Eurovision 2024 - Blog Posts
as the eurovision final takes place this year, please take this time to instead please reblog, and donate (if you can) instead of watching:
fundraiser for selma cheurfi
help evacuate nisreen shaheen's family from gaza
bring najlaa's family to safety in canada
help evacuate dr ahmad's family from gaza
donate an e-sim to gaza here (several options available) (holafly tutorial)
donate to provide feminine hygiene kits for women in gaza
urgent evacuation for rafah's family from gaza
donate to careforgaza here (twitter) (paypal)
rescue lulu and baby adam from the siege on rafah
help firas and his family escape to egypt
an entire google doc of gofundme's for palestine
help this family evacuate from gaza
donate to the palestinian civil relief
donate to the children of gaza
please read through and support operation olive branch, a cohesive and detailed spreadsheet of fundraisers and links
donate to the palestine children's relief fund
please also reblog other aid posts (especially recent ones), or flood the tag with posts about palestine. this doesn't have to be just donation posts, but also information and updates on rafah/gaza. anything helps and make sure not to give eurovision your view or your vote! do not take your eyes off rafah.
please boost, and add other resources and links to this post.
Norway and Finland never disappoint
BDS has called for an official boycott of Eurovision2024
Everyone...you know what to do
[ID 1: text on a black background reading: "Boycott Eurovision: Artwashing Israel's #GazaGenocide". The Eurovision logo is edited such that red barbed wire appears over the heart in the center.
ID 2: a tweet from "PACBI - BDS movement" @/PACBI reading:
We call for the boycott of #Eurovision2024". We urge all participating broadcasters, national competitors, finalists, production crews, and viewers to boycott the contest following the refusal of the organizers @/EBU_HQ to ban genocidal Israel. #BoycottEurovision2024
End ID.]
if you are struggling with choosing which fundraisers to support, please consider donating to the following places providing medical aid, food, and other supplies to palestine at this time:
donate to doctors without borders here
donate to careforgaza here, providing food, medicine and clothing
donate an e-sim to gaza today
donate feminine hygiene kits for women in gaza
donate to the palestinian civilian relief fund
donate to the palestine children's relief fund
donate to the world food programme
donate medical aid for palestinians
donate to the united nations relief for palestine refugees
donate to healpalestine
if you are looking for individual fundraisers to donate to but are struggling to choose, gazafunds gives a spotlight to fundraisers that are not close to their goal.
instead of watching and supporting eurovision tonight, please instead boost this post & donate if you can. keep your eyes on rafah.
Maybe the war made me a cynical and bitter person but all of the Eurovision discourse this year makes me laugh. No, for real
First of all, all the comparisons to Russian case are ridiculous. Russia wasn’t banned in 2008 after invasion of Georgia. Russia wasn’t banned in 2014 after invasion of Ukraine. Russia wasn’t banned in 2015 after intervention in Syria. “bUt wE bAnNEd ruSsIa in 2022.” Dude, you all missed a fucking decade.
Secondly, Ukrainians have been trying to uphold their contestants to some standards for years. But I DO remember the annoyance of Eurovision fans about Maruv and Alina Pash being cancelled. “Music is out of politics.” “Why these fucking Ukrainians making everything so political.” The phrase “Crimea is Ukraine” was turned into a meme. Yeah, why do Ukrainians care so much about annexed territories and ongoing war.
And this year somehow became the year of politics. Two-faced morons
Congratulate Sweden on the eighth win in Eurovision and breaking Ireland's record! That's impressive!!
Nemo got inspired by the best
New I recognised this look from somewhere…
I think I'm a little late.? lol
So I’ve seen some posts going around saying things like “boycotting doesn’t work, don’t bother boycotting Eurovision because they’ve already been paid. The only thing you can do to help is donate to organisations.” People are only saying this to absolve themselves of guilt. Don’t let them make you think that boycotting doesn’t work. It does.
Boycotting means that Eurovision will have a much harder time finding advertisements who want to partner with them, which means less funding overall. Boycotting means that they receive less money from televoting, ticket sales and merchandise. Boycotting means that their view count drops significantly and puts pressure on them to change their current practices. Boycotting means you won’t let Eurovision distract you while bombs are falling on Palestine. And most importantly: boycotting means sending a clear message that you will not stand for their support of Israel.
Eurovision is not staying apolitical. They have taken a political stance by letting Israel compete, just like they took a political stance when they banned Russia from competing. They are perfectly capable of banning countries for committing war crimes, so allowing Israel to compete shows that they are accepting and excusing Israel’s genocide. They are also sponsored by an Israeli company (MoroccanOil) so if you’re wondering how Eurovision could POSSIBLY side with Israel, there’s your answer: money.
Don’t give them any of yours. Don’t give them your viewership. Boycotting works, and if you’re feeling guilty for watching Eurovision, good. Feel bad. People are being killed, tortured, families torn apart and houses being bombed as we speak, so forgive me if I’m not sympathetic over you not being able to watch your fucking song contest. Not everything is about you. You’re going to have to feel uncomfortable sometimes when there’s a fucking genocide going on.
Lastly, not everyone is able to donate. Boycotting is a great way of helping if you’re not able to help financially. The Palestinian BDS National Committee and pro-Palestine organisations are encouraging people to boycott Eurovision, so even Palestinians themselves and Palestinian organisations are telling you that boycotting will help.
Eurovision is not worth it. You can find something else to do. Stream Hind’s Hall by Macklemore since all proceeds go to UNRWA. You can also help for free by starting your daily clicks on Arab.org.
And if you are able to donate, then great! Do that too:
And dear god, if you’re really not able to go without Eurovision then find a fucking way to pirate it. I am also begging people not to hate-watch Israeli’s entry because all that does is stop the boycott and make the viewerships spike again. The best thing you can do is fucking ignore them.
Just two non-binary icons :)
(I'd been drawing it for like half of the year HELP)
Rest in pepperoni Eurovision 2024 we won't miss you ✌️
UMK 2024 Song Review - Sara Siipola
The hype is very real around Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the Finnish national selection for Eurovision and the race to Malmö continues with a ballad this time!
Sara Siippola - Paskana
Sara Siipola is fairly a new name in the sky of Finnish female artists. She kind of popped out of nowhere making a record deal with Sony Music in 2019 and releasing her first singles which were fairly successful. She also released her debut album "Kaunis Kun Itken" two years later and last year she was seen in popular music tv-show "Tähdet, Tähdet".
Still never heard of of her before and the artist announcement did nothing to me.
Paskana is power song that gives no hope. It's very raw lyrically and vocally.
It's a modern ballad with immediate hook. The song itself is not a traditional power ballad but does instrumentally push its boundaries. The electronic beat has 80's sound which also reminds many of the Russian girl duo t.A.T.u's sound. R'n'b beat separates it from an average ESC ballad and makes this super easy to listen.
Sara's voice can be compared to Amy Winehouse's being capable of interpreting the painful text brilliantly. The topic of being "paskana" which is translated as fucking wreck, is easily relatable. Social media quickly filled on Monday night with heartfelt comments from people around the world crying and feeling this song.
This is simply captivating - you can't pass this without stopping to listen to this and feeling what she sings. This will translate across language barriers.
ESC doesn't allow swearing so in case of winning UMK Sara would have to find another title for her song which might be a difficult task. There have been hopes of her translating this into English or pieces of it but I do hope this masterpiece remained in Finnish. Also this would differ quite a lot from our previous ESC entries. The last time we heard a female ballad from Finland was in 2017 with NormaJohn.
In a scenario where she didn't win UMK she might be the next Bess (Ram pam pam, 2022) or Kuumaa (Ylivoimainen, 2023) which either were the winning acts but made the biggest hits of their careers with the help of UMK. Reactions have been positive everywhere you go and her UMK videoclip has already been viewed over 240 000 (more than Sexmane) times. She's on her way to stardom!
What do you think of the third UMK24 track and would you vote for Sara Siipola to go all the way to Malmö? UMK final takes place on February 10th!
UMK 2024 Song Review - Sexmane
The hype is very real around Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the Finnish national selection for Eurovision and the race to Malmö continues!
Sexmane - MANIA
Max Scene aka Sexmane is currently the most streamed artist in Finland and also he has a connection to UMK. His little brother Isaac Scene competed in 2022 with Kuuma Jäbä.
Since releasing his debut album Sextape in 2019 he has been Emma awarded (Finnish Grammys) and he's managed to beat his previous successes with each release. He will no doubt have a lot of loyal young voters out there!
As a background info he and his brother grew up in a religious community where hymns were in and commercial music was not. He mentions this fairly often in the interviews so I believe it had an impact on his creativity and that he even ended up in the music industry.
MANIA is a song about mental health. "It's ok not to be ok" he says.
The song slaps you right at the face with MANIA. There's a lot of autotune in here from the very beginning and many have questioned if he can pull this through live. This is no basic pop tune you can put into a box within a certain genre. This is a hip hop / rap song with a heavy rock push. Music experts can peal this like an onion because it has plenty of layers to go around for all.
The song goes on smoothly having a strong pre-chorus and the anthemic MANIA is catchy and difficult to forget. I'm not a fan of rap music but I do enjoy listening to this even though my very first reaction was fear. The guitar solo at the end of the song is impressive and much needed add. The song ends with a scream.
Musically there's a strong pull towards our last ESC entry and a lot of people are criticizing of sending MANIA right after Cha Cha Cha (can anything be better?). In contrast to Käärijä's drinking party hit, there's some real pain and seriousness here. The beat is pushy and urges you to rush to act. And him desperately screaming in his pain and getting it out of his space - we see a lot of symbolism in the videoclip.
I kind of play with the idea of this winning because of the orange theme. In 2022 we had The Rasmus with Jezebel having a yellow staging, Käärijä last year obviously with his green effect, this would be a great continuity with the orange look.
What do you think of the second UMK24 track and would you vote for Sexmane to go all the way to Malmö? UMK final takes place on February 10th!
UMK 2024 Song Review - Cyan Kicks
Again the hype is very real around Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the Finnish national selection for Eurovision and the race to Malmö has officially started!
Cyan Kicks - Dancing With Demons
Cyan Kicks is a Finnish alternative rock/electric pop band established back in 2016. They had their big break in UMK 2022 when they came second with Hurricane losing to The Rasmus. I do remember for rooting for Hurricane two years ago!
Since then, they've been busy with making music and touring around Europe. This shows. They've also mentioned themselves the growth of confidence and experience, and especially the vocalist Susanna. This time around they're bolder and loader but still not losing their familiar energy and sound. But it's inevitable to compare their 2024 entry to Hurricane of UMK22 and perhaps their biggest contestant might actually be themselves from two years ago.
For many the 22 entry was instantly memorable and still is and the question is can DWD do the same?
Dancing With The Demons is the first of seven UMK24 entries to be released. And what a start it is!
The song is kicked off with a promising electronic beat and it builds up nicely towards the first chorus which I have to admit I'm slightly disappointed that it's not grabbing enough. Personally I'm liking the second verse and Susanna's interpretation of the lyrics here. I even saw somewhere a Lady Gaga comparison.
Instrumentally this is very rich and there's a lot to take in. Lots of volume which makes me worry if Susanna's vocals which are rather light in here, are strong enough to carry it through? Even though I know she can sing live obviously. As seconds turn into minutes there's more volume, more instruments and more noise coming up!
A lot of people have criticized the bridge but my musical (rock) taste is generic enough to love it actually. I'm loving the "follow me's" here. In three minutes it's tricky to get an instrumental part squeezed in but DWD manages to do just that. The whole band is clearly involved in this with 150% and musically this can be quite overwhelming. The ending is as load as the beginning. Lyrically not the best of songs but this wasn't the band's strong suit in 2022 either.
This is well and heavily produced track that can be blamed of sounding a slightly bit too mainstream and plastic lacking originality and organic sound. However, this is a question of personal taste. Live performance we don't need to worry with this entry because as we remember from UMK 22 - they'll nail it.
Visually this is impressive. Susanna and the band rocking under the rain (she was actually with fever when shooting the video!) and everything we see supports what we hear. Sexy, load, wet, explosive. It's actually difficult to listen the song without its video because that's how astonishing it is! And the pair clearly belongs together. UMK music videos have come a long way!
What do you think of the first UMK24 track and would you vote for Cyan Kicks to go all the way to Malmö? UMK final takes place on February 10th!
Eurovize je super program, opravdu. To, že nabízí menším umělcům zviditelnit se na tak velkém podiu je úžasné. Ale nebudu se dívat, ne když se ve světě děje, to co se děje. To, že Eurovize není politická je bullshit a všichni to víme. Možná by neměla být ale je a bude. Ať žije Palestina
