“We need more hip hop and rap in Eurovision. Who See's "Igranka" was robbed so bad. The closest thing we have to "rap" was a short verse in Sertab Erener's "Every Way That I Can". It's not even a fully hip hop or rap song, either. Discrimination against this genre needs to end. I really wish a hip hop and/or rap song makes it to the grand finals and even better, wins.“
Montenegro joined the Eurovision bandwagon late when you consider Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina join in 1993. They were attached to Serbia for a considerable time so I suppose that had something to do with it.
They have taken this year off this year, and they will come back next year or the year after with something similar to what we've heard before. The problem I suppose if that when they do present a song that is worthy of attention, it is either ignored or presented in a way no one really appreciates it. Igranka is a banger; but it didn’t get enough from the voters to get it through to the final. Performance was a bit of a mess,, but decent.
25. Francesca Michelin - “No degree of separation”
Italy 2016
Man, we’re deep into the endgame and at this point every elimination starts to mentally hurt.
“Nessun grado di separazione” is a fantastic song. it is a moody, melodic, genuinely touching showcase of palpable social anxiety, brightened up by frivolous jiggles and Animal Crossing-inspired staging. 😍 Its lyrics tackle the subject of “falling in love” with disarming accuracy and poetic justice. When you fall in love with somebody, it really is a question of resistance, of trying to stay level-headed and rational, of trying to not speak from the mind, not the heart, and then flare of emotion lights up from the inside, carving a path in your chest, until
THERE IS NO DEGREE OF SEPARATION
THERE IS NO DEGREE OF HESITATION
THERE IS NO DEGREE OF SPACE BETWEEN US
WE ARE STARS ALIGNED TOGETHER
DANCING THROUGH THE SKY, WE ARE SHININ’
Hands down my favourite language shift ever. Each time Francesca delivers it, time stands still, as you take in the expanse of the universe, the beauty of love and the profoundness of life.
Naturalmente, Francesca is also a fantastic performer for me. It really pains me that she was less good in the Grand Final, because her SF performance was genuinely worthy of a top five spot on this ranking. Yet, at the same time, Francesca is clearly upset at herself that she was worse and god my overthinking, underachieving perfectionist-with-a-crippingly-fear-of-not-being-good-enough self can RELATE SO HARD to that. 😭
*YOU* ARE PRECIOUS, Francesca. Grazie.
Easily the best entry Italy have ever brought at Eurovision...
What a delight “Soldi” was. Shame on me though. Between, all the madness of Hatari’s assholery, Serhat’s qualification, ZalaGasper’s interview gold, Bilal’s revamp, Michela & Miki’s staging miracles, Sergey’s struggles to keep his homosexuality under wraps, Duncan’s staging disaster, Jurij’s bedroom eyes and 2019: A Kate Oddyssey, I had completely forgotten about Mahmood.
Which made the rediscovery of “Soldi” all the greater. 😍 THIS 👏 SONG 👏 FUCKING 👏 SLAPS. 👏 even the B-material things such as the snappy camerawork, the arabic middle-eight and rhyming “Ramadan” with “Jackie Chan” are mindblowingly awesome.
It hard to pick a favourite aspect though. The backdrop, the beat, the dancing, Mahmood’s vocals and miming all come together in a song that is supereffective in getting the pain across while also simultaneously remaining fun, addictive and highly energetic. Mahmood completely DISMANTLES bad parenting while also clowning the xenophobic pieces of shit that tried to bully him off Eurovision. It’s that combination of genuine emotional pulling, righteous ownage and let’s face it, a fucking amazing song that makes coming back to Mahmood for another listen the easiest decision ever. *CLAP*CLAP*, motherfuckers. 👏
Best moment of 2018: Lea Sirk becomes the best shock qualifier of ALL TIMES. Honestly, a trash fairy with a trap song that she wrote in under two hours has NO BUSINESS being this good, but it is. 😍
Remember the Israeli’s that cheered for Hatari? “Hvale, ne!” is the jury equivalent to that. It’s a song that righteously calls out the FAKENESS of the music industry <3 THAT WAS ALSO LIKED BY THE JURIES <333332456 😍😍😍
Besides this “Hvala, ne!” is a wild ride taking us to lands of cotton candy braids and trashbag couture with an impeccable, show-stopping choreography, an earworm of a beat and just general kick ass energy. Lea operates on a near-inhuman level of pure CONTENT. Every second she delivers something of value, be it choreography or a snarky note or a hilarious facial expression “Hvala ne!” is riddled with little nuggets like that, which are hard to list in text, so here are a couple of gifs:
and yes, of course, the “break”. 😍
Being able to pull that off not ONCE, but TWICE and STILL making it look fresh and novel <3 “Hvala, ne!” is effortlessly sleek, unapolegetically non-conformist, shamelessly gimmicky and 100% pure awesomeness. Slovenia may be a tiny country geographically but they burst with raw TALENT. Obrigado sim!
ps: Slovenia reportedly hating Lea now because she was trashtalking ZalaGasper’s victory over RAIVEN <3 lmfao Lea <3 ANGELS <3
💃 Vodim te na IGRANKU 💃
💃 Na na na na IGRANKU 💃
💃 Ku ku ku ku IGRANKU 💃
💃 Vodim te na IGRANKU 💃
I should not get ahead of myself, but jesus fuck, what a TRIP.
So anyway, are Who See dressed like austronauts to signal that “Igranka” isn’t of this fucking planet, or? “Igranka” a fun party song, in which Who See tramp about dressed like Armstrong and Lightyear, flanked by 2013′s ubiquitous dubstep. Good? Sure.🤔 Funny? Certainly. 😁 However, nothing superexciting so far.
Until...
Who See go from a weird heteronormative rap effort that is lowkey fun to an utterly unhinged acid trip the SECOND Nina Zizic is lifted onto the stage by a dumbwaiter and then proceeds to collect every scalp in the gaylaxy. Remember how I said 2013 had EPIC female entrances? This is a top five entrance probably in the history of live performances. SLAIN, DECEASED, EVAPORATED every single time.
Europe’s cyborg seraph.
and I mean, you’d think this one-time gimmick would get stale over time, but “Ingranka” actually gets better with every listen. I’m at the point where I can NO LONGER resist the ululating siren call to don a visor and a pair of pvc wings, and make overdramatic shouty entrances everywhere just like Nina the few times I choose to leave my mother’s basement. VODIM TE NA IGRANKU.
Is this Donatan shade for not being there? GOOD! We at BorisBubbles (so basically, I) believe in gender equality and since the wymyn do all of the work here, I’ve decided to not credit him. 🤭
Anyway, let’s just JUMP right in because dammit “My Slowianie” is such a RIDE. It’s entire objective appears to be... to convince everyone that ~Slavic Women~ are better, at everything than non-slavic women and, well, being slavic myself this message speaks to me. Not to mention that Cleo teaches us this paramount interculteral lesson in the most hilariously blunt fashion ever.
SPECIAL THINGS WE HAVE IN OUR GENES
MAKES US PROUD OF OUR NATURAL SHAPES
CREAM AND BUTTER TASTE SO GOOD
WE PREPARED FOR YOU DELICIOUS FOOD
OUR BEAUTY’S FAMOUS ALL OVER THE WORLD
YOU GOTTA SEE FOR YOURSELF AND THEN YOU WILL KNOW 😉
and dammit Cleo doesn’t underdeliver, doesn’t she? Three minutes of loud in your face SUPERIORITY. 😍 One could argue that “My slowianie” is SOCIALLY REPRESSING WOMEN, like many terfs did but like... get over you -- Sophie Ellis-Bextor, BorisBubbles. I don’t think any of us have the right to tell (other) women what they can or can’t do because of their breasts and oestrogen. These ladies agreed to do this song/act and are completely facetious while doing it. It’s a spoof. Laugh. or don’t laugh, I don’t care, really. Be a humourless non-slavic frump if you must. As far as I am concerned, “My slowianie” is a thing of CHARMING BEAUTY :shakes what his momma gave him:/ :claps his hands to this music:
and in this update we say goodbye to Italy, Montenegro and Poland. Read my thoughts on them below:
ITALY
Italy before their return is one of the biggest snoozefests in Eurovision and now look at that chart. They were near impeccable in this decade and hopefully can win a third time soon (honestly the fact that they came so close to winning four times in this decade and still didn’t is one of the biggest mysteries of 2010s Eurovision imo.)
MONTENEGRO
Montenegro are the Georgia of the Balkans: they often go for experimental shit, just cuz they can. Unfortunately, their shit often is just that: shit.
POLAND
Poland at Eurovision is a big ball of meh, mostly because they can’t, at all, select songs or entrants that sound good. Cleo and Michal are forever though, so it’s not completely without merit.
I still can’t understand how this did not qualify for the final. But maybe rapping astronauts is too far forward for Europeans. Great props to Nina who was for me the star of the performance. As a whole, congratulations to Montenegro for choosing something different that will make people sit up and take notice.