It feels like every year I go into the Eurovision song contest thinking, meh, I’ll watch a bit, see if it grabs me, but I’m really not that bothered this time round. Almost like moving the twenty minute rule from my film watching into the song contest arena as well. I can’t quite believe it’s been two years since Sam Ryder, and I pretty much just want to relive that year over and over instead.

Producing the goods

But here we are, 2024’s contest has been and gone and a new winner has been crowned. I was struck this year by how much the production has moved forward. The intro postcards for each artist featured clips of previous entries for their country and even the more recent ones are really just singers and musicians and occasionally a bit of funky lighting or pyrotechnic glamour. This time, it felt like watching well produced music videos each and every time.

If you take the UK entry, which was bravely sung by Olly Alexander and received no points from the voting public (bit harsh, but I do get it), it was a severe case of style over substance. Intense staging, camera trickery to make it look like people were upside down, and a performance that the people in the arena couldn’t see for the first couple of minutes. I felt like Olly’s vocals were hampered by the focus on the choreography… but he wasn’t the only one.

Many of the acts had a lot going on, and whilst I’m certainly not unhappy about progress and a greater spectacle of entertainment, it can’t come at a cost of the purity rules of the song contest at heart. The songs are so much better than they used to be, with the filter of the qualifying rounds, so they deserve to be delivered in the best way they can - it just needs to be the right balance.

The maths test

This year was the first time that I sort of understood what the new voting system was trying to achieve. Since they flipped it all around so that the guest speakers from each country give the jury votes and then the telephone votes come in a flurry at the end, I’ve been raging about it. It infuriated me to waste so much time and sitting through those painful communication delays, with the constant refrain ‘it could all change with the televoting’. What was the point of it then?

Something happened this time that I was invested in the results, I did the maths, I was really focused on who could win and whether there were enough points and that actually made the swing at the end really interesting. Of course, it didn’t end up changing the result - Switzerland took victory comfortably - but, now I know, that as long as you’re prepared to do degree level maths, the new results system can be quite exciting.

Picking favourites

It wasn’t until the next day that I remembered that I’d entered in a sweepstake for the Eurovision winner, I hadn’t even checked which two countries had been allotted to me! That potentially would have made it even more exciting, although in the end I had Ukraine and Estonia, which didn’t place that well.

My favourite ended up being Cyprus, which wasn’t a stand out track at all, but oh my god, this one is such a perfect example of the guilty pleasure pop music I love - it was like watching Holly Valance all over again!

Ultimately, controversies aside, the Eurovision Song Contest continued to show that love comes first, equality is everything, and music can unite us all.