Like previous years, ESC COVERS will again share a blog post from Morten Thomassen of OGAE NORWAY with his views on the positions reached by all 35 2026 entries. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

Then it is our own contribution that should be analyzed, 14th place is better than what the bookmakers thought we would manage, but it is also not a position we should be very happy with, but all in all, the way things turned out on the final night, we should be satisfied.

Unfortunately for Jonas Lovv, his vocal performance did not improve beyond the ESC week and that probably explains why he came in a strong 4th place in his semi-final and why 3 of the countries he was ahead of there finished ahead of him on the results list in the final.

No one should take away the fact that our song “Ya Ya Ya” was performed by an artist who absolutely loved being on this stage and he literally burst with charm, self-confidence and rocking energy on stage and for once I think the Norwegian contribution was presented in a visual way that suited the song very well.

For a change from some of this year’s artists, it was very clear that Jonas is probably more used to the stage than TV production. He gave a good deal of himself to the audience in the hall, who after all had paid a good deal, but he also didn’t forget those who watched on TV, so everyone got their share of this guy’s charm and other delights.

But, we cannot escape the fact that this is also a singing competition and young Mr. Lovv learned the hard way that the voice is an instrument that sometimes needs to be taken better care of, and even though help was flown in to “save” the voice, it must be admitted that both final performances that were voted on could have had a higher vocal standard than it did.

Thank goodness we had two outstanding choristers hidden somewhere backstage who did a great job so that the overall impression is acceptable and we can only hope that NRK will soon learn to keep participating artists a little more in their ears when it comes to unnecessary vocal use leading up to and during the ESC weeks. Now we have had both Alessandra, Kyle Alessandro and now Jonas Lovv who have had some vocal problems hanging over them during the ESC week and it should have been unnecessary with better planning.

The highlight of the ESC week was probably 12 points from the French jury. I think Jonas was probably paid so much by the professionals since they saw that this was an artist who could handle a stage. The fact that the audience paid us so poorly with only 19 points is mostly because the rock votes went mostly to Romania and then Serbia, and then there simply weren’t that many left for us. Jonas probably appeared to be the least rock-like of the entries in that genre.

When it comes to MGP 2027, I think Mads, Tarjei and the rest of the MGP gang are on the right track and most importantly, they are very ready to learn from their past mistakes and be even better next year and then anything can happen in terms of results in 2027.