A brand new star

Once again, like last year, I'm left feeling there's little left for me to say about the results of the Eurovision final; my thoughts have already been expressed elsewhere in ways much more eloquent and concise way than I would have used. I'm not thrilled about the winner for several reasons and second place finisher Ukraine would have been a much more exciting winner for me (as well as my favorite winner of the '00's, I think), but life goes on. Well, how life is going to go on for the next few months without Eurovision to distract me, I've got no idea, but apparently it does.

Let's look at Ani Lorak performing "Shady Lady" one more time, though. Love those light-up boxes.



Those disco strings in the middle 8 get me every time. And the little head bobs that accompany the beeps. When will I learn, though? I should never rewatch performances from Eurovision or national finals--they never seem to come off as great as I remember them being.

I'm sad about Sweden's result, of course, but the song is still fantastic (in my eyes); I'm not sure whether it was a matter of staging, competing with similar songs for the same votes, the song being in a style most of Europe isn't interested in, or what, but it just failed to connect with Europe. A shame, since "Hero" deserves to be remembered fondly and Charlotte thought of well--I hope that can still happen anyway, at least in Sweden. It'll be interesting to see what Sweden votes for next year--there's been kind of a "vote for something beyond what people associate Sweden with"/that fails/"vote for 'typical Swedish music'" pattern going on for the past few years--what happens next?



I would've liked to see the lovely Eurobandið higher up on the scoreboard at the end of the night, too, but I'm still happy for Iceland that they made it to the finals.



Still, ALL of these artists--three of my four favorites, the three that made it to the final--did better than my favorite last year...so I think I'm just used to my taste not lining up with Europe's in Eurovision. Plus, only four of my preferred ten may have qualified from the second semifinal and an entry I adored may not have won out in the end, but really, the final itself was really enjoyable for me.

On a slightly different but still Eurovision-related note, the UK jury's vote for the final looked roughly (though not necessarily exactly; Latvia and Norway could be reversed and Finland and Portugal, though in the right order, could possibly have one more point each) like this (thank you again!):

12 - Sweden

10 - Latvia

8 - Norway

7 - Iceland

6 - Ukraine

5 - Denmark

4 - Finland

3 - Portugal

2 - Israel

1 - Armenia