National finals revisited: From Jaguar Jonze to Tanxugueiras [Part 4]

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 few weeks, we’ll revisit the Eurovision national finals, with each of our partaking editors sharing one of their favourites. Today, we’ll see Alyce Collett, Justas Buivydas, Tom Ryan, Nathan Picot, Wivian Kristiansen and Micheál Linden sharing their favourites… Check it out below and click through to the next pages to see them all! Alyce Collett:Jaguar Jonze - Little Fires (Australia) When the Aus Decides artists were being revealed and their songs were being released, I was at first delighted that Jagur Jonze had returned, but then once ‘Little Fires’ was released, I began to realise the strength in the entry. By the time the actual show had come around, I had realised this was our strongest option to get a good result at Turin. Most of the field were just not strong songs, while Voyager’s song was just too similar to the winning song from last year and as much as I loved G-Nation’s song, I just didn’t think ‘Bite Me’ could stand up in a Eurovision field as well as ‘Little Fires’ could. As much as Sheldon’s song had the emotional pull to it, it is just too similar to many of the songs we have sent in the past. I’ll never forget back in 2018, all the talk post the contest was about how we kept sending the same kind of song over and over again. So thank god we sent something very different in 2019! Anyway, not only is ‘Little Fires’ a better choice than ‘Not the Same’ in terms of variety of song, but the staging options... There were so many more options SBS had at their disposal with ‘Little Fires’, that could have told the story for the casual viewer much better then what we saw with ‘Not the Same’. Because you have to remember, the casual viewer likely did not get the full story behind ‘Not the Same’ because you had to do some research to know that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QviRa0iNf6o Click through to the next page, below the emojis, to see what Justas Buivydas has chosen! Justas Buivydas:LUMA - All In (Slovenia) Even though I loved Slovenia‘s entry “Disco”, I do believe that leaving “LUMA” out of Turin is the biggest crime of Eurovision 2022 season. The fact, that they came to EMA’s final as a newcomers from EMA Freš is beyond me. Their song “All in” is truly a fresh (or freš, if you want) sound to my ears and their performance is very intriguing and captivating. You could even say that it is a bit creepy with the staring guy following and doing whatever the main singer wants him to do. This song probably would have been one of my favorite Slovene entries, maybe even my number one. And obviously, since “Disco” came last in the semi, “All in” would have performed better. I hope that they will return to EMA in the upcoming years with maybe even a better song and will bring the best Slovenian result in years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8rcj0zGYik Click through to the next page, below the emojis, to see what Tom Ryan has chosen! Tom Ryan:ELYSA - Fire (Estonia) Placing 3rd in this year's Eesti Laul, my pick from this year's national finals is ELYSA's Fire. Despite not making the contest, the song remains a firm favourite on my Spotify playlists with its catchy Latin-inspired beat (I love a good Latin-inspired national final entry!). Even though I loved Hope and had it in my top 10 for this year's contest, I think ELYSA would have been a challenger for a position in my top 3. It's feel good, it's a toe tapper, and I'll be blasting it out of my speaker all through the summer. There's nothing to really fault with this entry - a great strong beat, good vocals and an unmistakable pop sound. Okay, we might have heard calls of "Fuego 2.0" as we do with any female Latin-esque pop number, but does it matter? Absolutely not. This song is great in its own right (though it could have probably done with slightly stronger staging in the Eesti Laul final!). Let's hope to see ELYSA back in an Eesti Laul selection in the next few years and hopefully she'll be flying the Estonian flag at the contest somewhere soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=487F4_Uzksg Click through to the next page, below the emojis, to see what Nathan Picot has chosen! Nathan Picot:Daria - Paranoia (Poland) When it was announced that TVP were doing an internal selection rather than a national final, there were tonnes of rumours flying about regarding who would represent them. The frontrunner was a song called Paranoia. A very contemporary radio friendly song that had all the hallmarks of a good result for Poland. But then they decided to at the last minute hold a national final and eventually lost to a song that quite frankly has aged like milk. This is in contrast to Paranoia whom still feels very much fresh, modern and contemporary. Daria to her credit improved her vocals from TV appearances before the national final to that of the national final. The staging was very slick and she even included vocal runs that were very good! Upon reflection had the song qualified and I have no doubt that it would have done seeing as Daria was and continues to be a very popular artist in the country and among the diaspora it would have stood out a lot more in the running order as it would have been the only uptempo pop girl in that second half and would have broken up that Sweden, Australia, UK and Poland run in the final that we eventually got. Especially after the quite frankly laughable staging and visual effects they ended up putting on River. I also think the juries would have been more receptive to Paranoia over River as the biggest criticism of River was that it was a pretty basic song in lyrics and production. Paranoia has a better production and also lyrical content and would have looked far slicker in the staging department. All in all I have to say justice for Daria who was snubbed not once but twice and I hope she has a long a and successful career in Poland and across Eastern Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3yls8S1x9A Click through to the next page, below the emojis, to see what Micheál Linden has chosen! Micheál Linden:Tanxugueiras - Terra (Spain) Benidorm Fest was jam-packed with many outstanding songs. It didn’t take too long for the public to back their favourite artists in the National Final. Ultimately, it was Chanel with her explosive anthem “SloMo” who danced her way to take the Benidorm Fest trophy. Chanel beat out a long list of strong competitors. One, or three I should say, of these are the girls from Galicia: Tanxugueiras. Tanxugueiras were an early fan favourite following the release of all the songs. Their Eurovision attempt “Terra” captured the attention of not only Spain, but all of Europe. Their ability to sing a song in the Galician language with the lyrics “no hay fronteras (there are no borders)” displays how impactful they were in making the whole nation, and not just Galicia, fall in love with them. Tanxugueiras brought something that no other act could bring: language diversity. This is something that I think Eurovision needs because embracing diversity should apply to languages and regional cultures also. I may be biased due to my love for Terra but I believe Tanxugueiras would have done very well for Spain this year. Who knows if they would have achieved a higher result than Chanel? I like to believe that they would have! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uGN9efcACw That’s it from us when it comes to the final batch of few national final songs we wanted to revisit once more. We hope you've enjoyed this little series! Who is your favourite national final entry of the 2022 season? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to follow us on Spotify and YouTube to see our reactions to the news in the run up to the 2022 national final season!