Eurovision 2024 song (p)reviews: part 2 of 2

Following on from Part 1, here's my quick review of the remaining 18 songs. Remember that I'm sticking to reviewing mainly the songs themselves in their studio versions. I'm using the same scoring system, namely:

no stars = if I had control of the playlist I would turn it off or skip

★ wouldn't skip if it came up on shuffle

★★ on my "2024 Eurovision Favourites" playlist on Spotify

★★★ spent my own money getting a digital download; gone digging around their back catalogue for more stuff

★★★★ bought their entire back catalogue; checking out tour dates

Here we go again then:

Armenia: Ladaniva - "Jako" ★★★★

Well, I had to wait for the penultimate song announcement, but with Armenia's entry I finally have a 4-star rating to award in 2024. This is all folk and no fusion, although *whose* folk music it is exactly might be debated: Ladaniva is a partnership formed between French trumpeter Louis Thomas and Armenian-French vocalist Jaklin Baghdasaryan (the eponymous "Jako") after they met at a jazz jam session. Their music often resembles the balkan brass band music I'm already a fan of, including the kind of trumpet lines you might hear Boban or Marko Marković play, plus traditional percussion sounds like the davul which looks to have a close Armenian relative, the dhol. The lyrics of this song are in Armenian, and at points the vocal delivery reminds me of flamenco. All great stuff, however I certainly wouldn't be as confident as some commentators have been in describing this as pure Armenian folk.

Ladaniva, sitting on a Lada Niva

The feel of Jako is infectious and its 12/8 rhythmic pattern is a personal favourite groove of mine - a refreshing contrast to other entries. It's got a balkan-style brass line as the main theme which also functions as a wordless chorus for the vocal line to join in with. There's pleasing variety in the composition, and it almost feels like a miniature rondo, to borrow a classical term. That is to say, the main theme recurs again and again...

"Jako" - main theme

...with contrasting interludes in the same style but not particularly related to the main theme, or indeed each other. I particularly like the vocal call-and-response section, plus the fact that the instrumental interludes are all distinct and contrasting in both composition and instrumentation.

There's just one obvious failing with this song, namely: why doesn't it fill the allowable 3 minutes? This seems particularly inexplicable when there's so much great musical material that could be developed. Why not have a few bars of trumpet solo? Return to that half-time feel with the davul before a strong finish? A couple more calls and responses? Another verse even? They could definitely do it if they wanted - this early live version of the song has some great ideas in it and still leaves me wanting more after nearly 7 minutes! Even with the missing half-minute though, it's still my clear personal favourite at the time of writing.

Australia: Electric Fields - "One Milkali (One Blood)" ★

This is pleasant but stylistically it's quite indeterminate and never quite makes me want to describe it as anything except "pop". I like lots of the synth work, I like the 90s nostalgia that the piano chords invoke, and I love the didgeridoo sounds but wish they were featured more prominently. That's not quite enough for me to want to listen to it multiple times.

Austria: Kaleen - "We Will Rave" ★★

A very respectable EDM tune, which is nevertheless frustrating for me because about 8 bars of it is exactly my cup of tea: clattering breakbeat with squelchy acid-house-style synth sounds. The rest of it mostly has a kick drum on every beat in that poppy dance style that's so popular across Europe. No shame in that but I'd *love* to hear a breakbeat-only remix of this tune. The melody and chords aren't winning any orginality contests, but the production is high quality and it bears repeated listening, if only for that fleeting appearance of a proper breakbeat towards the end. It's an internal selection again for Austria and it's not obvious to me whether Kaleen will be a competent vocalist when performing live. We'll have to wait and see...

Azerbaijan: Fahree feat. Ilkin Dovlatov - "Özünlə Apar" ★

This is a gently appealing fusion of folk and pop but in comparison to other similar crossover entries it lacks character. Once it gets going, the groove is based on a lilting dembow pattern at quite a relaxed tempo. Fahree's vocal line is soothing and competently done, at least in the studio recording. We get very subtle splashes of some folk instrumentation (violins and some kind of flute) but nothing that really pops out of the texture. The main standout feature for me is unfortunately quite late in the tune (2min03s) and quite short-lived: a second vocalist (presumably Ilkin Dovlatov) provides a high, wordless melody and embellishes it with the sort of trilling ornamentation I'm used to hearing in flamenco singers. I'm sure there's a proper word for this ornamentation style but I remain ignorant of it - anyhow, it sounds good and Fahree joins in in a similar manner a little later. Not quite good enough overall to coax 2 stars from me, and I do wonder whether this will give anyone a reason to vote for it at the semi-final stage.

Belgium: Mustii - "Before the Party's Over" ★

A moderate tempo tune with the overall feel of a rock power ballad combined with pop-style orchestration and production. I'm not loving it overall, but it manages to get a single star from me because I think the build up of intensity towards the climax is well crafted, so that once Mustii is wailing "before the party's over" again and again at the end, it feels like he worked his way up to it and earned that moment.

Croatia: Baby Lasagna - "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" ★★

If you told me at the start of this tune it was by Rammstein, I'd probably have believed you. The similarity is reinforced by the chorus, which uses a very similar chord progression as Rammstein's Ich Will. I love the half-time bit at the start of the mid section, but after that, the repeated choruses show a lack of variety and the end is a bit of an anticlimx. The monotonic verses aren't amazing either, given the lack of complexity in the backing. Nevertheless it gets 2 stars because it reminds me of Rammstein (and I like Rammstein!).

Cyprus: Silia Kapsis - "Liar" ★★

This is frustratingly mixed: I love the dark, deep and steady groove during the second half of the verses and also the unexpectedly abstract synths during the instrumental break towards the end. In fact, this would be 3-star-worthy for me if it were all like that. However, I'm just not that into the vocals or the choruses, where all that character seems to get lost in massive shiny pop over-production. Nothing here is bad, it's just I'm sitting through lots of it in order to hear the good bits, and I've got plenty of other music I could listen to to scratch that particular musical itch. That breakdown's still bloody good though.

Georgia: Nutsa Buzaladze -"Firefighter"

I am not normally very bothered about lyrics at all, but sometimes they are just too bad to ignore. In Georgia's case, the other aspects of the song aren't making up for the lyrical deficiency either. It's another generic pop tune - overproduced and lacking character, trying to be epic without really building up to it or earning it. The rhythmic feel is unoriginal, unsubtly using that dembow rhythm you hear all the time in latin pop and reggaeton. My general thought is that the whole act is another poorly-done attempt to capture the vibe of Chanel's "Slomo" from 2022. Maybe the dancing will impress televoters, but the song itself hasn't got much going for it.

Greece: Marina Satti - "Zari" ("Ζάρι")★★★

More folk content! This time it's paired successfully with a dembow feel to make some quite stark contrasts. On one side, we have light and breathy folk vocals that sound like they'd suit balkan folk music, and the piercing sound of a reed instrument which I am guessing is a Karamuza. We also have a sparse-sounding but chunky and unsubtle dembow beat, together with some quite dark synth sounds, and some monotonic and spoken sections in the vocals that bring the style closer to hip hop. There's also quite a jarring contrast between the mostly Greek lyrics and the occasional clichéd snippets of English. I particularly love the sustained bass sound during the last 30 seconds or so: it's actually quite dark-sounding and manages to telegraph the ending without going for a big positive "jazz hands" ending. My impression is that this is a grower of a song, with first-time listeners being a little confused by the various contrasting elements. I really hope this doesn't limit Marina's chances in May, and that she manages to generate plenty of buzz beforehand so that first-time listeners will be primed to like it.

Iceland: Hera Björk - "Scared of Heights"

I'm afraid to say that Iceland's entry is the runt of the Eurovision 2024 litter for me, inheriting the dubious honour from Ireland in 2023. This is not just a bland composition, it also has unignorably-bad English lyrics (remember, I'm not even a lyrics guy!), mediocre audio production with a glaring lack of variety, plus the vocals aren't likely to be delivered particularly well either, based on the national final performance. Hera doesn't really sing *badly* overall, but she's got a dud of a song to work with and she's also failed to add much expression or phrasing that might make up for that. There's also a low note in the melody that sticks out like a sore thumb against the backing track (the "up" of "we could end up in pieces"), I think because it was sung a bit sharp, and the tone quality is quite harsh, but also partly because it's an A added to a C major chord, making a 6th chord. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but even when the same note is sung later with better tuning and better quality, I still don't think a 6th chord fits the harmony well at all. I feel like the whole thing is a failed attempt to re-run Hera's previous entry in 2010 which, whilst cheesy and unoriginal, was at least delivered with some vocal style and had a better backing track and excellent live backing vocalists.

Israel: Eden Golan - "Hurricane"

Another pop ballad which can't coax any stars out of me. Mind you, I did like the 3 opening synth sounds, which sadly and cruelly raised my expectations by reminding me of the legendary opening sequence of A Clockwork Orange (a synth version of the March from Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary). I suspect this song will fail to qualify, and honestly I don't think that would be unfair. To my mind there's nothing remarkable in the melody, harmony or rhythm, and it's probably the worst of all the pure ballads in 2024. The political situation in Israel might well suppress the number of votes this song can reasonably expect to attract, but I'm struggling to care very much about that since I'm not sure there's any particular reason this song would do well even if it got to the final.

Netherlands: Joost Klein - "Europapa" ★★

Joost Klein gives us another 90s dance nostalgia trip, which is clearly full of humour and musical parody, but not quite as obviously ridiculous as Windows95man's effort, and with a more earnest text: the lyrics are clearly a homage to Europe in general, and reference Joost's sometimes melancholic travels, plus, if we get to hear the final spoken bit (unclear given the 3 minute limit), he dedicates his song to his parents, particularly his father (the "papa" in "Europapa") who inspired Joost before his untimely death. The majority of the song could probably be described as "happy hardcore" though I'm sure many purists would say that, at a mere 160bpm, it's not nearly fast or hard-hitting enough. The real climax, though, is towards the end where the sound switches to the heavy, distorted hoover-like sounds typical of gabber, an EDM style particularly associated with the Netherlands. Again, the 160bpm tempo is probably too slow for a die-hard gabber fan, but the feel is there and it certainly draws out some 90s nostalgia in me, and presumably lots of other listeners of a certain age. The same gabber feel continues to the end, but picks up the melody and harmony of the preceeding chorus. I think this composition is a fascinating blend of irony and sincerity, and selecting Joost Klein to sing it is a shrewd move from the Netherlands.

Portugal: Iolanda - "Grito" ★

A beautifully-sung slow number that was almost going to get no stars on account of my general dislike of pop ballads, but on reflection I think this is my favourite of all the ballads this year. Two things made me raise it to 1-star level: the a cappella start and end (although admittedly only about 3 notes at the end are actually totally unaccompanied); and the controlled build up of intensity leading to the climactic cry (presumably the "grito" of the title). I liked the 12/8 feel, which, like Armenia's song, stands out in a sea of 4/4 tunes. On the evidence of Iolanda's national final performance, this is going to be sung very skillfully indeed in Malmö, and though there are definitely backing vocals on playback, they are subtle and do not get in the way of the solo vocalist.

San Marino: Megara - "11:11" ★★

An energetic rock song, sailing close to the blurry border between rock and metal, and then confusing the listener slightly by adding electronic sounds that make certain passages sound like dubstep, and seasoning the breakdown / bridge section with a splash of flamenco-style guitar. As ever, I appreciate the female vocal line, as it stands out well against the very low sounds you hear in this song and in rock / metal in general. The composition and orchestration is perfectly adequate, but stops me awarding more than 2 stars because I can think of so many other bands in the broad genre of metal and the heavy end of rock with better sounding recordings and more coherent compositions. Bonus points to Megara for improving my Spanish vocabulary too, having taught me a new bit of salty slang: me la pela.

Serbia: Teya Dora - "Ramonda"

An unremarkable ballad that doesn't make me want to award any stars (that's mainly just down to my taste) but it seems like it will be very competently sung based on the national final performance. Even then though, the trouble with it for me is that there is so much in the way of backing vocals on the track that it's actually quite difficult to pick out Teya Dora's voice amongst it all. This was a problem last year for (at least) Cyprus and Czechia and it's quite sad given the quality of all the singers concerned. Surely it would be much better to either highlight the solo voice properly, or actually have backing singers live?

Sweden: Marcus & Martinus - "Unforgettable" ★

I was so desperate to be able to say in an ironic tone that this is "forgettable" but honestly I think that would be harsh. This tune isn't breaking any boundaries, though: it's another decent EDM-backed pop vocal. The groove doesn't really kick in until the 1 minute mark, but it's solid when it does and the synth sounds are tastefully done, providing some syncopation to go against the square kick-drum-on-every-beat pattern we've come to expect from this kind of dance music. Structurally I think it's a little odd that it finishes off with a breakdown section where the synths are the main feature and the main EDM groove is lost, never to come back in full. Maybe this is because it reminds me slightly of the middle section of Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and part of the fun of that is when a slightly different groove comes back afterwards and you get a minute or two to settle back into it. No such luck here, but then as ever with dance music entries at Eurovision, the 3-minute limit is a severe restriction. This is also another example of questionable playback vocals: there are definitely additional vocals in Marcus & Martinus' national final performance, not just harmonising parts, but sections where there's clearly a doubled part in unison with the singer (and it's not just them both singing at once). This makes it very difficult to pick out the main vocals and make a decent assessment of the live singing. I really hope this changes in Malmö, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Switzerland: Nemo - "The Code" ★★

The main reason I like this is it's built around a solid drum 'n' bass groove which suitably accompanies the light and nimble verses, the epic choruses and the coda. I think the only real reason I haven't given 3 stars here is that I'm already a drum 'n' bass fan and I've got plenty of that to listen to already - this song in particular doesn't add much extra for me, and in any case 3 minutes isn't enough to really settle into the groove. I really love the high wordless vocal line soaring above the texture around the 2 minute mark. My worry with this aspect for the competition itself is how those vocal lines will be realised - I can't find any clips of Nemo singing that high live. I really really hope that either Nemo has a crazy-high and super-accurate falsetto register when singing live, or that there'll be another live voice on stage performing this bit. I really don't want this bit to be treated as "backing" vocals and come through on playback. If that's what actually happens, it would seem to me to be a very poor reflection on the contest, and a further example that brings into question the post-2020 rule allowing backing vocals on playback. If it's done poorly live, though, that's also going to affect how the whole song comes across. I'll be genuinely interested to see what happens come showtime.

United Kingdom: Olly Alexander - "Dizzy" ★

This is a bit disappointing. Olly seems like a great choice as a performer, and it's obvious from footage on Youtube that he's adept at singing live: in every clip I've found he's technically bang-on. Sadly I dont think he's got a great song to work with here. It's another EDM-backed tune but unlike similar entries this year I'm not hearing anything that really pushes any of my buttons, in fact it's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind when I devised my star scoring system ("wouldn't skip if it came up on shuffle"). Intellectually I can recognise that the production on the recording is very slick (possibly too slick: is Olly's voice unnecessarily autotuned?). But like Poland's entry in 2023, there are points where the melody seems to completely and trivially tie itself to the harmonic progression, which itself is mainly a predictable cycle of fifths. In fact, the bit that I enjoy the most is the interlude with one long pedal note in the bass, spoken word and alternation between just a couple of chords. I wish the UK delegation could have come up with a song as good as last year's at the same time as a singer as good as Olly! Best of luck to him nevertheless, even with this song he won't deserve a bad result if the performance is up to his usual standards.

Interestingly, since the studio recording was released, this version with live vocals, drums and synths came out, about which I'd say (1) absolutely yes, this guy can definitely sing this live and (2) a little bit of live sound makes a big difference. Those backing singers made it sound so much less over-produced, and I hope they get to perform in May. (I mean, I wish the instrumentalists could perform live too, but that's against the competition rules!)

Opinions: completed!

Right, that's it, all the songs reviewed! Next up, a quick roundup of my favourites and the trends I've noticed this year, plus a few wild guesses about what actually stands a chance of winning...