I am going to say that the United Kingdom have gotten most everything right this year.
Lucie Jones "Never Give Up On You"
They have perhaps the best singer in this year's contest who is able to perform a technically difficult song impeccably. The lyrics are terrible but Jones is able to elevate them to a point where they aren't a distraction.
If the staging is right (a difficult task for the BBC's Eurovision team), this could outperform the songs the UK has sent in the past ten years.
I'm shocked to say it's in my top ten. I don't think I've put one in my top ten since I seriously started watching Eurovision.
Germany has had one of the worst Eurovision track records in the past few years. They have sent songs that have moldered at the bottom of the results table. (Even one that was one of my personal favorites.)
I don't think Germany is going to change this trend with this year's song.
Levina "Perfect Life"
This is a perfectly nice song--very credible and very radio friendly. The problem is the song, like the French song before it, is not particularly memorable. Unless the stage show is spectacular, there is nothing for a viewer to remember to willingly vote it for and her voice is not unique enough for the juries to rank highly enough to get points.
There is a fine line that a host country has to tread when they host the Eurovision Song Contest.. Because of the financial burden on the host broadcaster, winning the contest twice isn't the smartest thing to do. However you also have to send a song that is credible.
Ukraine has walked that tightrope quite well with their entry.
O.Torvald "Time"
"Time" is a nice piece of pop rock that sounds like it is from the early 2000s. It's a perfectly nice example of the genre, but it's not anything that is likely going to win the contest.
I don't know what is missing from the French entry this year.
Alma "Requiem"
The blend of chanson and North African sounds should be appealing but I find it completely forgettable. I think it comes down to Alma. She's a cypher of a singer, and although the tune is catchy, she has no charisma whatsoever.
This isn't going to trouble for the win. It may even fall in the bottom five songs.
Third time's a charm for Imri Ziv. He was a backing singer for the last two Israeli entrants, and he won a singing competition to represent Israel at Eurovision.
Imri "I Feel Alive"
It's a generic summer party song. It closes out the second semifinal. He's good looking. It's qualifying for the final. Given a good placement there, it could be a top 10 song.
Will anybody listen to this song when Eurovision is over? Not likely. Is it a good Eurovision song? Yep. It's fun.
The dramatic duet is a staple of Eurovision and Estonia has provided this year's example.
Koit Toome and Laura "Verona"
Cheese. Pure unadulterated musical cheese. The singing is overly dramatic, the lyrics are soppy, and the stage chemistry is lackluster.
This is likely going to have a top 10 finish. It's a "traditional" Eurovision song, and the campness of the song combined with the professional gleam of the production makes this very easy for both juries and viewers at home to vote for it.
I'll be skipping over it when it comes up on my iPod.
There has to be an audience out there for the Lithuanian entry this year.
Fusedmarc "Rain of Revolution"
"Rain of Revolution" is the least accessible song at this year's contest. There's no immediate hook to connect you to the song. That's why this is not likely to qualify.
I like the fact that it's different, even if I don't particularly like it. "Rain of Revolution" isn't going to make the final, though.
The Bulgarian song is one of the favorites at this year's contest, and the fan universe has been full of love for this song.
Kristian Kostov "Beautiful Mess"
Bulgaria really seems to be hungry for a win, and this song in a template to put on a big stage show. The Bulgarian broadcaster also has a track record--Poli Genova get to fourth place last year. The odds makers also think this is going to do well, it's third in the odds to win. It also doesn't hurt that the Bulgarian broadcaster really wants to win the contest.
I find the song perfectly forgettable in the way the Swedish entry is forgettable. This is meant to appeal to the widest audience possible and to do that, you lose anything that would make it truly connect with anybody. It has been constructed to be a Eurovision hit and I am not a fan of constructed pop. Kostov is a preternaturally talented singer, but this is ultimately forgettable.
It's always great when a country surprises with their entry, and this year Belarus has done just that.
Naviband "Historyja majho žyccia"
Belarus usually chooses a song that apes western musical sensibilities and usually comes out the worse for wear. This year, they chose a song that has strong ties to the folk music of the region and is sung in the Belarussian language. I love it. It's been in my Eurovision song rotation since I first heard it, much to the chagrin of my husband.
Qualification to the final is a much trickier thing. I hope this will appeal to enough viewers and jury members to get it through to the final on Saturday. Belarus doesn't have a great qualification track record, but I hope the quality will win out.
Like Croatia, the Norwegian entry is going to have a problem with staging.
JOWST "Grab The Moment"
JOWST isn't the singer, Aleksander Walmann is the singer. JOWST is the producer--the man in the Daft Punk knockoff mask. He's come up with song that could be played in the background of an upscale clothing store like Uniqlo. "Grab The Moment" a song that sounds familiar, sounds like it was cutting edge a couple years ago, and obscure enough to have the cachet of cool.
I'm just interested to see how this song is going to be performed in Kyiv. There's a lot of mechanically recorded voices. That's one of the few verboten things at Eurovision. Vocals must be performed live. The chorus is Waldmann's voice put through electronic processing and if this is allowed, there could be a precedent setter.
I don't see the song being an obvious qualifier. Although there's some producing wizadry at work in the song, the staging is deathly static. There's nothing to catch the eye and during the national final performance, I was critiquing Waldmann's hat and shirt combo, which is not a good sign.
Denmark seems to love sending save, middle-of-the-road songs to Eurovision. On occasion, these choices allow them to win the whole contest. In recent years, they haven't been able to send the song to the final.
They're hoping to change that with this ballad.
Anja "Where I Am"
This is one of those songs that is more about the artist doing a lot of vocalizing than actually interpreting the lyrics of the songs. It's rather reminiscent of last year's Australian entry. The difference is that the Danish song is much lyrically weaker that the Australian entry from last year. You can remember the words of "Sound of Silence", but "Where I Am" is the song where the girl sings about "putting down my armor".
Anja is vocally strong and the chorus will be memorable enough in the recap to likely allow the song to qualify. I can't see this challenging for the win.
Jacques Houdek is an interesting character. He's a well known Croatian singer and music producer who has been known to support right leaning political parties in his country and making statements that could be perceived as anti-gay.
However, the pull of international exposure has made him willing to backtrack his statements and represent Croatia this year. (Not that he hasn't tried before--he's wanted to represent Croatia since 2003 and was finally internally selected by the Croatian national broadcaster.)
Jacques Houdek "My Friend"
This is much less a song than a piece of performance art--Houdek performs both the operatic Italian and poppy English lyrics in the song and he intends to perform both in Kyiv.
If he is able to pull this off, I suspect that it will do quite well. However, if the tone is off, this will go down as a memorable fiasco. It will be recapped in Eurovision retrospectives in the "crazy Eurovision entries" section either way, so whether it does well or flops, it's a win for the singer.
Welcome back to Valentina Monetta, San Marino's chanteuse.
This is her fourth time representing San Marino and this is the first time she's in a duet with American singer Jimmie Wilson.
Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson "Spirit of the Night"
This song is not good. It's cheap, disposable, and really doesn't have a chance to win the contest.
But I'm personally ranking this song higher that a lot of the other songs in the contest.
This song is fun. Watching their performance live performance makes me look forward to seeing what they do in Kyiv. There's a chemistry between Monetta and Wilson that's noticeable on stage. That chemistry is what makes me thing this could possibly be a surprise qualifier for the final.
Louis Walsh and Linda Martin need to step away from having any involvement in the Irish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Both Walsh and Martin and seem to live in the 1990s, when the Celtic Tiger was beginning to roar, and Ireland could do no wrong at Eurovision. Ireland's entry "Dying to Try" feels like it could fit in to songs from that period.
Brendan Murray "Dying to Try"
I think Ireland is trying for classic, but instead "Dying to Try" comes across as dated.
I also find the singer total mismatched to the words of the song. Murray is a young man who looks a number of years younger than the 20 years his biography says he is. It's kind of hard to buy a love song from a young man who looks like he's just graduated junior high and has barely passed puberty, much less been able to sing lyrics like this:
I'll keep you safe in my arms/
Build a bridge to your heart every day
The song's not going anywhere, much less the finals of this year's song contest.
