Oh crap, forgot it was Eurovision already
Oh well, lucky I had two cans of Faxe for breakfast, which got me in the right headspace to judge the first semi final...
Qualified
Albania - Liked the vibe and the vocals stood out...but who decided to have the villain from a John Wick movie appear mid-song to threaten the singer?
Estonia - Somebody tell Sabrina Carpenter it
is possible to make an interesting song with a coffee drink as the title. Also, guessing somebody in Estonia is a Night Club fan, as the choreo is similar to the Barbwire Kiss video
Iceland - That was...a lot to take in, even before the Minecraft dolphins. Thought, weirdly, I don't hate it...oh wait, there's the Simon Cowell key change
Netherlands - Started interesting, and the swapping between French and English didn't jar like it could have...and then the beat kicked in for the chorus and it got stodgy and predictable. Shame the bloke's got a great voice, but the generic beat made the song less than the sum of its parts
Norway - ...oh god, what the absolute **** is that beat for the chorus? It's so bad it is distracting me from snarking about his backing dancers being dressed like his CoD clan. This qualified? Really??? Guess the verses did a hard carry, because this was bloody awful
Poland - Well that intro was more terrifying than the pre-song Inception Horn. And then it made the Icelandic entry look minimalist. Anyway, off to see the fanfiction that has
definitely been written about the singer already...
Portugal - You thought what Portugal did to football was bad, look what they did to Incubus. Pleasantly beige aural wallpaper that will no doubt play in Portuguese bars for years, but nobody will know who it is
San Marino - Has nobody explained to Colosseum 65 that San Marino isn't Italy? And yes, I'm still irked that last year's Sammarinese entry got screwed over by the organisers...
(EDIT: And then it turned out the DJ was actually one of Eiffel 65...)
Sweden - I take it that hosting last year was
really expensive, as this gives total My Lovely Horse vibes. Denmark and Finland will have to work hard to salvage Scandinavia's musical reputation after this semi, that's all I'm saying...
Ukraine - Legit thought my monitor was busted with the oversaturated lighting. Also sure I've heard this song in at least three JRPGs. Another song which is less than the sum of its parts, as there's some impressive vocals going on, but it feels like it's missing something
Didn't Qualify
Azerbaijan - the tune's pretty good, but my god those vocals tank the song. Also, having it begin with the singer emerge through the screen like Sadako probably cost them votes, as that scared the **** out of me
Belgium - For a brief moment I thought Cody Rhodes had revived the Stardust gimmick. Also not a good sign when the Inception Horn heralding every song was the most interesting thing going on musically during the whole thing. Now can somebody remove the mouse trap from the singer's nadgers?
Croatia - I legit thought that was the Trent Reznor lookalike that Serbia sent in a couple of years ago. And I could've done without that nursery rhyme bridge, thanks
Cyprus - Either they spent their entire budget on getting Andrew Garfield to sing or, more likely, some scaffolding. Maybe pay for a song people can remember once the song finishes next year, eh?
Slovenia - Michael Fassbender has a set of pipes on him, doesn't he? No, seriously, how did Norway's absolute ****e get in but this didn't? Totally robbed