ESC Covers start the Eurovision 2024 countdown from position 37 to the top place. We are using the review of Morten Thomassen from Norway. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

This is a blog entry and represents only writer Morten Thomassen’s own views.

The question could also be, why did Gåte come in a surprisingly last place in the final for most, a final they reached, perhaps not with a cry of distress, but with as low a margin as 5 points.

From this point of view, it was perhaps not so surprising that you ended up very far down, and initially I thought that “Ulveham” would possibly go down better with the jury, but there my professional knowledge about such things really went awry, because with the exception of 6 points from the Albanian jury we were rewarded with a few stray points, where Finland was the only Nordic country that voted for us, but we still got points from both jury groups there.

In the rush of joy after Gåte won a rather narrow victory in the MGP final, I actually thought that Norway might have a chance of winning, but as time went on you understood that that particular chance was not terribly big, but I still believed in a respectable position and in at least a position in the first half of the results list.

Now I’m pretty sure that if the Netherlands hadn’t been dished out we would have come in 26th place, so a place better than what we would have got in normal circumstances, but I now prefer countries to be beaten in terms of points and not through their disqualification.

What went wrong then, well actually I don’t think anyone went wrong, I guess we just simply became the song that almost no one had in first place, we were so far down the list that we thus didn’t get points from almost anyone and now is it now the case that if you are not in the top 10, you do not get points, and an overview I saw shows that Norway was in a good number of 11th and 12th places with the juries, close, but yet so far Nevertheless.

When I look at the recording from the performance in the final, one can’t help but be impressed by the vocal effort of Gunnhild, she was undoubtedly one of the best vocalists this evening and I also think that the song is magnificent and in that sense this should be something that should strike a chord with those who vote.

If I have to pick on something, it’s that the whole stage image is and becomes too dark, you see that things are happening on stage, but it disappears a little too much and in this sense the energy in the song does not come across as well on the TV screen as it should , and then the whole thing appears a bit visually bland and nothing exceptional happens that should get the public’s attention sufficiently.

This is where I feel that many people thus found someone else to vote for who managed the visual task much better than us, despite the fact that this is a melody competition, in fact, the visual counts for a lot and must never be overlooked as a factor that makes it for some countries and does not do so for other countries.

In addition, I think that to the extent that we competed in music style against some other countries, we lost to Greece when it came to the folk music-like and to Ireland when we think about the rock part of the song, that happens from time to time.

Otherwise, I have the feeling that the NRK team does not dive into the ESC toolbox and take most of what is there with them, however this year I feel they went a little too far the other way and were probably shy about visiting the toolbox, next year I therefore hope that more will be taken care of in the aforementioned fund and then I know that we have heaps of great artists and songwriters, the latter was a big reason for the Swiss victory, so we can if we want, time will allow show whether there will be participation, I believe that NRK will come to its senses and participate, there is little to indicate otherwise.

Featured image – Sarah Louise Bennett EBU