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borisbubbles · 2 years

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Eurovision 2021: TOP FIVE!

05. RUSSIA Manizha - “Russian Woman” 9th place

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DON’T BE AFRAID!

FUCKIN’ ICON! Unlike my usual expectations for Russia at Eurovision, which often amounted (past tense! Teehee!) to a variation of “Please lose -_-”, my hopes for Manizha were HIGH. “Russian woman” was an opposite world Russia entry, being FUN, creative and absolutely NOT threatening in terms of win potential. 😍

Even with that she shattered my expectations!

EVERY RUSSIAN WOMAN NEEDS TO KNOW!! BE STRONG ENOUGH YOU GONNA BREAK THE WALL!!

When the news came out that Manizha was collecting fabrics from all of Russia’s 50-ish federal republics for her outfit, I suspected something was up, but nobody saw the dressmobile coming.

All while making bug eyes and using the music to create a moment of pure comedy??? Which brings me to the second reason why “Russian woman” is SO fuckin’ iconic - it perfectly marries unapolegetic self-deprecating humour with fucking *dead* serious topic under an artistic vision, and pulls of ALL three without a hitch. 😍 It’s the Konstrakta of last year! “Russian woman” is simultaneously a funny novelty act and a tasteful tribute to Russia’s rich history of iconic female figureheads.

THE ICONOGRAPHY!

THE SASS!!

THE MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES!!

All of it was an instant hit, and all of it was instantly iconic! Manizha delivered, and I will forever love her for it.

BESIDES, while I will NOT address the Big War Elephant in the room, because it had zero bearing on this ranking whatsoever (ie: Russia were always coming fifth and Ukraine were always coming [see below]), “Russian woman” is the perfect capstone entry to mark the END of Russia at Eurovision 🤗:

- “Russian woman” won an NF on International Women’s Day, days after Manizha was informed about the NF in the first place <3 (also the first Russian NF since the 2012 which saw Dima and Yulia from tATu being ground into paste by off-key Uralic grannies <3) - Manizha is VOCALLY anti-Putin and also an immigrant who was ostracised for both being Too Russian and Not Russian enough, making her an excellent protagonist in the one likeable Russian entry since Youddiph. (in addition to, you know, her immensely charismatic personality, golden heart and flawless wit) - AND SHE WAS THE FIRST (and now ONLY) RUSSIAN ENTRANT TO RECEIVE *MORE* POINTS FROM THE JURY IN THE HERSTORY OF EVERDOM. 😍😍

BYE Russia, you were awful at Eurovision and we WILL NOT miss you, but your last entry will go down in the herstory books as one of the most legendary acts of all time!

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04. ITALY Måneskin - “Zitti e buoni” 1st place

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NOI SIAMO DIVERSI DA L’ORO!!

Måneskin got kinda huge over the year, huh? I’m not sure how to approach this entry - Clearly I love “Zitti e buoni” now, and yet I can’t really say I’m much of a fan? “Zitti e buoni” is noisy and repetitive, lacking a descernable melody.

And yet, I keep going back for more. I don’t begrudge them for beating France at all. I still put Italy fourth in a year I absolutely LOVE. Why is that?

Because the live was A Moment, that’s why.

“Zitti e buoni” was a great example of the fabled Outsell. In isolation, I find “ZeB” a sort of flawed good that I like, but don’t love. On a stage however, holy fuck it slaps. Måneskin as a group just have SO much allure that I cannot help myself but be glued to my screen each time they come on. Each member has SUCH distinct personalities. Casual stoner king Ethan, Controversial Icon / Permanent Sex Symbol Damiano, Little Brother Thomas who can barely hold his pineapple juice and HBIC Victoria who chaperones it her rebellious male cubs together like a mama bear.

Confession: I actually like Victoria the most out of them, it was she who who really sold me to “ZeB” (I controversially don’t find Damiano attractive at all lol) Constantly faking out the camera for shits and giggles <3 Yes, Damiano *objectively* carries it, but I looooove my rando ancilliary characters and Victoria was the best one this year had on offer.

Måneskin’s personalities were further supported by visual spectacle:. From their delectable fashion ( burgundy leather, ring-studded pantsuits that Damiano tore immediately after the reprise lmfao <3) the pyros, and the death drop, I was hooked towards everything they did. That by itself makes them deserving winners to me, but there is more.

In Eurovision, winning is always more than merely being the best, however. Jamala, Salvador, Netta, Duncan, they all have a little bit of extra, a little bit of Zeitgeist and subtext that propelled them to the win.

Likewise, Måneskin were arguably helped by the ubiquitous Covid-19 pandemic - their song, while not an ostentibly anti-lockdown anthem (although it had lines such as “che mi manca de’ll aria” 🤔), DOES have a rebellious vibe that raises a fist AGAINST being cooped up against one’s will, AGAINST a disease that has affected all of our lives, AGAINST the incompetence of our governments in dealing with it.

“Zitti e buoni” provided an outlet for all of those frustrations, being angry and cynical, poetic and raw. This is a socially crucial thing, because not having an outlet is what makes the same people vote for extreme right-wing populists during general elections. “Shut up and be good” is meant to be taken ironically, the point being that we were fed up with doing those exact two things at the time. It reflected the current situation more accurately than anyone else did!

Finally, I feel like Måneskin’s victory also represents a generational shift in the fandom- Most Måneskin fans are way younger than I am; early twenty-somethings, and so. Most people around my age group always prefered Barbara. That Måneskin beat her in the end, however narrow the margin was (25 points is basically nothing), signifies that the next generation of Eurovision fans are ready to take over from mine. Covid didn’t destroy the contest, but gave it a future, and Måneskin are the living embodiment of that.

SO LET US ALL STAN THAT THEY ARE IN LOS ANGELES RN, HAVING AN ACTUAL CAREER, RATHER THAN GRADUATING FROM THE KEIINO SCHOOL OF “DESPERATE ESC HANGERS-ON THAT SHOW UP AT EVERY YEAR”. ^_^

Also, this:

TOTALLY DOING DRUGS JUST NOT AT EUROVISION KING <3

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03. FRANCE Barbara Pravi - “Voilà” 2nd place

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Yep, I still like “Voilá” more than “Zitti e buoni”, :tehee:! Sorry that I prefer things that remind me of my childhood back in the 1950s 😛.

Barbara surely took us back to France’s Eurovision childhood with her captivating throwback to the 1950s Chanson. Young Millennials and Zoomers have been heard claiming that Barbara is dull. Excuse me?! HOW DARE YOU accuse this magnificent music maven of boringness?! An act that inspired Monika Liu to entrap Europe under her siren call (and expose Michael Ben David as an emotionally stunted cretin with no regard of personal space) all while having *that* hair is never NOT going to be a force of pure Lawful Good in a Eurovision context, deal with the facts!

UNE IDOLE QU’ON ASSASSINE

COULENT DES LÂRMES DE CROCODILE~

ÊTRE UNE *HÉROÏNE*

LA NUIT PRAVI

She left the fucking press centre in TEARS after her first rehearsal, and who can blame them?

What ultimately carried it home for me was the realness as well. We’re often forced to deal with so much BULLSHIT. The upcoming 2022 contest has us believe that Norwegians dressed up in muppet suits are non-binary space wolves, or that “Not the same” is suddenly about autism not homosexuality, or that turning vegan gets you laid, amongst OTHER things.

By contrast, an autobiographical song about the songwriter’s struggles in finding acceptance for her craft after emerging from the shadows, is some genuine fucking oxygen for me. Especially at this time.

In other words, Barbara isn’t some brainless merc performing some crappy song assigned to her against her will.

She fucking *is* the song.

Barbara is “Voilá”, period. There are only a few occasions at Eurovision where the synergy between the song and the person singing it has been this prominent, but this is one of them. “Voilá” works because Barbara lives and breathes it, reassuring that every emotional twist thrown at you is genuine.

Now, of course she still lost to Måneskin, but that strangely fits her arch as well? Barbara’s thing has always revolved around her being universally liked but also overshadowed, so it’s only fitting that the act she lost to is one of the most popular bands of the moment. I do like her more, but second place is super satisfactory end to her story for me.

There are many ways one can describe “Voilá”. A tribute to Edith Piaf. A homage to the long-standing French chanson. A gripping tale of a permanent second fiddle finally taking the stage for herself, only to place second there as well. A runner-up whose loss signals the rise of a new generation of fans, confirming that Eurovision has a future after Covid.

I however, have another description. Only, mine is a little bit shorter.

“Voilá” was a masterpiece.

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02. ICELAND Daði & Gagnamagið - “10 years” 4th place

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A slice of first rehearsal footage broke the top five in BOTH votes and finished 4th overall 😍 Anyone who still believes Diodato would have won 2020 over “Think about things” needs to fucking touch grass.

I’m not even sure WHERE to start lol? Huge fan of Daði Freyr, LOVE his work (enough to check it out regularly during the off-season!), and “10 years” was Daði unplugged. Not only was it the perfect ending to the Daði / Árny Love Song Triad, the story of Gagnamagnið at Eurovision itself was a fucking rollercoaster.

First, they were the favourites to win 2020 after going viral and being reblogged by Russell Crowe. (and again, they WOULD have won 2020, fuck this retrograde, horsecock narrative that Europe would have handed it to Italy *because* Italy gave them covid, are you stupid? [don’t answer that])

Then, we ran through entire Would He?/Would He Not? rigamarole of the 2021 participation, ending in Daði underselling “10 years” causing a lukewarm reception, at best. I loved the song immediately, obv, but Daði was clearly holding something back so you could also not at all tell how good it were or weren’t going to be. Quit playing games with my heart, Dað Freyri!!!

THEN, rehearsals started and PLOT TWIST Daði knew he exactly what we had been doing all along and delivers an act lightyears ahead of *everyone else* [other than a certain Ukrainian band that I’ll be writing about VERY soon :-)]. A crowning achievement of his trademark ingenuity AND adorkability, featuring:

Circular piano-tars!

A choir that actually sounds good!

THIS fucking catwalk effect!

Self-deprecating humour, visual spectacle, unapolegetic nerdiness, great beats, memorable gimmicks, a genuine backstory, “10 years″ just had it all. IT SLAPPED AND I WAS SMITTEN.😍

THE TIME I SPENT WATCHING, MMMMMM, SIMPLY FELT GOOD! THEY HAD A GOOD THING GOING!

Just when it looked Iceland would effortlessly cruise their way to the top five, and their godawful haters would be forced to eat a giant mixer of humble pie, OOPS Joi tested positive! 🤐 Turns out those vaccines don’t actually *prevent* you from getting Covid-19, they just prevent you from taking up hospital bed space in case you are infected. Out go the chances, they’re forced to use unfinished rehearsal footage now!! Nice to have known you, Iceland!!!

However, nobody really cared that “10 years” remained unfinished because it was so darn good, and it was voted into the top five anyway. 😍 by BOTH votes!!! 😍 Daði’s dumbass haters (/ Diodato stans) claim this happened out of sympathy, but when is Eurovision ever like fucking wellfare? Pity votes aren’t exactly a thing (moreso because pity requires you consider the recipient as less than a peer before you can give it to them.) and they’re not suddenly becoming a thing. If they were, Montaigne would never have come last in the first semi’s televote.

If anything, Iceland do *better* without the isolation, because they get to fix their light issues and camera angles like everyone else. It’s not like they would have been any *less* of an underdog under normal circumstances anyway! Not being professional singers and instead being a group made up from normies makes up the bulk of their entire appeal!

In sum, an absolutely EPIC journey no one else in this year could rival! Not ranking them first though because lmfaooooo it really is just a rehearsal, tough luck sweetcheeks.

and now for the most obvious #1′s in the history of #1′s.

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01. UKRAINE Go_A - “Shum” 5th place

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Was there ever any doubt? Finding the words of praise for “Shum” is somehow *the most challenging* thing about this entire ranking, because their awesomeness is THAT obvious! If you don’t like it, or don’t understand it, you and I cannot be friends!

“Shum” was a serve. It was taking the top spot in this ranking the second I saw the first rehearsal. It was SO good, Destiny immediately plummeted in the betting odds when she performed afterwards.

Pictured above: an artistic representation of Destiny’s winning chances.

If you thought Iceland were pretty well-rounded for a first rehearsal, know that Ukraine’s first round rehearsals were *IDENTICAL* to the live shows. They had just casually walked into Rotterdam with an act so inspired and wholesome it required ZERO tweaks going forward.

Everything about “Shum” worked. The song builds up to an epic climax, and the visuals capture this tension with flawless precision. The staing, putting them on a forested island in the middle of a wasteland (cryptic references to Chernobyl in a song about the arrival of spring <3) was pure eye-porn. Katryna SOLD it all with her face and voice and BL, contorting her body like a Queen Cobra. Little did we know that she wasn’t the snake, but the snake charmer, and she was putting all of us under her spell.

SPIN DAT TRACK:

“Shum” is Art, and its climax was an orgasm.

Of course, Go_A had a minor obstacle of their own when Katryna got sick and had to be briefly replaced by a Dutch stand-in (EMMY <3 <3 <3 <3 <3) but even without Katryna and with Emmy, “Shum” was STILL the stand out rehearsal of the day, which only shows how superior it truly was ^_^.[so much so that I told the Ukrainian HoD this *and* that I thought they’d come top five lol <3]. Can’t argue with quality, folks.

For me, “Shum” marks allso a more personal shift in my taste. Over the past decade, Ukraine has slowly, but steadily been replacing Estonia as my favourite country at Eurovision, but it was “Shum” that really manifested that change in my mind. An avant-garde dance banger that UNITED all the people with good taste behind them! As it should be!

Ukraine are the best Eurovision country at this moment in time. No other country has been this consistent at breaking out avant-garde, groundbreaking staging ideas. No other country has been pushing THIS hard for music that flies in the face of conformity. No other country has been this successful at reinventing new ways to incorporate their musical tradition into this many different genres. No other country is this good at producing the Avant-Garde entries that facilitate the contest’s growth beyond its current limits. No other. Nobody. NONE.

And thanks to “Shum” we now have an entrant that embodies this very proof within every fiber, note and pixel. It’s impossible to guess whether it will wind up as my favourite entry of the 20s by the end of the decade (if Tumblr or myself are still alive by then), but the bar has been set, and thanks to Go_A, it is set sky high.

ALL HAIL THE BEST ACT OF 2021

[Can’t WAIT for Kalush to do better, despite being way, way worse 🙄 ]

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AND THAT CONCLUDES THE END OF THE 2021 RANKING!!!!! ROLL CREDITS!!!!:

01. UKRAINE - Go_A - “Shum”

02. ICELAND - Daði & Gagnamagnið - “10 years”

03. FRANCE - Barbara Pravi - “Voilá”

04. ITALY - Måneskin - “Zitti e buoni”

05. RUSSIA - Manizha - “Russian woman”

06. SAN MARINO - Senhit ft. Flo-Rida - “Adrenalina” 07. MOLDOVA - Natalia Gordienko - “Sugar” 08. MALTA - Destiny - “Je me casse” 09. GREECE - Stefania - “Last dance” 10. SWITZERLAND - Gjon’s Tears - “Tout l’univers” 11. CROATIA - Albina - “Tick Tock” 12. BULGARIA - VICTORIA - “Growing up is getting old” 13. IRELAND - Lesley Roy - “Maps” 14. AUSTRALIA - Montaigne - “Technicolour” 15. POLAND - RAFAL - “The Ride” 16. BELGIUM - Hooverphonic - “The wrong place” 17. NETHERLANDS - Jeangu Macrooy - “Birth of a new age” 18. CYPRUS - Elena Tsagrinou - “El diablo” 19. ALBANIA - Anxhela Peristeri - “Karma” 20. ISRAEL - Eden Alene - “Set me free” 21. DENMARK - Fyr og flamme - “Øve os på hinanden“ 22. SERBIA - Hurricane - “Loco loco” 23. SWEDEN - Tusse - “Voices” 24. LITHUANIA - The Roop - “Discoteque” 25. UNITED KINGDOM - James Newman - “Embers” 26. PORTUGAL - The Black Mamba - “Love is on my side” 27. FINLAND - Blind Channel - “Dark Side” 28. NORWAY - TIX - “Fallen angel” 29. ESTONIA - Uku Suviste - “The lucky one” 30. SPAIN - Blas Cantó - “Voy a quedarme” 31. SLOVENIA - Ana Soklič - “Amen” 32. GEORGIA - Tornike Kipiani - “You” 33. LATVIA - Samanta Tina - “The moon is rising” 34. CZECH REPUBLIC - Benny Cristo - “Omaga” 35. ROMANIA - ROXEN - “Amnesia” 36. AZERBAIJAN - Efendi - “Mata Hari” 37. NORTH MACEDONIA - Vasil - “Here I stand” 38. AUSTRIA - Vincent Bueno - “Amen” 39. GERMANY - Jendrik - “I don’t feel hate” Ps: lol at my 2020 ranking being Daði first and Go_A second, but my 2021 being Go_A first and Daði second 😍. I swear that was NOT intended when I first compiled the list together, I can’t help it if my faves outconsist yours!!

PPs: HAPPY EUROVISION WEEK everyone!!! May the best Cornelia win!! PPPS: see you next week for the 2022 ranking, I guess? lol.

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