2024 - Malmö
(Malmö Arena II)



Nemo, in pink skirt and feathery jacket, climbing up a round whirligig see-saw thing.

Nemo breaking the code of our webpage by forgetting to close the <style> tag.


Marina Satti is crouched, wearing silver puffball breeches and a vest. Her nails are shimmering talons; there are rings on her fingers and there's a chain through her hair. Heart emojis rise up the portrait screen of a social media video.

Marina Satti breaking our page in a different way by performing in portrait.


Nebulossa, in black lace, draped by two semi-naked men.

Nebulossa's vixen and her cubs.


Baby Lasagna points down the lens in his lacy pirate garb.

Baby Lasagna sold a cow for some magic beats.


Bambie Thug with antlers and dark makeup, gesturing in the half-light with her long fingernails.

Like Ireland, we've all summoned a demon after one too many Babychams.



So, back to Sweden again, just in time for the Abba half-century. What could possibly go wrong?

POLITICS

Let's get this out of the way first. Because when even the winner is saying "maybe Eurovision needs a little bit of fixing", it's evident not everything was plain sailing in 2024.

Let's start with Israel. The EBU rejected calls for them to be excluded on the basis of their conduct in Gaza, and Israel, ever the diplomats, responded by submitting a song called "October Rain" which was generally considered to be a reference to the 7th October attacks by Hamas — so much so that the EBU apparently asked for a rewrite, getting it rebadged as "Hurricaine". A boycott campaign saw several acts (namely Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Switzerland, and the UK) sign a joint statement regarding "the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and particularly in Gaza, and in Israel", standing "in solidarity with the oppressed" and wishing for "peace, an immediate and lasting ceasefire, and the safe return of all hostages."

An atmosphere of boycott calls and pro-Israeli counter demonstrations seemed to take a toll on many of the entrants. The Irish, Swiss, and Greek entries missed the flag parade of the third dress rehearsal due to "a situation" and it looks like there was a real risk of acts withdrawing in the afternoon of the final. There seems to have been even more of a hard line than usual on political statement at the contest, which arguably backfired. The Irish entry was asked to change their Ogham body-paint from saying "ceasefire" and "freedom for Palestine", and while the Portuguese entry managed to wear Palestinian nail art for her final performance, it apparently took an exchange of emails between the Portuguese delegation and the EBU for the correct video to be uploaded to the Eurovision website. The atmosphere had knock-on effects in other areas too. The EBU admitted subsequently that "Due to heightened geopolitical tensions, the flag policy was more rigorously enforced by security at this year’s event" and the winning act, Nemo, told press they had to smuggle their non-binary flag into the venue "because Eurovision said no".

The EBU denied allegations that they were using anti-booing technology to disguise the responses to the Israeli entry. Whatever the reality, this technology certainly wasn't in action when executive supervisor Martin Österdahl was speaking. He got some really impressive boos. Some of that doubtless related to the above, but a further factor was the disqualification of Dutch entrant Joost Klein who was being investigated by police over a "threatening movement" made towards a female member of the production team who was filming him "against clearly made agreements". The investigation was subsequently dropped, with the senior prosecutor citing a lack of evidence that Klein "was capable of causing serious fear or that [he] had any such intention."

Ireland's Bambie Thug (kind of like Bonnie Langford cosplaying as a chaotic evil druid at a Lady Gaga concert) summoned the spirit of Napoleon XIV for their verses, intercut with a balletically pretty chorus. By the end they were stripped to their trans flag underwear and screaming like a banshee, which seems only appropriate. Leading the charge on the sillier side of things were Croatia's Baby Lasagna and his doily-decked companions, "Rim Tim Tagi Dim"-ing their way through a pirate shanty of a verse that got mixed up port-side with a shouty '90s moshpit-rowser of a chorus.

Luxembourg returned to Eurovision for the first time since 1993, picking up pretty-much where they left off by giving us a latin-infused Anglo-French frollic, spiced up by the occasional rewinding noise. Meanwhile, Spain gave us electropop duo Nebulossa, led here by the Cara-esque Mery Bas who certainly seemed to have the audience on side despite them all chanting "Zorra" at her (the Spanish for a female fox in much the same way that "bitch" is English for a female dog) — but then that was the title of the song, after all. And also the point.

There was a pattern this year for the better entries to be frenetic, upbeat, cut-and-shut sandwiches of songs, and Europe's winner was no exception: Switzerland's Nemo delivered an energetic, even gymnastic performance atop a whirligig seesaw thing. But this gimmick was by no means the be-all-and-end-all of the song — a driving whirligig in its own right, swinging from operatic falsetto to machine-gun rap to pop anthem — an autobiographical account of Nemo's own non-binary self-discovery. We rated it almost as highly as Europe did, but another frenetic casserole won out for us on the tie-break... Greece's Marina Satti, resplendent in her bacofoil puff-ball, started us off all a-crouch in mobile view with some delightfully Mediterranean warbling before kicking up into a multilayered, minimalist, ethno-urban moussaka — "da da da da" drove the lyrics as we were treated to a meze of cultural influences including traditional instruments and a hankie-waving morris dance. Gloriously chaotic, much like the contest as a whole.

For each year's songs we apply our points in the 12-10-8 style of the modern contest, irrespective of how the voting functioned at the time. In brackets is the position the song came on the night:

HERE ARE THE VOTINGS
OF THE AVIEW JURY:
12pts
(11th)
GRE 		Marina Satti
"Zari"
10pts
(1st)
SUI 		Nemo
"The Code"
8pts
(2nd)
CRO 		Baba Lasagna
"Rim Tim Tagi Dim"
7pts
(22nd)
ESP 		Nebulossa
"Zorra"
6pts
(6th)
IRE		 Bambie Thug
"Doomsday Blue"
5pts
(13th)

LUX 		Tali
"Fighter"
4pts
(24th)
AUT		 Kaleen
"We Will Rave"
3pts
(15th)
CYP 		Silia Kapsis
"Liar"
2pts
(9th)
SWE 		Marcus & Martinus
"Unforgettable"
1pt
(8th)
ARM 		Ladaniva
"Jako"

Europe had Ukraine third, France fourth, Israel fifth, Italy seventh, Portugal tenth, Germany twelfth, Lithuania 14th, Latvia, 16th, Serbia 17th, the United Kingdom 18th, Finland 19th, Estonia 20th, George 21st, Slovenia 23rd, and Norway last.

Croatia won the televote with Israel second, Ukraine third, France fourth, and Switzerland fifth. Switzerland dominated the jury vote, so it's all round theirs for 2025.


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