The Michigan Cross-Country Review

         After 31 years, the Grand Duchy is back! In a stunningly produced national final (you'd have thought this was Sweden!), they've selected Tali Golergant  with her song "Fighter"  - let's take a listen: About the Artist      She just got a Wiki page on Saturday, so I can tell you that she's 23 or 24, of Peruvian and Jewish descent, and currently lives in New York. That's about it. Best Things We Lost Along the Way      Surprisingly, Luxembourg put together a very good national final on their first try!  Krick, " Drowning in the Rain ", 2nd  - The best vocal performance of the night, and the pre-contest favorite. My personal pick, though I'm fine with Tali too. Song Analysis      Dancy pop song, partly French and partly English. Pretty straightforward. Usually when we get these sorts of songs, it's an internal selection and we don't get to see how well they can sing while dancing - Tali seems at least decent at that. (Better tha

   Friday night on the Late Late Show  (for some reason), Ireland chose their entrant for 2024: it's Bambie Thug with "Doomsday Blue" . Bambie won the televote and the domestic jury, and their 3rd place from the international jury was sufficient to clinch a ticket to Malmö. Let's watch their performance from the...talk show: About the Artist Bambie Thug grew up in Macroom, County Cork, and currently lives in London. They describe their music as "hyperpunk avant-electro-pop", which checks out, I suppose. I believe they're the first openly  non-binary competitor at Eurovision, though others (Montaigne most notably) came out after competing. Best Things We Lost Along the Way This looked to be the strongest national final Ireland's had in ages, and despite some very shaky vocals and performances (perhaps attributable to the fact that it's on a LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW), I think that's true. Only one song I'll mention here, though: Ailsha, "G

   Last month, Slovenia announced that Raiven  would be representing the nation in Malmö, and now we have her song. Here's "Veronika" : About the Artist Sara Cirman, performing as Raiven, is no stranger to the Eurovision process. She's tried to qualify three times before: losing by 1% in the final vote to ManuElla in 2016, finishing a solid 3rd in 2017, and getting trounced in the final vote in 2019 to the well-deserved winners Zalagasper. This time, with no voting involved, she's got a direct ticket to the big show. Raiven is classically trained, performing in operas all across Europe and acting in musicals. She also knows how to play the harp! Song Analysis More or less what we expected from Raiven - a witchy, operatic ballad. I do think it might take too long to get going - not much is happening for the first half-ish of the song. Once it gets going, though, it really  gets going. Slovenia's History One of the less successful Balkan nations, Slovenia has a