Tonight represents the first SUPER SATURDAY of the Eurovision 2024 season. By the time tomorrow rolls around, we’ll know who will be representing Eurovision for Malta, Norway, Spain and Ukraine. We also have semifinal heats going on in Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden, so the control central is going to be ON FIRE (TM 2020 The Roop).
But this year’s Super Saturday is throwing me into a bit of an existential crisis. This Eurovision season, I’ve been a little more burnt out than I usually am for a January. The seasonal affective disorder is affecting, y’all!
As per usual, Eurovision has been one thing that has been an uplifting distraction, but tonight, we’re going to lose a song or two that I have really loved – potentially in favour of a song that I have actively derided. And I don’t know if I’m ready to lose some of these pals!
But having said that, let’s go through a highly biased assessment of what could happen tonight:
MALTA
Conventional wisdom has two songs potentially taking it tonight: Sarah Bonnici’s Loop or Matt Blxck’s Banana. Sarah Bonnici has come with a conventional high energy girl bop. I enjoyed it while it was playing and then immediately forgot it. Matt Blxck, my favorite pansexual chaos goblin, has brought 50% of a good song, and 50% of a song with Sean Banan’s fingerprints all over it. If it wins, I will be absolutely gutted that the Eurovision public at large will not know the joy of watching Matt Blxck sass some people the morning after the night before, when he gleefully led them into regrettable decisions involving large amounts of gin, tonic and other substances. I very much want Matt Blxck to go to Eurovision, but with a song that represents HIM.
For that reason, my hope for a win in tonight’s final is Greta Tude’s Topic (Bla Bla).
Is this original? Hardly. Variations of this song are performed ad nauseam on every talent show episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. But it’s fun, and it’s catchy, and Greta Tude manages to keep what can be a tired formula sounding fresh for three minutes. If Eurovision is Gay Christmas, as Bambie Thug has reminded us this week, shouldn’t we have some sparkly and frivolous little baubles to go on the tree? Greta Tude fits that bill.
Honourable mention here goes to Miriana Conte’s Venom, which is a fabulous girlboss banger with some opportunities for some impressive vocal trills. But the success of this one will come down to the staging – Miriana will need some high-action backup dancers rolling around her to match the stage energy with the vocal dynamics.
And please, don’t try to tell me that there are people with talent who can sing participating in the Maltese final. No doubt! There are some ballads in there. But Eurovision is a television show, and just having a good singer perform a ballad guarantees nothing without some sort of emotional connection to the song. The best thing Malta can hope for is to make Malmo dance.
NORWAY
First of all, let’s address the Gate controversy (and I’m typing this on a computer without a special keyboard installed so let’s just pretend the correct a is in Gate, okay?)
After Gate made the final, NRK asked them to rewrite the lyrics to the song, because they were taken from a thousand year old Norwegian ballad, which kind of breaks the rules about not having a song released before September 1.
Now, some fans felt that this was riggory, and a way for NRK to disadvantage Gate while throwing the contest to someone else.
To which – I, a person who has been exasperatedly called out on Twitter for overthinking lyrics – reply, “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERFORMANCE?”
Seriously, Gate could be singing the stops on Oslo’s metro system and I’d still be crying at the end of this song. If they are powerful enough to make waterfalls run backwards, they are powerful enough to write some new lyrics that everyone will probably ignore because their mouths are agape at the spectacle unfolding on stage.
Does this mean Gate is a shoe-in? I thought they might be! And then last week, KEiiNO gave a live performance of Damdiggida and changed the game:
Damdiggida is deeply stupid, and I say that with the utmost respect. It’s like KEiiNO wanted to remake their sexy song Black Leather, but paired it with the cartoon ‘A-woo-ga’ eye-popping wolf sound – you know, this guy:
And yet, somehow, it works. Damdiggida (I need to check the spelling on that each time I type it) is charming and fun, a chance to see our old friend KEiiNO together again, and the live performance absolutely sells it. They’ve done the modern queer version of Diggi-loo, Diggi-ley, and I am here for it.
So if Gate or KEiiNO win, I will be thrilled. If Gate win, I absolutely believe they have a chance to win Eurovision come May. They create a legitimate goosebumps up the arms moment.
But there’s one very large, 7 foot thing that both of these acts need to get out of the way first…
oh fuck it. I’m not even going to link to the video of My AI, because if you want to see it enough, you’ll find it. But the people that brought you Give That Wolf a Banana are back for another go, this time featuring a very cute young woman who relies on a very large pink robot for emotional support. It’s not really about AI (we’re waiting to see how Let 3 tackle this in Croatia). The song could be about a talking dog. And it’s full of lines that seem clever the first time you hear them, but wear thin pretty quickly like:
My pitch is always perfect and I’m strong like a machine
I can even make my voice sound like a
Girl that’s named Christine
And then he sounds like a girl! Isn’t it so funny!
What bothers me about all of this is that it seems so lazy. The world of AI and robots is absolutely ripe for satire, and this is the best you can bring to it? And yet it still might be enough to rob a truly original Norwegian sound from representing Eurovision this year? OOF. I don’t need this adding to my SAD!
Ukraine and Spain coming up….
dudepoints.fun 
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