Eurovision has found Nemo. And I have to say, it was the right result that night.
I surprised myself watching their performance when I tweeted that they could win. As an aging rock critic, I don't think I'm a mainstream audience and don't put much stock in my ability to pick Euro winners. Indeed, when I first saw the Swiss entrant perform his song during the semi-finals, I was distracted by a production in which Nemo Mettler was spinning on what looked like a satellite dish built for a playground by a sadistic child-hating man. .
Nemo accomplished this feat, delivering a lush, catchy pop song with a very insistent chorus, fast attacking raps and powerful, almost operatic vocals. I knew there was something impressive about this, but I wasn't sure whether to admire their musical abilities or their sense of balance. Certainly not their style of clothing. Eurovision is famous for its loud and outlandish costumes, but 24-year-old Nemo, who is non-binary and uses different pronouns, looked like they had just gone through his sister's wardrobe. In a way, this carelessness added to Nemo's charm.
During the competition itself, I heard something else in the song: a pop energy that reminded me of Mika at his most charismatic, with a great vocal tone and delivery, and a wah-ho-ho chorus that gave me a sly feeling like I'll still be singing in the morning. Despite the very strange lyrics (the line «Like the ammonites, I just gave it a little time» wouldn't win any poetry competitions), it's a pop song with a captivating fizz and spirit, and there was something about Nemo's total commitment to it, a wild energy and the skill they brought to their performance that captured the mind-bending silliness of the event and turned it into something transcendental in its own way.
Among all the political machinations surrounding Eurovision this year, it was probably the year for something frivolous to win. The French offered a magnificent ballad, and the Israelis offered an emotionally rich one. Croatia were the bookmakers' favourites, thanks to their corny but relentlessly catchy techno-rap nonsense. Nemo suggested something more innocent and hopeful. A youthful explosion of pure escapist joy. It almost makes me curious about what they'll come up with next. Almost.
Nemo brought wild energy and skill to his performance. Photo: AP
Not that Eurovision is a great indicator of future fame or artistic potential. It's actually only tangentially related to pop music. It's a fashion parade, a staged extravaganza, a fetishized trashy ball mixed with an unabashed camp celebration of trashy gay culture that has found its space outside of our increasingly fragmented pop music scene, sealed in its own vibrant alternative television dimension.
It has never really been seen as a «song competition» and is perhaps less so now than ever, with each production breaking the bank and wowing the imagination with its display of quirky visuals and outlandish choreography. About halfway through the endless parade of theatrical, multilingual genre collages and wildly sexy dance numbers, I begin to fantasize about a 21-year-old Bob Dylan walking in with his acoustic guitar and harmonica to perform a devastatingly straight version of Blowin' In the wind. And he scored zero points.
Indeed, the participant from Great Britain Olly Alexander, a recognized British star who crashes and burns in this most merciless of competitions, received zero points from the public. “I don’t know why this happened,” Graham Norton said. Well, maybe I can enlighten him. It was a generic pop song with weak vocals, sung to an orgiastically lascivious production that apparently took place in a public toilet. Don't blame Brexit for this. Just not good enough. Again.
Nemo stuck to the same pop genre as Olly Alexander's Dizzy, but it had a catchier song, brighter vocals and a more dizzyingly committed performance. Whether we'll ever hear from them again, I really don't know. But I think they deservedly won this Eurovision. Wow-ho-ho.
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