Eurovision Song Contest: The Final

So, who won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest? The actual answer is, good music won. The song that came first was the best one, not the one that was promoted as the favorite, and not one that was mostly voted by neighboring countries and political allies.

Amar Pelos Dois is a song that speaks to the heart, which Portugese Salvador Sobal interpreted with real feeling and connected with the experts, as well as with the audience. Its dominance in the voting process became evident almost immediately and was never seriously questioned. It was the 49th time Portugal gave it a try - and this time it finally worked. Well done Salvador!

The runner up, adorable teen Kristian Kostov from Bulgaria with his eye-catching performance of the adequate song Beautiful Mess did his countrymen proud. The second spot is the best they ever achieved.

Moldova's SunStroke Project gave a lively performance of an insignificant but catchy song called Hey Mama. The experts' commitees weren't particularly impressed, but the televoting public liked a little fun, so they voted them third, a record position for this country too.

City Lights from Blanche (representing Belgium) was one of the few good songs. It was third after the vote of the experts' commitees, then the televoting forced it down a notch. Still, fourth place is good.

Sweden's Robin Bengtsson performed I Can't Go On. In voting him fifth, the people voted for a job well done, however, professionalism and inspiration are two different things.

Finally, a word on what was long considered as the big favorite of the contest, which only managed to place sixth: It was a decent song, decently sung. However, hyping it as the favorite did the song a disservice. Most people didn't judge it on its own merit, but against the high expectations that were placed upon it. Against these high expectations, it fell short.

Also, another thing to consider is whether automatically going through to the final without competing at the semi-finals is a good thing for the countries with that privilege. Let's look at the final order: The Bottom Three of the final are Spain, Germany, and Ukraine. All three went staight to the final. The other three that went staight to the final seriously underperformed: Italy was expected to be in the Top 3 at the very least and ended up at #6, while France and the UK were expected to be in the Top 10 and they ended up at #12 and #15 respectively. People get more attached to the songs that they've already listened to in competition mode in the semi-finals. Also it seems that the voting public doesn't appreciate some countries being more equal than others.

As for the contest itself: it was adequately organized, but compared to last year's spectacular show in Sweden, it was poor. The presenters were cute enough and professional enough not to cause any negativity. The fact that in the interval between the competing songs and the results they had the two previous Ukranian winners perform their latest singles was a bit tacky. The young spectator who invaded the stage and briefly gifted us with a view of his bare behind was an unscheduled highlight of the otherwise unremarkable moment.

I leave you with all the results: