Recap / Eurovision Song Contest 2022

The Sound of Beauty

The 2022 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in PalaOlimpico in Turin, Italy, from 10 May 2022 to 14 May 2022, after Måneskin's win in Rotterdam the previous year. This was Italy's third time hosting the contest, after Naples 1965 and Rome 1991, and its first time as a member of the "Big 5". This means that the grand final only featured 25 songs instead of the normal 26, as was the case with Düsseldorf 2011.The three live shows were hosted by presenter Alessandro Cattelan and singers Laura Pausini and Mika, who were announced in their role during the second evening of the Sanremo Music Festival (Italy's longstanding musical TV kermesse and the inspiration for Eurovision itself). The slogan and visual design draw from a variety of sources, including the shapes of Italian-style gardens, early 20th century poster typography, and cymatics.

41 countries were initially announced to participate, all 39 who duked it out in 2021 as well as the returning Armenia (who, despite being ready to send an entry for the cancelled 2020 contest, had to withdraw the following year due to the war in the Nagorno-Karabakh region) and Montenegro (who last participated in 2019 then withdrew for financial reasons). Russia was however excluded from the contest — before they officially announced an artist and/or song — due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, bringing the number of competing countries down to 40.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the previous year's rule on allowing prerecorded backing vocals was kept. Likewise, countries were once again asked to submit a "live-on-tape" performance^note A video of the performance recorded in advance under the supervision of the EBU to be used in case a delegation could not perform live for any reason.

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Tropes seen during this year's contest include:

• The Ace: Ukraine qualifies from the first semi-final, extending its seventeen-year-long streak of qualification to the finals, culminating in curbstomping the rest of the field in televotes to win.
• All Issues Are Political Issues: This edition is being held in the shadow of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine since late February, which resulted in the former being disqualified from the Contest and its national broadcaster subsequently expelled from the EBU a few days later, while the latter received sympathy around Europe, which translated to a massive televote-driven victory.
• Anonymous Band: Norway’s Subwoolfer, who wore yellow wolf masks that concealed their identities, and Georgia’s Circus Mircus. Cue Wild Mass Guessing as to who were behind both bands.^note The most common theories, which were both confirmed months after the contest, speculated that the former are portrayed by singers Ben Adams and Gaute Ormåsen, while the latter is a project of Stockholm 2016 Georgia representative Nika Kocharov.
• Arc Number: The number 2 became this for the UK’s Sam Ryder. To wit, the song was released on the 22nd February, it was 22 in the running order of show, it finished second overall, and it’s ended up peaking at number 2 in the UK charts.
• Ascended Extra: Ihan Haydar, drummer of Denmark's Reddi, returns to the contest ten years after playing backup to Soluna Samay in Baku 2012, this time as (part of) a lead act.
• Bowdlerise: Latvia's entry, "Eat Your Salad" by Citi Zēni, opens with the impactful line "Instead of meat, I eat veggies and pussy!". During the actual performance in the first semi-final lead singer Jānis Pētersons stopped silent instead of saying "pussy"... though that didn't stop the audience in the PalaOlimpico from shouting it in his place.
• The Bus Came Back: This year features five former representatives (six, if the aforementioned Haydar is counted as well) returning to represent their country once again. Curiously, in each case said representative(s) shares the position with another act or bandmates who are newcomers to the contest.
  • Zdob și Zdub, Moldova's memorable representatives in Kyiv 2005 and Düsseldorf 2011, return to fly their flag for a third time alongside a folk duo, the Advahov brothers Vasile and Vitalie.
  • Stoyan Yankoulov, who represented Bulgaria twice in Helsinki 2007 and Malmö 2013 (alongside Elitsa Todorova), returns as part of rock band Intelligent Music Project.
  • Tel Aviv 2019 runner-up Mahmood returns this time on home soil after winning again the Sanremo Music Festival, in a duet with newcomer Riccardo "Blanco" Fabbriconi.
  • Ihor Didenchuk, the "cute flute dude" of Ukraine's fifth-placing Go_A from Rotterdam 2021 (as well as the cancelled 2020 edition), reappears back-to-back as a member of Kalush Orchestra.
  • Georgia's Circus Mircus was later confirmed to include Nika Kocharov, who represented the country in 2016 along with his band Young Georgian Lolitaz.
• The Cameo: A few former performers and presenters, as well as some other celebrities, appeared as jury points presenters. The most notable are Jeangu Macrooy of the Netherlands (23rd, Rotterdam 2021; entrant, 2020), Jana Burčeska of North Macedonia (semifinalist, Kyiv 2017), Aidan Cassar of Malta (national-selection runner-up, 2022), Go_A vocalist Kateryna Pavlenko of Ukraine (fifth, Rotterdam 2021; entrant, 2020), Tanel Padar of Estonia (winner, Copenhagen 2001), The Black Mamba vocalist Pedro Tatanka of Portugal (twelfth, Rotterdam 2021), TIX of Norway (eighteenth, Rotterdam 2021), Ida Nowakowska of Poland (presenter, Gliwice 2019 and Warsaw 2020 juniors), Stefania Liberakakis of Greece (tenth, Rotterdam 2021; entrant, 2020), Árný Fjóla Ásmundsdóttir, wife and bandmate of Daði Freyr of Iceland (fourth, Rotterdam 2021; entrant, 2020), Samanta Tīna of Latvia (semifinalist, Rotterdam 2021), Tina Müller of Denmark (presenter of national-selection show Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in 2021 and 2022), Élodie Gossuin of France (model, Miss France 2001, and co-presenter of Paris 2021 juniors), Linda Martin of Ireland (winner, Malmö 1992), The Roop vocalist Vaidotas Valiukevičius of Lithuania (eighth, Rotterdam 2021), Aksel Kankaanranta of Finland (entrant, 2020), Johanna Maria "Dotter" Jansson of Sweden (three-time competitor at national-selection show Melodifestivalen [semifinalist, 2018; runner-up, 2020; fourth, 2021]), Shane Gilberto "Courtney Act" Jenek of Australia (drag queen and participant of the inaugural edition of Australian Idol in 2003, won by eventual Vienna 2015 fifth-placer Guy Sebastian), and Taťána Kuchařová of the Czech Republic (model and 2006 Miss World).
• Cheaters Never Prosper: During the second semifinal, the juries for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and San Marino were all disqualified and had a substitute jury vote created for them, based on the (legitimate) jury votes from the other countries in their pot in the allocation draw. According to one of Belgium's broadcasters, they had made agreements to vote for one another. The infraction was seen as such a problem that the EBU would later announce the 2023 semi-finals would change to a 100% televote qualification system, forgoing juries until the final.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: Serbia, of all countries, managed to name drop Meghan Markle into their song. Roughly translated, the lyric was:
  What's the secret to Meghan Markle's hair? Deep hydration is what it is.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ukraine received a massive 439 points (out of a possible 468) from televoters, to date the highest points received by any country from that segment in the split-results era, over 150% as much as the United Kingdom's 283 jury points, and even faring better with juries (fourth with 192 points) than the UK did with televoters (fifth with 183 points). In addition, Ukraine broke the record set by Sweden's Loreen from Baku 2012 with the most douze points from a single voting sector with twenty-eight, including the Big Five and the Nordic and Baltic blocs, as well as receiving televote points from every country except itself, with only Malta, North Macedonia and Serbia giving them fewer than 10 points.
• Delayed Reaction: United Kingdom got the 12 poins from both the Belgian and French juries, but no one in the British delegation reacted to hearing "Royaume-Uni" since it had been a long while since that phrase has been said. They only celebrated until after the hosts repeated it in English and they saw themselves on the screen.
• Denser and Wackier: Compared to the few preceding years, this edition is notable for featuring more notable "peculiar" or "gimmicky" entries, being compared by some fans to the decried "joke entries" from the Turn of the Millennium. This includes anonymous bands (Georgia's Circus Mircus and Norway's Subwoolfer), songs with humorous and/or nonsensical lyrics (Latvia's Citi Zēni, as well as the aforementioned Subwoolfer), performance art-like entries (Serbia's Konstrakta), and the return of Moldova's favourite wacky-bringers Zdob și Zdub.
• Discretion Shot: This year's "postcards"^note A short clip, about forty seconds in length, made to give TV viewers something to look at while the stage is being prepared for the next contestant, at the same time introducing the act in question feature Leo the drone flying past various picturesque locations throughout Italy, with with images of the artist(s) superimposed/projected on buildings and the landscape, ending with Leo projecting video clips of the artist(s). Like the previous year, this allowed artists to record their postcard from their home country and comply with COVID-19 regulations.
• Drinking on Duty: Austria’s jury spokesman, who opened a bottle of champagne when announcing where their twelve points were going, and then preceded to drink from it.
• Eiffel Tower Effect / Britain Is Only London: Averted by the UK, who decided to put their jury spokesperson AJ Odudu in front of a shot of the MediaCityUK in Salford (which is not one of Britain’s best known cities - being overshadowed by its neighbour Manchester - let alone landmarks) instead of the usual background of The London Eye. She even proudly announced where she was as well, which probably left a lot of viewers across Europe suddenly looking on a map of Britain to try and find out where on earth Salford actually was.
• Eliminated from the Race: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Latvia, and Slovenia at the first-semifinal, then Cyprus, Georgia, Ireland, Israel, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and San Marino from the second. Notably, Denmark, Georgia, and Latvia are the only nations from, respectively, the Nordic, South Caucasian, and Baltic blocs to fail to reach the final, and both Israel and Cyprus are eliminated after they enjoyed six-year streaks dating back to Vienna 2015 (not counting the canceled 2020 edition), including a victory for the former's Netta, with the latter's Eleni Foureira close behind, back in Lisbon 2018.
• Epic Fail: Germany continues their poor run of form in the contest, placing dead bottom in the Grand Final with only 6 points - all of those coming from the televote. While this was slightly mitigated due to a bad placement in the running order (their song, "Rockstars" by Malik Harris, came right after Ukraine's eventual winner), it is also made much more striking by the fact fellow Big Five strugglers UK and Spain finished in the podium. To some, this last place finish was also seen as slightly karmic due to Germany's national selection board having snubbed fan-favorite metalcore act Electric Callboy from the final selection.
• Graceful Loser: Despite recieving zero points from the juries and only six points from the televote, landing in a guaranteed last place, Malik Harris and his team took the loss with dignity, likely being more happy over getting points at all and avoiding getting double zero points like the UK the previous year.
• Gratuitous French: Notably averted, as the French representatives Alvan & Ahez sing in Breton instead, and all other Francophone countries stick to English. Not only is this the first time since Düsseldorf 2011 that there's no song sung totally or partially in French, it's also the first contest ever not to feature a single lyric in French.^note Only 2 years before now didn't feature a single song in French. In 2008, Sébastien Tellier sang "Divine" in English for France, but added a couple of lines in French during the bridge for the final performance, whilst Irish caricature act Dustin the Turkey used the phrase "c'est la vie" and called his entry "Irelande Douze Pointe", whilst mispronouncing the latter phrase. Meanwhile in 2011, France's entrant Amaury Vassili sang in Corsican, a regional language just like Breton, though Lithuania's song, "C'est ma vie" by Evelina Sašenko, included French in its title and chorus.
• Gratuitous Italian: During the second semi-final, Vladana Vučinić of Montenegro switched the bridge of her song "Breathe" to Italian, instead of the original English, likely as a homage to the host country.
• Gratuitous Latin: The Serbian entry, "In corpore sano" by Konstrakta, is sung mainly in Serbian but features some lines in Latin at the end, all riffing on (and subverting) the saying "mens sana in corpore sano" (a healthy mind in a healthy body). This marked the first use of Latin lyrics in the contest's history.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Albania's song, "Sekret" by Ronela Hataji, is mostly in Albanian and English, but also contains the Spanish words "tócalo" (touch it) and "dámelo" (give it to me). The chorus of Romania's song, "Llámame" by WRS, is entirely in Spanish.
• Guest Fighter: As is normally the case at Eurovision, several countries are represented by acts that are not necessarily nationals, as the EBU does not have nationality-based restrictions on entrants (any that may exist are purely at the discretion of national broadcasters):
  • San Marino is represented by Achille Lauro, an Italian singer who, weeks before winning the inaugural edition of the Sammarinese national final Una voce per San Marino, competed at the Sanremo Music Festival, Italy's own selection show, losing out to Mahmood and Blanco.
  • Like the previous year, Greece is giving its ticket to a foreign artist of Greek descent; this year, it goes to Norwegian-born singer-songwriter Amanda Georgiadi Tenfjord.
  • Meanwhile, a Greek singer is representing Cyprus instead (just like in 2018, 2019, and 2021), with the honour going to German-born Andromache Dimitropoulou.
  • While Dominika Hašková, lead singer and namesake of the Czech Republic's We Are Domi, is indeed Czech, her bandmates Casper Hatlestad and Benjamin Rekstad are Norwegian.
  • Bulgaria's Intelligent Music Project is fronted by Ronnie Romero, who is from Chile.
  • Although no-one was entirely sure, the fact that one of the Norwegian masked band Subwoolfer spoke with a British accent led to speculation across both sides of the North Sea as to who was under that wolf head. The most credible theory was that it was English singer Ben Adams from A1, which is what The BBC seemed to think as well. And they were right, as Adams was eventually confirmed as being one half of the lupine duo (along with Gaute Ormåsen) during the finale of Melodi Grand Prix 2023.
  • Downplayed with Spain's Chanel, who was born in Cuba and is a dual Cuban-Spanish citizen.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra received a special government exemption to travel to Turin (as all men aged from 18 to 60 were conscripted to the Ukrainian army), though members Danyil Chernov/"MC KylymMen" and backing singer Andrii Handziuk/"Dzhonni Dyvnyy" remained in the country, to aid in the defense effort or for other personal reasons. On the Eurovision stage, they were replaced respectively by Vlad Kurochka and Oleksandr Slobodianyk/"Sasha Tab", a musician friend of the band who already participated in Vidbir 2017 (Ukraine's national selection show) as the frontman of the band Salto Nazad.
• Italians Talk with Hands: Discussed during the final, with a segment between performances involving the hosts demonstrating a few typical Italian hand gestures.
• Life of the Party: What helped Moldova score so well with the televote was how much of a party song "Trenuletul" was, with the audience and other contestants in the green room dancing along to the performance. Even outside the arena, public places where the show was broadcasted had parties of their own when this song came on.
• Lyrical Cold Open: Ukraine and the U.K. are 2 of the 9 entries with no instrumentals in the intro. Australia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy and San Marino also had no true intro in their entries, whilst the Swedish and French songs were very short.
• Mood Whiplash: After filling up the middle of the show with a lot of nice sounding, but indistinguishable from each other ballads, Moldova’s entry then came along to liven everything, and one, up.
• Named After Somebody Famous: "Leo", the drone featured in all the postcards, is obviously named after Leonardo da Vinci, among whose most notable works is a sketch for a helicopter-like "aerial screw".
• Passing the Torch: Subverted for the second year running. Måneskin did not present the trophy to eventual winners Kalush Orchestra, possibly because Damiano David had injured his leg just before the Final and needed to rest.
• Pimped-Out Dress:
  • While most acts seemed to go for more casual attire, Australia's Sheldon Riley performed his song in a big jewel encrusted white gown.
  • Some of the jury spokespeople seem determined to make up for the lack of pimped out dresses in the actual show during the results announcement instead. Spain's Nieves Álvarez wore a pink dress with a huge puffy sleeve that prompted The BBC's Graham Norton to wonder if she had her shopping hiding in it, while the UK's AJ Odudu looked like she had raided The Great British Sewing Bee entire haberdashery for her pink, and extremely fringed, dress.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • When asked for advice for the contestants after performing the band's new single "Supermodel", Damiano David, vocalist of outgoing winners Måneskin, jokingly advised them "don't get too close to the table", a cheeky nod to a controversy from Rotterdam 2021 where David was falsely accused of doing cocaine in the Green Room after he was seen staring down the table. Days after that year's Grand Final, the EBU confirmed David's claim, with supporting video footage, that he was inspecting shards of broken glass guitarist Thomas Raggi accidentally dropped.
  • The UK delegation chanting “We got points!” when they got their first of several twelve points from the juries that evening, which was a reference to them getting none the year before.
• Shirtless Scene: Lauri Ylönen, vocalist of Finland's The Rasmus, starts the performance wearing a yellow raincoat with no shirt underneath, but he ditches the coat partway through to perform barechested.
• Shout-Out:
  • The interval act for the second semi-final includes a brief tribute to the Sanremo Music Festival, the longest-running annual music competition in the world and a direct inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest, to which it nowadays also serves as Italy's national selection show.
  • Finland’s The Rasmus started off their song with their lead singer recreating the balloon scene from It, no doubt scaring a few small children who were still up watching, in the process.
  • Moldova's song prominently features the line "Hey ho, let's go!"
• Sibling Team:
  • Representing Moldova alongside Eurovision veterans Zdob și Zdub are folk duo the Advahov Brothers, Vasile on violin and Vitalie on accordion.
  • Representing Iceland, Systur (which literally means "sisters" in Icelandic) is a band made up of sisters Sigríður, Elísabet and Elín Eyþórsdóttir. On the stage, they are accompanied by their younger brother Eythor on drums.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • After being forced to sit out of Rotterdam 2021 due to the effects of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia returns and qualifies for the final for the first time since Kyiv 2017. Notably, it happened on the same night that the outgoing winner of the Junior Contest, Arpine "Maléna" Martoyan, also from Armenia, made her appearance on the senior stage for a brief interview and promote this year's Juniors contest in Yerevan in December.
  • Before Lisbon 2018, Romania was one of the few countries with a perfect qualification record, but have failed to qualify since. WRS's sultry, Latin-inspired performance finally manages to bring his country out of its funk and back into the grand final.
  • Antonio Diodato, Italy's entrant for the cancelled 2020 contest, finally got the chance to perform his song "Fai rumore" on the Eurovision stage as the interval act for the first semi-final, delivering a mesmerizing and show-stopping performance.
  • A similar thing happened to Gigliola Cinquetti, the first Italian Eurovision winner all the way back to Copenhagen 1964 and who was supposed to join five other former winners for the interval act of the Rotterdam 2020 grand final. When that year's contest was cancelled, the line-up for the following year's act did not include Gigliola (most probably for reasons connected to her advanced age and the risk of COVID-19 contagion). This year, she sung again her winning song "Non ho l'età" on the Eurovision stage in her home country during the grand final interval.
  • In recent years host-nation entries typically falter on the lower half the the scoreboard, the last entry to reach the top half being Sweden's Frans Jepsson Wall placing fifth in Stockholm 2016. This year returning Tel Aviv 2019 runner-up Mahmood, together with Blanco, buck the trend and finish a decent sixth.
  • Ever since Bojana Stamenov finished tenth in Vienna 2015, Serbia struggled to reach the top half, and even failed to reach the final of Kyiv 2017. This time around, Ana "Konstrakta" Đurić scored fifth with an avant-garde song, Serbia's best finish since Željko Joksimović scored third at Baku 2012.
  • A year after Tusse Chiza was pipped out of the top half of Rotterdam 2021's scoreboards—the first time they were in that place since Robin Stjernberg back in Malmö 2013—Sweden returns to form with a song about heartbreak from Cornelia Jakobs, scoring fourth for its best finish since Måns Zelmerlöw won Vienna 2015.
  • Throughout the last decade the United Kingdom languished around the bottom half of the scoreboard, including two consecutive last-place finishes, with a humiliating nul points last year in Rotterdam. This time around, Sam Ryder led the jury votes and a decent fifth with televoters, ultimately finishing second, tying with Imaani Saleem from Birmingham 1998 for its best finish since Katrina and the Waves won the previous edition in Dublin.
  • Similarly, Spain snaps a six-contest run of bottom-seven finishes to make it all the way to third with a sensuous performance by Chanel Terrero, their best result since Anabel Conde finished second behind Norway's Secret Garden in Dublin 1995.
  • Ukraine, still reeling from the ongoing Russian invasion since late February, received a massive morale boost after folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra earned their country's third-ever victory with a song that is just as much a tribute to the Ukrainian motherland as it is to frontman Oleh Psiuk's mother. In the process they curbstomped the field with a massive televote score and a high enough jury placing to edge out jury leader United Kingdom. In addition, their song also became the first from the rap genre to win the Contest, another trailblazer a year after Måneskin revived interest in rock 'n' roll.
• Wolf Man: Norway’s entry was a band called Subwoolfer, who wore yellow wolf masks to conceal their identities, and whose song was called “Give That Wolf a Banana.” And yes, it was just as crazy as it sounds. It ended up placing 10th in the Grand Final.
• Wild Mass Guessing:
  • Both Georgia and Norway sent out acts that concealed their identities, which led to a lot of people trying to work out who they actually were underneath the costumes.^note As detailed above, the identities of both groups were eventually revealed months after the contest, confirming the most prevalent theories: 2016 returnee Nika Kocharov and his bandmates for Georgia, and Ben Adams and Gaute Ormåsen for Norway.
  • Speaking of Norway, many listeners were left wondering what exactly was "Give That Wolf a Banana" about. One common interpretation is that it's about vaccination against the COVID-19 Pandemic, with the "wolf" being the virus, the "banana" being the vaccine, and "grandma" representing the vulnerable elderly population.

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