This years Eurovision Song Contest was always going to be an interesting and unusual one, what with it being held in Liverpool instead of Ukraine. I confess that I haven't always engaged with the event in recent years as the nakedly political voting often got on my nerves, but I felt that this was a special event and as such found myself tuning in to Radio 2 while simultaneously following events on Twitter. A way of experiencing that I can recommend, despite Twitter now being in its Elon era.
Anyway, I also listened with Spotify open and was quickly adding songs that I liked on the night to listen back to later.
Streaming and the internet have had a massive impact on how it's possible to experience Eurovision, with the instant access to the various country's entries meaning that artists can now reach new audiences faster and more immediately than ever before.
It's a weird thing when you listen to Eurovision songs out of context. The best ones will still sound as great as they did on the night, even when removed from all the staged splendour, euphoria and glitter, and some songs that haven't done well at competition level have then gone on to be big chart hits after (this happened last year with Rose Linn's track 'SNAP', which came in the bottom five at the competition but was a massive hit afterwards thanks to TikTok).
In the case of Monika Linkyte's entry for Lithuania, 'Stay', it did do pretty well on the night, placing 11th, but it was clear, after a certain point, that it was never going to beat either the crowd favourite Finland (with the unforgettable 'Cha Cha Cha') or the eventual winner, Swedish superstar Loreen with 'Tattoo'. Both songs went on to hang around the UK Top 10 for (in the case of 'Cha Cha Cha') a few weeks afterwards or (in the case of 'Tattoo') months and months and months afterwards. 'Stay', meanwhile, charted at number 48 for one week after the contest, before disappearing from the Top 100 as quickly as it had arrived.
It's the kind of song that grows on you perhaps more slowly than, say, my favourite on the night - the bouncy pop of Blanka's 'Solo' for Poland. While Eurovision viewers and listeners are notoriously allergic to ballads, 'Stay' manages to straddle the gap between atmospheric ballad and surging anthem, without falling the wrong side of it. It may well endure beyond this year, but we'll have to see.
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