Nul risk
Why Olly Alexander was a nd forgotten face at Eurovision reunion
A Swiss non-binary performer was novel – but queer aesthetics in a British act hardly comes with the shock of the new
Eurovision takes place every 12 months, but to understand the dynamics of its public vote it might be more useful to think of the song contest as a kind of school reunion. There’s a basic feeling of shared belonging fostered by geographic proximity among the 26-pupil class in the grand final, but it’s fair to say most of them haven’t thought about each much for some time. Life got in the way. So when they meet, there’s joy in both recognising the familiar and discovering the new.
Portugal is still the same as when you last raised a glass together. Ireland has definitely changed. And who thought Switzerland, of all places, would triumph like that?
Songs that land in that tight space between continuity and novelty will often do well in the audience vote, which makes up half of the overall score at the grand final. Think of Croatia, which nearly swept into the top spot at the last minute: traditional frilly folk costumes, but with smudged eyeliner and a choker.
An age-old tale about young folk leaving behind Balkan village life, but underscored with choppy industrial metal chords.
Then there’s Ireland, which got 136 points from the audience: heathen ouija pop from the place once considered the most Catholic country on earth. Or the Netherlands, which came second on public votes in Thursday’s semifinal before being controversially disqualified: inane dance, but with a serious story about free movement.
Which is one answer as to why the UK’s Olly Alexander performed so poorly on Saturday night. Britain has a structural disadvantage because it has been a dominant force in pop-culture terms for so long – ever-present on Spotify playlists, Netflix catalogues and bestseller charts in many countries on the continent.
A non-binary performer from Switzerland was novel – whereas queer aesthetics in a British act hardly comes with the shock of the new. Everyone listening in Malmö clocked that the opening chords of Dizzy were a reference to the Pet Shop Boys’ It’s a Sin.
At school reunions, honesty and making an effort usually yield rewards. Alexander’s entry was a well-crafted pop song that should do very well on the radio – its decent score from the music executives in the jury vote showed as much. But it was not especially risky: there was no sense that this particular performer was taking a punt at the risk of making a fool of himself on the night.
Walking through Sweden’s third city over the last four days, it was possible to get a pretty good sense of which songs had a chance of doing well in the final because they boomed out of the clubs at night and were hummed on over-filled trains. The Guardian didn’t hear Dizzy outside the Arena once.
If this was a school reunion, some hungover heads would have been scratched yesterday morning trying to remember if the UK turned up all.