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You might have noticed, but we’re running a touch late with the Juke Box Jury episodes, but rest assured we’ll have the final episode out before the weekend is out. Just remember that we did record all the shows before the rehearsals started. With that…
Eurovision Insight Podcast: Juke Box Jury #6
with Samantha Ross (12 Points From America) Gina Jones (@ItsGinaJones).Ireland: Doomsday Blue, by Bambie Thug.
Serbia: Ramonda, by Teya Dora.
Austria: We Will Rave, by Kaleen.
Switzerland: The Code, by Nemo.
Netherlands: Europapa, by Joost Klein.
Stay up to date with all the discussions, news, and reviews as we get ready to travel to Malmö for Eurovision 2024 with ESC Insight. You’ll find the show in iTunes, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. A direct RSS feed is available. We have a regular email newsletter which you can sign up to here., and you can support us on Patreon here.
Teya and Selena were 2nd in a televote only semi-final and eight with the juries in the final. Go figure. Joost for the winning.
Ireland-
Applaud for Ireland for getting out of their comfort zone and send something different. However it is a bit of song which hasn’t decide what kind of song it want to be. Is it a semi rock song or a poppy song? Well it has both and the mash up is not quite successful as it want us to belive. Someohow the 2 parts of the song don’t come as a whole and the result is a bit jarring-MAYBE
Serbia-
I don’t think it can get lower key than this. Very quite and sober and surprisingly enough, the hook comes rom her voice and not from the song itself. It is a very pleasant song to listen to it, however it gets going very slow and miss the “vote for me” moment you need to have in order to succeed-MISS
Austria –
It’s a banger and I don’t think there is much more than a dance track in this song. With a good remix, this could be a hit on the dance floor. The song demands a strong voice, which I am not sure she has. I am also not sure if she can sing this live, If she gets the vocals and perfromance right, this should be a HIT, however if she doesn’t get it right it will be a MISS(and a big one)
Switzerland-
There is so many songs and styles cramped in this song it is almost too much. Someone had a lot of ideas and decided to put those ideas in one song. And yet as a whole it is quite a coherent song. It is also quite moderen . He can sing this live, so that is something we shouldn’t be worry about. The staging will be a bit quircky, which will match the atmosphere the song wish to convey. I am not sure if the juries will buy this, but if they do this should be a HIT
The Netherlands-
Taking a turn from what they mostly have sent in the last decade of so, the Dutch send a song you wouldn’t expect them to. The thing with the song is that you either love the song at 1st hearing or you don’t really get what the big fuss about this song. Joost pays an hommage to his father who always believed in the EU and its benefits. The whole text can be seen as a pro-European song. The song is name dropping of places and things which make it worth to live in Europe(something I thought a thing of past, when it comes to Eurovision), and the last 30 seconds , he goes back to the what his father said to him about living in Europe. In between, Joost , brings to live the Dutch Gabber sence of the 80’s and 90’s. It is quite charming on its on way, but I also admit not to understand the fuss about the song. All Joost needs is more people who like him and want to vote for him than people who don’t “get” the song. Can he win? wouldn’t be surprised at all. MAYBE(for me) but a huge HIT (for the contest)
P.s.
If possible, please do not air the last episode of this season’s JBJ, on 7/5, the day of the 1st semi-final. It would be much appriciated.
Ireland – a difficult one to start with. I personally do not like the goth aesthetic of this, simply not my thing. But I can’t help being fascinated by the song and the staging (as much as we know of it by now). I have also caught myself singing the song as I’m cooking dinner (the quiet part, that is). And as we know it doesn’t matter if 90 % of viewers don’t get or even hate the song, if a few percent do get and love the song and vote for it. I do think Ireland will find its way to the final and that’s probably enough to keep them happy. MAYBE
Serbia – this is beautiful, and one of only a handful of songs that I actually liked at fist listen. [I don’t know what it is with this year, but most of the songs were quite meh to me at fist listen, even though I quickly found a way to like most of them anyway.] I like my ballads to be unassuming, not shouty, and this ticks the boxes. If she gets to the final (could be a huge challenge), she could profit from jury votes, but I can’t see much phone calls for her. Borderline MAYBE/MISS
Austria – ah. One of three songs I kicked off my playlist immediately. We already had Finland, and you won’t have to wait long for the third one. 😉 I hated this kind of music in my youth and funnily, this hasn’t changed. And it’s not even her kind of music either, it’s so calculated, urgh. Yes, she can dance (and she has decided not to go on stage mostly naked, thank god), but she cannot sing. Pure dance tracks generally have a hard time qualifying and Austria does not have built-in points, so it might be tricky, even without a jury. If she gets to the final, I don’t think she’ll place highly. Just about a MAYBE for the contest, biggest MISS of this year’s entries for me personally.
Switzerland- this song is a lot of work, but it’s work that is rewarded at the end. The staging (what we know so far) seems interesting and not too over the top to give the song some space, which is a good thing. It’s very, very catchy, very interesting, but also a lot to get your head around. Recently the juries have not really been fans of new ideas (see Konstrakta, who did much better with the televote than the juries), so I do struggle a bit with the idea that Switzerland can win. Nevertheless, it is of course a HIT.
Netherlands – and there it is, number three of the kick-off team. Though admittedly, I hate this one least of the three. And the Europapapapapapapa has managed to sneak itself into my brain nonetheless. Apart form the horrible gabber instrumental it is quite entertaining and the appraisal of the EU gets a huge thumbs up from me. I just can’t stand listening to it on its own, but I expect to quite enjoy it on stage. Clear qualifier, probably up there in the televote, probably not quite so much with the juries, so overall a good result, but no contender for the title. Not personally, but still a HIT.
PS: Guildo Horn and nil points in one sentence? He finished 7th.
So I think I’ll have to give up. Like Sam I’m an American but a working fashion model I’ve moved to Europe, to Geneva. My interest in Eurovision stems from meeting Conchita at a Gauthier runway in Paris. Like most Americans I’d never heard of this contest but I was hooked. Until now. But everyone in this fan bubble appears to feel that Eurovision must not have anything, nothing, zip, zero to do with the actual current music scene. It should be performance art, the crazier the better, to invite votes from drunken teens who find a a Finnish man in a Carmen Miranda reject outfit (yep I grew up in actual Hollywood) fun to vote for mainly to show contempt for the entire thing. I played this Irish entry that y’all seem to adore for my 55-year-old mom and she said, “are they serious? This is the kinda crap we all pretended to love at the old Pyramid Club on Avenue A in New York.back in 1984.” Meanwhile in previous juries you sort of dismissed the UK and Germany as “too radio friendly”? What the hell is wrong with you? I guess at 26 I’m too young for this because Olly Alexander is major international star and Isaak is right there with sad song singers like Benson Boone and Henry Moody and even Troye Sivan, you know the kind of shit we kids download enough so that they hit all over the world? But in the Eurovision bubble? Nah, inside that y’all want a Finnish guy in a thong that he should never be allowed to wear away from a Scandinavian beach. My husband got us VIP tickets to Malmö but I’m not sure I need to take that many pee breaks
Ireland: a HIT. I care more for the melodic element than the edgy, shouty parts. But this looks dark and alluring on stage, it’s quirky and Bambie can sing. Such a relief that Ireland has abandoned its twentieth century entries and arrived in the contemporary world.
Serbia: MAYBE. Personally like it very much but it’s such a slow burner and takes ninety seconds to ignite. Second slot in the running order isn’t such a curse in semi finals but bookies currently have all first seven songs qualifying. Can that happen? It would be unprecedented.
Austria: MAYBE: I’m not a rave person but this is easy to listen to. My doubts are over the vocals which have been wobbly in pre ESC outings. Would enliven the final it it made it.
Switzerland: undeniable HIT. In any other performer’s hands, this curate’s egg of song genres would be a borderline chaotic incoherent mess. But Nemo has X factor superstar quality and their vocals are superlative. Not worried by all the fuss over his pink outfit. Camera angles and staging director who did Heroes 2015 and Cha Cha Cha last year will not mess up. The song to beat
Netherlands: a success on the scoreboard but for me a MISS. It’s irritating, I don’t get the “fun’ and it belongs on a Saturday morning kids show. No. It will eat into Croatia’s televote and possibly hand Switzerland or Italy the win.
We’re aiming to get the last episode out by Saturday, well clear of the Semi Final!
Remember that these podcasts are the opinion of just three people per show, and we hope for discussions around the episode. I’ll reply to one part here “Olly Alexander is major international star”, because I think this is an important question. There’s no disupting Alexander’s recognition, but do people vote on the night purely because they recognise the name, or for other factors? If Alexander’s name recognition is enough, why did this song only chart at #42 in the UK after both release and appearances on the biggest Saturday night show at the moment? And what does that mean for the result at the Contest? These are things that I considered during the episode while discussing “Dizzy”.
Ireland: MAYBE. Incredibly creative and distinctive. This was probably the least safe choice at the NF, but Ireland wanted to be memorable and they have succeeded at that. Bambie Thug is an artist who knows exactly what they want out of a performance and has a great eye for being visually and sonically memorable. I think this has a good chance to qualify, it mostly depends on how digestible it is for viewers watching for the first time and whether they actually enjoy it as a song or not. I like parts of it but as a whole I think there’s too much going on.
Serbia: MAYBE. This is a song I really love, but it took me a couple of listens to get there. I watched the national final and knew it was a favourite, but it didn’t wow me. A few more listens and finding out what the song was about made me really want it in the final. Performing from 2nd place and with a darker visual tone will work against it, also the fact that for a lot of people the meaning will not be apparent. I think it has a chance to qualify, but is on the bubble. It would certainly bring some variety to the final.
Austria: MAYBE. This is a pastiche of 90s eurodance that misses the mark for me as a nostalgic lover of that genre. It has a lot of Swedish songwriters and composers and feels it would have been an also-ran at Melfest despite being, in my opinion, better than Sweden’s entry because it’s more fun. It also misses what rave music actually was about. However, it’s decent enough to qualify. I’m never sure how memorable songs with a lot of music breaks are at the contest, and in the final there’ll be too many other songs like it to do really well.
Switzerland: HIT. Like the Irish entry, a very bold and unforgettable choice from Switzerland. There’s a journey through some different genres and tempo changes, but in a way that to me isn’t jarring but just keeps you on the path that Nemo has set out. The lyrics are thoughtful, clever and carry their message over beautifully. I love the chorus. Definitely qualifying and with a great chance at winning.
The Netherlands: HIT. Like Switzerland, another fantastic and creative entry with an artist who knows exactly what he’s doing. This is a song that I wanted to hear again immediately, like Switzerland. Partly because there’s so much going on, you want to make sure you didn’t miss anything. I love how it isn’t cookie cutter, is in Dutch and makes me smile and laugh and dance along. Another song with a big shot at winning, although this might be a bigger sell to the juries than some other contenders. My favourite entry this year.