#telemoveis

Most Underrated Eurovision Non-Qualifiers (2014-2024)

Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper - "Burning Daylight" (Netherlands ESC 2023)

Andromache - "Ela" (Cyprus ESC 2022)

Montaigne - "Technicolour" (Australia ESC 2021)

Uzari and Maimuna - "Time" (Belarus ESC 2015)

Iru - "Echo" (Georgia ESC 2023)

Svala - "Paper" (Iceland ESC 2017)

Mustii - "Before The Party Is Over" (Belgium ESC 2024)

Portugal last 4 years on Eurovision

2016: No participate.

2017: WIN.

2018: Last position.

105. Mariya Yaremchuk - “Tick tock” Ukraine 2014

Conform with the “GODDESSES ONLY” clause of their Eurovision contract, Ukraine once again have blessed us with an amazing opener (Seriously. First Melovin, then Eduard, now this? WE WERE ROBBED OF MARUV OPENING THE FINALE). 

"Tick tock” is a bit too elementary to put into my top 100, HOWEVER that is also why it’s such an easy song to get into. High (production-)quality Ukranian trashpop 😍 Which won Vidbir as an unintentional incest anthem 😍 (if you don’t know, the original version opened with “We belonged to each other, like a sister to a brother” Cersei Lannister is quaking.) 

Naturally, the main reason why Mariya ranks this high is, of course, the staging. THE HAMSTER WHEEL IS LEGENDARY:

Mariya casually flinging herself on top of that giant spinning contraption and torturing her poor hot dancer. 😍 I’d say the staging makes no sense, but then I realized Ukraine probably went with this act because it’s DIRT CHEAP <3 (which is funny as long as you don’t think about why they went with a lowbudget act 😭). It’s just so... honorarily Moldovan? 😍 Ukraine and Moldova using each other as horcruxes <3 Name a more epic ESC alliance, I will wait. Until then,

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104. Sanja Vucic - “Goodbye (Shelter)” Serbia 2016

... let us celebrate this glorious cross-over between “Molitva”, “Running” and “l’Amore è femmina”. 😍 “Shelter” takes the best aspects from these three entries and combines them into a increasedly shouty mess. As you can imagine, I LOVE this witches’ cabal of hackneyed hand choreos, shredded leather and facial gymnastics. Most ESC performers would keep their miming to the precise amount of what they need, but Sanja is (and has always been) so UNPLUGGED with her irate facial expressions. A reel:

Which, in a song with such a HEAVY topic as spousal abuse is actually quite appropriate. You show those awful shit husbands, girl!!! 

And you’d think that would be *IT*, but nope you’re wrong because :TEEHEE: I also think “Shelter” is a great song even without the messy misandry. The song is catchy, moody and highly relistenable. It’s one of the better mid-tier bops of this ranking. No wonder it got televotes from all over Euro-

oh. (🤣)

CONGRATZ BOJANA ON BEING THE HIGHEST RANKED SERBIAN ENTRY.

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103. Alyona Lanskaya - “Solayoh” Belarus 2013

HI 🙂 MY NAME IS ALYONA LANSKAYA 🙂 I AM FROM BELARUS 🙂 MY SONG SOLAYOH.  🙂

2013 is mostly remembered as the year of ‘splicing unnecessary dubstep into your song’, but there is another recurring trend which was even better. The ‘female performer enters the stage with STYLE’ and as far as stylistic entrances go, Alyona’s is one of the best. This emissary  from the planet Solayoh emerged immediately from her discoball-shaped Escape pod upon landing to tell us all the love and joys of her homeworld 😍

What follows is a lametastic banality anthem, riddled with ESL sentences (”We can make it into hot night” 😍.) and of course, a few iconic hand choreographies:

Topping off the hilarity is the idea of a well-off socialite such as Alyona Lanskaya singing about how “she had work hard all day :lip pout:” while wiggling her dress’s cerulean bossom fringes. 😍😂 Bribing juror being such hard work. <3 We stan lazy queens. 😍

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102. Sofi Marinova - “Love unlimited” Bulgaria 2012

DO REN DEM DEM DEI 

Speaking of lazy queens, remember when Bulgaria send an act that consisted entirely of a haggard ponytailed garuda wiggling her diddeys around like-a-so: 

I’m only a recent convert to the Church of Marinova, only seeing the light during my last rewatch and I mean, how could I not fall in love eventually? “Love unlimited” is such a lowbudget afair, a basic dance track whose sole gimmick is saying “I love you” in like 46 different languages. 😍 

As such, "Love unlimited” totally shouldn’t work... and yet it absolutely does? It’s a similar deal to Jurij, except the person taking the stage here is a lovably dimwitted middle-aged hagress who is completely oblivious to the fact that she has no chance to qualify and is giving still giving it her damn’ all, in doing so ALMOST reaching the final from a lost position. WHAT A TROOPER. I LOVE *YOU* SO MUCH, Sofi-Trophy. 😍

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101. Conan Osiris - “Telemóveis” Portugal 2019

A lot of people blame several artistic decisions behinds Conan’s NQ, but I’ve had my doubts even before the rehearsals began: this is what I wrote a full month before the semi: 

Conan’s main problems rise from the fact that he tries to be artistic and humorous at the same time, and the two cancel each other out somewhat.

(...) There’s a very high chance “Telemóveis” highbrow message will  fly over the heads of the audience and there’s an equally high chance it will backfire on Conan when it does. 

Portugal faces severe competition from the other acts. They compete with Slovenia for the “This Is High Quality” value-seeking vote, with Iceland and Australia for the novely vote and with Czech Republic and Greece for the “yeah this is actually really fucking clever” highbrow vote. He even competes with Serhat somehwat, both being OTT acts that are on later in the semi. 

It could very well mean death by a thousand cuts for Portugal.

SURPRISE, I actually got it right for once!! 

Of course, “Telemóveis” was less good in Tel Aviv than it was during FdC (people incorrecly blame the dress. I personally thought it was a combination of nerves, João spraining his knee and technical difficulties, much more than the dress). 

Anyway, even if he wasn’t as good in Tel Aviv, a lesser “Telemóveis” is still pretty damn great so idk why everyone was is tripping? The song was still a disarmingly weird acid trip of fado funk, snappy vocals and a bonkers choreography that left the average viewer utterly GOBSMACKED. 😍 It’s one of those entries where, when looking back in a few years, everyone will say was way AHEAD of the curve and that’s never a bad demograph to be a part of. 

CONGRATZ SUZY ON WINNING PORTUGAL!!! But moreover,

CONGRATULATIONS TOP 100!!!! K time for a little recap of who is still in this ranking:

Albania: 2 (Juliana, Eugent) Armenia: 2 (Aram, Iveta) Australia: 1 (KMH) Austria: 2 (Conchita, Zoë) Azerbaijan: 2 (Farid, DiHaj) Belarus: 3 (Litesound, IVAN, NAVIBAND) Belgium: 4 (Tom Dice, Loic, Laura Tesoro, Blanche) Bosnia & Herzegovina: 1 (Dino Merlin) Bulgaria: 3 (Elitsa & Stoyan, both Poli’s) Croatia: 0 Cyprus: 2 (Minus One, Eleni) Czech Republic: 1 (Lake Malawi) Denmark: 1 (Rasmussen) Estonia: 5 (Malcolm Lincoln, Ott, Birgit, Stigelina, Elina Netchayeva) Finland: 4 (Kuukuiskaajat, Krista, Softengine, Norma John) France: 3 (Jessy, Madame Monsieur, Amir) Georgia: 4 (Sopho N., Shin&Mariko, Nina S., Nika) Germany: 2 (Lena 2.0, Michael) Greece: 2 (Giorgos, Koza Mostra) Hungary: 4 (Kati, Andras, Joci 1.0, AWS) Iceland: 3 (Hera, Greta 2.0, Hatari) Ireland: 1 (Molly) Israel: 3 (Nadav, Hovi, Imri) Italy: 4 (Emma, Francesca, Francesco, Mahmood) Latvia: 3 (Aarzemnieki, Aminata, Justs) Lithuania: 2 (Fusedmarc, Ieva) Macedonia: 1 (Jana) Malta 2: (Gianluca, Michela) Moldova: 4 (Pasha, Aliona, Sunstroke 2.0, DoReDoS) Montenegro: 1 (Who See & Nina Z.) the Netherlands: 4 (Joan, Anouk, Common Linnets, Duncan) Norway: 2 (JOWST, KEiiNO) Poland: 1 (Cleo) Portugal: 1 (Suzy) Romania: 1 (Paula & Ovi 1.0) Russia: 1 (Polina) San Marino: 1 (Crisalide) Serbia: 1 (Bojana) Slovakia: 0 Slovenia: 5 (Maja, Tinkara, Maraaya, Lea, ZalaGasper) Spain: 2 (Ruth, Miki) Sweden: 2 (Loreen, Måns) Switzerland: 3 (Sebalter, ZiBBZ, Luca) Turkey: 1 (maNga) Ukraine: 2 (Zlata, Jamala) United Kingdom: 1 (Lucie)