Thread by @Bwarzy

Right. #Eurovision2023 Round 1 is tomorrow. Lets talk about it.

Acts I love in Round 1:
Finland 🇫🇮- Käärijä "Cha Cha Cha"
Sweden 🇸🇪- Loreen "Tattoo"
Malta 🇲🇹- The Busker "Dance"
Croatia🇭🇷- Let 3 "Mama ŠČ!"

First off, there's #Käärijä. I love this act so much. Its fun, the performance is entertaining, the song is easy and catchy, & it has a lot of memorable bits. Honestly, its not the high art Loreen is bringing, but its what Eurovision is all about. I hope he wins the whole thing.

#Loreen is the queen, and she's almost certainly going to walk away with the whole thing when everything is said and done. Her performance is beautiful and her voice is so incredibly strong. I don't totally love the song, but you can't say she doesn't sell it.

Incredible.

Going off in a totally different direction entirely is the #Busker; asking the question "is there such a thing as too much saxophone in a 3 minute pop song?" If the answer is "no", they will do very, very well indeed.

Incidentally, this is my two year old son's favorite song.

And finally, there's #Let3, with a homoerotic version of pop music that feels something like a rock opera version of "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers."
All you need to know is that it's a thinly veiled dis-track aimed at Vladimir Putin, and that these guys are awesome.

Ok, that covers the top end. What about the other end?

Acts I hate in Round 1-
Israel🇮🇱- Noa Kirel "Unicorn"
Netherlands🇳🇱- Nicolai and Cooper "Burning Daylight"
Ireland🇮🇪- Wild Youth "We Are One"

What can you say about "Unicorn"? My daughter liked the song when she first heard it.

She's five. And even she was bored of it by the end.

No offense to Noa, but she's leaning way too far into her looks and trying to carry a very mediocre power ballad with it. Hard pass.

Netherlands is usually one of the countries I really like in Eurovision. This year's performance, however, feels a lot of like a low energy 1990's tribute band performing a breakup song. Mia is a good singer. Dion is talented. It just... doesn't work and is too forgettable.

My hot take in Round 1 is Ireland. Wild Youth put together a song that a lot of people (including my wife) like. It sounds empowering. But its just empty fluff with stale, cliché, focus-grouped lyrics in my book. Like a One Direction B-track written by ChatGPT. I hate it.

My humble opinion is that Norway, Czechia, Serbia, Portugal, Switzerland, and Moldova will also advance, while Latvia and Azerbaijan will be eliminated.

What do you think?