I listened to every defunct Eurovision 2020 entry, so you don’t have to

This song takes a while to get going. The first two verses and choruses are basically a write-off.

Yes, that’s most of the song but then, then there is the final bridge and final chorus. They’re punchy, dramatic, and probably not worth the wait but I enjoyed them anyway.

The Armenians have apparently discovered the existence of steel drums, unambiguously sadomasochistic lyrics, and contemporary hip-hop. So basically the artist thinks she’s Rihanna. Except, you know, without all the production value or the Pitch Perfect spin-offs.

The Aussies keep churning out Eurovision class acts; this year is no exception. This is a cool and punchy track that makes great use of text painting in the lyrics to compliment the swooping instrumentation. It rises and falls throughout to keep you engaged for all three minutes.

Bare with this, because the first 30 seconds are a bit crap. They’re obscuring some excellent bass-thwacking that comes a little later.

It’s a bit all over the place and can’t catch a consistent feeling of pace, but it’s enough to jolt you awake after some snoozing ballads.

I always thought Cleopatra was Egyptian and yet, despite Egypt being eligible to enter Eurovision, this ode to the queen comes from Azerbaijan.

Obviously inspired by last year’s fan favourite, it’s replete with faux-throat singing, but with substantially more sex and sass. Solid.

Da vidna, meaning “until dawn” is reminiscent of that track from Made in Chelsea. You know, the one with the screechy sound.

Made in Chelsea and Da vidna have something else in common too: they’re both stilted and devoid of substance.

You know when you’re in a pub and you ask for Coke but you get Pepsi? Sure it looks like Coke, but the taste? Just a bit off. That’s this song.

It’s almost a good jazz lounge number. It’s fine. It’s just a bit discordant and, like Pepsi, a poor imitation of the original.

Bulgaria has had some absolute tunes in recent years. (See 2016, 2017, and 2018.) But then, last year, they didn’t enter and I was gutted. Having heard this, I wish they’d skipped another year.

It’s weird. It’s incoherent. It’s barely instrumented. I don’t like it. Bring back Poli!

As it’s sung in Croatian, I’ve taken the liberty of looking up the lyrics for this one. What I’m getting is pathetic; a pathetic fallacy that is.

It’s also naff.

This is basically that song from Pocahontas but without the colonial overtones or the musical genius of Alan Menken.

I think what we’re meant to take away from this song is that this artist is struggling with his mental health. (Great! #TimeToTalk etc.)

What I actually took away from this is that maybe Sandro is really into marathons. I do like this, I just think it gets a little repetitive.

The Czech’s have been on an upward trajectory the last few years. Last year’s entry was great, if you ignored the shit cockney accent.

This year’s entry is also pretty good. And it’s produced by someone called Glowsticks, which is just extremely on brand for Eurovision.

The Danes have apparently taken inspiration from their near-ish Dutch neighbours with this country song that sounds remarkably similar to a Lumineers track in the chorus.

It’s a “yes” from me.

I’m a sucker for a good power ballad and this is not a good power ballad. It has all the right components: a slow opening, kicking into a bold chorus. When it comes to it though, it never truly lets rip and that’s why it fails.

Given the only winning entry Finland’s ever had in Eurovision was a bunch of hard rocking, latex monsters, this is about as far away from that as you can get. That is to say it is comparatively dull.

Unrelatedly, I can’t excuse Aksel’s laissez-faire view of motoring offences.

You can always rely on the French for a meandering ballad, and this year they’ve delivered in spades. Unless my ears deceive me, I think there are two key changes (top work, France). The lyrics, however, are awfully gushing and the song itself is just colourless.

This guy seems not to have gotten over his latest relationship breakdown.

Why do I say that? Well, it’s obviously totally proportionate to release a song where you scream “why don’t you love me?” into a microphone as part of a grunge track.

Awkward.

There’s one reliable thing about a nation that regularly doesn’t open its nightclubs until after midnight, and it’s that it knows how to throw a party. The Germans have brought this fun, slick bop to this party and it is totally my vibe. It could have been a contender.

Top marks for the obvious message of womens’ empowerment contained in this track’s lyrics.

The song has a driving rhythm and some peculiar backing music replete with some kind of presumably Greek-native instrument; but there’s nothing that stands out as particularly interesting.

I don’t care what anyone else says, this is fucking brilliant. It’s got whimsy lyrics, 1980s stylings to the instrumentation, and a top-notch beat. Oh, and it’s got a totally insane slowed-down-and-then-sped-up bridge into the final chorus. Douze points!

Well Lesley clearly likes P!nk.

I’m not much of a P!nk fan, but I can appreciate a thumping good pop song and this is one of those. It’s uptempo, chirpy, and has a driving bass line for a fun three minutes.

Feker libi (or “my sweetheart” in English) is a very confused song. One minute it’s a 90s house track, praying to the Earth mother; the next it’s a Bollywood banging Pussycat Dolls rip-off.

If you can look past the frantic and a bit out-of-place middle-eight, it’s pretty good!

Italy has good years and bad years. This, I think, is a bad year.

It’s basically just a middle-aged, white guy shouting at a microphone too much for three-minutes. Par for the course for Italy in the 2010s, but not a great start to the 2020s.

One of two tracks this year with an unfortunate title, given the situation. (You know, literally the reason the contest has been cancelled!)

Latvia takes us to the club with this over-produced track and nondescript female vocal. It throws in some (not good) rap near the end of the track before crashing into a distorted mess of an ending.

I so desperately wanted to make a good “The Roop is On Fire” joke here, but this track does not deserve my best wit. This is quirky and there’s an ear-worming synth riff throughout, but it does not exceed the sum of its parts. Disappointing, at best.

The song builds very quickly from a quiet piano ballad, to a powerhouse with drivingly rhythmic instrumentation. It’s hard to identify the catchy riff that your ear is meant to latch on to, but there’s no doubting that singer, Destiny, has got lungs.

This is a fairly meh pop ballad from the Moldovans. It keeps rolling with a decent ebb and flow, switching up between piano-leading verses and more punchy choruses. It’s enough to keep you interested, but it’s ultimately a bit anti-climactic.

This is utterly miserable. For the first minute and a half it’s almost one continuous note of instrumentation with a near monotone vocal.

After that, it just gets weird. It very, very slowly builds to a crescendo and just as you think it might be getting somewhere; it stops.

The recently renamed Former Yugoslav Republic of North Macedonia has ditched boastful ballads this year and gone for a sexed-up, Latino-type song about dancing.

The vocals are a tad bland, but the instrumentation is varied and lay down a fun beat.

“I just want your attention”, sings Ulrikke in the pre-chorus of the Norwegian entry. Well, Ulrikke, you’ll have to try harder than this.

The song takes an age to get started, and it only really grabs you after about 2 minutes. It’s pleasant enough; just not very catchy.

Singer Alicja appears to be quite pre-occupied with combustion in this kind-of-orchestrally instrumented track. There are a lot of destructive metaphors.

It’s kind of like a James Bond theme, if Bond themes were a bit shit and done on a shoe string rather than by drag queens.

Ah, Portugal. Another year, another expectedly dreary entry.

It’s a ballad. It’s very monotone. It would have been a good moment to pop to the loo because you wouldn’t have missed much.

What is Roxen drinking?

If this were any true metaphor for alcohol, it would feel a lot better in the moment and the hangover would at least be memorable. This dreary and confused entry is closer to drinking bleach than alcohol; it’s shit and you’ll regret it once it’s done.

It has been apparent for sometime that things are not good in Russia, but now we know why: they’re still living in the 1990s.

This, somehow, manages to be even more annoying than Aqua’s infamous back catalogue, which – let’s not forget – includes a song about plastic dolls.

San Marino, the tiny nation always churning out questionable acts that for some reason people seem to like, have discovered the 1970s this year. It’s a discotheque tune with a lot repetition of the word “freaky”. By my count, there are no fewer than 41 uses of “freaky” and 6 uses of “freaking” in this freaking song. For once for San Marino, something I’d listen to again.

This song starts with a false-stop and I am not a fan. What I am a fan of is the high-energy hasta la vistas peppered throughout this early-2000s style, girl-band song.

Objectively, it’s probably not a good song, but it’s got a fun Eurovision prime-era vibe to it.

Who knew that the Slovenians were so enthusiastic about one the world’s largest telecommunications companies?

In reality, I have absolutely no idea what the lyrics to this song are about, as I can’t find the English translation; but it is inoffensive enough to pass three minutes.

This song is a great example of how lyrics can sound really impressive in their native language, and then turn to utter gibberish when translated into English.

There is an excellent falsetto at 2:30 that I bet would have gotten totally butchered live. Gutted we’ll miss that.

Last year’s Swedish backing singers would have taken centre-stage this year in this soul and gospel track.

This is another great entry in a string of amazing Eurovision entries from my favourite European nation. I am unashamedly biased at this point. Sweden can do no wrong!

This is a very emotive entry. There’s something haunting about Gjon’s voice, and the stripped back instrumentation compliments his falsetto in interesting ways. It is also in French, which is novel for a Swiss entry nowadays.

Oh Christ on a hamster wheel, didn’t we collectively learn anything from this style of music last year?

According to their official profile, Go_A think that “Ukrainian folklore and electronic music are a perfect match”. They are wrong. Go_Away. Now.

It’s supremely unfortunate that in the year the UK enters a good song, Eurovision gets cancelled. It’s also unfortunate that we chose a song with this title in the same year the world is swept by a respiratory virus pandemic.

I just wish the song didn’t end 25 seconds early.