29 December 2023

Another year is about to end, so it’s time for another Eurovision battle! This is the yearly contest to determine the best Eurovision Song Contest ever! Starting in 2017 when Kyiv battled against Stockholm 2016 and won by just 2 points, Kyiv 2017 has remained undefeated ever since and now faces Liverpool 2023. Except for Turin 2022 (3 points) and Rotterdam 2021 (2 points), most wins were comfortable, with the largest winning margin being 8 points when defeating Lisbon 2018.

Without even beginning to match up the entries for each country in this year’s battle, I’m fairly confident Kyiv 2017 will win easily. That’s despite it notoriously containing four weak entries to start the battle (Albania, Armenia, Australia and Austria), along with Lithuania and Slovenia later on, and the horrendously bad San Marino and Spain, who generally get smashed every year. Last year, for Spain, Chanel with SloMo simply annihilated Manel Navarro with Do It For Your Lover, 10 points to 5. For those new to the battle format, it works like a boxing match, where the winner of each round gets 10 points while the loser gets 9 or less. Like in boxing, it’s rare to see a margin greater than 10-8, so a 10-5 is essentially being knocked down twice and then saved by the bell from another knock down. If a country does not have an opponent, one point is awarded or deducted depending if I like the song.

Here are the results without the total score. I’ll then add some key battle rounds before revealing the final score.

Azerbaijan

2017 Dihaj – Skeletons

2023 TuralTuranX – Tell Me More

Even though TuralTuranX were my favourite entry heading into Eurovison, their lacklustre performance gave Dihaj a chance. Eventually I stuck with my heart and gave it to the twins and a round win for Liverpool 2023.

Estonia

2017 Koit Toome & Laura – Verona

2023 Alika – Bridges

Two great songs. One performance that was a little cold, and another that was warm and snugly. Plus those vocals from Alika. Wow!

France

2017 Alma – Requiem

2023 La Zarra – Evidemment

France was the toughest decision this year, and I’m still not convinced after watching both a few times. Both songs are quite similar in rhythm and progression, and only that Alma breaks into English makes the contest so close. Overall, Requiem just finishes off that little bit better, and includes some stunning stage graphics.

San Marino (Horror Show 1)

2017 Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson – Spirit of the Night

2023 Piqued Jacks – Like An Animal

Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson usually get annihilated, so that they only lost 10-9 to Piqued Jacks says everything about Piqued Jacks.

Spain (Horror Show 2)

2017 Manel Navarro – Do It For Your Lover

2023 Blanca Paloma – Eaea

Yes, somehow, somewhere, in some bizarre way, Manel Navarro would make it a close round. In truth, he would never beat Blanca, nor probably anyone else on the planet, and the 10-9 score is representative of Blanca actually being a quality artist among all the awfulness whereas Manel was awful in complete and utter totality.

The Winner Is…

Kyiv 2017!

It was comprehensive as suspected, winning by a new record of 9 points, and that’s even after being a bit charitable for a couple of the 2023 entries, notably Ukraine and United Kingdom. I teetered a bit on their score, whether to knock them down lower. Especially so for the UK, as Mae Muller was terribly flat on the Liverpool stage so it was mostly my love for the song that kept her at 9 points. The main reason for the margin is actually San Marino and Spain being relatively close contests this year. Where the challenger might gain 7 or 8 points on Kyiv 2017 most years due to those two countries, this year it was only 2 points.

Interestingly, in terms of rounds won, it was 19 for Kyiv 2017 and 18 for Liverpool 2023. The difference in the total margin being the size of the round wins. While Kyiv 2017 lost those first four rounds comfortably to be 12 points in deficit at that stage, they made it up with big wins thanks to Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Greece, Malta, Romania and Serbia. For Liverpool 2023, other than those first four rounds, their other big winning rounds were Finland, Israel, Lithuania and Slovenia.

Where Kyiv 2017 truly excels is in the evenness of the year. It picks up many close wins, as well as supplying some heavyweight personal favourites like Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland. Bulgaria did not even have a match this year, so the total margin could have been 2 or 3 points larger with an opponent. It was also a rare year for Estonia to be beaten.

We’re back to Sweden in 2024 for Eurovision, which supplied one of the original combatants in the Eurovision battles. The question is can Malmo 2024 do what Stockholm 2016 could not? Only a year to find out. Au revoir!

Kyiv 2017 vs Turin 2022 – The Battle!

Stockholm 2016 vs Kyiv 2017 – The Battle!