Preface:

See/listen to this Spotify playlist if you want to get a less anecdotal take on Eurovision 2023: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWVCKO3xAlT1Q

Also, every year we hear, “Why is Australia/Israel/Turkey in Eurovision?” Unless your in America. Then you don’t hear about the Eurovision. I find this to be a boring question. Australia, Israel and Turkey have shown they like being associated with European values, including liberalness, freedom of religion etc. So UK is the one I wonder about, after Brexit. Eurovision encompasses the countries that want to participate, did not just invade Ukraine, and are not in the Americas. Now on to the point.

Eurovision is an annual music competition that has little to do with music. In fact, it’s well known that backup vocals are prerecorded! Many have wrapped their heads around this contradiction by labeling it a “performance competition.” That doesn’t make it any easier to digest. What exactly is this competition about?

Eurovision’s voting is less transparent than elections. It is allegedly made up of professional juries and public televoting. The judges have some sort of rubric, which others have criticized. The public does not get directed. Also, there is a rule that five countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, and Spain) automatically move on to finals. Also, there are political allies who create voting blocks. Also, countries can join (ex: Luxemberg, next year) or be removed (Ex: Russia, last year) based on political leadership. Also, some other stuff…

As a child, I heard about Eurovision because of ABBA, the Swedish legends who beat Israel’s Kaveret five decades ago. If I had to vote between ABBA and Kaveret, I would be happy that there is a rule you can’t vote for your own country (unless you own a VPN). I recognize that I would only ever hear ABBA out at a club. They’re fantastically catchy. Yet I play Kaveret more often. If you want to stop reading here, remember that art is subjective (unlike history). While all competitions have issues, Eurovision has more. That may be why people love it.

I only started watching Eurovision after Netta’s 2018 win, by accident. I went to a bar with a friend to play ping-pong. Eurovision was on. We made fun of the bizarre, incorrect captions. We decided to continue that tradition, because international competitions are fun, and the comp is discussed at work. I say this to let you know I’m no expert on this field.

What became quickly clear from this first-hand exposure was that Eurovision winners rarely line up with fan favorites. This year, a Finnish song, Cha Cha Cha, was a fan favorite. I heard it on the streets a few times before the competition’s start. I saw memes about it all week, unlike any other song or artist in the competition (except Israel, where I live, so I will not count).

Eurovision is a music marketing competition, pretending to be a music and performance competition. Because Cha Cha Cha did not market themselves more, they had no chance.

You may find that the 2023 Eurovision winner, Sweden’s Loreen, has more streams than most of the other entries combined. Her song showed more range than others. To me, it sounded like an Ikea version of Sia. To give yet another anecdote, I spoke with friends in different countires and unanimously heard the same thing. Nobody was shouting for Loreen at the bars, especially the gay bars. Instead, they were whispering to friends, “Ugh. She’s going to win. The experts foretold it.” [It was the anniversary of ABBA’s win. So they had to.]

Finnish group Käärijä was undoubtedly the fan favorite. The public vote confirmed what we all knew. Everytime they got on, the crowds cheered. Even when I make a first edit of this, I hear my neighbor singing it. And while each year, Eurovision has many weird and wacky bands, Käärijä fit 2023 the best. They managed to out weird a group from Moldova, with bizarre fusion music, that brought out a little person to up their weird. By all metrics, Käärijä would have won if it was a song or performance competition. It’s not.

Because Eurovision is really a marketing competition, Eurovision winners tend to be middle-of-the-road pop songs. But not just any. They need to resemble trending songs on Billboard or be trending themselves. Australia’s submission this year was a likable song. It didn’t trend. It had no chance. Maneskin, a band I don’t like, checked the boxes to win in 2021. They were trending. They won. Their album was hailed by Pitchfork as “absolutely terrible at every conceivable level.”

Loreen’s marketing began during her last Eurovision win. Of course she had more listens than anyone else — She competed before. In a world where false images rule, marketeers even buy streams and press to prop up junk songs. It seems evident that if you take away the marketing, Loreen’s song has little to do with 2023. It’s a bad love song. Cha Cha Cha on the other hand, has absurdist lyrics that are very 2023. The explicit words relate to wanting a drink after a hard day — something many of us relate to. The vibe of Piña Coladas and dancing off stress resonates with the LGBT+ and ally community. All of us wanted a gradually uplifting song… not another sad girl song by the female version of Wolverine.

When you watch a cooking show, you have a sense that certain preferences are favored. White judges often comment that black competitors have “too much” spice in their food, and that’s problematic. Still, you get a sense that the winner deserved it. More seasoned cooking competition bingers can accurately predict the winner. They know what the judge wants.

Likewise, if you ever watched X-Factor, The Masked Singer, {Country}’s Got Talent, you learn the unsaid decision makers. They’re just not looking for an opera singer. And that’s fine. We all know what they’re looking for, and have yet to had issues voting accordingly.

Eurovision fails to meet any standards beyond marketing. We can know who will win based on how much money was spent on them winning, but it just feels wrong. Eurovision is supposed to represent the diverse cultures participating. Instead, entries are either a bastardized fusion of pop and cultural songs, or straight pop music, neither of which are accurate depictions of these countries. I don’t know what was Swedish about Loreen’s song, nor Israeli about Netta’s (Netta had a few Hebrew words sprinkled in?). But they had range and marketing, which goes with the new grading rubric, and a lot of tax money went to making these people win.

Since abandoning language rules, most songs are in English, even though many of these countries speak a different language. Of ~70 contestants, Ireland and Sweden have won disproportionate amounts (7 each), followed by France, Luxembourg, UK, Netherlands and Israel. On a yearly basis, how many Luxembourg songs do you listen to?

Marketing has meant that competitors can win simply by injecting a trendy topic into a horrible song. No wonder so many contestants focus on social issues like LGBT+ and Women’s rights and the prospects of war. They are not tricking anyone by adding bigger performances. There is no subtelty. Like, I’m not here to criticize Ukraine’s 2022 entry, but I think we can all silently admit they won due to being invaded, not their song. In turn, Eurovision gives you sense that you know who will win, it’s just not going to be the best song. And maybe that is OK? [Side note: As the Ukraine 2022 winners performed this year, Russia bombed the city they came from.]

So what happened this year? Käärijä is not an SEO friendly name. Who’s keyboard has an umlaut? Loreen is SEO friendly. She literally won before, amassing followers and SEO. But while both songs had horrible lyrics, Käärijä was hilarious, embedding secret messages, momentarily dancing like a human centipede and much needed smiling. Plus, neon shoulder pads are slightly more appealing than claws.

Marketed music does not express talent. Pop music does not represent the diverse nations of Eurovision. Cha Cha Cha will be played in 10 years. Tattoo wont. And I’ll maybe still be watching this mess, to see the latest crap Eurovision is pushing as normal.