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borisbubbles · 1 year

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Eurovision 2022: #10 - #6

10. UNITED KINGDOM Sam Ryder - “SPACE MAN 2nd place

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Decade rank: 18/79 [above Last dance, below Je me casse]

UP IN SPACE MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

There are moments I forget Sam Ryder and Space Man are real things that happened. A good song representing Union Jack colours, by an influencer who looks like a labrador superimposed onto the face of Janice the muppet through deepfake software. Are we sure this was not a fever dream? 😳 Are we sure this is the BBC ?

So uh yeah, the UK had a pretty good entry last year. 🙂 At last, a British hopeful who isn’t embarrassing right out of the gate and could unironically be described as enjoyable. If The UK were winning a jury vote any year, then 2022 was that golden opportunity.

The crazy part is that they did AND it felt earned? “Space Man” is so unequivocally British-sounding. The score effortlessly conjures up that unique Brit-rock vibe that we know from Queen, David Bowie, the Beatles, and turns it into something that sounds like a clarion of triumph thundering gloriously over the Turin 2022′s remaining proceedings.

I feel like Space Man’s inherent sense of achievement and of victory - despite the lyrics dealing with the dark side of success and the return to the simple life - (you know i love a clever lyrical contradition) made so many people flock to it. There WAS some lameness to be found (”searched around the universe / been down some black holes” did the songwriters look at grindr bio’s for their material?) but overall Space Man stood up as the rare Good UK entry.

So if you have all that empowerment jazz in your song, you need a good act to bring it out? Fortunately, the BBC for once did well there too. As soon as I saw they had built a spacecraft out of scaffholding (clever lateral staging btw), had stuffed in Ryder into a swarovski-studded leotard and forced him to perform a cheesy guitar solo I knew. I knew they had managed to summon the spirit of Ziggy Stardust to bless Ryder with winnerness and that he would steer his rebar rocket into a top finish. And so he did.

Now, as for my reservations because I have a few

One, Ryder. Yes, Ryder had the best vocal out of anyone this year, period. I have no doubts he’s a genial young man too. Cool if you care about these things. I however do not, because I don’t find him charismatic. 🙂 First of all, he does fucking look like a deepfake what the hell is up with that? Secondly, the adlibs. Normally I like it when contestants go full ham but here I find it irritating. Space man is good and doesn’t fucking need embellishment. Therefore the adlibs must be some kneejerk instinct Ryder inherited from his influencer days, which ew. The BBC have taken Ryder out of the TikTok but they have not managed to take TikTok out of the Ryder.

Two, The Social Media Craze. You already know I feel about that stuff and how it interacts with Eurovision, although I mind it not so much here - Space Man came fifth in the televote and not first (and thankfully, also not seventeenth), and was also adopted by the radio stations ahead of its viralness. Also Space Man went less viral than Snap. Its popularity was a natural evolution. All of these things are preferable when you’re solidly into “Good Not Great” territory. 🙂 Still, any mileage derived from braindead spyware apps is a sin on principle, so ::ding::

Three, Irrespective of anything else I’ve written above, I’ve always solidly liked, but never fully loved Space Man. This applies to both the song and its staging. I don’t mind that it got second, but it did beat better entries while doing so. Eleven months later I still feel that way, and as we go forward in this ranking, it has to leave within this update. If I have to choose who to rank higher between an annoying influencer with a good song and a bunch of lovable randoms with clown fiesta music, the randoms always win!

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09. IRELAND Brooke - “That’s rich” 34th place

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Decade Rank: 16/79 [Above Destiny, below Natalia Gordienko]

NO TITLE SCREEN?! ROBBED!!!! RIGGED!!!

God I wanted it for Brooke, I really, REALLY wanted it! In the same vein as Ryder, finally an entrant for Ireland that isn’t a walking cringe, or a dead on arrival lamus or an offensive sap. Finally an Irish entry that isn’t fucking HOPELESS. (um ignore that I believed in Maps until it crashlanded into last place lol)

But of course, less hopeless than the average Irish entry only meant "another solid NQ, just not in last place this time”. lol. 😥

I greatly enjoyed Brooke though. Here’s yet another flawlessly flawed combination of song and singer, united in holy floptrimony. “That’s rich” is a trash baby of the finest camp qualité, and at least half of its sassy vernacular belongs in an Almanac for All Time Eurovision lyrics. LOSER LOSE YOUR ATTITUDE I’M DOING GOOD YEAH THAT’S ON ME and BYE BYE FOOL are and will forever be a part of my brain-to-post jargon from this Brooke onwards. Me and the friends even conjured up a French version called “C’est Riche” which is the ultimate high honour you can get, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

The way Brooke and That’s Rich synergize together spoke to me. The song is very sassy and feisty and playful, whereas the singer is kind of... a dorky shrew (<3). Reminder that Brooke is a friend to all Spanish Customs Officers and dedicated enough towards maintaining that friendship to greet her Italian audiences with “OLÉ OLÉ OLÉ” . She went ALL IN on channelling ALL the emotions during her live performance. Unlike Ryder’s, Brooke’s adlibs felt genuine enough to adore. Let the GIF reel commence: ´

É, CRETIN

C’EST RICHE, J’EN AI EU ASSEZ DE VOUS

C’EST RICHE, T’AS UNE AIRE DE CLOUN

C’EST RICHE; TU N'AS QU’AUCUN CLOU

DONC C’EEEEEEEST RIIIIICHE

VA T’EN, CON 🙂

Ryder dead in a ditch. Brooke broke from her betadom to live the ALPHA LYFE on that stage and based on merit, I thought she had it. Yet almost nobody (of relevance) cared?! How? Well ok I know why (it’s eurotrash <3) but honestly how difficult was it to just penalize all the cheaters on the spot? I guess garbage like Fade to Black and River absolutely DESERVED those algoritm points!!! In the end, I can accept this outcome because WRS also served edible fun and I sorta nibbled, but Europe denied us a feisty feast here! Another year were Ireland deserved better! WILL IT EVER END?!

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08. AUSTRIA Lum!x ft. Pia Maria - “Halo” 36th place

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Decade rank: 14/79 [Above Natalia Gordienko, below Senhit]

LEMME BE YOUR HAY-LA HOOOOOOOOOOOOO

There you have it. This year’s best non-qualifier. And its journey was through Eurovisionland was WILD. 😍

Where to start? Like always and more pressingly than usual, at the selection. Imagine waking up to Austria declaring that a 20 year old Gabry Ponte protégé with no solo experience will be their rep, accompanied by something or someone called “Pia Maria”, a name that gave you zero hits if you put it through google or spotify. So of course me and the gang instantly started spec’ing whether “Pya Mariyah” was a huge untapped talent discovered through chance by Lum!x (not implausable! Janet Grogan is, after all, a better vocalist than Adele), a highly advanced neural net or Philipp Kirkorov in disguise.

Then “Halo” was released, and it doled out BpM at a faster pace than most nightcores and had an absolute word casserole for lyrics. 😍 “Philosophers like Socrates go find something to get on your feet. Go sharpen your teeth” lmfao what?!

And like that, the journey dove head-first into hilarious absurdity. WHAT IS THIS ENTRY?! This was chosen by the SAME people that bored us with Cesár Sampson and Vincent KinderBueno? HOW did ORF land on Pia Maria? Where did they find her? Did they select her via a raffle, or was she in the room when Lumix realized he needed a vocalist? Was she a random they snagged off the streets? Is she someone’s secret nepobaby? It honestly fries my brain that this was deemed a serious attempt at a qualifying entry by the fandom.

So yeah the second they had set a foot in PalaOlimpico, Pia and Luca immediately immolated themselves to death in a blaze of chaotic neutral. I hope everyone saw this coming because I sure did and relished every nanosecond of it. Pia became winded approximately 40 seconds into the performance and spent the rest of the performance running a losing race against her vital capacity.

Luca meanwhile, oh man. Pia gets a bad wrap for her vocals, and she was Not Very Good, but like what do you expect from a newbie cajoled into performing a litany of jibberish. What really took “Hayla Ho” on a ride down Hysteria Lane for me were Luca’s jubilant adlibs juxtaposed to Pia’s visible failure. Every time Pia missed a note she at least looked a bit disappointed with herself. Luca went on a fucking runner’s high with every passing beat, blissfully unaware to the hellscape forming itself around him and Pia.

He absolutely CANNOT contain himself. 😍 So much so that his voice cracks THREE SECONDS INTO HALO. 😍 The true insane asylum heights of fusedmarc were never reached, but they came sorta close.

So yeah, like That’s Rich, Halo was instantly ironic eurotrash. Unlike That’s Rich, I not once thought Halo would do well lmfao. How could anyone think that?! Its entire purpose at Eurovision was to be a great and memorable trainwreck. They passed with flying colours <3

Oh and as all great morality tales go, this one ends with Pia deleting Luca off her social media mere hours after the live performance, having accomplished her goal of getting a three-week free holiday 😍 If that doesn’t cement her as the most relatable neural net of this decade, then idk what will.

K and now for a MASSIVE leap in quality:

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07. THE NETHERLANDS S10 - “De diepte” 11th place

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Decade rank: 11/79 [above Manizha, below TBA]

🦉😂 -- S10, me.

Yep, above Manizha who was top five for me in 2021. 2022 is strangely top-heavy, where the good entries are all GREAT and the rest of the contest simply doesn’t exist.

So yeah, time to discuss a few Real Songs before the final countdown. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Eurovision is a music contest. This selectful forgetfulness is achieved when great music fails to reach the top 10! 🙄 And people wonder why juries are important. Forget the Die Togethers and Fade to Blacks of this world - THIS is sort of interpretation juries ought to reward.

Anyway, “De diepte” is kind of my jam and you may think this would make the write-up easier and you’re so so so wrong. Stien dwells deeply (ahem) in that Victoria zone where the quality is so obvious it renders further words redundant. WHICH IS PERSONAL RANKER HELL!!!

“De diepte” is not some dreck-wreck featuring several layers of mass hysteria (some of which only exist in my head <3) that I get to describe in various degrees of colourful language. "De diepte” is a song. A real song. It’s emotionally layered, intelligent, well structured and easy to listen to on repeat, and I have for several hours total. The moment RIGHT after the big note, when S10 looks almost overwhelmed with emotion and is about to cry man, I Felt That. I Felt it in my core, in my bones, in my soul. I’m not made of concrete. The contrast with Botmanda couldn’t be greater:

Now as far as my random things I specifically loved about S10 go, they include: her nom-de-plume which caused several people (including Matt 🥴) to pronounce her name as “Season Ten”, the fact that AVROTROS wanted to push a song in Dutch and then came up with a chorus that can mostly be summarized by two emojis, and of course this:

It’s not quite the Tinkara sorcery, but the intent is there, and I appreciate it.

Other than that, “De diepte” is a very good showcase of Dutch indiepop, which -living 30 km from the NL border- is a genre I know very well and fucking love. It’s what I would call A Real Song, a song that actually speaks to people and has legs outside of the contest. It’s defo something I would listen to during the off-season when i’m detoxing from ESC if it had not been ESC itself.

However, I have to also put my Big Ranker’s Pants on and make my Big Ranker decisions: When picking who I rank ahead of other entries I like roughly the same, I need to assess the contest. 2022 was light on europulp spectacle and heavy on the”“Good Musical Quality” type of entry. So in a sense, I feel like i need to prioritize spectacle over song to a certain degree. Or at least those I am able to praise with more profound terms than “this is very good, not a top 10, REALLY, Europe?”.

And on that note~

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06. PORTUGAL MARO - “Saudade, saudade” 9th Place

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Decade rank: 10/79 [Above S10, below TBA]

Ok so, S10, Maro and the 5th placer are basically three acts I like equally much, and they’re ranked based on how much I can talk about :-)

THOSE ARE THE RANKER’S RULES, SORRY! Speaking of things that rule, I present Maro: a woman who forgot to stage her song in the semi of FdC because she assumed nobody would like her and then won the final in an overwhelming landslide <3

and for good reason because “Saudade Saudade” is berry gud. Like “De diepte” i feel like its appeal is just very obvious? It’s clever, it’s emotional, it’s very well performed. It is one of those songs that would find their way to an audience even without the exposure of the Eurovision Song Contest.

That said, Maro *very* narrowly edges out S10 for me for a handful of reasons. First off, while beam sorcery is a nice staging trick, I do find the circle of wymyn powah a slightly stronger visual representation. It creates some interaction on the stage,which translates to spectacle, which translates to good television.

Secondly, the vocals: Systur’s harmonies were already outstanding. Maro and her backings are even better. Maro’s own hoarse vocals holy heck. t’s difficult to fully engage into praise because Cornelia exists and we’ll get there in the next post, but talk about a song whose rawness came alive through sheer vocal timbre. Anyone who can sing is able pull off a “De diepte”. The list of people that are capable of doing a “Saudade Saudade” is very short.

Thirdly, both songs deal with break-ups and letting go, but I find Maro’s methods more wholesome. “Saudade, Saudade” is literally an attempt at unspooling raw thoughts being put into little word blankets, and coming to the realization that the best memories and strongest emotions cannot be turned into lyrics. They exist in the heart. And that I can feel.

Ok some other little details here include Maro recruiting her former rivals Ginger Ale Lady and Woman’s Corpse Lady into her backing cabal, the fact that her fucking insta handle is or was @ItsAMeMARO and her growing disbelief that people really *truly* liked her as much as they did, and you know you have a pretty awesome contestant on your hands. Maro feels humble in a genuine and endearing way that you rarely see in Eurovision where most contestants are inexperienced, ambitious or huge fans.

Overall though, Maro runs into the same ranker curse as S10. There just isn’t much to discuss beyond the music, and the music is really darn good. Still, it’s a very positive sign that the juries recognized that by giving her 5th place (without a single 12? lol?) and countered her bad position in the R/O. In the full picture she falls a bit short for me though. 🤷��♀️

CONGRATULATIONS TOP FIVE!!!

WHO. WILL. WIN?!

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