Eurovision 2024

If you ignore the absolute shitshow the EBU made of it, it was a good Eurovision year musically - lots of fun and weird songs in a wide variety of styles from folk to novelty to goth, a few semi-decent ballads to break up the chaos, some proper pop bangers.

Nothing I loved like last year (where many of the entrants made my EoY ballot) but I think it was genuinely well-rounded and would have been a contender for Officially Good Year if only I didn't feel so guilty for watching it at all.

I didn't really like any of the songs much, though there was only one out and out stinker. I must be showing my age because I thought a lot of the songs sounded similar, or had similar sounds.

What did you think the stinker was? My bet is on Germany.

There were half a dozen with the calypso/reggaeton beat which seemed a little higher than in recent years but felt like at least half the entries were uptempo Eurodance redux. I probably liked the trad but fun Armenian entry the most as a result. The winning song is fine but didn't really deserve to dominate from the start like that (admittedly I say this p much every year).

switzerland was my personal fav, followed by ireland and germany so i actually matched the results for the first time ever
probably the closest total at the top that i can remember since the split voting came in?

uk getting 0 from the public was great too

What did you think the stinker was? My bet is on Germany

I think it was Estonia? A bunch of burly blokes shouting?

There were half a dozen with the calypso/reggaeton beat

Yes, there was far too much of that. It was difficult to tell one country from another unless they went down the folk music route.

“Shakira-core” was the description that went through my mind

my faves were ireland, croatia finland, switzerland obv, and i really enjoyed spain?

the firefighter song was v funny to me in an unintentional way

Spain, Switzerland and Ireland were favourites in our party and Netherlands was my favourite from the semis but the public vote results left a sour note.

But when everyone from Toby Young, Andrew Neil, Lawrence Fox and Tommy Robinson is encouraging everyone to vote 20x, and this was probably replicated across Europe, it ain’t a surprise, just a shame that the voting system can get hijacked

If you ignore the absolute shitshow the EBU made of it, it was a good Eurovision year musically - lots of fun and weird songs in a wide variety of styles from folk to novelty to goth, a few semi-decent ballads to break up the chaos, some proper pop bangers.

Nothing I loved like last year (where many of the entrants made my EoY ballot) but I think it was genuinely well-rounded and would have been a contender for Officially Good Year if only I didn't feel so guilty for watching it at all.

― emil.y, Sunday, 12 May 2024 15:25 (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

agree with every word of this

TIL about "anti-booing technology" (aka fake crowd noises for the TV broadcast) but apparently it's been around since 2015 when people were booing Russia

“Shakira-core” was the description that went through my mind

Oh lord, if people thought there was a lot of that this year, you should've seen ~5 years ago. There were definitely a few that seemed focus-grouped for Eurovision this year but some years it just gets silly with the attempts to replicate 'Fuego' success.

I think it was Estonia? A bunch of burly blokes shouting?

Fair enough if you think this was the stinker - I'm usually quite into the "messy" Eurovision tracks (I like silly, weird & amateurish) but Estonia's attempt at that this year did not do it for me, so I'm not going to get pissy about it. Would still rather that track than Germany's bland-ass bollocks.

This was my first time watching Eurovision - Ireland was my favorite overall performance, Czechia was my favorite song, Finland was the funniest. Switzerland didn’t really do it for me during the show but listening to it today, I do see why it won - the hook is really good, his vocals are great, it’s a very crowd-pleasing hype number.

I thought Estonia was good but their green room seating get-ups were comedy gold.

VG otm RE “Shakira-core”; I said the same thing to my husband after the 5th or so of that performance style.

I'm interested to know what songs people thought fit in that style - for me it was only really Cyprus and Georgia (neither of whose songs were particularly interesting), maybe Luxembourg? You could stretch it to Italy (it's not, but the cumbia influence could make it read that way?) and really really stretch to cover Greece (imo absolutely not, that's K-pop and trap influence mixed with Greek traditional). I thought there was a lot more of a techno influence this year - even boring stuff like Sweden had some nice bass sequencing, and obv WE WILL RAVE (which ruled, will hear nothing against this epic tune).

Yes the sequencing in the Swedish track was nice.

I tuned in for a bit of the contest to see if there was any chaos going on, there was not, thought the Norway song was terrific though and cannot believe it came last.

I also loved Norway, but I wasn't surprised it didn't do well. None of my friends liked it, either - apparently there wasn't enough of a song and it was a bit Evanescence, whereas for me the epicness was enough in itself and she wailed like Björk. Everyone else was wrong and I was right and I will maintain that until my dying day.

(Or until I forget, which will probably be tomorrow.)

Estonia was okay but I think the two? singers in the upper range weren’t quite powerful enough and were a bit drowned out by the music compared to their awesome growly baritone priest guy … i think it had potential to be great but was’t quite there

Norway was cool! but i do feel it needed more of a chorus to really bring it home imo.

shakira-core imo:
cyprus
greece
luxembourg
georgia
italy

and it’s a very loose categorization purely because of the um bap-ba-bap-bap beat which is always to me shakira “whenever wherever” even when it’s not that style?

The Greek one was giving me the strongest reminder of things like 'Con Altura' more specifically.

my votes:

best pop: Cyprus
best fun: Finland
best singing: France
best person: Bambie Thug

I’m glad they ignored the Palestinian call to boycott in order to make a statement so radical and uncompromising that Keir Starmer and David Cameron made it several months ago https://t.co/0XsCaq5erI

— James Greig (@jamesdgreig) May 11, 2024

When you're mad you couldn't rig the televote properly.

Shortly after the contest, Golan appeared on an Israeli talk show that mocked numerous pro-Palestinian contestants, including Marina Satti, Bambie Thug, Joost Klein, and Nemo Mettler. The skit featured Golan calming down and "forgiving" satirical and angry versions of the contestants because they "called for Israel to be banned" and were therefore kidnapped by Yoav Gallant, Israel's defense minister, for Golan herself to calm down.