November 14th. We now find ourselves half a year away from finding the successor to Maneskin. No pressure! Earlier this week I’ve outlined what I want to see and hear come next May, now is time for the final batch of our fab forty-one.
POLAND 🇵🇱
Send someone who can actually sing this time around. Not an awful lot to ask for a singing competition, you’d think. Yet still, seemingly a point that needs to be made this year. No amount of neon or indoor sunglasses wearing can cover such a basic crime.
PORTUGAL 🇵🇹
Just you keep doing what you’re doing. Some years it’ll work, some years it won’t. But either way with Festival da Canção you know you’ll end up sending something authentic and true to Portugal. Oh, and make sure Filomena Cautela hosts the final again. Equal parts Winkelman & Mede is one hell of a combination.
ROMANIA 🇷🇴
Tricky to know what to do with Romania, they’ve seem to have lost their way in the last few Contests. The most recent selection was the one singer, multi-song format which I, for one, am not a big fan of. In all fairness, neither was Roxen based on her performances. A proper national final seems the best way to go, but then it did no favours for Ester or The Humans either. Whatever they do they can be safe in the knowledge Mihai won’t be happy.
RUSSIA 🇷🇺
DO NOT INVOLVE PHILIPP KIRKOROV. Wouldn’t it be nice for us all to have a year off. One year when we don’t have an Eastern-European entrant trembling with nerves while that sentient branch of Accessorize cowers behind them. I know an artist as powerful as Manizha is bit of an ask, but just no sparkly sleep paralysis demon this year please!
SAN MARINO 🇸🇲
Sack off the national final and give us Valentina Monetta ft. Pitbull. It’s the obvious Sammarinese choice.
SERBIA 🇷🇸
Pick Hurricane again. For one very selfish reason only. I am desperate to see what they would’ve been like in the Euroclub. I don’t want to have to always wonder about the fun and the scandal they could’ve got up to. No daft showmances, I want the proper goss!
SLOVENIA 🇸🇮
Hosts of national selections that could do a job at Eurovision. There’s a fair few cases of this across the Continent. Obviously Krista in Finland, half the Melfest hosts over the years but then there’s Klemen in Slovenia. Why not have a year off hosting EMA and let him enter the thing?
SPAIN 🇪🇸
Spain returning to Benidorm for a national final is a very exciting prospect indeed. There are some nations that just know how to do a messy selection, but arguably Spain is the master of the art. All this whilst being surrounded by sunburnt Brits abroad, living only off Jaegerbombs and chips. What’s not to love!
SWEDEN 🇸🇪
Sometimes the aces are wild but in Sweden the Ace is Wilder. Do it, you cowards!
SWITZERLAND 🇨🇭
Just don’t win. By all means, continue on this fine run of form. After deserved final places being denied them in 2017 & 18 it’s been nice to see them hit a purple patch. Another top 5 would be a very respectable finish, just not the one at the very top. My bank balance somply cannot handle it.
UKRAINE 🇺🇦
Go_A was the obvious choice to return to the Contest in 2021, giving Ukraine yet another strong result. However, this also meant we were dealt a Vidbir-less year. A damn shame for all fans of shouting audience members, uncomfortable juror moments and Andriy Danylko giving his best Simon Cowell-esque camp, egotistical judge performance. We know Ukraine will end up with a decent song, I just want the way they get there to be messy as all hell.
UNITED KINGDOM 🇬🇧
It’s an unfortunate coincidence that the nation appearing last alphabetically has also made that placing something of an annual custom now. It’s hard to tell if the TaP partnership is a serious step in the right direction or just more of the same with someone else to blame. One can only wonder the journey we Brits are about to embark on over the next six months…
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