Eurovision 2022: Grand Final
Overall impressions
Ukraine is the winner of eurovision 2022
Ukraine has been doing great in Eurovision. It is the only country that has never failed to qualify for the finals. The country has a total of seven top-five placements. Some of the iconic appearances Ukraine has had at Eurovision are "Wild Dances" by Ruslana in 2014 (which was one of my favourite songs back then), "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" by Verka Serduchka in 2007, and "SHUM" by Go_A (which was my favourite song last year). Ani Lorak represented Ukraine with "Shady Lady" in 2008 which is another Eurovision favourite of mine. Ukraine won the contest in 2016 with the song "1944" by Jamala. While the song is emotional and touching, I think the winning situation was very similar to what happened this year, ie being politically influenced.
I believe Ukraine should have won last year. And I believe it should not have won this year. It is a music contest and music should be what matters the most. This should go in hand with the artist's personality. Oleh Psiuk, the Kalush group rapper, has been a bit full of himself in the past few months. Ukraine's broadcaster and Kalush have taken full advantage of the situation that Ukraine is in which is at least disturbing for the country and the group. Oleh Psiuk has been giving interviews for media around the world as a winner before the show (for example — Bulgarian's bTV). While I have had many tough moments in my life, begging for people's mercy has always seemed very degrading to me. And this is what Kalush have chosen as an approach. I quite like how BBC has described the event yesterday:
...a symbolic show of public support following the country's invasion by Russia.
I was pleased to see that the professional juries did not all vote for Ukraine with 12 points — which was what I was fearing. There has been some drama going on behind the scenes. It is not clear how and if it has affected the final results. Anyways, it was the general public that gave Ukraine the prize. How much will this vote help the country? I am really curious to see. Ukraine will (most probably) not be able to host the event next year. The hosting country usually invests around twenty million euros on average. I am not sure if Ukraine will have this amount of money to spend on Eurovision. Furthermore, the situation might still be too hostile for an event of this scale to take place. It is also important to note the plans for the show are put months in advance. Finally, people might also not be aware of how much each country spends to participate in the contest. The predetermined victory for Ukraine is disgraceful to all of the other participants.
Another thing I wanted to mention is how talking and making everything about Ukraine can eventually backfire and make people turn on them. While many have been donating and sympathising with Ukraine, I can very easily see how this over-saturation might eventually lead to the sympathy we have to fade away.
Lastly, as some have noted, Ukraine won Eurovision with a song that did not even win their national selection. The national winner was Alina Pash with the song "Тіні Забутих Предків", but she was disqualified due to document forgery. As stated in my pre-Eurovision 2022 article, I would have preferred Ukraine to win this song instead.
The final scoreboard

Eurovision 2022 Scoreboard
I would have loved to see the Netherlands in the top 10. A day before the big final, only the entries from Ukraine, Norway, and the Netherlands made it into the Spotify Global Viral Top 50 and this, on its own, is a great achievement. Regardless of the result, "De Diepte" will remain as one of my favourites from this year.
While I did not enjoy the UK entry, I am happy that Sam Ryder did that well! I am also happy for Spain as they had a good song with an amazing performance. The entries that I did not enjoy at all — Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Australia — scored low.
My Favourites
- Andromache — Ela (Cyprus)
- Ronela Hajati — Sekret (Albania)
- Konstrakta — In corpore sano (Serbia)
- S10 - De Diepte (Netherlands)
- Mahmood & BLANCO — Brividi (Italy)
Eurovision: My Favourites

As of today, the playlist contains 85 songs. However, it will grow in future with the next editions of the contest.
Conclusion
Article cover image by eurovision.tv