Eurovision 2019: The Entries That Almost Were

How time has flown by! It’s already almost a quarter into 2019 and this year’s Eurovision lineup is all set. For various reasons I wasn’t able to collect my thoughts during preselection season, but before getting into my thoughts on the actual entries I wanted to highlight some of the entries from this year’s national finals. 

Australia’s Courtney Act remained the only performer from this season that I have seen in solo concert. She was great so it was hard to say that “Fight For Love” wasn’t on the right choice. The verses take too long to get going and the chorus has some really awkward high notes. It’s a house We Got Love with a sprinkling of If Love Was a Crime, but without its catchiness. After a month I liked it a lot more through exposure therapy and at least it’s gaining traction on Spotify. 

The Electric Fields were the real breakout stars of Australia’s first national final. “2000 and Whatever” is a new age banger with a unique soulful voice that completely stomps over the competition, but in an uplifting way. We could have heard Its downfall might have been the amount of vocal sampling both in the lead and backing vocals which would have been hard to reproduce live. I hope this isn’t the last opportunity for us to hear Australian Aboriginal languages at Eurovision. 

Speaking of new languages, Bella Santiago’s “Army of Love” was the best song in the Romanian national final. This slice of ethno-dance-pop would have been a natural fit for the Eurovision stage, with a tropical update for the late 2010’s, but the real unique selling point was the Tagalog rap bridge. She would have earned the Filipino/a diaspora vote for sure. 

The final lineup is missing a good, strong, catchy rock song, maybe because by now the genre is a little dated (not like that stops anyone in Eurovision). The best such contender was “Cosa ti aspetti da me” by Loredana Bertè in Italy. Musically the successor to last year’s entry (listen to them one after the other, the intros echo each other) with a classic gravely Italian vocal. The melody is immediate and I can’t stop listening to this one. 

Portugal has really stepped up their game after winning and seemed to have more good songs in this year’s Festival da Canção than the entire 2000s. “Igual a Ti” by NBC was a powerful emotional ballad that might have been undid by the overemotive, theatrical gesturing in its performance. I want to find a time machine and drop it in a random year before 2016 so it can get a top 10 like it deserves. 

On the opposite end of the quality spectrum, the Belarussian open audition selection brought us “Kinky Boots” by the UK’s own Daz Sampson & Nona. This is a blessing that would have been contemporary only in the Gina G days and was outdated by the time semifinals were introduced. If it did not have contemporary technological references, I would have assumed this was written in the mid-to-late 1990s. It would be completely horrible for eurovision but it brings me such nostalgia for those Dance Dance Revolution days when Konami kept releasing new entries.

 Another audition round casualty was “Ca Adriano Celentano” by LUME from Moldova. Though this is also dated, especially those English lyrics in the verses, it’s unmistakably Eurovision fun. It’s basically “Hora Din Moldova” 10 years later, which isn’t a bad thing. 

Estonia’s Eesti Laul has a bit of a reputation for offbeat and experimental songs, despite safer winners as of late. The reputation was reconfirmed this year by “Wo sind die katzen?” by Kaia Tamm. It’s an electroclash song with lyrics in German and meowing. Judging the song without the live performance would be a mistake, with its renegade Alice in Wonderland catgirl and superimposed cat heads. 

Sweden time! This year’s Melodifestivalen was notable for the number of good songs staying in the semifinals, most notably “Tempo” by Margaret, but my favorite of the bunch was “Somebody Wants” by The Lovers of Valdaro. This funky synthpop song immediately let me to look up their back catalog on Spotify, which is far too short. I hope this isn’t the last we see of them. 

Melodifestivalen was also personally notable for two past winners with songs that were better than the ones they won with. Anne Bergendahl was back with a schlager vengeance with "Ashes to Ashes."  Impressively, the lyrics are made up of incomprehensible imagery to surpass her first song (“Like the top of the mountain/Like a wishing well fountain/I am the luck of the draw”). And I far prefer “I Do” by Arvingarna to “Eloise,” both thematically and musically. 

 Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate to talk about Eurovision entries that missed out without talking about the controversial selection in Ukraine which ultimately withdrew. "Siren Song" by MARUV is contemporary, sexy, and mysterious, pulling you deeper into dangerous water like the mythological creature of its title. MARUV and her song will be sorely missed, and would have been in my and many others' top 10s.

Next week, I will start my ranking of all of this year's Eurovision entries, in reverse order as in all past years.