The second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024: all acts, including Joost Klein, judged

1. Malta: Sarah Bonnici – Walk

★★★

A festive opening. No one will accuse Sarah Bonnici of a lack of effort. She is probably the best dancer of this edition and hangs upside down above the stage more often than she is on it. Then – bonus points from the pink colony – she also has four dancers with her who never miss an opportunity to take off their shirts. A bit sad: the staging is much better than the song (borrowed from Beyoncé). And then Sarah doesn’t always sing either Walk-pure.

2. Albania: Besa – Titan

★★

Albanian entries were almost always built around the misconception that singing loudly also means singing well. A foghorn approach that damaged many an eardrum. Good news that Besa is taking a modern approach with this one female empowerment-hymn. It is not her persuasiveness, but the dusty R&B/pop song that we have heard dozens of times before and better.

3. Greece: Marina Satti – Zari

★★★

Marina Satti will certainly go to the final with this Mediterranean summer hit. Electronic sirtaki, reggaeton, Greek stand pop, English encouragement. Zari, which means dice, is like the mixed grill in the local Greek restaurant: there is way too much on your plate, but you keep ordering it because everything on offer makes you greedy. And both of them also make you crave ouzo uncontrollably.

4. Switzerland: Nemo – The Code

★★★★

Great musical talent, this Nemo. With an eclectic mix of opera, trip hop, glam rock and hip hop TheCode the Eurovision Song Contest version of Bohemian Rhapsody. He had that too Finding Nemo can be called, because the inner code of this formidable singer is cracked in the song. Will Nemo be the festival’s first non-binary winner? The act may just lack the necessary instant appeal for that.

5. Czech Republic: Aiko – Pedestal

★★★

Now that a large number of entries this year are dipping their toes into the pool of nineties (Euro)dance, it is nice that Aiko is ogling the guitar side of the decade. We hear the echo of Republica’s Ready to Go, Song 2 from Blur and almost all the songs from Garbage. Aiko’s bustier extraordinaire also attracts attention. A daring wardrobe piece with which she immediately puts the scarcity on the global fabric market on the map.

6. Austria: Kaleen – We Will Rave

★★★★

Ooh, those sweet times when 2 Brothers on the 4th Floor, Twenty 4 Seven and 2 Unlimited ruled the charts. Apparently they are also very homesick for it in Austria. With a song by one of Loreens’ composers Tattoo Kaleen (Marie-Sophie Kreissl) is only missing a lava lamp, a Tamagotchi and a game boy. This cracker worked great for the enthusiastic audience of Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam in April.

7. Denmark: Saba – Sand

★★★

The bookmakers do not believe in Saba and its history of a love that turned out to be a sand castle. Admittedly: the chorus in which Saba uses the word ‘sand!’ keeps shouting sounds like my mother while beating out the bath towels after a heated beach day with two disobedient toddlers. But the song surrounding it neatly complies with all Eurovision laws of melody and sing-alongability. And if it doesn’t work out in the semi-finals, there is good news: the Öresund Bridge to Copenhagen is a ten-minute drive from the arena.

8. Armenia: Ladaniva – Jako

★★★

Instant cheerfulness with the duo of singer Jaklin Baghdasaryan and the French trumpeter and flute player Louis Thomas. The latter leaves a striking mark on this spring song in which Balkan pop and Bollywood alternate. That male interference goes exactly against the feminist message of the song.

9. Latvia: Down – Hollow

★★

Ideal moment to start the fryer. Singer Dons combines a fine raw edge on the vocal cords with a remarkably soporific emo song about inner emptiness. A vacuum that he continues with an almost absent stage act. There is still a lot of interesting things to say about Don’s career in his own country, but we suddenly feel so tiredzzzzzzzzzzzz…

10. San Marino: Megara – 11:11

★

Not so long ago, a big bag of money was enough to be declared a Eurovision candidate by the ailing San Marinese broadcaster. This year was completely different, with a national final that, with 129 songs, had almost more participants than the country’s inhabitants. They were all broadcast on TV too. The Spanish rock band Megara – already rejected twice in their own country – won with this crazy trash metal act featuring the flamenco guitar and two pink, dog-like creatures.

11. Georgia: Nutsa Buzuladze – Firefighter

★★★

That the way of a Hollywood duet with Kylie Minogue during American Idol to Eurovision participation for Georgia is not as long as it seems, Nutsa Buzaladze proves. She completed the process within a year. Metaphors about firefighters naturally provoke jokes about voices as sirens and choruses as blaring alarms (and hey, that last bit is somewhat correct). But the truth is that after some incomprehensible entries, Georgia is suddenly up to date and can reach the final for the first time in almost ten years.

12. Belgium: Mustii – Before the Party’s Over

★★★★

Since Sandra Kim, Belgium’s chances of winning have been the same as with honest directors at Ajax: they must exist, but no one has ever seen them. Our southern neighbors once again have a potential winner in their hands with Mustii (Thomas Mustin) and his dark eighties ballad. But the Brussels version of Sven Ratzke has a problem: his swaying vocal cords. And could there really not be a less pale act to accompany this compelling cry from the heart?

13. Estonia: 5Miinust x Puuluup – (Nendest) Narkootikumidest Ei Tea Me (Küll) Midagi

★★★

Estonian hip-hop group joins forces with national folk duo with a preference for indigenous string instruments. What could go wrong? In any case, the title is an excellent precursor: ‘We really don’t know what kind of drugs these are.’ What’s happening on stage is indeed quite psychedelic. To score high, the whole thing ends up a bit too much like a Friday afternoon drink at an accounting firm that got out of hand. Nevertheless: nice catchy song.

14. Israel: Eden Golan – Hurricane

★★★

What a pity. Eden Golan is one of the best singers of this festival and has a boring, but not bad love song. Yet every note is overshadowed by international politics. She obediently complied with the EBU’s order for all political references – initially her number was called October Rain – to be deleted from the song lyrics, but could barely leave her hotel room in Malmö because of threats. Yet a final place – after all, you can vote for Israel, but not against – seems within reach.

15. Norway: Gåte – Ulveham

★★

The land of A-ha’s Take on Me goes now full viking mode. Starting with an antique shepherd’s yodel, this quintet retranslates a medieval Nordic ballad about a girl in a wolf’s skin (‘Ulveham’) and a stepmother with a large wart into a folkloric whole. Singer Gunnhild has a voice that easily spans half a millennium, but we are still not very enthusiastic about this entry. But you probably already had that at the gate.

16. Netherlands: Joost Klein – Europapa

★★★★

What a wonderful run-up to this festival Joost Klein has given us. Crèches full of house-bound toddlers, parents reliving their gabber youth and one broken streaming record after another; Europapa is a hit, boy! That said: the stage presentation suffers from a well-known problem with party acts on the Eurovision stage: one hairy animal too many. Fortunately, there are no professional juries tonight, so our Joost whistles his way to the final.

Eurovision songfestival. Second semi-final. Thursday evening. 21.00 o’clock. NPO 1.

About the author: pop music and media reporter Stefan Raatgever follows the Eurovision Song Contest closely for Het Parool. Since 2014, he has attended the Eurovision spectacle eight times. This year he reports from Malmö.