Esc Finland - Tumblr Posts
This little finnish man with his ridicolously big green arms has cha cha cha'd his way into my heart!
Eurovision 23
As always me sharing my thoughts about the final Eurovision songs. Although no one asked me about it.🥰
Austria
It's a fan favourite. I do enjoy it but the staging was a bit off? Also, I don't know if the colours (black, red, white) were good ones to take.
Still very catchy. ✒/10
Portugal
So happy they made to the final. Would have been a great opening, I suppose.
💃/10
Switzerland
I listened to the German cover of it and that lifted my expectations for the original. Unfortunately, my expectations were not reached. Still ok.
Therefore: 🔫/10.
Poland
Every country that ends up behind them in the final deserves a hug. 🫂
🤡/10
Serbia
Not my cup of tea but appreciated.
🎮/10
France
French flag in the background. Is that fine?
🇨🇵/10
Cyprus
Personally, I like the song. Not that original but professional. He has a great voice. & Greece has someone to vote for. :)
💔/10
Spain
She's an angel. Or maybe I'm just bi. Love the song. Spain really delivered.
7/10
Sweden
Loreen is back but it's the ✨typically✨ swedish song and not better than Euphoria. But I love to see her again.
💅/10
Albania
It's good. I like the family power.
🇦🇱/10
Italy
Another comeback.🥰 The clip that had been shown at the semifinal didn't really catch me but at least it is in Italian.
5/10
Estonia
This is my surprise qualifier. It seems to be so flat. But I would love to have a self playing piano too. Maybe I am just jealous because she has one.
🎹/10
Finland
OHHH MY GOD AN ABSOLUTE BANGER. I like it.
🐸/10
Czechia
YAAAAASSSS. Love it Love it Love it. Love the energy, love the song, love the clothes I don't know what they're singing.
👯♀️👯♀️👯♀️/10
Australia
100% one of the best performances in the second semifinal.
🚘/10
Belgium
SOME GROOVE. KILLED IT WITH THE DANCING.
🕺/10
Armenia
Why isn't the full song in Armenian? I feel like there was a lot going on during the performance, which didn't help the song, but it's fine.
5/10
Moldova
A comeback. Woooohooo. Kidding. Love the energy. Although nothing beats last year's performance/song.
⚜/10
Ukraine
The duo is so cool. The song is a bit ordinary but maybe that's because Ukraine delivered absolute bangers for the past years.
🤍/10
Norway
Probably my most heard song of this year. Not that it is something HUGE but I do enjoy listen and dance weirdly to it.
👑/10
Germany
Not the worst big five entry this year. I like that they covered some songs and introduced the other acts on their Instagram account. Also the staging didn't look that bad
🩸/10
Lithuania
Their qualification surprised me, positively.
👀/10
Israel
??? The song is actually quite good but what was that staging ???
🦄/10
Slovenia
🥰/10
Croatia
I have no idea what is going on and to be honest, I feel like I don't have to know it.
🚀/10
United Kingdom
Yeah.
🎶/10
What's left to say:
I really don't know what I should think about the "rest of the world" voting
Hope Ukraine will be able to host the contest in the future. Alone. In their country.
Welcome back, Luxembourg. 😊
i know i’m like. two weeks late to the party BUT they meant everything to me this eurovision so :’)
JUSTICE FOR KÄÄRIJÄ!
Efentix is out, KÄÄRIJAN IS IN
I've been thinking about this for a while, not just in terms of Eurovision, but it's a good context to explore the idea in.
I'm not sure it there is an actual term for this, but I've come to think of it in terms of genre literacy, where for certain musical genres you need a base of understanding (and experience) to work from, in order to fully understand or appreciate the more complex or derived works within a particular genre.
This doesn't negate those moments when you're introduced to something outside of your normal experience ("What the **** was that?!") and it completely knocks your socks off, but even then, chances are you're going to be inspired to do more exploring around that song/artist/genre, thus providing you with more background and musical context.
This is why I get so excited seeing variation in some of the less well-trodden genres in Eurovision; to me, Viszlát Nyár by AWS (Hungary, 2018), in addition to being one of my favourite Eurovision entries ever (and being one of the few to reliably make me cry), is wildly different from anything we've seen before or since, including the examples you gave from 2021, Zitti e buoni by Måneskin (Italy) or Dark Side by Blind Channel (Finland, of course).
As much as I would like to feel slightly smug about my taste in music, I very much feel this applies to 'pop' music as well; with a few exceptions (Lizzo, Lana Del Ray, Miley Cyrus, and a smattering of Carly Rae Jepson and Cardi B) I've barely listened to anything approaching the mainstream musical canon for a few years, so turning on the radio it all sounds like a bit of a homogeneous blur. That doesn't mean that mainstream pop music is objectively bad, or less complex or worthy than the music I enjoy, more that I don't have the experience and the background knowledge to judge whether it's good or bad in context.
A lot of my musical taste is so niche, I'm also just really happy seeing other people finding music that they enjoy and that means something to them (even if I would love to have more people to talk to about Epic Nautical Funeral Doom Metal ;) )
This gets further complicated when you consider artists and songs who are deliberately pushing (or breaking) the boundaries or tropes of a genre; you need that grounding in order to fully appreciate what they are doing differently!
One of the reasons I love Eurovision so much is because it's one of the few arenas where we get to see a wide variety of genres (and cultural contexts) in one place, and I feel that has been invaluable for me in terms of my overall musical genre literacy.
That said, if we did ever see a doom metal entry in Eurovision (unlikely, and I'm not convinced it would do well), I would absolutely flip my lid! :D
I sometimes get annoyed at how eurofans trend to treat all rock/metal songs the same, putting very different songs into the same box/genre, while for instance Zitti E Buoni and Dark Side were very different songs. Meanwhile, when listen to the pop entries my reaction to pretty much all of them is “it’s pretty catchy, I could listen to it but I would not seek it out”, and I get baffled when half of them are written of as masterpieces and half of them as trash.
(to be clear: this post is meant to be about how people tend to view music they listen to more “complexly” than music they don’t listen to, and how I can be hypocritical, this is not an attempt to claim that I have superior taste in music)
A small collection of stolen pics that illustrate how Finland is truly a place on Earth right now
they are so cute 😭 💚
he lost it at some point and there were news articles about it
The merch has arrived
Okay, this is so fricking cool...
Check out my Eurovision Battle Jacket. Not quiiiite finished but there's the train to Liverpool for final sewings
I love that these aren't even necessarily the weirdest or wildest fashion choices we've seen over the years!
It’s almost time for the unhinged fashion of Eurovision
(muffled cha cha cha sounds)
Eurovision 2023
Trying to process my thoughts about last night in the form of a tumblr post...
Firstly, which songs are stuck in my head today? Well, Cha Cha Cha by Käärijä (Finland), natch, but also Promise by Voyager (Australia), and Who the hell is Edgar? by Teya and Selena (Austria)
Positives
Croatia's Let 3 made it to the left of the board! Yesss!
I'd normally be the first person to criticise the BBC, but I actually feel they did a good job considering. Admittedly my expectations going into this were kinda low, but they didn't make it too, erm, BBC 😅
Also, Hannah Waddingham. New favourite Eurovision presenter. Clearly feeling very protective of Julia Sanina. Presence, crowd control ("We don't boo in this house"). Queen.
Abolishing the jury vote from the semi-finals was a big success. Not all of my favourites got through (sorry Iceland 😢 ), but we had some amazing performers reach the finals that I'm not convinced would have in previous years.
Negatives
There were a number of artists whos performances in the final were not as good as in the semis... I'm thinking particularly Serbia and Australia, which were two of my favourites coming into the final.
Why did Germany and Spain score so badly? I keep telling myself that part of the answer to that is the old thing about the way the points work, if a song is everyone's 11th favourate out of the 26 entries, it'll get zero points, but still... I feel these were objectively two of the best performances of the night, both technically and in terms of everything else. Still very annoyed by this, they were two of my favourites. At least no-one got nil points this year.
On a related note, who was voting for Israel and Poland?! I know that musical taste is a personal thing (believe me, I know :D ) but Poland's song had no energy to it, and the highlight picked for Iceland was the dance break, with no singing...
?????
I'm not sure what else I can add about the winner/second place that hasn't already been said. We love out green cha cha cha-ing blorbo. Europe loves him. The legend of Käärijä will live on!
Related, I felt that Loreen's performance in the reprise was much better than during the main part of the competition... what happened?
Norway put in a very technical performance, and I really want to like it, but as I've been saying all week, there wasn't enough texture, not enough light and shade to the song as it was peformed. We were also missing the growl in Alessandra's vocals from the semi.
Where was the audience interaction? I get that the focus is always going to be getting votes from home, so a lot of the staging will focus on that, but it's still a live music event, and it was disappointing to only notice Belgium and Germany playing to the crowd.
I've yet to listen to the recorded versions of the songs yet (that's my lunch time listening this week), but from what I hear from @itseverydaybear some of the songs that didn't make a great impression in the semis sound much better. I suspect there will be some sleeper hits in there...
Anyhow, catch you later, just going to listen to The HARDKISS and Jann (Poland televoter's choice to represent them this year - once again for those at the back, time to abolish juries...!)
As a bonus, here's Lord of the Lost covering Queen of Kings (they have even more covers on their youtube chanel, it's worth a look!)
you know an eurovision act really stood out when it makes you want to check out the rest of their discography.
this year for me was these shades of queer:
eurovisionserbia_official How many @eurovision stars can you hug in less than 30 seconds? Multiple times counts! 💫💗
i haven’t stopped being sad for kärijää being robbed of the eurovision victory especially not since i found out he brought his bulbasaur plushie to eurovision. such a gem of a human. he’s so bulbasaur coded in the best way
So, Bojan, Loreen, now Kateryna… Anyone else I’m missing?
It’s only Bojan that our hero has adopted (a baby sealion) with, so I feel he’s still the strongest contender for now :D
Regarding the Käärijä - Kateryna Pavlenko comparisons, apparently Kateryna had this to say 💚🖤💚
From my Spotify 'Your Top Songs 2023';
#27 - Because of You, by Gustaph (Belgium)
#36 - Cha Cha Cha, by Käärijä (Finland)
(I'm surprised that Luke Black isn't in there, since Samo mi se spava made it onto multiple of my playlists this year)
Bonus: #47 Gladiator, by Jann (does this count? :) )
As for my choice;
Cha Cha Cha, by Käärijä (Finland)
2. Samo mi se spava , by Luke Black (Serbia)
3. Because of You, by Gustaph (Belgium)
4. EAEA, by Blanca Palomo (Spain)
5. Mama ŠČ! by Let 3 (Croatia)
Obviously the exact order varies depending on the day of the week...
Closely followed by Marco Mengoli, TEYA & SALINA, Voyager, Lord of the Lost, & Diljá...
Eurovision 2023 Spotify Wrapped edition: which were your top 5 songs?
i know i’m like. two weeks late to the party BUT they meant everything to me this eurovision so :’)