Swedish pop diva Loreen walked away with the top honours at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, held last night at the Liverpool Arena in the United Kingdom. The Swede — who first won the competition in 2012 — was a strong favourite from the very beginning, though her club-ready power-ballad ‘Tattoo’ faced strong competition from the ‘party-metal’ of Finnish electro-pop star Käärijä. The win makes Loreen only the second artist to win Eurovision twice, after Irishman Johnny Logan in the 1980s. It also ties Sweden with Ireland for most wins in the competition’s history, with seven honours apiece.
Sometimes campy, sometimes surreal, but always entertaining, the Eurovision Song Contest has been one of global pop’s biggest events since its inception in 1956. It’s organised by the Switzerland-based European Broadcasting Union, and 52 countries have sent competitors to, at least, one edition of the competition, mostly European, though Israel and Australia have also competed.
Acts get three minutes to perform an original song and win votes from both the public and national juries. This early reality-TV format means the competition has unearthed some real stars (ABBA, Julio Iglesias) but also thrown up some absolutely absurd winners (who remembers Dima Bilan’s outrageously desperate win in 2008?)
The competition has only increased in popularity over the recent years — last year’s global viewership was over 160 million — despite hiccups like having to cancel the 2020 edition due to COVID-19, and the complications created by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which was supposed to host this year’s edition after Ukrainian act Kalush Orchestra won in 2022.
The conflict meant that the event was shifted to runners-up United Kingdom, but the four-hour grand finale ensured that Ukraine was in the spotlight, with Kalush Orchestra starring in the opening film-cum-performance. Ukrainian artists including Go A, Jamala, Tina Karol and Verka Serduchka — all past competitors — also performed during the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, while the event was under way, Russian missiles hit the hometown of this year’s Ukrainian participants Tvorchi, a sober reminder that not everyone was buying this year’s slogan: “united by music”.
Performers from 26 countries took part in Saturday’s competition, but Loreen was always the bookie’s favourite, but her win ended up being narrower than most predicted. Käärijä’s absurd industrial-metal-meets-K-Pop entry Cha Cha Cha swept the popular vote, almost overturning Loreen’s dominance in the jury vote.
Other performances of note included Austria’s Teya & Salena performing a deliciously surreal song about being possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, and Tvorchi’s ode to the defenders of Mariupol.
Loreen’s win means that the contest heads to Eurovision-mad Sweden in 2024, just in time for the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s breakout 1974 win with Waterloo.
Given how much the country obviously loves this competition — and whose songwriters dominate global pop — could that be the launchpad for the next global pop star, the new ABBA? Mark the date in your calendars, and we’ll find out next year.
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