Eurovision: KOS’ Top 10s (2013 – 2023)

Yikes, I just realized that I have not posted anything Eurovision related since May 2023’s contest. Then again, it has been a busy year starting a new career and moving to a new state. 😉 Since we are still in the “quiet” season, I was wondering if I could do something to satisfy my Eurovision itch until ESC 2024.

Yes, I know that we have entered the new year of the Eurovision calendar. In other words, any songs released from now until March could be a potential song for Eurovision 2024. However, I don’t really follow the participating countries’ national or internal selections until the representative is announced. Also, I don’t really mess with Jr. Eurovision. I take that back, I’ll watch Jr. Eurovision but I do not give much thought to it.

So what am I planning to?

Image courtesy of Eurovision World

For my latest challenge, I’m going to rank the placement of songs from the last 10 contests for each place. What does that mean? For each contest from 2013 to 2023, I’m going to re-review the grand final songs that landed in each position from 26th to 1st place. Yes, I know that every year did not have 26th songs. I’m going with that number because most of the grand finals had 26th songs. In my first post (when/if I start this project), I’m going to look at all of the songs (technically, the performances) that landed in the 26th place from 2013 to 2023 and rank them according to my “standards”, “tastes”, and “biases”. 😉

A few things that I need to take into consideration.

• There has been some advancements technology over the past decade. I have to make sure that I don’t unfairly judge a performance for staging that didn’t exist in 2013.

• I have fight with all of my might to compare the songs in a specific place to other songs in the same place. For instance, comparing performances that came in 11th place from 2013 to 2023 and not comparing the performance that came in 11th place in 2013 to other songs in 2013.

• Ignoring the fact that the many of the performances in 2021, 2022, and 2023 were not 100% live.

• Figure out how to use HTML to make “complex” tables.

• Crap, there was something else that I wanted to take into consideration.

Eurovision 2013 – A Walk Down Memory Lane

-THE EUROVISION WITH BONNIE TYLER

Preface:

Since we are more or less in the quiet season, I can soothe my Eurovision itch by watching some of the previous contests. Since I’m at my computer all day and my workstation has three monitors, I figure that I could devote one monitor to ESCs while working on the other two. Yes, I know there is a Junior Eurovision, but I’m not a huge fan of children-based competitions.

Eurovision 2013 – We Are One

Eurovision 2013 was selected for this entry because the other week after drinking a ton of $1 mimosas at our local (and only) Tiki bar, the hubby played 2013 Danish entry – Emmelie de Forest – “Only Teardrops” in the car . . . a few times. So we pretty much spent that Sunday afternoon watching ESC 2013. To be perfectly honest, I did fall asleep during a portion of the songs (about six or seven). Note: I probably fell asleep because of the $1 mimosas and not because of the songs.

For this walk down Eurovision memory lane, we are going to take it back to 2013 (Malmö, Sweden). The contest was held in Sweden because of Loreen’s win in 2012 with her song, Euphoria. I’ll say that hands down, this is probably one of the favorite songs for most of the Eurovision fandom. In fact, every year there is a vote for the top 250 songs for ESC Radio, and Eurphora has won the title for the last 10 years in a row.

For this edition, the contest had 39 countries, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Slovakia, and Turkey sitting this one out. Of the ESCs that I have seen, this probably was the best (IMO) contest song- and production-wise. While I was a bit worried that Petra was the only host, she did an AMAZING job with her poise and elegance. Also, I learned so much about Sweden from her Swedish Smörgåsbord’s performance.

Ok, I’ve gone off-topic . . . much like the blonde woman’s notes.

Let’s see if Europe and Kwame were in sync.

What Europe Thought

What Kwame Thought

I have to say that there was not a song from this ESC final that I absolutely hated. But let’s see how in sync Europe and I were.

In terms of countries that were on the left side of our scoreboards, it looks like Europe and I agreed on only five songs/countries (Azerbaijan, Denmark, Lithuania, Moldova, and Romania). Although Moldova was my personal winner, Denmark (the actual winner) was my second place.

My personal winner, Moldova 🇲🇩: Aliona Moon “O Mie (One Thousand)”

Normally, Moldova is known for sending wacky entries, but I absolutely loved the “normalcy” of this song. I don’t know if it’s something about the melody of the chorus that keeps me hitting replay. Also, I did get some goosebumps @ T=2:12 when she started to elevate while her dress illuminates. Ok, the vocals became a little “screamy” near the end of the song, but that’s minor for me . . . at least for this song.

Denmark 🇩🇰: Emmelie de Forest – “Only Teardrops”

I loved everything that the Danish brought to the table with this one – the song, the flutes, the drummers, the singer . . . everything.

Random Thoughts:

Greece 🇬🇷: Koza Mostra feat. Agathon Iakovidis – “Alcohol Is Free”

No, this song was not in my top ten because the title has alcohol in it. While the song is describing one of Greece’s economic downfalls, it was quite energetic. Honestly, I did not know it was a “deep” song until I read the lyrics. Speaking of the performers, I’m not sure that I would have been able to stay on key while running all around the stage. They must have done a lot of cardio in preparation for the contest.

Ireland 🇮🇪: Ryan Dolan – “Only Love Survives”

While this song came in last place with 5 points (2 from Cyprus, 2 from Sweden, and 1 from the UK), I kind of like it. Let me fix that. I kind of like the song with the exception of the singer. For my taste, Ryan was just way too pitchy and nasally. I will say that the drummer-dancers were dancing and drumming their asses off.

Actually, I’m not sure how this one even made it past the semi-final found. For these reviews, I’ve been watching only the finals because it’s a bit difficult to find the semifinal rounds online. Also, I’m too lazy to look for the semifinal rounds in every nook and cranny of YouTube. Looking at the results, Ryan came in 6th place in his semi. Since the top ten from each semi advances to the final, maybe he had better vocals during his semi.

Finland 🇫🇮: Krista Siegfrids – “Marry Me”

From my understanding, this is the 1st on-stage lesbian kiss at Eurovision. Krista mentioned that she did this in an attempt to encourage Finland to legalize same-sex marriages. I wonder if this performance changed anyone’s mind.

I’m a bit shocked this landed in 24th place. Since this was a televote year, unlike the 50:50 televote and jury voting that we now see in Eurovision, I would have assumed that the LGBT message from this song would have resonated with the viewers, but I guess not. Also, it’s kind of interesting that this song received points from only one Nordic country. Weird because many of the Nordic countries tend to give each other points . . . Or, maybe that’s the case for the Scandinavian countries

Romania 🇷🇴: Cezar – “It’s My Life”

The first time seeing this performance, let’s say that I was shocked . . . at first in a bad way, but then in a good way. The dubstep operatic vampire aspect of the performance kind of grew on me. This is everything that is bad AND good about Eurovision wrapped up in one three-minute song. While Cezar came in 13th place in the actual contest, he was my number 8.

QUICK THOUGHTS ABOUT THE REST OF THE PERFORMANCES

France 🇫🇷: Too Tina Turner-esque and a general mess.

Lithuania 🇱🇹: Eh, pretty generic.

Finland 🇫🇮: Already discussed

Spain 🇪🇸: I kinda liked the song, but I think the singer was scream-singing a bit much. Also, there wasn’t a whole lot to the performance.

Belgium 🇧🇪: Eh, nothing really moved me about this performance.

Estonia 🇪🇪: Decent ballad.

Belarus 🇧🇾: Actually, I kind of liked this one.

Malta 🇲🇹: A bit too cheezy for my likes . . . and I like cheezy.

Russia 🇷🇺: A song about peace . . . go figure.

Germany 🇩🇪: A very general performance.

Armenia 🇦🇲: See Germany

The Netherlands 🇳🇱: ZZZ zzzz

Romania 🇷🇴: already discussed

The UK 🇬🇧: Seems a bit dated for 2013

Sweden 🇸🇪: Great pop song, not so great vocals.

Hungary 🇭🇺: He was singing like he didn’t want to be there. Maybe that was supposed to be the vibe of the song.

Denmark 🇩🇰: Already discussed.

Iceland 🇮🇸: I really like the guy’s voice.

Azerbaijan 🇦🇿: I really liked the song (and he’s nice on the eyes), but I think that I liked the concept of the performance more than the song. That said, he definitely deserved 2nd place.

Greece 🇬🇷: Already discussed.

Ukraine 🇺🇦: Didn’t really do much for me.

Italy 🇮🇹: Eh, pass.

Norway 🇳🇴: I’m kind of surprised that she did well in the contest, but I kind of get it.

Georgia 🇬🇪: A nice romantic ballad with decent vocals. Actually, this is interesting because Georgia usually sends very “unique” (to say the least) performances. Some think it’s because they want to participate in the song contest, but do not (or cannot afford) to host should they win, so they do a little self sabotage.

Ireland 🇮🇪: Already discussed.

Next up: Eurovision 2009