Last weekend, in preparation for my impending trip to Malmö (and to temporarily back myself out of the echo-chamber of Eurovision fandom), I scrubbed my apartment clean, set out the extra chairs, whipped up some meatballs and invited some of my closest friends over to my place for my now-Annual ESC Preview Party.  While we’re all living in Minnesota now, we were actually a pretty global group, with some of us having lived or studied in Germany, Greece, Austria, Bosnia, China, Japan, and Chile.

The majority of my guests had not heard any of the songs before the event, and so all scores were based purely upon first impressions.  Some had attended my little shindig last year, but others were complete and utter Euro-virgins.  As we munched on spanakopita and sipped Belgian beer and Portuguese wine, we let our snarky sides run wild and free, rating each song on its own merits on a scale from one to ten.  There was almost no talk of running order, cultural voting blocs, or previous Eurovision history (except for a wink and a nod to Valentina Monetta’s other contribution to the ESC).  Here’s how the dozen or so of us voted:

Our Top Ten were:

1. France (8.45)
2. Greece (7.71)
3. Malta (7.71)
4. Switzerland (7.68)
5. Finland (7.63)
6. Norway (7.58)
7. Denmark (7.35)
8. Latvia (6.83)
9. (FYR) Macedonia (6.79)
10. Iceland (6.75)

Greece and Malta were tied on the scoreboard, and even had the same number of 10s, but as Greece nabbed 2 9s, over Malta’s single, Gianluca will have to settle for our bronze.  Honorable mentions went to Germany (6.73), Italy (6.55), and Spain (6.23).  Rounding out the bottom were:

• Lithuania (2.50)
• Romania (2.55)
• Belarus (2.70)
• Armenia (3.04)
• Georgia (3.55)

Of course, it’s not a Eurovision Party at Sam’s place without some witty repartee from the gallery.  Here were some shining comments from my friends:

• On France: “Sounds like Voodoo Skyfall in Louisiana.”
• On Greece: “Greek men in kilts?  THAT’S what I’ve been missing in my life!”
• On Malta: “It’s a Target commercial!ʺ ʺThat was so cute, it was vomit-inducingly-trendy.”
• On Latvia: “This is like that time when George Michael and Vanilla Ice toured together in that dream I had.”
• On Macedonia: “This woman is awesome.  She could be wearing or doing anything up there, and giving no fucks.”
• On Iceland: “Icelandic Thor-Jesus goes out to catch a whale with his bare hands.”  “Can he give the other contestants beard lessons?”
• On Italy: “So…did he just get all of Moldova’s leftover hairspray, then?”
• On Ukraine: “I refuse to give any song higher than a 5 if it should be airbrushed onto the side of a van.”  “It was a slideshow of Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers!”
• On San Marino: “I love lamp.”
• On Sweden: “I just want to hug him and pinch his cheeks!”
• On Croatia: “So THAT’s where Michael Stipe has been!” “So, they’re called the Klapa of the Sea, but this isn’t a shanty?  Minus one for not being a sea shanty!!”
• On Bulgaria: “On one hand, I don’t like it…but on the other hand, I could “WEAPONIZE it!”
• On Israel: “She looks like Tracey Ullman.”
• On the United Kingdom: “I would not want to carry a glass of red wine through that house.”  “I want my 80’s back!”
• On Georgia: “This is completely vanilla…but vanilla’s the world’s most popular flavor.” “Compared to Lithuania, Armenia and Azerbaijan, he needs more eyebrows.”
• On Armenia: “This is like the worst Calvin Klein commercial ever!” “Lonely Planet?  This totally precludes the existence of aliens.”
• On Belarus: “We play-o? We play-o? Sounds like 7th grade Spanish class.” “Can we Photoshop Andrius’s brows over her eyes?”
• On Lithuania: “He makes Christian Slater look normal.”  “He has no idea what’s going on…and it’s kind of adorable.”  “I wish my brows were that emotive!”  “Other songs lost to this.”

So there you have it…this year’s Eurovision roster through the eyes of the generally uninitiated.  What’s your take on our votes?  Spot-on, off the mark, or out of our minds?