Omaga, how exciting! It’s time for our highlight of the year: When we get to chuck down a bottle of chardonnay and flick through all the intriguing images of this year’s participants and decide which ones are most to our likings while of course also accepting all kinds of bribes. This year, it was extra hard, as the rules of social distancing made it difficult to use senses such as touch and smell and we needed to rely solely on what met our eye. But we must say, we had some happy encounters there, of which we are truly grateful.
Word of note: In 2021 we’ve also been through a couple of refreshing but also sometimes painful years of #metoo. This has resulted in a fear of complaints once our many readers find out we are a wee bit older than some of the contestants. Also, we don’t always feel we are in their immediate target group, To make up for this, we decided to let another member into our highly prestigious jury. Desireé is our favorite queen with high Eurovision expertise, of Eastern European decent, still in her 20s. Her points have been of the same value as ours, but we decided to let her have her own voice. And does she agree with us? Read to find out!
1 point go to…Vasil Garvanliev (North Macedonia)
Let’s begin on the soft side. Vasil barely made our list due to his somewhat smug appearance, and he did not get any more points when he showed up at the turquoise carpet in a happymeal toy crown from the nearest Burger King. Then again, there’s something innocent and sweet about that brown eyed look of his. At least there was before Desireé told us the meaning of those arm tattoos. Unthank you very much *erasing inner mental images*.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Vasil is such a sweetheart! He gets so emotional in the beginning of his music video and starts crying because the contest was cancelled last year. You’re then like aww I really want to hug him. He then wipes his tears away whilst showing off his fisting tattoos. On second thought, I think I’ll skip that hug.
2 points go to…Albina’s dancers (Croatia)
Some guys never get the full attention they deserve, namely the dancers. They can literally lift any boring entry to new heights just by a few hip sways and a pirouette and some decent pant cutouts. The Croatian dancers, also known as Luciano Plazibat, Stjepan Cutvarić, Devin Juraj and Marko Marić, do that and a lot more. We’re not sure why Albina wanted to put more clothes on her dancers when traveling from the national final to the Eurovision stage, but maybe she thought Rotterdam was somewhere close to the North Pole. Or maybe she needed to be wrapped in tin foil only to keep the steam from leaving the stage. Let’s just state the obvious fact that the latter did not happen.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Anyone who’s watched Croatia’s music video surely understands why Albina’s dancers are listed here. Who exactly decided they need to wear THAT many clothes in Rotterdam? Do they want Europe to vote for them or not? Also, what are they actually wearing? Is that straight off the rack from Primark? Choices.
3 points go to…Victoria de Angelis from Måneskin (Italy)
We now ask for absolute silence as it’s time for a key moment in GEE history. For the first time ever, a woman reached our hotlist and of course she is from Italy. Usually we prefer a certain amount of testosterone in this pageant, but holy goddess of Venus, this chick is able to turn on even the most frumpy Norwegian housewife. Victoria sure can handle her bass, and those moves will make you want to follow her forever. She made it on the cover of Elle already, so it’s about time we let her into our fold, pun intended.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
It looks like Victoria is the first woman to make it on the GEE hotlist and very rightfully so. She’s just gorge! I think she brings so much fire on stage that they don’t really need all that pyro in the end. You go girl! x
4 points go to…Tornike Kipiani (Georgia)
He’s got the look, the brain, talent aplenty and the most sensitive soul, what’s not to like? It goes without saying that this renaissance man from the Caucasus deserves to make it on to our hotlist. Add that he comes from the country with the yummiest cheese stuffed in bread and would like his dream ice cream to taste beef, and we cannot crave him more in the sea of anemic vegans this year’s line-up has turned out to be. He’s pretty beefy himself we might add, we’ll have him medium rare with fries on the side, thank you very much!
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Quick! Hide your mothers! I’m not sure what’s so intriguing about him. Is it the fact that he looks just like the average psycho? Is it because he seems not to give a f*ck about what the Eurovision fandom thinks about him? My guess is that a lot of people misunderstand him and I’ll be really happy if he’ll make it to the final.
5 points go to…Blas Canto (Spain)
Make way for this Latino lover, sweet talking us until almost turning us all into lunatics under that giant moon of his. We all know he’ll be gone tomorrow, we’ve met more than a few of his likes to know that it’s all empty fluff, but we’ll forget about that for a moment and focus on his groomed exterior, silky voice, and toned torso. Flipping through his promo pics raises a red flag, though, as we can’t be bothered with men spending more time in the bathroom getting ready for a night out on the town than we do.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Out of all participants this year, Blas seems to have the best hair style. He’s also extremely cute and he can actually sing! I just hope he had a better song. Anyway, I’ve just read that his music video is a tribute to his late grandmother. How sweet is that? He gets extra points.
6 points go to…Vaidotas Valiukevičius (Lithuania)
Well, hello there, Vaidotas *insert last name we would never have managed to pronounce even if our lives depended on it*. And even though this rules out marrying this very stylish chap he secures a place on our list with his smooth moves and sexy gaze. Showing up on the Eurovision stage in a bright yellow suit and a silly dance routine could have gone so very wrong and it demands confidence aplenty to pull it off. We’d love to dance alone with Vaidotas and we’re ready to roop it out from the rooftops. Or more likely from our verandas here at home, but close enough, we reckon.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Last year he was on fire and now he feels it’s safe to dance alone. I’m pretty sure, however, that he’d find plenty of volunteers in the Eurovision bubble who’d scrap Covid rules for a night at the Discoteque with him. Let’s just hope he dances better than Theresa May, otherwise he might end up dancing alone indeed.
7 points go to…Ihor Didenchuk from Go_A (Ukraine)
Multi talents always score high with us, especially the pretty ones, so when a sopilka player/frilka player/floyara player/ telynka player/trembita player/drymb player/singer//hot dude in a national costume/hot dude in street clothes shows up, we know where he’s heading. According to his band mates, Ihor always travels around with several instruments in his bag, we can only imagine what he’s able to do with those.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Despite the fact that Kateryna’s singing technique makes me want to go straight to Heathrow and board on the first flight to Switzerland so I can kill myself legally, it’s just impossible not to notice Ihor and I mean that in the best possible way. He is such an eye candy! Yes, you better work that flute honey! This makes me consider taking some flute lessons. Hope he’s available.
8 points go to…Benny Cristo (Czech Republic)
Who can resist the charm of this happy camper? It’s easy to forget that Eurovision is just entertainment where folks across Europe and beyond meet in friendly battle to share their music, show their culture and have a blast. Benny Christo is here to remind us, with his happy go lucky attitude, tongue in cheek humour and dancefloor banger of a song. And of course it doesn’t hurt that he’s doing all that while looking seriously sharp in outfits designed by his in-house fashion designer.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Omaga! The reference to Lady and the Tramp (I almost wrote Trump, but no lady would want to hang out with that one, not even a four-legged one) is literally EVERYTHING! How cool is that video? I’m sure most of us wouldn’t mind Benny stalking us even if that means we’d have to get someone to fix the walls in our house regularly.
10 points go to…Uku Suviste (Estonia)
You know how a Eurovision hit is 50 percent appearance and 50 percent a decent song decently delivered? Seems like Estonia only got the first half of that memo. But man, did they get that right. We always include at least one fine specimen of Baltic men on our list, and it was not hard to choose this time. Uku is a classic beauty with shiny blue eyes and an innocent look that probably hides a lot of troubled emotions. We’d love to comfort him any time. And we’a also crowdfund a hair stylist while we’re at it.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
Ugh girl, the thirst is real! Uku is not even relying on that body! Please y’all make an effort and pay attention to his voice. He’s actually very talented, not only insanely handsome! Aren’t we the lucky ones? No wonder he’s been voted Estonia’s sexiest man alive.
And the most obvious 12 points ever go to Damiano from Måneskin (Italy)
If someone offered us a man in makeup, large hoop earrings and high heels a year ago, we probably would have declined rather politely. But that was before Damiano and Måneskin. In fact, there’s never been so little discussion about the winner of this pageant as it was this year. The moment Damiano hits the stage he turns into some sort of Roman Cupid that plays both the camera and the stage like he never did anything else and naturally casts a spell on everyone within miles distance just by blinking his eye. We’re dead jealous of those band mates of his for the looks he gives them and very sad we don’t get to molest this guy on the dance floor of EuroClub. “Je suis Christ”, the tattoo on Damiano’s arm reads. No, we’d answer. You’re nothing but God himself. Or, quite possibly, the Virgin Mary.
Comment from expert judge Desirée
How do I even start? Is there anyone out there who doesn’t want to f*ck Damiano? I think he knows that very well and that’s why his Eurovision entry is literally called “Shut up and behave”. I don’t think either of that’s possible when he’s around but good on him for trying to keep us away from him. If the rehearsals footage is anything to go by he will be serving body on Saturday evening. I expect Italy to win the televoting by a landslide.
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