And so, the 70th anniversary of the greatest show in Europe (debatable, perhaps) comes to a close. 70 years of the sublime and ridiculous. From 1956 to 2026, from ABBA to Ziferblat, from Johnny Logan to James Newman (or Loreen to Lass’ihn, if you prefer).
And to celebrate, a new name on the Marcel Bezencon trophy. The first time in almost a decade that a country celebrates its maiden victory. And of course, a new host city for next year’s contest – almost certain to be Sofia due to having by far the biggest population, the most suitable infrastructure, and the two largest arenas. It’s pretty much just a case of which one.
More to the point, history was made with the largest winning margin – eclipsing the record previously set by Alexander Rybak (169 points ahead of Iceland in 2009 – Dara edging him out by a nose, with 173 points more than Noah Bettam in second). Though, incidentally, the last time a country celebrated its first victory (Portugal in 2017), Bulgaria placed second themselves. Albeit not a close second, as 17-year-old Kristian Kostov finished 143 points adrift.
But here’s the interesting part – his 615 points remains the third highest in the contest’s history – with only the Kalush Orchestra pipping him by a mere 16 points in the time since. He also scored almost a hundred more points more than Dara – despite her historic achievement. To add even more parallels into the equation, it was also only the second time that the same song emerged as both the juries’ and public’s favourite. The other time? Yes, you’ve guessed it; 2017 – when Portugal won for the first time, and Bulgaria were second.
Many other aspects of their victory are also significant. Firstly, it was on their first appearance in four years – in just over 20 years of competing, they’d managed fifth-, fourth- and second-placed finishes, but ultimately found themselves the bridesmaids in the final reckonings.
It was an unconventional winner to say the least – with an astonishing 20 changes of tempo – almost unheard of in a winning song; indeed, it proved the eventual downfall of Remember Monday, and Norway’s entry “Ice-breaker” in 2016 (the last time they failed to make the final). Somehow, for Dara, however, it just worked. As low as 15th in the betting odds a week before the Final, it was a case of everything just coming together at the right time. It certainly kept people on their toes; its energy, catchiness and unpredictable nature stood out on the night.
With a multi-national song-writing team – featuring contributors from Greece, Norway and their neighbours Romania, it almost seemed as if they’d pieced three different songs together – albeit with shades of Armenia’s 2011 entry “Boom Boom” (which failed to make the final) and “Pound the Alarm” by Nicki Minaj. In any case, for the fourth year in succession, the staging played a key part – and in this instance, the choreography. In an age where it’s more of a performance contest than a song contest, they went one step further by, effectively, telling a story on stage.
Also, what is a bangaranga, exactly? Having done some research, it apparently is a Jamaican term for “a joyous riot or commotion”. I guess that would explain the “welcome to the riot” line. Though I have to admit, it sounded more Indian than anything. Oh, wait, what’s that? I’m thinking of bhangra. Ah.
It’s easy to get swept up in the euphoria (whoops – taking a leaf out of the hosts’ book there) of Bulgaria’s first victory. There is still, of course, the elephant in the room. And you know which one I’m referring to. Although it would come as a source of great relief to many that, for the second year in succession, that they were overtaken at the end. But more on that later.
For the moment, we’ll compare the jury and televote scores. Whilst it’s not uncommon for the juries to be more generous towards the lower-scoring countries (as opposed to the televoters who are much more polarised), it was still a markedly low-scoring year. The obvious contributing factor for this is the five countries withdrawing, but in all seriousness, it actually felt like one of my fantasy contests where the points are generally distributed much more evenly across the board. The introduction of two extra jurors (up to 7 from the previous 5) is also likely to have been a factor.
Perhaps it was also a reflection of the fact that, despite what the winning margin may suggest, there was no obvious winner – Bulgaria’s lead of almost 50 points was a surprise, but with no other song scoring above joint second-placed Australia and Denmark with 165 points (again, surprisingly low totals), it was still all to play for. In the end, although many people’s hearts were in their mouths when it came to the moment of truth, it was disappointment for Israel once again. Always likely to be overtaken, with Dara’s song seemingly likely to do considerably better with the public vote, than with the juries.
The new, *Pointless* style method of announcing the winner (*UK gameshow, if you aren’t aware*), worked a treat. I travelled to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire to watch the contest at an outdoor screening/mini-festival – first time in my 40 years I’d watched it outdoors, incidentally. I screamed so loud that my friends at home in Weston-super-Mare (around 100 miles away) were probably able to hear me.
The previously-mentioned withdrawals of five regular participants; the most significant of which (from a financial viewpoint, certainly) was Spain – one of the big five – at least made a statement against the issues posed by said delegation, but despite seeing a notable reduction to their public total, they still managed a seemingly disproportionately high score with the public, and like last year, a second-placed finish overall. Although unlike last year, they failed to win the public vote – finishing twelve points behind Romania in third.
On the flip-side, their jury score – despite being predictably lower – was much higher than the two contests previously. Whilst this may hard to explain at face value – I had anticipated a much lower jury total – there’s no reason, nor any suggestion, to suspect there was anything underhand about this. Juries tend to focus much more on the underlying fundamentals of the overall package – song, staging, choreography and performance – in line with the criteria they are bound by, as well as the obvious fact that they are all music industry professionals in varying capacities. So, whilst an eighth-place jury finish seems a little generous, there’s nothing evidently suspicious about it.
Despite all this, the concerns about their continued behaviour – and infact, participation – still remain. It seems highly unlikely that any of the countries who withdrew for this year will return for next year’s contest – and further withdrawals appear to be on the cards, with Belgium getting the ball rolling (although at the time of writing, this is no more than speculation). Until either there is a major change to the deplorable situation in Gaza, or any further action is forthcoming against said delegation, numbers of participating countries seem highly likely to reduce than increase. The withdrawals would have, in no small part, been a contributing factor to the viewing figures; which were 35 million down on last year’s contest.
The EBU did, of course, announce a tightening of the restrictions around self-promotion in November last year; whilst advertising your entry is still allowed, asking people to vote several times is not. One country did fall foul of this rule (no prizes for guessing which one), but received only a warning. Perhaps this is reasonable – for a first breach of a recently-introduced rule – but going forward, will probably not find many Eurovision participants and fans so well.
My personal suggestion would be that in future, a country should receive one warning (and strictly just one) per year – if they are found to be in breach on a second occasion, they should be disqualified from the televote if they make the final. So, they’d get an automatic zero points. Harsh, perhaps, but would it prove effective as a deterrent? One notable difference it appeared to make was that, for the first time since it was introduced, they did not win the Rest of the World vote – gaining only six points.
Turning now to the wider results’ picture. Romania – the fellow returnees after a similarly-lengthed absence – completed the top three. It was my personal prediction to win – I had a strange feeling it was time for a female-fronted rock band to triumph – when it came to the crunch, the juries had already killed off their hopes by placing them a surprisingly low 13th. Though they can take some consolation in knowing it’s only a few hours’ drive over the border to next year’s contest.
The favourites, Pete and Linda from Finland. Always likely to be there or thereabouts – which may explain why they were most of the fan polls’ favourites – expecting them to be the only song to score highly enough with both juries and public. Personally, their overall result wasn’t as much of a shock to me as it may have been to some. That’s not to say it wasn’t a high-quality entry in all aspects – it undoubtedly was. But perhaps that’s why it never materialised for them. Maybe it was just too technical; lacking the light-hearted, unstructured fun offered by Dara.
It was great to see a largely forgotten artist from yesteryear get a decent result. Englebert, Cascada and the Rasmus – take note. That’s how you send a song which both suits your style, and can gain a very respectable result on the Eurovision stage. I am, of course, referring to Delta Goodrem. Unfortunately for her, it was always likely to be the public vote that proved her downfall. Arguably, a lot of people disagree with her country participating in the contest, though they still awarded her enough points for their second-highest finish to date.
The other jury favourites, France. Again, a high-quality entry – performed bravely and confidently by a young singer (she’ll be the last person under 18 to enter; the age limit will increase from next year). Partly-operatic entries have been the golden ticket in recent years, and the classic French chanson rarely fails to impress. Just don’t mix the two. The styles clashed, failed to complement each other effectively, and as such, whilst the juries responded as expected, the public were – albeit harshly – unforgiving.
Felicia from Sweden – finishing in 20th place – marks their lowest placing in any final since their only non-qualification to date, way back in 2010. So, what went wrong? Well, with “My System” giving vibes of recent flops such as “We Will Rave” (though Kaleen was a personal favourite of mine), and “Hallucination”, perhaps the fact that it lay somewhere on the border between EDM and techno was its downfall. Or perhaps her face-mask on stage meant the audience felt unable to connect with her? Either way, is it back to the drawing board next year, or are they making it clear that their record-breaking eighth title, and subsequent next hosting, can wait a little longer? Sweden may have one of the continent’s consistently strongest economies, but it doesn’t hurt to be financially cautious sometimes.
As for the countries that scored zero from the public – well, being a Brit, I’ve got my usual essay to write about that, as I’m sure you’ll understand. So, I’ll start with the other two. Sarah English (which is what Engels translates as) – was not a huge surprise. She performed the song with conviction, but the whole liar/fire and lying/denying rhyming couplets were just too predictably cliché-tastic. Graham Norton made the point that if he had a pound for every time he’d heard such combinations in Eurovision entries… well, he’d probably have about four quid (his words, not mine). It works when Cyprus do it, you may argue. But that’s kinda the point; whilst I wouldn’t quite call it “cultural appropriation”, it clearly didn’t go down wonderfully well with audiences across the world.
Belgium now. And again, there wasn’t really anything wrong or bad with the song or performance. Just being on so early (fourth in the running order has only produced one victory to date – the previously mentioned German entry being even more unfortunate in the dreaded “number two” slot) – along with being a fairly non-descript pop song, meant the public declined to respond.
Here we go. Brace yourselves. First of all, I must admit, when the name “Look Mum No Computer” was announced, I had to check the date on my phone, and that it wasn’t April 1st. All joking aside, it seemed an unusual choice; like most of us at the time, I’d never heard of the artist, nor knew any of his music.
When his entry was released, however, much of the early scepticism turned to (albeit confused) optimism, with mixed responses both at home and abroad. But then, a divisive reaction, as opposed to indifferent – which has been the problem with some of the UK’s previous entries – tends to be a good omen; it makes it memorable, if nothing else.
Catchy, quirky and upbeat – almost an earworm, even – much unlike the majority of this year’s entries (which, in somewhat predictable fashion, appeared to be taking a leaf out of the reigning champions’ books). These qualities have all been known to produce success at the contest. Yet, come the first rehearsals, the optimism faded. I don’t praise the BBC for a lot these days, but I honestly don’t think they got it wrong this year. Or at least, in as much or in so far as, they had the right idea. With successive zeroes from the public for Olly and Remember Monday, they wanted something that would be different, or at least stand out enough, to get the audiences’ attention.
Somehow, it just didn’t work. It just came across as corny, daft and perhaps lacking in definitive identity. Described as “BritPop” by many, but as a seasoned fan of Shed Seven, amongst other mid-90’s legends, it didn’t come anywhere close to the authenticity of the Georgian entries of 2016 or 2022 – if anything it could be best described as “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz meets “Funky Town”. A recipe for Eurovision success? Well, potentially, if done right. But that’s the crux; it wasn’t.
The German title, consistent food references, and quintessentially British sense of humour, appeared to have been lost on the audiences. Perhaps not surprising – our humour is different in many ways to what our friends on the continent are used to. After stumbling upon a YouTuber named WorldviShawn – uncannily similair, but still different enough that I won’t be suing him for copyright – he made the observation that people watch the contest because they want to see countries send a song that reflects their own culture.
His namesake, Sam Ryder, is a classic example of when it truly works – his song reflected the best of British names gone by; with shades of Queen and Elton John on show. And with the greatest of respect to Sam (Battle, I mean) – likeable a character as he is – the fact he is an inventor and YouTuber by trade, and a performer in his spare time (he can now add Father to that list, of course), was evident on the night.
He can, at least, take comfort in the fact he’s still got his museum to keep him occupied – he may find Ramsgate becomes a new “Mecca” for UK Eurovision fans. And at least the whole “Look Mum No Points” jibes only half came to fruition. He’s even been good-humoured enough to produce a t-shirt about it, bless him.
As for how they should, or indeed will, respond next year – well, here’s hoping that they’ll do what I had hoped (and even half-expected) them to do this year. Delta Goodrem, as I described earlier, is a shining example of a simple song and staging, performed flawlessly by an experienced professional with an existing fan base. A power-ballad of a similar nature – by a performer of similar vocal power and ability – seems a safe bet all round. Then again, no reason why it has to be a ballad.
The public vote hurdle will always be difficult to overcome – the UK becoming the first country to score zero from the same side of the voting in three successive contests, and now hold the even-more unwanted record of most public zeroes since the new split points system was introduced in 2016 (four in total) – but realistically, it needs to be high quality, or at least stand out enough, to gain sufficient support from the audiences. Though, with the costs of 2023 still weighing on their minds, they may find themselves reluctant to commit to anything particularly spectacular.
Lastly, on a personal note, it’s wonderful to see a fellow neuro-divergent win the contest. Diagnosed with ADHD in the year before her victory, her most recent album was appropriately titled ADHDara. She may not be the first, although, as far as I’m aware, she is the first openly-diagnosed winner (please correct me in the comments if you know of any others). But then, it was only a matter of time, and certainly gives hope to Autistic individuals like myself (diagnosed with the now-outdated Asperger’s at the age of seven, recently turned 40). It’s certainly a very ADHD-friendly song! And surely she won’t be the last, either.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. I hope you enjoyed reading, and will continue to read my future articles. Please like and follow my page, and feel free to comment if you have anything you’d like to express or contribute. And if you really enjoyed it, why not share it on your socials, or with someone you know who may be as big a Eurovision nerd as I am? If such a thing is possible. And in any case, have a great day. Ciao for now, Eurofans!
