Because the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 is coming closer, I’ve decided to write a post about this. I don’t like the fact that the juries are usually morons and that most of the tele-voting is done on a “we like this country the most”, rather than “we like this song the most”. This year, forty songs (and countries) will compete, 17 in the first semi-final (on May 10th), 18 in the second one (May 12), and the Big Five will get straight to the Final, along ten of the best-ranked songs in each of the two semi-finals.
I’ve made a playlist with the participating songs, at least the ones that have been selected so far, as most of them should be selected by mid-March. Under the playlist you’ll see the songs that I consider to be my favourites (or least).
The playlist, for convenient listening.
The very good songs
Intelligent Music Project - Intention
Bulgaria 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
The Bulgarians have hired a Dave Grohl clone to do a pop-ish Everlong. Great song from our neighbours.
Monika Liu - Sentimentai
Lithuania 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
Smooth jazz meets pop and adds up to a silky sensual song. One of the best.
Zdob și Zdub & Advahov Brothers - Trenulețul (The Train)
Moldova 🎤 🎤 🎤
Eurovision veterans are back with a folklore-rock song, now with the help of the Advahov Brothers taraf. All of them wonderful musicians. The song itself is good, but still far away from their mega-hit “Boonika Bate Doba”.
Kalush Orchestra – Stefania
Ukraine 🎤 🎤 🎤
Very good hip-hop mixed with ethnic motives. Seems like an eastern European motive in the last few years to return to folklore, and this is catchy. Fingers crossed for them.
Subwoolfer - Give That Wolf A Banana
Norway 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
This is why Eurovision was created. To bring out the craziest, catchiest, weirdest song, and put it in the spotlight. Six microphones, because it’s so meta, it might win.
The Rasmus - Jezebel
Finland 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
Great song, has a lot of potential. Also nice to see The Rasmus back in the spotlight, and I think Lauri Ylönen is a vampire, because he still looks like 16. Top 10 song for sure.
Andrea - Circles
North Macedonia 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
Catchy song, great lyrics, Andrea’s voice is excellent, definitely a top 10 song.
Ochman - River
Poland 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
One of the competition’s favourites this year, River is a strong song, taking advantage of Krystian’s great voice.
Malik Harris - Rockstars
Germany 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
Germany comes with a strong pop song but doesn’t seem to be very different than 80% of the charts now. Maybe that’s their recipe for success.
Mahmood & Blanco - Brividi
Italy 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤
The Sanremo winners have a very good sentimental song, but I’m not sure if it’ll appeal to the broad European audience. Top 5 for me, for sure.
Some other songs that I liked:
S10 - De Diepte - Netherlands 🎤 🎤 🎤
Good sound, good voice, I see it finishing somewhere in the first half. Youtube
Mia Dimšić - Guilty Pleasure - Croatia 🎤 🎤 🎤
Good easy pop, Mia’s voice is excellent. Definitely first half. Youtube
We Are Domi - Lights Off - Czech Republic 🎤 🎤 🎤
Good voice, great catchy pop song, but doesn’t strike me in particular. It’s a nice listen though
Reddi - The Show - Denmark 🎤 🎤 🎤
Good pop-rock song, nice addition with the piano, excellent effort from them.
Stefan - Hope - Estonia 🎤 🎤 🎤
Very good song, reminding of the old spaghetti western soundtracks. Also video is filmed where some western was taped 104 years ago.
What the fuck
Citi Zēni - Eat Your Salad - Latvia 🎤 🎤
That’s what you get when you water your salad with cocaine. Please stop.
Sheldon Riley - Not the Same - Australia 🎤 🎤
Just like their British colonialists, the Australians sent a good voice, but a shit song. Sad
2024 Edit: Apparently this was removed along with the entire account. This is what you get for making shit.
Michael Ben David - I.M - Israel 🎤
Great voice, started like a male version of Nina Simone’s “I’m Feeling Good”, and then turned to literally shit.
Achille Lauro - Stripper - San Marino 🎤
Achille had a good song, “Domenica” at Sanremo 2022. Somehow he decided to represent San Marino with this. Wtf Achille, go home, you’re not Måneskin.
Konstrakta - In Corpore Sano - Serbia 🎤
The voice is not bad, but it feels like Kraftwerk on very very very bad drugs. I know we’re during a pandemic, but this girl is washing her hands for 2 minutes. That’s not healthy.
WRS - Stripper - Romania 🎤
As usual, Romania avoided to host the show next year by choosing yet another bad song, feels like a 2022 Despacito, but in the bad way. I’m thinking top 5 (:
Ola mi bebebe
Llama me, llama me
