Switched on Pop - Will Ukraine win Eurovision 2022?

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Greece, Spain, UK, Sweden, Italy and Ukraine are the frontrunners in the 2022 Eurovision competition. Switched On Pop analyzes the top six songs as well as some of the more oddball picks. Songs Discussed Amanda Tenfjord - Die Together Chanel - SloMo Britney Spears - Work Bitch Sam Ryder - SPACE MAN Elton John - Rocket Man Cornelia Jakobs - Hold Me Closer Zdob și Zdub - Trenulețul  Citi Zēni - Give The Wolf A Banana Mahmood, BLANCO - Brividi Bad Bunny, Jhay Cortez - DÁKITI Kalush Orchestra - Stefania Stephane & 3G - We Don't Wanna Put In Піккардійська Терція - Гей, пливе кача Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. This week, it's Eurovision. It's my favorite annual musical competition where European and invited countries duke it out to decide which state has the best song.

The music is truly fun. It's danceable, pan genre Europop with traditional folk instrumentation and a dash of kits. So here's how it works. This May 10th through 14th, each country will perform in the semifinals and finals, and then country judges and viewers from each nation will vote for their favorite songs to choose a winner. Today, we'll listen to the top six country's submissions that bookmakers are betting will win. So, Nate, you'll present three songs, and I'll share three songs as well as some of the most bizarre wild card picks.

And at the end, we'll make our prediction about the winner. Charlie, let me introduce to you Amanda Tenfjord, one of the best. the many names that I will horrifically mispronounce over the course of this episode. She is representing Greece with her song Die Together. I think we should spin it from the top. I'm in your backseat. You are driving me crazy. You're in full of control.

It's like you always know so. First musical reference that comes to your mind listening to this, Chuck. I can't place it. It sounds very familiar. it sounds like this belongs on top 40 pop radio. Oh. What the is gold. Imogene heaps, hide and seek.

This is a very common thing that I see where Eurovision songs have a pretty clear corollary of another major pop hit. I'm hearing that, yeah. Yeah, I think we'll hear more of that as we go through these tracks. But not to say this song is entirely derivative. I mean, the chorus of this song is pretty bracing, pretty different, not exactly what I would expect to hear in the Eurovision song contest. I will hold you till forever if we die together, die together. Wow, that's really powerful. It's really isolated.

It's a sort of dark, cavernous reverb around these synthesized voices that are singing some very lush but dark. harmonies dying together. Yeah, lots of space. You can actually hear the void in represented in that song. It's a very bold gambit. But you can't maybe do an entire track like that. We're going to get some powerful drums and harmonies coming in. Everything comes to a head in the final chorus, which features a great dropout.

Like you know that moment is going to bring down the house and the live performance of this song. of this song. Oh my gosh, absolutely. You know that Eurovision loves a power ballad. Songs actually have to be three minutes or less to make it into the competition. Ah, interesting. I didn't know that. And I love a power ballad that can start so small and get so big in just three minutes. It won't be the last time we hear that formula. No, there's going to be a lot of them. All right, there's number six. Amanda Tenfjord from Greece, die together. Take me a number 5, Charles. We're really a switch it up. We've got Chanel doing slow-mo. Chanel is a Cuban, Spanish singer, born in Havana, raised in Barcelona.

The song was written with Jennifer Lopez in mine by a group of North American songwriters. And it's a Latin pop hit coming from Spain. We open with this great Latin bass line. We get this great lyrical flow with a line about a Bugatti. This is not a very serious song. This is a fun party song. The Bugatti line, and even just sort of the vibe of this whole song reminds me a lot of a song we didn't get to cover in our Britney series. The song, Work Bitch. Oh. You want a hot buddy. You want a boogelly.

You want a muster buddy. You better work, bitch. Mm, Britney Spears goes to the Iberian Peninsula. I think it's appropriate because the choreographer who worked on this video actually has worked with Jennifer Lopez. and Britney Spears, so it kind of feels like we're maybe blending the two. And when we get to the chorus, I'm getting straight up Britney Spears, give me more as a Latin pop song kind of vibe. I mean, that track has some firepower for sure.

Right? I love how this song is just announcing itself as a dance song. If you wish you could do this Dembo, like the Dembo dance rhythm. Does it have the emotional arc that a Eurovision jury seems to love? There's so many different kinds of Eurovision songs from your power ballads to your very goofy songs, which we'll get to later. There's also a lot of just sort of Euro pop dance music. I think this is a song that would absolutely play in a club that it could absolutely be on top 40 radio anywhere in the world right now.

Okay. Okay, it's a contender. But it's a little lighthearted maybe. Like it's not doing some of the things that some of the other songs we're going to, here are doing in terms of having many more layers of meaning, at least for me. Right, right. Ah, which offers us a segue to number four. From the United Kingdom, it's Sam Ryder with Space Man.

If I wasn't asked you know, I'd be floating in midair and a broken heart would just belong to someone else down there. Be the center. I'm crashing down to Earth. Catching some ballady vibes. Yeah. I like the sort of contemporary play on Elton John's Rocket Man kind of thing. Yeah, we're in the same Sonic world as number six from Greece, very sparse, almost

a cappella. You can tell this is going to go somewhere big. And yeah, I'm definitely getting Rocket Man vibes as well. But, you know, that's a compelling concept. the idea of going to space to escape a broken heart. Probably the reason, you know, most astronauts are up there, I would think, trying to escape their emotional issues. What's your beef with astronauts?

I love astronauts. No, I think they're great. I just don't, you know. What leads you to want to stay away in space? We just say, oh, they're so brave. They're so courageous. No, they're just trying to get away from, you know, heartbreak. Yeah, like, let's be real.

So jump to the chorus, and I can't help but hear some lovely word painting, right? If we're going up into space, you better send your voice into the stratospherics of your range. And there's more word painting in the bridge. Down. Clearly, the song has a lot of text painting. I feel like it is drawing on this lineage of music about space where you just necessarily have to assess. makes me think of Rocket Man again. Rocket Man's lovely because it does it both in the voice.

You get the Rocket Man, but you also get the slide guitar that just goes, it's ascending upwards. It's a solid track. Sam Ryder's voice sounds amazing. Does it have the rocket fuel necessary to win this competition? I'm not so sure. The bookers aren't sure either because the first three songs we've looked at, Greece has a 3% chance of winning right now.

Spain has a 4% chance of winning right now. And Bookers are predicting the UK's submission only has a 6% chance of winning. But when we jump to Sweden, who's currently in third place with a 12% chance, get another song in that power ballad world that really pulls up my heartstrings, and I'm loving it. This is Cornelia Jacobs. Their song, Hold Me Closer. It opens with these large swelling strings. Intimate lyric about regrets.

Well, this is not what I want. And when we get to the chorus, the song totally opens up. Hold me close before the sunrise might be bleeding, but don't you mind I'll be fine. The power ballad is alive and well at the Eurovision Song Contest. It gives me a little bit of that Selena Gomez, lose you to love me, just really slow, instrumentation, but strong voice. The vocal has a almost Sia-like quality to it. I really love it. But this is one of those songs where staying with it to the very end

totally pays off because it's just enormous. It's got full choirs. It's got drum fills for days. It's got U2 style guitar playing. This is just like power ballad on top of power ballad. And it's fitting for the song because it has that feeling of like a lover screaming and, escalating stages of desperation trying to reach the person.

It's so far away out in space. That is a big payoff. Right. I feel like this contest is going to come down to who can deliver that final chorus catharsis in the most overwhelming way. Totally. If you think about some of the past participants, folks like Abba or Celine Dion, clearly Eurovision loves people that know how to work a song.

and build it and build it. So some of the top contenders fit this power ballad mold, but if I know Eurovision, that's not the only kind of song we're going to encounter. We're going to encounter some kind of unclassifiable tracks as well, and I really want to hear those, even if they're not favored to win the whole thing. I've gone through and listened to all of the semifinalist submissions,

and I have found the three wild cards that are just absolutely bizarre. And before we listen to the final top two, most likely to win countries. Let's check out those wild cards right after the break. Attention Spotify. Has yeted a new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera. A fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, caramelized, and tonka-tosted.

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Empeas your period of the price of per record's. As much as Eurovision

loves of dance pop song or power ballad. It also loves kitsch. It loves really goofy, weird stuff. And I've found some for you, Nate. The first one coming from Latvia is

a song called, Eat Your Salad. I'm already into it. That is the bizarre, unexpected, funky, fun, Eurovision nonsense I've been craving. It is clearly an activist song about sustainability, which is great. It's very silly.

But I feel like because it has horn arrangements that feel like Stevie Wonder could have done them, I am loving this song. Oh yeah, that too. That too, for sure. Yeah. Okay, that was just what the doctor ordered. And I didn't even pick up on the trenchant message of the tunes. Now I like it even more. What else do you have for me?

Moldova has an entry. Long name I'm probably going to get wrong. Trenelatol? I don't know. Just check it out. Hey, ho. Let's go for folklore and rock and roll. Whoa.

The lyric is, hey ho, let's go. Folklore and Rock and Roll. This is like a polka pop song. It has a bunch of traditional instruments. Eurovision loves when there's traditional instruments in a nation's submission. So it's doing some of the thing that Eurovision viewers like, but it is a very silly song. That I absolutely love.

That was so fun. Just like Eurovision, I love the inclusion of traditional instruments and traditional sounds in this competition. And hearing how these can still be relevant and meaningful to people. I think that's so freaking cool. That said, I have a song that I just completely don't understand how it fits in. It's Norway's submission from a band called Sub-Wulfer. Ah, Sub-Wilfer. I'm not going to tell you the name of the song.

You just have to hear the chorus. Okay, we've got a little red riding hood reference and a little bit of like what does the fox say vibes as well. I'm into it. There's theories that it is an anti-mast. song. Anti-antimasker song because... Because you need to protect the elderly, and so let's try to stop the wolf. The band were asked about it.

They neither confirmed nor denied. It basically, to me, just sounds like if the black-eyed peas ate way too many psychedelics and tried to make a pop song, but were hallucinating little red riding hood. Wow, that's a great pitch. If you walked into like a major label with that, I mean, they would be all over it. Well, that was a fun detour down the weirder side of the Eurovision song contest. Should we go then to the number two pick the host country, Italy? Yes, this is their entry from Mahmoud and Blanco.

It's called Brevidi. So we get the title, brevity, brevity, brevity, which means shivers. I think it's a really powerful moment. It matches the voice, too, because there's a lot of vibrato in the lead vocal. kind of sounds like to me if like bad bunny we're singing an Italian ballad I think there's a lot to like about this song that kind of shivering vocal sound that you just detected at the end of the chorus hearing two men harmonized together kind of unusual and I and I dig it and the song is is really about being vulnerable as a man so there's like kind of a powerful emotional message here I think and then

when we get to the bridge, that Bad Bunny regga tone vibe just kind of surges to the four. Wait, I can't believe this is going to happen. Yep. Compare it to a track from Bad Bunny and Jake Cortez, like Dakiti. Got that raspy, really aggressive. kind of loose feel to it. Yeah, the intense auto-tune, the hyper-rhythmic vocals.

It's a really interesting combination. I think this Italian entry is a really strong contender. I feel like there's got to be high expectations for this song because Italy won last year. The group Monoskin didn't just become Eurovision winners, but they went on to become global pop stars with a song like Began. Okay, at this point, it sounds like a problem.

pretty heated competition. I feel like we have to listen to the frontrunner now. That's right. We have to go to Ukraine. Their submission comes from Kaluche Orchestra, a Ukrainian group that blends rap with traditional singing and instrumentation. And they're going to give us everything you want in a Eurovision song. Europop.

Blended genres. Traditional folk instrumentation. Subtexts with lyrics that have very potent national importance. there's the intro to their song, Stefania, begins with a lullaby. And then we get a rap verse about a son singing to his mother, Stephanieia, asking him to sing him that lullaby again.

This at first sounded like a strange mashup to me. The lullaby, rap verse, and then when we get to the hook of the song, it's one of those pop-drop, pure instrumental dance moments, except that it's got a little extra something going for it. Man, that's a dirty flute break. I love it. Do the listeners know that you love playing the flute? I mean, I feel like maybe it's come up occasionally,

but yes, I do have a secret predilection for the Irish penny whistle. This is different than the penny whistle. This is actually called a Tilingka flute, and it's a traditional instrument played in Ukraine. It is a very simple flute with a single sound hole that a musician can use to imitate nature sounds and bird calls. You can hear what I'm talking about with a group called the Kiev Ethno Trio.

What's the name of that flute again, Tros? My Ukrainian's not great. I believe it's Talinga Flute. Okay, Googling where to buy Tilingka Flute from Los Angeles, California. That's an amazing sound. I also really love the lullaby section of this song because it does something that's one of my favorite parts of Ukrainian and Eastern European vocal harmonies in general, which is the way they lean into some really dissonant intervals that you don't necessarily hear in the States that much. So check it out.

Crunchy. It's crunchy, right? It's really cool. traditional, such a great sound to hear in this contest. The harmonies are very cool. The instrumentation is traditional. The mashup of genres is very effective for me. But there's a bigger reason that Ukraine is the frontrunner,

and that is, of course, that Europe is showing its support for Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Right. The Eurovision event is supposed to be non-political. In fact, the Eurovision rules state that it's an apolitical event, such that in the past, politically motivated lyrics have actually forced entrance out of the competition. In 2009, the country of Georgia had a song called We Don't Want to Put In, P-U-T-I-N. Oh, yeah. Nice. Wow. I can't believe I've never heard that. I'm so glad you introduced me to it.

But that song was kicked out of the contest for being too political. It was the year after Russia had invaded Georgia. And put in was a not subtle enough jazz. at Vladimir Putin to bypass the Eurovision politics-free rules. And yet this year, international politics is unavoidable. In fact, Russia was barred from participating because they invaded Ukraine. And actually, Ukraine's first pick for the contest had to drop out due to a controversy. The artist had traveled to Crimea, and there were allegations about forged documentation.

Ukraine said that anyone who had traveled to Russia or Crimea would not be able to participate in the contest. Interesting. Wow. And then that takes us back to Stefania, a song which on its surface looks like a son singing to his mother, sing me this lullaby. But it's full of subtext about nationalist pride. Very obviously, the mother can be a stand-in for a motherland. They sing about lyrics with blooming fields. You know, Ukraine is known for being the breadbasket of Europe. He says that his mother gives him the power of will and that he will always walk back to her.

by broken roads. This metaphor of broken roads, roads that have been destroyed in the country. Yeah, I assume this was written prior to the Russian invasion, but you can't help but hear these lyrics in light of what's happening right now. Yeah, the song was written before the invasion,

but it can be heard with a new deeper meaning. In a translation of Stefania, the Ukrainian YouTuber Kogi Khan explains that lullabies would often be sung as soldiers went off to war. The traditional folk song Plenna Kachah, for example, is about a mother talking to a son singing, You'll be buried by other people. This song has, according to reporting by WNYC, taken on new meaning in this time,

so that when Ukrainian people hear a lullaby, even like Stefania, it's resonating in a greater web of meaning. It's hard not to read into this song, especially when one of the members of Kowish Orchestra, Vlad Korochka, was part of the territorial defense forces around the capital of Kiev during the invasion. And so when people hear the song about this guy's mother, it means much more to the people of Ukraine,

to the people of Europe. I mean, given all of this context, it's hard not to think it would be pretty powerful if Ukraine won this competition, right? Absolutely. It would be a meaningful statement of solidarity, but it would also feel disingenuous to give it to Ukraine if the song didn't slap.

I think this song hits in all the right ways. It's got the traditional instrumentation. It's got lyrics that have subtexts. It's very danceable. It's multi-genre. I think this is the winner for me. I couldn't agree more. Switched on Pop is edited by Jolie

Myers, engineered by Brandon McFarland, community management by Abbey Bar, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Hanna Rosen and Ashok Kerwa, a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of our show anywhere you get podcasts or our website, switchedonpop.com. Hit us up on social media at Switched on Pop and tell us what's your favorite track from this year's Eurovision song competition. We'll be back again next Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.