ESC Etc.

10 more!

LUXEMBOURG

Luxembourg is back after a 31-year hiatus and that was, in many ways, the story of the ESC 2024 pre-season. It’s always exciting to have a country return after a long time, and it generally signals renewed interest for the contest at home which, in turns, likely means we’ll be getting quality. RLT, the public broadcaster, opened their submission period last July and has reportedly received some 450+ entries – that is rather extraordinary. Auditions were also held over the summer to vet different artists and to match songwriters with singers. To me, this sounds like a great strategy to maximize the potential of each entry and ensure that we will get a live that lives up to the studio cut of the song. A national final is set to take place at the end of January 2024, with details about the format of the show being released on December 1. Luxembourg is a 5-time ESC winner – that makes it one of most successful countries ever in the contest – and, interestingly enough, the only multiple winner to have never won with an artist native to their country. I have a feeling they’ll be coming back with a Luxembourgish act, and I’m sensing a Top 10 finish. Can’t wait to see what their national final looks like!

MALTA

I’m not really sure what the game plan is in Malta or if they’re able to strategize with their best interest in mind. The 2023 MESC national final was irreparably marred by the broadcaster’s asinine decision to disqualify Aidan for posting a 20-second Instagram short introducing his dancers with an instrumental version of his entry Reġina – a phenomenal, multilingual bop – playing faintly in the background (quarter-finalists were apparently not allowed to post promotional material before the contest – if that small a snippet could be even considered that), effectively eliminating the only competitive song in the bunch (it would have easily advanced to the final in Liverpool). MESC 2024 is currently underway, and while the first two semifinals didn’t feature any tracks that struck me as particularly competitive (yes, I did listen to Sopranique. Yes, it’s fun and messy. It’s also solidly a track that could have existed in 1983), things should pick up later on – Patrick Jean told me he wrote two of the songs that will be debuting in Semifinal 4, which also features a track by Linnea Deb. Here’s hoping.

MOLDOVA

If you need an idea of the power of Moldova at ESC, this is how you turn the worst song of the contest into a performance that fans are still talking about 5 years after the fact (I wish I could link to the video, but it is geo-blocked by Logo). The strength of Moldova lies in the magic of their staging, consistently elevating their tracks into a visual spectacle that lands them in the final (they only missed once these past 6 years). TRM confirmed Moldova’s participation last June, and ESC in 2024 will mark the country’s 20th anniversary at Eurovision. In spite of a general lack of internal resources and the fact that we don’t know anything about their 2024 national final yet, Moldova will deliver. This is how you do Eurovision on a budget.

NETHERLANDS

Pretty much nothing went right for the Netherlands this year, starting from the fateful day when (I’m assuming) Duncan Laurence called up AVROTROS to tell them he had a song for Eurovision and a couple of friends available to sing it and (I’m still assuming) the broadcaster pretty much went, “DONE! We don’t even need to listen to it or audition these people!” So when Mia and Dion started showing up at the ESC pre-parties and it became apparent that they could not sing the song, the Dutch delegation got into defensive mode and, instead of backing their act up and ensuring they’d receive the necessary support, pretty much shrugged and went, “Guess we suck this year, uh.” Are we back to the pre-2013 era when Netherlands failed to qualify for the final 8 years in a row? The utter incompetence and lack of foresight that doomed their entry this year does not bode well. 600+ songs were submitted to the broadcaster to choose their 2024 entry, which is reportedly a record for the country (and it absolutely amazes me that this would happen the year immediately after the delegation basically threw their act under the bus). We’ll have the artist in mid-December, which is at least an improvement compared to their 2023 strategy of waiting and waiting and then dropping a basic pop ballad in March.

NORWAY

I already discussed how Stig Karlsen, the head of the Norwegian delegation, needs to fix Melodi Grand Prix instead of trying to break ESC. To put it simply: if your national final allows for the use of autotune and has a 40/60 jury-televote split, chances are you’ll get a winner that relies on said autotune and is more popular with voters at home than juries. And since autotune is banned at ESC and the jury-televote split is 50/50…I’m not a scientist, but the math is fairly simple, no? Karlsen, who is also not a scientist, has been vocal about his back and forth with the EBU to basically change the rules at Eurovision and turn it into an international version of his national final, and…no, thanks. MGP is without a doubt one of the strongest national finals we have – I personally regard MGP 2021 as one of the best national selections of all time (in spite of the dreadful winner we got out if it) – but their last few representatives have been walking a fine line between pop and novelty act and, in short, juries do not care for the latter. Personally, I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but I also do not foresee a change in direction if the format of the final is pretty much engineered to favor novelty acts in the first place. In short…you can’t pick Tix over KEiiNO and then tell me Eurovision is broken.

POLAND

I do not trust Poland. Sorry. I do not trust a country that, in 2016, had a song destined to become one of the most popular ESC winners of all time and pretty much went out of their way not to select it (if you know me irl, ask me to tell you the incredible, unfathomable story of Margaret’s Cool Me Down and the Krajowe Eliminacje 2016 final – I am fairly certain I’m the only ESC fan out there who can tell it without having a nervous breakdown). I do not trust a country that, this year, put together a jury that sat in front of this performance and unanimously decided it deserved their 12 points. I don’t know what’s going on with this country’s delegation and frankly, until they start acting seriously, I don’t care to know. Their selection will reportedly be internal this year (in direct response to the shitshow that was 2023) but I am not really checking for them at this point.

PORTUGAL

I accept Festival da Canção as one of those national finals that are always consistently giving quality – well-organized, well-produced, welcoming of interesting, different sounds and perspectives – but ultimately just not meant for me or my playlist. I did really take to their 2022 selection, but I find that, more regularly than not, their entries do not gel with my musical taste and sensibility (Amar pelos Dois included, not even factoring in Sobral’s sanctimonious clownery which, honestly…child, shut up). That said, this year they made it to the final without any usable staging and without a particularly competitive song just on the strength of the performer herself, and it feels as though, since 2018, people are actively checking for them, which makes me think they could realistically win again within the next 10 years. We have no updates as of now, and their selection will drop in March, which is generally later than ideal.

SAN MARINO

San Marino is gonna San Marino, as in get approximately 14 billion entries from every corner of the planet, pull them all together, put a blindfold on, and then randomly pick the finalists and the winner out of a bag. Could we get a good song that way? It’s possible. Could we get another year of the struggle bus? That’s more likely. I just want to point out that they had this option in 2023, and it didn’t even make it out of its heat.

SERBIA

Are we due for another Serbia win soon? It feels like we might be. Since their (winning!) debut in 2007, Serbia has only failed to advance to the final on 3 occasions and even then, they never came in lower than 11th in their semifinal. It is a pretty spotless record that points to the strength of Serbia’s selection process and musical scene more in general, with their last two acts in particular each offering a truly out of the box, experimental sound and performance (or, in Konstrakta’s case, something that could have easily passed as a MoMA performance art installation). Pesma za Evroviziju is an exceptionally accessible national final for anyone who might be just starting to get into ESC, with a solid variety of songs and a fairly simple setup that very much mirrors the Eurovision format. No news about any of the 2024 contestants yet.

SLOVENIA

I really quite hated Slovenia’s song this year, but I was at the same time really happy that they managed to send their biggest domestic act to Eurovision (and Joker Out have been pretty much touring non-stop across Europe since May), that all five of them were ultimately really hot and put together a great stage performance, and that the lead singer Bojan and Kaarjia met and fell in love with each other (no, you can’t convince me otherwise). There were initial rumors about Raiven getting internally selected for 2024, which obviously had me incredibly excited (what wouldn’t I have given to see this at Eurovision in 2019), but it seems like we’ll be going back to a national final selection, and that perhaps the delegation this year would like to have a few more options. Misija Malmö, the 2024 national final, is supposed to take place as a one-night event in January of next year, with the competing acts being announced within the next 30 days (as of this post). I am most definitely going to be paying attention.

FP