Hello my beloved readership,

on May 14th 2022 the grand final of the 66th Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Italian city Torino. Read the review by Fall4Me here.

The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest is a date I have have nearly always been torn apart between it and my father’s birthday — who knows if one day may constant daydream will come true of me representing my country of origin, Armenia (even though I was born and raised in Germany I have always felt Armenian) in the Eurovision Song Contest and after my (hopefully successful) performance wish my father a happy birthday from this big stage? I think after all this year I bring it to this digital paper. But as much as I love him this year it was not about him — as if you would be in the mood of celebrating when you have to deal with a hospital stay. I was torn apart between the Grand Prix and the incident that happened to our (not anymore so little) family (the one I have founded with my husband). What seemed deep rooted in the beginning became a challenge I gladly accepted to win once I have learned to accept the situation. That is why I was happy about the fact that I got up early, got myself ready quickly and headed out with our daughter to get a gift prepared for my father’s birthday and then see my little boy and husband. After such a successful day I felt charged enough to feel myself to deserve watching the Grand Final of Eurovision (even though I re-watched it one day later to get all impressions on the one hand and to entertain myself on the other hand while being home alone with my baby). Now I had even understood the hint of the slogan “The Sound Of Beauty” which could not catch me more since I am a huge “The Sound of Music”-fan. So far enough of me let us come to the more interesting part of this article.

Eurovision Song Contest Big 5: Impressions

See here my last impressions of the Big Five who got to present their songs during the Grand Final for the first and only time. In (XX) the actual running number):

1. (06) France — Alvan & Ahez ”Fulenn“ (Spark): The A-ensemble did not only represent France in 2022 furthermore it did represent the youth of France in 2022 at the first sight with Arabian sounding calls, heavy make-up and rather dark and gloomy even though the song was sang in Breton, a Celtic language common in the region of Brittany (Bretagne). Personally, I love this mystic black magic style but I must be honest I do not like it to be representative for France (if a split is done between representing artist and country to be represented). Then I would have rather preferred a representative such as Barbara Pravi in the last year who was not only a chanson-singer typical for classic France but also from her style reminding of classic French couture.
2. (09) Italy — Mahmood & Blanco ”Brividi“ (Shiver): The German spokesmen considered this duo to be like brothers on stage — some other satirists (hinting to the German comedian Sebastian Pufpaff meanwhile host of the show TV Total which is summing up the television faux-pas of the passed week every Wednesday for the prime time) may highly contradict and misunderstand this duet by intention in connection to Peter Urban’s statement. However without these two male influences Mahmood showed a completely different side of his: glamorous from the outside (with the eye-catching glitter-outfits) and touching from the inside because the song went underneath your skin and made me literally shiver. Simply beautiful.
3. (10) Spain — Chanel “SloMo”: One could think that the singer named herself after the desired fashion label but in fact it was her parents who named her Chanel which was a great choice since the Spanish representative is a treasure like any item from the label of the same name. The hot south European was a real fire and flame on stage of the Grand Final and her music video was just as hot as the song which was the centre of attention. Pure sex-appeal in a very tasteful way and Spanish charm that sold very good.
4. (13) Germany — Malik Harris ”Rockstarz“: Harris’ song is a very common song —at least I cannot say that I have never heard a song like this before. Still it has found its place on my playlist. Because it is a song from Eurovision? Possibly, but no. Because with other songs following Harris has proven that he is a talented, remarkable and very sympathetic musician who had found his glory on this stage of Europe’s biggest music show. When you need to relax “Rockstarz” is a good song for that.
5. (22) Great Britain — Sam Ryder ”Space Man“: Again a song that I have never not listened to at least once somewhere from someone else but Sam Ryder. Something else that was recognizable was that Sam Ryder could be the twin of Ingi Gunnlaugsson, the Icelandic representative for Eurovision 2013 but this is nothing I mean to criticize. I rather like this fun fact. After all, do we all not have some kind of “twin” somewhere in the world? As far as I remember this has even been scientifically proven. Even if it was not one of my top songs this year I was happy for Sam Ryder and the United Kingdom who always get exposed at the end of Eurovision (not justified if you ask me) that he flew high like a space man on his rocket and took the country(ies) he represented with him on this road of success.

Eurovision Song Contest: Ranking

There is the actual ranking and then there is my personal ranking of the 25 acts that performed and struggled against each other for the victory in the night of May 14th, 2022 in Torino. In the following I am going to list my top 25 of the Grand Final entitled with the countries they have represented. For a better overview I have marked the titles green (better than the actual ranking), default color (same) and red (worse than the actual ranking). Ahead of the ranking I already want to tell you placing each rank one was everything but easy!
Attention: The fact that the titles correspond with the names of the countries does not refer to a preference for the country in the ranking. It is simply meant to give an easy and brief overview.

1. Moldova (7)
2. Norway (10)
3. Finland (21)
4. Ukraine (1)
5. Serbia
6. Belgium (19)
7. Estonia (13)
8. Lithuania (14)
9. Poland (12)
10. Italy (6)
11. Armenia (20)
12. Czech Republic (22)
13. France (24)
14. Spain (3)
15. Greece (8)
16. Portugal (9)
17. Germany (25)
18. Romania
19. Sweden (4)
20. Iceland (23)
21. United Kingdom (2)
22. Switzerland (17)
23. The Netherlands (11)
24. Azerbaijan (16)
25. Australia (15)

The Winner Ukraine

It has not been too long since Ukraine has won the Eurovision Song Contest. Last time it has been in 2016, read about it here, when the Ukraine born singer with Crimean Tatar and Armenian roots, Jamala, sang about 1944 and brought the contest to her (back then still unbroken) country. At that time Ukraine was suffering aggressions by the Russian government. The target? The Ukrainian island Crimea.

Back then Jamala was accused that if other countries (for example Poland) would have sung about a year full of suffer for their country (in this case 1933) they could have as well won. So people felt of this victory to be unfair. In general the accusations that political and transnational interests affect the results of the national awarding of points have been arising more and more in the last year. Despite the possibility of being exposed with 0 points it has probably been the wiser choice to separate the public votes with from the jury points. This way the public majority may feel more represented. On top, for me, it increases the excitement at the very last minutes of the show.

Even now you could possibly think that Ukraine has won out of compassion — at least it surely reflected the worldwide solidarity towards the nation. Nonetheless as my husband said: the song performed by the Kalush Orchestra was simply good as it was sung in the native language and presented a lot of Ukrainian traditional elements and also appealed a wide (especially young) majority with its rap-genre. National tradition and universal modernness combined in a refined composition.

See You In Liverpool

I truly hoped that apart from anything the victory in Eurovision could have stopped the war in the Ukraine and end the aggressions on the Ukrainian territory so that the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 could actually take place in the winning country. But early on it has been decided that for the sake of security the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest is going to take place in Liverpool, England.

As I have written this article later than I actually published it due to private reasons I do not want to miss the chance and send out a very special shoutout to my dear group “EuroVision 4 Ever” which is celebrating 7 years of being and held into peace and life despite all the different characters thanks to its hard-working, passionate and kind admin GFA. If you are on Facebook you should definitely join it. Happy anniversary!

Love, Johanna