Eurovision 2024: 10 Tracks You Should Know Before the Finals
Here are some of the most compelling songs and important players from this year's Eurovision Song Contest. I start this survey with a countdown of my personal Top 6, merely because of the flow of variety of styles of song on display this year. The four I have included after are also high on my list and include some crowd favorites. They are there for a reason!
If you're new to Eurovision, I just wrote a Primer which you can find here. (If you subscribe for free, you currently get all of my articles including this one.)
I highly recommend turning your Subtitles On! Most of the songs have English translations embedded in their official music videos, which makes a big difference in understanding the overall song.
#6 - ARMENIA - Ladaniva - "Jako"
"Jako" bounds into frame in traditional Armenian garb and pigtails. Her elders have admonished her to behave like a young lady but, she pouts, she doesn't want to! Ladaniva is a pop-folk duo with viral hits in Armenia, and they have brought the full flavor of folk to Eurovision, with lots of Armenian clichés like pomegranates and colorful rugs. Folksploitation is one of the joys of Eurovision, and this is an energetic song with a fun message. Singer Jaklin Baghdasaryan has an infectious energy, pulls funny faces, and has already proven that she can milk the call-and-response section of this song with a live audience. The only disappointing thing is that it ends abruptly without a big finish.
#5 - UK - Olly Alexander - "Dizzy"
In the global marketplace, the UK is a pop powerhouse, but in Eurovision they have a history of sending stinkers. Now they have foregone national finals for a surprisingly discerning internal selection. (Germany: please copy this.) Olly Alexander is already a chart-topping singer and accomplished actor. "Dizzy" is a dance-floor love song with a tasteful arrangement: retro synth sounds are layered subtly with bells. The restraint of the verses foregrounds the song's pulse like a racing heart. The chorus takes over with a swirling arpeggio that dips into modality - not major or minor - the effect is musically unstable and dizzying. The spoken word bridge is a delightful, Britpop cliché. The music video is fantastic, and I hope their staging for the Finals can bring some of this wow factor.
#4 - ITALY - Angelina Mango - "La noia"
Latin rhythms are extremely popular across the Mediterranean, so it's not surprising to hear a strong reggaeton beat driving Italy's entry. But Angelina Mango is not your standard pop diva; she is a songwriter and has more on her mind than frivolity. "La noia" is boredom, and according to the lyrics it's a good thing: you're not really living life if you don't have time with nothing to do. Which sounds like a profound statement of self-care, except that the video muddies things by portraying her as so rich that servants are doing everything for her. Boredom is also a luxury. Mango is polling high in the popular vote, but she needs a strong performance to close this. I don't think she's a big dancer, and this song doesn't give her any time to catch her breath for aerobics anyway. But she's very charismatic; I'm addicted to the way she spits the word "to-TAL".
#3 - NORWAY - Gåte - "Ulveham"
Norway is 100% the country most likely to send high fantasy LARPing to the Eurovision stage, and Gåte's song is literally based on a medieval ballad. Guitar power chords are layered over rumbling drums in a massive crescendo, as singer Gunnhild Sundli spins on a lazy susan, writhing like Kate Bush. As the chorus bursts with a climax of energy, her voice dips down into an uncomfortable register that makes her voice briefly rasp; it's not a mistake but a feature of a traditional Norwegian herding call, the kulokk. I love unique vocals, and I love the way this band uses shifting harmonies to build tension up to cinematic climaxes. The jury is unlikely to be kind to this paradigm and see only its simple ABAB structure. The song is also pretty obviously an abridged version of itself to fit into Eurovision's strict time constraints.
#2 - SWITZERLAND - Nemo - "The Code"
It's hard to believe that this song was written without the music video in mind, which decodes the song's complex narrative structure and blend of genres. A verse underscored with a house beat gives way to an operatic pre-chorus (literally!), giving falsetto coloratura straight out of The Magic Flute's "Queen of the Night". After a big chorus, the song suddenly changes to rap. A lot of songs use rap in the bridge; here it is more a part of the chaotic fabric of the song. Nemo's story is about identity, specifically non-binary identity. They cannot be constrained to the codes of one gender identity, and their song reflects that by breaking the rules of genre.
#1 - GREECE - Marina Satti - "ZARI"
The video starts with Greek folk kitsch, and slo-mo footage of families reunited in airports. Then the real song starts with an incessant, annoyingly-pitched note, some folk drums, and Marina's voice pitched high in a traditional Greek style. She invites us on a tour of Greece, but when we get in her car, she presses the pedal to the metal, and into a cacophony of urban "zoomer" sounds while her German-coded tourist hangs on for dear life. Crowds descend on the Parthenon to capture Tik Toks and are serenaded in cafes with ouzo and arm-in-arm dancing. The beat sounds like reggaeton again, but Satti will tell you it's a traditional folk rhythm that's native to this area too.
Greek audiences were taken aback when Satti unveiled her song with this video; it is all of the tourist cliches they abhor writ in ugly, bold letters. But that's the whole point. Greece is not just the folk kitsch stereotypes, or the sophisticated pop music they usually send to Eurovision. Athens is both a bustling cosmopolitan center, and a hotspot for international tourists, and the birthplace of some of the world's most important thinkers and ideologies, all at once. The chaotic nature of this song comes from the fact that it was painstakingly stitched together from a dozen publicly-sourced song entries. Marina Satti, equally at home in modern pop and Greek folk aesthetics, is the producer of her song and video in a way that is rare among performing artists, and her song is a richly crafted mosaic of the messiness of her country that gets better with every listen. This Is Greece.
IRELAND - Bambie Thug - "Doomsday Blue"
No, you didn't read that wrong; this isn't Iceland's entry. The larger island - known for breezy folk/pop singer-songwriters - has provided this year's most extreme track: a primal shriek of an angry goth girl breakup song. I love the weirdness of the contrasting chorus - a sunny music box jewel - although I'm less crazy about the gurgling bass line (which merely doubles the acoustic guitar line over it). A love-it or hate-it track with a slim chance of qualifying for the finals but Bambie Thug is an outsized presence who would be a good contrast in the final lineup.
CROATIA - Baby Lasagna - "Rim Tim Tagi Dim"
Over an incongruous thrash metal riff, Baby Lasagna announces that he's sold his cow: he's being forced to move to the city to earn money. The video, like Armenia's, portrays a fantasy version of rural Croatia, although the youth unemployment and urbanization fears in the Balkans are very real. Baby Lasagna is a real-life Eurovision Cinderella story. The song is entirely self-made, and he was only an alternate in Croatia's national finals; he only got to perform because another artist dropped out. Eurovision crowds love this stuff and the inexperienced Baby Lasagna has been diligently improving his live performance in leaps and bounds.
UKRAINE - alyona alyona & Jerry Heil - "Teresa & Maria"
Ukraine always sends a very solid entry that injects Ukrainian folk sounds into contemporary genres like electronica or hip-hop. In the last 10 years, they have won twice, and it's hard not to notice that those wins both came after being invaded by Russia. Both songs were worthy of the win, but they both had emotional context that surely boosted the audience vote (remember: everyone votes for their Top 10, so songs that are universally in people's Top 5 do a lot better than songs that are love-it or hate-it). "Teresa & Maria" has an interesting structure and is a collaboration between two artists. After a folk intro, an invocation of spring similar to one used by previous artist Go_A, the song has an arcing ABA structure and paints an evocative picture of the suffering of the two titular saints.
THE NETHERLANDS - Joost Klein - "Europapa"
To cap off this list, there was never anywhere I could end it then with the most Eurovision song imaginable. It starts out weirdly sounding like an advertisement for the EU, proclaiming how great it is to travel around without a visa (he doesn't even miss fish & chips!). But the lyrics start to turn weirdly dark in the second verse, while the music remains bubbly dance-pop. There are references throughout the video to Dutch popular culture in the 2000s, and we see Joost's past, present and future selves all trapped in his childhood bedroom.
Joost lost both of his parents when he was a very young kid, and his rap songs tend to be laced with heartbreaking lyrics about overcoming this trauma. "Europapa" will likely never be a song I will listen to casually, as the Dutch gabber techno style which is featured in the bridge is just one of the elements that I find a little obnoxious. But you can't deny that Joost Klein wrote a heartfelt and nuanced song that celebrates his putting his past behind him in the most giddily Eurovision way possible. He dreamed of being at Eurovision all his life, and he wrote this song for Eurovision.
It seems "Europapa" has the most views of any Eurovision song this year, and The Netherlands is going all out to promote the song and provide a staging that will wow us next week. Rather than the usual two front-runners, I think we have three that will be really close this year - Croatia, Switzerland & the Netherlands - all popular songs, and small variations in both the jury and popular vote could swing the top prize to any of them.