MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”
17th place
My feelings on Mélovin haven’t changed at all since the preshow. I always found his presence in this year’s Eurovision to be one I liked, but very little more. Know that I’m fully aware of all the little Mélovers reading this post probably ready to cry outrage and ugh… Why do I have this inkling I’ll have to spend more time explaining why I didn’t rank Mélovin higher, as opposed to why I like him?
Anyway: why does Mélovin rank as high as he does? He was pretty laffos, I thought. He greeted us with THIS:
and then proceeded to do THIS:
which is one of the best entrances to any Eurovision performance, period. Mélovin as a performer, is largely focused on form, rather than function, and he’s pretty good at it: His performances are rife with high octane drama and incomprehensible English, which all builds up to his mysterious persona. His impromptu interview with Filomena where he basically came out as an irl vampire was hilar because it CLEARLY wasn’t a part of the script they had rehearsed beforehand and she had to instantly break it off <3
Ultimately, I would say there are two reasons to like Mélovin: His Cult of Personality and the Spectacle Show he brings with him.
you know there’s a “but” incoming ;)
but unfortunately for Mélovin, he kinda underwhelmed me with both. During Vidbir he had to contend for my affection with coochie-flashing cougresses,
and whatever these stonergods were <3
Therefore, Mélovin was always the second-to-fourth best option, depending on how I feel about Kadnay and Vilna at the moment. In Eurovision proper it only became worse, which gave us many colourful personalities (Zibbz, Elina, Eleni, Vanja, Lea Sirk, Benjamin, Netta, Sennek, Rasmussen, Ieva, Saara, AWS, too many to sum up) and amongst those the aloof weirdo in Dracula drag didn’t quite stand out enough for me.
Mélovin desperately seeks fame and tries to accomplish this by being many things at once: singer, songwriter, activist, fashion designer, goth, perfume distiller, Dracula Impersonator, chandler, accountant, stunt driver, mechanical winch operator, mixologist, warlock, make up artist (posting this pic again because it’s my fave pic of the preshow:
) which is inherently INTERESTING but also much to take in, like… In Eurovision, where everyone’s individual backstage time amounts to 2-8 minutes of collective footage*, it becomes a wash of traits I care little for. (*interviews not counted, since ESC interviews are boring 95% of the time. The remaining 5% is when DebanGoddess does them)
As for the spectacle side, the act had the Best Start Ever, but “Under the ladder” is not a particularly strong entry; the fact that Mélovin is largely incomprehensible is a huge net plus because the song itself one of the usual “belief in yourself” anthems that make up 57% of this contest’s canon and it’s the Mélovinese that makes it distinguishable. Either way, the song is average, meaning that an epic act is NEEDED to keep interest going. Moldova, Cyprus and Germany all nailed this very hard, outgrowing their mediocre songs. Ukraine, not so much. Mélovin’s act peaks at second forty-five and then kinda falls flat, despite the backing choir’s best efforts. The showstopper, the Flaming Piano, looked way better during Vidbir.
What I’m trying to say is: What we saw was good, but there’s something missing for me. Some spark. Some insanity. Some consistency. For all his promised drama and mystery, Mélovin is weirdly unmemorable within this year, which is a problem considering that “making a huge splash” is what he’s all about. I don’t think Eurovision is made for the Mélovins of our world. Put them inside glass cages or on reality shows (precumming at the thought of Mélovin on Project Runway <3), but they’re wasted on Eurovision where their brand of crazy is, ironically, too ridiculous to thrive.
VIDBIR ADDENDUM
I probably could’ve written this with fewer words, but I really wanted to pay tribute to the best national selection in this year. It really speaks for Mélovin’s inherent goodness that he won it, even if he weren’t my favourite at any point during the show. If you’ve missed Vidbir, I’ve included links to the top four below:
Melovin - Under the Ladder (Vidbir)
Tayanna - “Lelya”
Vilna - “Forest Song”
Kadnay - “Beat of the universe”
PS: There are days where I like Kadnay even more than Tayanna. VEND. FIYAH. GUY. DMEEEEEEEE.
19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)
20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)
21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)
22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)
23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)
24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)
25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)
26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)
27. Norway (Alexander Rybak - “That’s how you write a song”)
28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)
29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)
30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)
31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)
32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)
33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)
34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)
35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)
36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)
37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)
38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)
39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)
40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)
41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)
42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)
43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)
yousharknotpass
izzy806
titsay
dailybridgerton
