Eurovision roundup Part 4: super late reflections on 2023 / looking ahead to 2024

So finally, long after Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, here's the last part of my write-up of 2023's Eurovision. Having reviewed the music and performances in some detail, this is more of a general reflection on why I became a Eurovision fan in 2023, what was different this time to make that happen, plus some thoughts about my experience as a rookie fan and a look forward to 2024's contest in Malmö.

2022 and before

For a while I've been a casual Eurovision appreciator. I never expected to discover my New Favourite Band by listening to it, but I loved a good Eurovision watch party with choir friends, critiquing the vocalists and compositions, and generally looking forward to finding out who the goofiest acts are.

I could remember some stand-out moments from previous years. I won a sweepstake thanks to Lordi's win in 2006. 2021 was a good year: Måneskin won with a solid rock song, Blind Channel re-animated the corpse of nu-metal, Daði Freyr returned after his social media win in the absence of an official 2020 contest, and Go_A swapped cheesy key changes for awesome tempo changes. I remembered the industrial techno act singing about hatred (turns out that was Iceland's Hatari in 2019) and the woman wobbling on top of a pole while she sang (also 2019: Australia's Kate Miller-Heidke). I even have a vague recollection of being bemused by Germany's song "Wadde Hadde Dudde Da?" from 2000.

"...dabei war ja garnicht klar, dat dat datda war..."

 

I absorbed a string of internet memes without even knowing who was responsible, nor sometimes that they were even anything to do with Eurovision: Epic Sax Guy (Moldova 2010 and 2017 apparently), Suggestive Milkmaids (Poland 2014), Baking Grannies (Russia 2012).

Ultimately though, my appreciation had mostly been ironic. I mainly enjoyed Eurovision as a subject to talk about in the pub with choir friends. If you'd asked me what my favourite Eurovision moment was, I'd have probably said it was the "Love Love Peace Peace" send-up from 2016's interval show.

Why 2023?

But 2023 was the year I took the bait and became an actual non-ironic fan, and I'm personally interested in reflecting on why, since it became a minor obsession for me. I think that might have happened for the following reasons:

The first thing will be not at all surprising to anyone who's read my previous posts: Australia submitted a prog metal song. It's a genre I like anyway, expressed through a basically-perfect composition. I was invested in the 2023 competition the moment I heard Voyager's Promise. The idea that a Eurovision audience would get to hear a song like that was exciting in its own right, plus I wanted to know who their competition was.

I quickly discovered Blanca Paloma's genuine flamenco vocal performance of EAEA on behalf of Spain and had a similar reaction, namely: "this is so amazing that Eurovision audiences get to hear a flamenco song". Luke Black's Samo Mi Se Spava rounded out a trio of entries that I absolutely and unironically loved. I think this is largely because the 3 genres matched my musical taste very well (Prog Metal, Nuevo Flamenco, dark EDM) and all 3 compositions were solid examples of each genre.

There was also a long tail of entries where at least one of the following was true:

• The song matched my taste enough that I wouldn't turn it off if it came up on shuffle. 26 out of 37 entries (70%) met this bar for me in 2023. Compare this to 33% from 2021, for instance, a year with some really strong songs but to my mind a much shorter tail of listenable entries.
• The vocal performance was strong enough that it was worth appreciating, whether or not I liked the composition itself. (Italy, Estonia, and Lithuania all delivered fantastic singers to perform compositions I didn't like.)
• The concept or the performers were weird or otherwise interesting enough that it was worth talking about in the pub. For instance, entries from Ireland, Romania, and Poland were all involved in off-stage controversy, and hence I had some interest in these acts despite not really liking their music or their performances.
  

Adding all those categories together makes 86% of entries that had some sort of interest to me, with only 14% that made me think "meh". I'm aware that 2023 is special because of my personal investment ahead of the contest, but still, that's a pretty high hit rate, entertainment-wise. I'm not alone in this general attitude, having heard multiple commentators say things like "2023 is a good year" or "this song might have done much better in another year".

I also realised that the official Eurovision organisers nowadays provide extra official content ahead of the contest. This year they put out 3 hour-long episodes in a series called A Little Bit More (presumably in homage to Gina G and her 1996 entry for the UK, another one of my vague Eurovision memories).  A lot of the content consisted of different versions of the contestants' own songs, lots of which were interesting in their own right. But there were also medleys of previous Eurovision hits, and memorably, even one cover of another contestant's song (Voyager's version of Cyprus's Break A Broken Heart). Even outside of the official broadcast material, Lord Of The Lost recorded a really credible cover of Käärijä's Cha Cha Cha, and various acts posted snippets of impromptu covers of their competitors' songs on social media.

Social media, news and commentary

Speaking of which, there was a whole load of silly-but-wholesome social media nonsense from so many of the contestants leading up to the contest that really drew me in, too. I had not fully realised that entering Eurovision is less of a competition than a full-on election campaign, lasting weeks and even months running up to the actual contest week. Contestants need to get as much publicity for their entry as they can, with the knowledge that their own country's citizens can't vote for them and they have to appeal to a wide range of countries in order to have a shot at winning. The most engaging contestants were comfortable being interviewed, demonstrated multi-lingualism, a knowledge of Eurovision history (up to and including their competitors' songs) and made friends with the other entrants as a way of maximising their publicity throughout Europe. Not that I am suggesting all the performers were somehow faking fun and friendship, by the way - it's just that they also benefitted from the publicity it generated.

I certainly loved following the social media antics of Voyager: mostly for snippets of silly cover versions and other assorted nonsense. But of all the stupid-but-wholesome content leading up to Eurovision 2023 I think Käärijä's mobile sauna probably takes top spot for me.

Austria's Teya & Salena with Finland's Käärijä... in his sauna... in the back of a truck... in Liverpool

The downside of all the Eurovision social media is that there's plenty of quantity but very dubious quality overall, especially when it comes to news and commentary. In retrospect, following various Eurovision news sources was a bad idea, as once I'd actually heard the songs themselves, there was really very little actual news to report on until the week of the contest itself, and hence lots of duplication. There was also a surprising lack of musical analysis, up to and including YouTube commentators labelling themselves "voice coaches" and posting reaction videos. It was fun to watch people react to Voyager's miniature metal masterpiece, for instance, but I lost interest once I realised almost no-one was actually giving an opinion about the actual music or vocal performance. Those that did were often very shallow in their analysis. Lots of commentators talked only about the visual aspects; some failed to distinguish between the musical material and its performance, and some were just frankly inexpert.

One very notable and high-quality exception is the YouTube channel Overthinking It, which has posted entertaining, knowledgeable and thought-provoking videos about Eurovision for years now. Take a look at their analysis of Moldova's folk-rock hit from 2022 or Hungary's entry from 2018 to get a flavour. They don't go into amazing depth musically but they clearly do their research and make really interesting observations - I strongly recommend watching all their Eurovision videos.

Finally, I think I came to realise in 2023 that there is a surprising amount of musical depth behind some of the Eurovision entrants, and a quick search through their previous work can sometimes lead to discoveries of really interesting music. While it's certainly true that many performers are still stereotypical (young, inexperienced pop singers with no back catalogue to speak of) certain acts have previous work that merits listening to, and in some cases, a fascinating and moving backstory too. If I hadn't become obsessed with Eurovision in 2023, I probably wouldn't have known about any of the following:

• Little Big's back catalogue starts with punk-rave EDM tunes from 2013 onwards. The group then lost a bit of their aggressive style before becoming internet-famous with a gloriously silly video with a ridiculous dance in 2018 and were chosen to represent Russia in 2020 with another bonkers dance number. They also inspired Daði Freyr's dance moves in the same year. And then the contest was cancelled, someone else represented Russia in 2021, and Russia were prevented from entering the contest from 2022 onwards. As a result of political differences regarding the Russian war in Ukraine, the band subsequently lost 2 members and the remaining 2 members now live in effective exile in Los Angeles. I considered going to see them perform in person but their 2023 visit to the UK was aborted after they failed to get visas.
• Go_A not only represented Ukraine in the 2021 contest (having also been chosen in 2020) but Ukraine's winning act in 2022, Kalush Orchestra, included Go_A's woodwind multi-instrumentalist Ihor Didenchuk in their line-up. I was lucky enough to be able to hear Go_A in person during their Autumn 2023 tour of Europe. The mixture of folk vocals and woodwinds with EDM backing was delivered with so much pride that, given the circumstances back in Ukraine you couldn't be unmoved by the experience.
  
• While researching the history of rock and metal at Eurovision, I discovered that the first Eurovision entry to include a proper metal breakdown section was Hungary's AWS, with Viszlát Nyár in 2018. Hungarian rock/metal fans really rallied round the one metal act in the national final, leading to an unexpected win for AWS (the footage of lead singer Örs Siklósi after the announcement is priceless, by the way). The Hungarian lyrics are all about Örs and his late father, the verses being sung relatively gently in the persona of the father, and the choruses sung and screamed aggressively in the persona of the son. And then, having just discovered this raw song about death and grief that got international exposure at the world's biggest music contest, I looked up AWS to browse their back catalogue and discovered that Örs had since died in February 2021, after a diagnosis of leukaemia less than a year earlier. Knowing all of that, I challenge you to watch the barefoot Örs scream his way through the Grand Final performance and not get at least a little lump in your throat.
  

Lessons from Eurovision 2023

So what did I learn from all of that? At the very least:

• The semi-finals are worth paying attention to! It seems really common for one or two perfectly decent performances not to make it to the final each year.
• 2023 seems like a strong year overall and possibly not representative of the quality we can generally expect.
  
• Entering Eurovision is not just about turning up and performing. It's much more like conducting an election campaign over the course of months.
  
• To the extent that it ever was, Eurovision is no longer an embarrassment where you can assume that anyone performing is doing so out of desperation for fame, that no-one musically credible would enter, and if they did, that their credibility would disappear. 
• Following my favourite Eurovision performers on social media was probably a net benefit.
• I discovered plenty of music that I like by following leads and digging into the history of Eurovision.
  
• Following the wider eurovision news and commentary in the run-up to the contest was in hindsight a disappointing waste of time.
• Lots of people have opinions about individual entries or Eurovision in general. Very few of these people have anything interesting or enlightening to say about the actual musical substance of the songs or the vocal performances.
• Relatedly, the inclusion of backing vocals on playback since it was first allowed in 2021 is making it even harder to actually assess the performance of the live vocalists. So many of my mini reviews in previous posts mentioned this, and it's another reason not to trust anyone else's musical opinion on a Eurovision song without having listened for myself.
  

Preparing for Eurovision 2024

So the run-up to 2024's Eurovision Song Contest has begun already: the list of competing countries is finalised, many performers have been selected, and some of the songs have been decided too. Here's my plan for how to extract all the potential excitement without becoming unhealthily obsessed:

• I'll definitely be listening to all the songs this year
  
• There may be no entrants this year that excite me like Voyager, Blanca Paloma and Luke Black did in 2023. I need to lower my expectations!
• I'll do at least a quick search through the back catalogues of any performers whose Eurovision 2024 entry I like. I won't necessarily expect to find my New Favourite Band though.
  
• I will definitely not be trying to keep up with Eurovision "news" or commentary but I probably will follow any of the contestants whose songs I like.
• I plan to review all the entries again this year and post about it here.
• I might split the reviews up into 2 parts: the songs themselves as presented on the official recorded versions; and the live performances in the week of the contest.
• I'll try and stick purely to the music - there are plenty of people commenting about staging, dancing and general showmanship, and in any case I don't know much about that stuff anyway.
  

Here's hoping that 2024's contest is half as engaging as I found 2023's, and if any of you made it this far, you can look forward to more posts in the near future as more of the songs are finalised!