Powered by Youtube, I watched some entries.
As far as I know, Australia lies on the other side of the planet, down under as we say. Yet, they were there with an Asian beautiful girl singing a nice song. What happened?
Israel was also there. Has Europe grown? A cute guy that the media say is gay sang a nice song. What is the image, Israel wants to project through him?
Germany sent a Manga girl singing in English. The Dutch had a cute guy in a suit who had actually been to a hairdresser. How Dutch is that?
Frans from Sweden looked much more Dutch or maybe he had forgotten his outfit at home.
Belgium had a girl with an Italian name do a Michael Jackson sing-and-dance revival.
The girl from Spain sang in English, I saw nothing of Spanish culture at all.
The Italian girl sang a nice song in a paradise decor in Italian. I could actually understand most lyrics and thought she had a German accent. Wiki proved me wrong.
Austria fielded a half French girl singing in French
I liked France the best. It was actually in French (mostly), the singer’s origins are in Tunis (another Wiki) and is Jewish.
Ukraine won over Russia, tears over bling-bling, both very strong performances. Conspiracy theories will abound as the contest has many murky things behind the scenes. Not only missing a concept of where Europe geographically lies.
Most songs have no cultural relation or language that links them to the country. The only way to see which country sent a performer is to look it up in the lists. Cultural identities seem lost, globalisation has made songs indistinguishable with respect to their origin.
I have not heard or seen a single song from a Eurovision song contest in many, many years. So my surprise may surprise you. My media consumption is very different from most people.
Another thing: I actually liked most songs. I may even watch the next one on TV. To be held in Ukraine? How would they manage?
The vision of current Europe? Missing!