raffaella: way underrated. Super catchy little tune, great bright pink/red motif, and a great homage to a legendary presenter in the Latin world. Was in my top 4 of BF2022.
Xeinn - Eco: the Weeknd but white and staged by Swedes.
Now the two main ones I wanna talk about for my personal second chance choice. First off, Terra by Tanxugueiras.
To start off with, Terra had a very visually striking performance. Was it staged the best it could be in Benidorm Fest? Absolutely not, and there's an argument to be had about whether RTVE intentionally tried to sabotage Tanxugueiras, but it's not a domain in which I'm even remotely qualified to debate about. What I can talk about is the song. There are some saying that Terra and Fulenn have absolutely no point of comparison other than three women dressed in black singing in a minority language. But I do think there is a bit of likeness between the two beyond that, which lies in the lyrics. They both talk about folk tales from their native folklore. Of course your standard non-Spanish or even non-Galician Eurovision viewer wouldn't know that, but it still stands that much of the lyrical content in Terra talked about things common to Galician folklore. There were also lines in Catalan, Basque and I believe Asturian, which made Terra technically the most linguistically diverse song in Benidorm Fest 2022. (Some classification systems, such as the one used by Wikipedia, only counted Galician as the song language since those lines really were just one line each.) The song also eluded to a type of traditional Galician dance, which was also performed during the performance of the song. Problem being, again, most people don't know that. And the camerawork and lighting did nothing to improve matters.
But of course the main hook of Terra lay in the ai-la-ra-la-la, which was effectively the bulk of the chorus. And I don't know about you, but this is honestly one of the things that made the song age somewhat poorly, at least in my eyes. Listening to this song on repeat was just kinda annoying, to be honest. Even with one single listening of the song it became rather tiresome to me. And again, the staging really was just subpar. I don't know if it was the Tanxus who had not thought out their staging plans too well, RTVE doing a poor job of executing their staging plans (intentionally or not), or a mixture of both. The whole thing felt very messy, which I think is not supposed to be what the song should feel. Fulenn has a kinda deliberate chaoticness to it - Terra feels very clear-cut and very on-beat, which was not reflected appropriately in the staging. Especially the random guy dancing - I've talked to people who insisted that he was integral to the performance, but at least with Fulenn the female dancer actually formed part of the folklore narrative. The male dancer in the Terra performance did nothing to clean up the performance or to make it feel even ever so slightly tidier. Retrospectively, maybe I shouldn't place Terra so high in my top 20, if at all. But it is a song with significant cultural value for the Galicians, and it brought something REALLY different to the table for the inaugural edition of Benidorm Fest. But of course as we've now learned from Fulenn, different =/= better.
But if it's not better, then how do you explain the MASSIVE televote for Terra in Benidorm Fest? 70% of the televote went to Terra. Slomo got something like 3.5%. Well, I saw rumours - I must stress that these are rumours - that there were services opened up in Galicia that made it free for them to vote in the Benidorm Fest televote, as opposed to everyone else in Spain who had to pay a fee for every text. Again, this is a rumour. I cannot verify the validity of this. But since RTVE isn't gonna reveal the exact geographical breakdown of the televote, all we can say for certain is that they got a massive televote, perhaps again due to our aforementioned fanaticism. But let's move on. A few months ago maybe this would've been my second chance choice, but after mulling on it a bit more, nah. Let's give that to our next and final song.
Calle De La Lloreria, by Rayden. (It's not pronounced as in English BTW; he says it as Rye-dehn, or rye-then.) The title roughly translates to "Street of the crying place". Basically, much of the lyrics call out different kinds of people for hypocrisy, and tell them to go to this "crying place" to literally cry about it. And if you're wondering when to clap in the chorus, it's 3 claps and then 2 claps after the main line and the first line of the backing vocal. It's not as clear-cut as the Soldi claps, but I don't know why people on Twitter were having so much of an issue trying to follow it, especially since Rayden and the other guys clap exactly as I mentioned during the performance.
This was the favourite of many non-Spanish Eurofans, including myself. While I haven't seen the performance in question, it is said that this beared many resemblances to Alcohol Is Free, from Greece 2013. Many of us thought at the time that to appeal to international audiences, CDLL was the best choice, but of course we now know of the 200+ televote points that Chanel got, and even many Spanish Eurofans recognize now that Chanel was ultimately the choice that would bring them the best result. Nonetheless, I thought CDLL was masterfully staged. That dictator-like podium at the start with the unique logo; his little "gang" with the various instruments; the dynamic change in camera angles, such as the one shot where Rayden and his entourage were facing the audience, and then suddenly they turn back to sing towards another camera that had been obscured in the previous shot; the orange-themed lighting; and so on. It was just a very classy performance that I dare say was probably one of the best from the entire season.
So what was its downfall that led to it only placing 4th? Well, to be honest, 4th was a pretty expected placement for the song. There was Chanel, huge domestic fan favourites Rigoberta Bandini and Tanxugueiras, and then the good stuff, i.e. CDLL and Secreto De Agua. So it wasn't really a downfall as such, just that there were bigger fish to fry for the domestic audience. And during the show, I was reading locals' comments on the songs, and some felt that CDLL was just spewing long chains of words with little immediately decipherable meanings to them. And to be fair, it was very much word-heavy; but for myself at least I didn't think it was such a bad thing. Still a great track, a catchy one at that, and I think Rayden definitely deserves to represent Spain in the near future. I think he's ruled himself out for 2023, but who knows beyond that.
With that, let's move from one big national final, to another big national final.
Sweden
Selection method: Melodifestivalen (aka Melfest)
OGAE Second Chance pick: In I Dimman - MEDINA
My pick: Run To The Hills - Klara Hammarström / Bluffin - LIAMOO
Wishlist: Clara Klingenström?, more indie nobodies
General thoughts: with Sweden, of course we had the very traditional and very prestigious Melodifestivalen, often abbreviated as Melfest. Curiously this shortform appears only to be used by non-Swedes, and Swedish people insist on calling it by its full name, or perhaps as Mello. It was started in 1959, and has been broadcast almost every single year since to select the Swedish representative for Eurovision. One curious feature of the festival is that despite the number of returnees, almost every single winner has been distinct, with the most significant exception being Carola, who represented Sweden in 1983 (3rd place), 1991 (winner), and 2006 (5th place). Otherwise, even though it is very common to see previous Melfest singers, winners or otherwise, return to the festival, these returnees rarely win if they have already won in the past, and even non-winning previous Melfest participants tend not to have the best luck when it comes to winning the show.
For 2022, this was exemplified by the return of John Lundvik, who of course represented Sweden in Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv. This time however, he came with a ballad in the Swedish language, named "Änglavakt", or "angel guard" in Swedish. We also saw Klara Hammarström, who brought a song that many described to be in LUM!X's style, as well as Anna Bergendahl, who is famously the only Swedish non-qualifier since the introduction of semi-finals in Eurovision. This though appears to be her last attempt at redemption for a while, as she has now gone off to pursue a medical degree.
<--Note: everything below this line was written in late December 2022, three months after the previous bout of writing.-->
I think that overall the selection was fine. I'm a notorious Sweden hater, and I'll bash any generic male-sung pop song given the chance, but this year wasn't really chock-full of that stuff. Like some of the other selections, I won't go through every single song, as I didn't even watch a single heat, but I will point out a few highlights and/or personal favourites:
Anders Bagge - Bigger Than The Universe: oh Christ. Where do I start with this. It was basically the antagonist of the Melfest final. It's the archetypal story of how popularity can skew national final results. Fortunately, our protagonist had a momentum behind her, and rest assured I'll get to her in a minute. Nonetheless, Anders Bagge is HUGE in Sweden. Mostly known as a songwriter, this is the first time he decided to step on the stage himself and sing.
Which in and of itself isn't a bad thing; the bad thing was that the song is not good. Certainly not by modern standards. The backdrop looked like a Windows 7 screensaver, and the song is just a generic trite uplifting song with the omnipresent manifestation of Nordic songwriting in "we are, we are". And as expected, the public gave him a huge mark in the final, although fortunately that was not the end of the story. Again, we'll get back to that later. But yeah, the song really just was not quite up to par. I think he said in an interview after the show that he knew Cornelia had a bigger potential out in Europe, and so was glad that she won instead of him.
Anna Bergendahl - Higher Power: it was a nice effort, she sang alright, but having looked back at her previous entries, this was definitely one of the weaker ones. Wouldn't really have made much of an impact at Eurovision I think. That said, last place?! Come on. Not much else to say, good luck to Anna on becoming a nurse.
Cazzi Opeia - I Can't Get Enough: fun tune, "bubblegum pop" if you want to call it that; a very catchy chorus, but several months on I can't remember anything else from the song. Kudos to Cazzi for writing a banger for the American Song Contest though. Wonderland was cool.
Klara Hammarström - Run To The Hills: like I mentioned earlier, very LUM!X-like. In fact, because it took me so long to continue writing this, I can report that the two actually met up to write a song. No clue if it's been released or not - I don't follow either of them - but that's what I saw on Twitter anyway. The outfit's kinda weird if I'm being honest. Kinda Iron Man-like, but the LEDs really don't complement that theme. She sings alright, but this song ain't it. I'd love to see her return, but I don't know what her other stuff is like. Either way, she's not really high up on my priority list of "national final artists that I want to see at Eurovision".
Liamoo - Bluffin: this is one of the mediocre men I was talking about. I mean, I'm sure he's a nice person, absolutely. He talks like it in interviews and such. But the song is just so...nothing. It's there, and you can kinda bop to it, but this is NOT gonna leave an impression at Eurovision. The fact that the jury rated this second place is extremely worrying. Plus that stupid dance at the drop? Come on, we're not 13 year old teens. Adding four dancers honestly just made it worse.
Malou Prytz - Bananas: good job misspelling "bananas". I haven't even heard most of the song.
Medina - In I Dimman: honestly? Great party anthem. I think some people were concerned after seeing Dino Medanhodzic on the list of songwriters, but we got served with a Swedish-language, almost football chant-type song. And it's great for getting people in the mood. Might've even fulfilled the role of Trenuletul in Turin. Nonetheless, it's not terribly competitive, and the drop can be perceived to be a little cheap. Furthermore, I think I saw somewhere that Medina said that they would translate the song into English if they had won Melfest, which just kinda loses all of its appeal. Nonetheless, a very fun song, and I'm glad it was rated more highly than usual by the juries, and perhaps in the not so distant future we may see Sweden send a song to Eurovision in the Swedish language.
Omar Rudberg - Moving Like That: I can't remember how it goes. My initial comments went: "kinda Latin-y, but you know I don't like Latin pop in Nordic countries". Make of that what you will. And no, I don't watch Young Royals.
Theoz - Som Du Vill: honestly this might be SVT's subtle announcement that they're returning to Junior Eurovision. Had Theoz been a few years younger, I could've easily seen this in Yerevan or Paris. Nonetheless, Theoz is a great performer, and I think that the decision to pair him with a Swedish-language song was also a decision well made. Regardless, not much else to say, except let's see whether we'll have Sweden in JESC in the next few years. (P.S. since I'm writing this so late that the Melfest 2023 names are already out: there's a few young'uns in there as well. Kiana, as well as Rejhan. I think one of them is 16 right now, and the other is only turning 16 come the new year. If this isn't a hint towards SVT wanting to do JESC, I don't know what is.)
Tone Sekelius - My Way: love that we have our first ever transgender Melfest participant, but honestly her song wasn't great. Very dated stuff. I have heard that her song this year will be more dance-y, more upbeat, so let's see what happens with that. But yeah, My Way was, truth be told, kinda bland. Melodically and structurally. It just didn't excite me in any way.
And finally, our winner. Hold Me Closer by Cornelia Jakobs. Now a hit with over 40 million streams on Spotify, as well as the recipient of multiple Swedish music awards such as Rockbjornen. In a way, I'm glad that the app died in the first heat, because otherwise I really don't know if HMC would've gone direkt till final. But of course we know what happened next. Cornelia went through, and the momentum just kept building and building. We were so scared that she'd get robbed like Dotter, but the jury came through, and gave her a rightly deserved position. For the first time since probably 2015, Sweden returns to the status of a favourite to win Eurovision, and even though she didn't do that, she achieved the largest televote and jury vote for any Swedish entry since Heroes, and of course the best placement since Heroes as well.
She's released two singles this year: one during the Melfest finals week named Fine, and another named Rise which was released I think in November. Fine just hit 2 million streams this week, while Rise hit 1 million a few weeks back. So she's still not superstar status in Sweden, but for someone who described herself as "messing around in my own corner" for several years, that's one hell of a breakthrough. And for those of you who don't follow her concerts and tour: she's actually got a number of unreleased songs. She sings them on her tour with her little band, occasionally adding ad-libs here and there, but as far as we're concerned we don't yet have the studio cuts for those songs. She says she doesn't know when the songs will come out either due to things with her label, but she hopes they'll come out soon, perhaps on her debut album. Most of her tour locations were, understandably, in Sweden, but she's also done shows in Spain, and especially in the UK, or really just London. I got to watch one of those shows once (on video because I'm not in Europe), and it was just a beaut. Through the Cornelia fandom I've met a number of amazing people, most of which I still keep in contact with, and we wait and see what happens to Cornelia and whether she might do more Melfest-related things.
But to end off this segment, Melfest 2023. Now, I wrote the wishlist way back in, I don't know, June? July? Something like that. Eurovision news was dry, and I tried to think of something. I was intrigued by Clara Klingenström and her Swedish-language entry back in 2020, and indeed there were rumours of her returning to Melfest this year, but alas it was not to be. I also wanted more indie nobodies, and so far I haven't noticed too many of them in the announced lineup. I'm hyped for Wiktoria (and Loreen obviously), but it's a ton of returnees this year which saddens me a little knowing how well they did with an indie nobody in Turin.
Also intrigued by THE Laurell Barker going onstage and singing, but I fear it's gonna be another Anders Bagge situation except no one's even gonna vote for her. And with Cornelia: she doesn't rule out returning to Melfest in the future, although she says she has other things she wants to do first. And given her recent songs, released or unreleased, we could probably expect it to be a little more upbeat and uplifting. We'll see what happens. But thank you Melodifestivalen 2022 for bringing me my new Swedish obsession.
Ukraine
Selection method: Jevrobačennia. Nacionalný Vidbir (aka Vidbir)
OGAE Second Chance pick: Girls - Roxolana
My pick: Girls - Roxolana
Wishlist: Tayanna, Christina Soloviy
General thoughts: ooh boy. The last national final, alphabetically, and possibly the most controversial. I'll try to keep it calm and just talk about the songs.
Vidbir is a national final for Ukraine. Since 2011 it has been running almost uninterrupted, only being suspended in 2015 due to the Russo-Ukrainian war and in 2021 because Go_A had been internally re-selected after having won Vidbir the year before. Vidbir in the Ukrainian language simply means "selection", but it is used by Eurofans from all nationalities to refer specifically to the Ukrainian national selection. Suspilne officially does not use that term, but may instead use "nacvidbir", which is a short form for "nacionalný vidbir" which as you may guess simply means "national selection". Nonetheless, it is a popular national final, because it often brings a high-quality production that may not even be matched by richer countries' national finals. Unlike Eurovision however, songs are rated not by 12, 10, 8 etc, but by a simple count on the number of entries in the final. For 2022, it was 8, 7, 6, down to 1, while for 2023, it was 10, 9, 8, down to 1.
For 2022, it was hosted at the NAU Centre of Culture and Arts. It was hosted by Timur Miroshnychenko and Masha Efrosinina, two hotly rumoured names for Eurovision 2023 co-hosts. Initially, semi-finals had been planned, however later they were scrapped. A shortlist was released, and later 8 entries from that shortlist were selected to perform in the final of Vidbir 2022, although not without its usual disqualifications due to early song releases.
Again, I won't go through every single entry, frankly because I can't remember them all, but I'll talk about five of them:
Michael Soul - Demons: a very interesting proposal. The song itself doesn't really go anywhere, but the music video was very interesting. The performance was alright, although with all due respect I can see why it came last in the selection. Nonetheless, an interesting and different proposal.
Roxolana - Girls: well...the initial title really wasn't the best choice of letters, was it. Nonetheless, the song is fun, and for what it's worth I think it was performed alright, but I think Jamala had a point when she said that Roxolana seemed deenergized when she performed the song. It didn't seem to pack the punch the song was coming with. Would it have won Eurovision? Possibly, given the televote. But it wasn't striking enough to me to be a worthy performance. Not quite sure what other Eurofans saw in the song. It's upbeat but really not much else.
Wellboy - Nozzy Bossy: honestly? I was mostly just irritated by this. Maybe it's just not my cup of tea, but the staging was also kinda off-putting, with those girls laying around and I think there was one scene of the singer sitting on the girls as if they were some sort of throne? I don't remember. Nonetheless, I didn't have a great memory of this, and I do wonder how it got third place overall.
Kalush Orchestra - Stefania: great track. In a normal year, would it have won? Probably not. A Shum-like result would be expected. I must admit, the staging at Vidbir was rather messy, although they certainly cleaned it up for Turin. The song is a bop. I still listen to it regularly, and my favourite bit is the syncopation near the end, after the six double bass notes.
Alina Pash - Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors (Tini Zabutych Predkiv): WOW. To this day I still get goosebumps from the song. It's so big, so majestic, and is really just the moment. I will say, the English is a little clunky, but the juxtaposition of everything else is great. The spoken word part, the initial verses, the final chorus with the additional long notes, hell, even the bird sounds at the beginning and end. It just creates a very powerful picture, and if Kalush were able to win with 631 points, I think Alina Pash could've genuinely gotten 800+. You can say all sorts of things on why you think Stefania is better than SOFA (an unfortunate abbreviation), but remember that that's your opinion, and we can think differently. I'd align more with the Vidbir jury. And if you look at the actual televote scores, you'll find that Kalush didn't SWEEP it. They got I think around 36000 or 38000 votes, which was just 10000 ahead of Alina Pash. So clearly there were still a lot of people voting for SOFA. It was a complete proposal, and despite being a rather controversial figure I still think that Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors was a job well done, even if after all Alina Pash never went to Turin.
Overall, a pretty strong national final, although far from the best. Two excellent songs, one good song, and the rest is...interesting. Of course as of writing this, Vidbir 2023 already happened, and I don't know whether I'll write a review for that or not. For now, I just hope that Ms. Sore Loser Krutь does eventually return to Vidbir and win it, just as Messrs. Sore Losers Tvorchi returned to Vidbir from 3 years ago and won it. Heart Of Steel is fine, but not great. We'll see what the revamp does to the chorus.
...
So those were my thoughts on the national finals of 2022! I don't think I'll write them all this detailed in the review for next year, if there's even a review at all. The only reason I did this to begin with was because I didn't have time to talk about the national finals in detail right after they ended, what with university and such. So maybe next year I'll just write a few words on each set of national finals on the day(s) after they conclude, because let's face it, who has the time to read all this stuff? Go find something else more productive to do with your life. I'm just dumping this here because I couldn't bother to record it all. And I don't know if anyone reading this has experienced it before, but Wix blogs with high word count are LAGGY. Often far faster for me to write elsewhere and then paste into here. But for this one time, I'm just compiling it all into two posts. So tweet me if you genuinely read the whole thing in its entirety, because I don't even think I'm gonna do that. Far more efficient to just write some quick thoughts the day after national finals conclude, and far more digestible too.
And now that I've gotten to this point, obviously I didn't record the entire thing. But I did record from Albania to Denmark, and if you really want to hear my handsome voice then here's the video:
I've also got Where We're At So Far blog posts and videos, which you can find, well, on this site, and also on my channel.
In the meantime, I'll see you on Twitter.
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