The Eurovision 2022 season is officially over. Ukraine emerged victorious in Turin and left the rest of a phenomenal line up behind. However, we all know that some songs have been left in the fields of the national final season… We’ve had to leave them behind to instead move on with songs other people liked best.
So, we take a trip down a short memory lane. It’s only been a few months, but we want to highlight some of our favourites. In the next four weeks, we’ll revisit the Eurovision national finals, with each of our partaking editors sharing one of their favourites.
Today, we’ll see Isaac Sturtridge, Lisa Bird, Bo van Leijden and Nick van Lith sharing their favourites… Check it out below and click through to the next pages to see them all!
Isaac Sturtridge:
Cyan Kicks – Hurricane (Finland)
A young band with some excellent material for their short career, Cyan Kicks came 2nd to The Rasmus in this year’s UMK. Their entry ‘Hurricane’ represents a very strong option that Finland could have taken to continue their streak as Eurovision’s rock pioneer nation. The songwriters for ‘Hurricane’ include Amaranthe frontwoman Elize Ryd, and in keeping with much of her material, the song is a brash whirlwind of pop-influenced rock that would have grabbed plenty of attention on the Eurovision stage. Combine that with either the green lightning flashes in the music video or the eye-catching striped backdrop that they used for the national final performance, and this would have created a performance to remember at Eurovision (though notably some alterations or a warning for those with visual sensitivity would have been in order if using the latter – and the sun might have forced that anyway).
It’s hard to see a world where, with a well-staged performance and strong rock vocals, this doesn’t end up on the left side of the scoreboard, particularly in 2022’s ballad-heavy final. It represents something that rock fans didn’t get as much as we might have expected following 2021. Specifically, that is entrants that represent the future of rock, rather than looking back to rock sounds from an earlier era, as too many of the 2022 rock entries did. The Rasmus were fine entrants for Finland, but undeniably a lot rode on their name for them in winning UMK. The opportunity to promote a newer, and arguably a more talented band would have been a far more exciting prospect for Finland, and ‘Hurricane’s pop leanings and dedication to breaking the genre barriers between pop and rock/metal could have given it a wide appeal, moreso than ‘Jezebel’s more classic alternative rock appeal.
Click through to the next page, below the emojis, to see what Lisa Bird has chosen!
