Now, that I’ve finished reviewing all 37 songs (#phew), let’s get into some other fun topics for this year’s contest.
Current ranking:
Who’s going and who’s staying?
This is just a corny way of saying who’s going to qualify and who will not. For ESC, we have two semi-final rounds where the top ten from each round will advance to the grand final. However, the Big Five countries (the UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany) and the previous year’s winner (Ukraine) automatically qualify for the grand final.
I’ve broken down each semi-final based on whom I want to qualify and whom I think will qualify from the word on the street. Of course, word on the street might not have any significance now. At this point, the folks that have listened to the songs/seen the national final performances and/or music videos are in a small percentage of folks who follow (maybe ‘watch’ is a better term) the contest. Most who watch (and vote in) the contest typically will start paying attention during the week of the contest in May. According to most in the fandom, the 1st semi will be a bloodbath because there are so many good/decent/moderate songs, but you have only 10 slots. For now, most of the popular songs are in the first round. However, I will admit that songs in the 2nd semi-final that I didn’t initially like are slowly growing on me…at least the studio versions of those songs.
IMO, I think the first semi-final is going to be good because I think most of my top songs are in this one. However, the second semi-final is going to be a bit interesting for me. My top 20 entries are: Portugal, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Belgium, Ukraine, Albania, Israel, France, Iceland, and Romania.
Italic text = 1st semi-final round
Underlined text = 2nd semi-final round
Bold text = automatic qualifier
Once all of the songs have been released, a lot of folks (including me) typically will comment on how all (well, most of) the songs from the current year’s contest are “bad” or how last year’s songs were better. I think this happens because it takes some time for the new songs to grow on folks. I always like to put this statement to the test and compare the current year to the previous one. Keep in mind these comparisons are based on the songs, not the performances. One way how I like to look at this is by factoring the likelihood of these songs moving from my Eurovision playlist(s) to my day-to-day and running playlists.
Round 1: ESC 2023 vs ESC 2022
At the beginning of this ESC season, I originally thought ESC 2022 songs were stronger than ESC 2023’s, but after looking at the numbers…
After making my comparison, there is not much difference between my personal preferences for both years. Comparing each country’s ESC 2023 and ESC 2022 entries, I do have a slight preference for last year’s contest (40.6%) over this year’s contest (37.8%).
Round 2: ESC 2023 vs ESC 2021
Since folks in Rotterdam did such an amazing job with ESC 2021, I think ESC 2021 will be my current gold standard…for now. Seriously, ESC 2021 was AMAZING! Taking a look at ESC 2023 vs ESC 2021, I had a significant preference for ESC 2021’s songs (63.9%) over ESC 2023’s (27.8%).
A couple theories on why I preferred ESC 2021 over ESC 2023:
ESC 2021 had more of a mix of songs from the genres that I enjoy (ie upbeat songs). Ok, I know upbeat isn’t a genre, but I tend to like upbeat songs from various genres.
The pandemic effect. Due to the pandemic, ESC 2020 was canceled after all of the songs were submitted. I think the canceled year gave the countries the chance to submit stronger songs for ESC 2021.
Doing a quick comparison of ESC 2021 to (what would have been) ESC 2020, I preferred the songs from ESC 2021 (56.4%) to those from ESC 2020 (20.5%). As a matter of fact, I don’t think any of the ESC 2020 songs have made it past my non-Eurovision Spotify playlists. I take that back, I think the songs from Denmark 🇩🇰 Sweden 🇸🇪 have made it on a couple of my full and half marathon playlists.
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