Pinned
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Nemo is the first nonbinary winner of Eurovision.
Nemo, representing Switzerland, won the Eurovision Song Contest for “The Code,” a catchy track in which Nemo raps and sings operatically about their journey to realizing they were nonbinary.
The victory — the first for a nonbinary performer and the first for Switzerland since Celine Dion won in 1988 — capped a rocky week of the competition, a cultural juggernaut in which singers and rappers represent their countries and perform for votes.
To more casual observers, it’s simply a fun, camp — and often bewildering — night of TV, with extravagant songs and outrageous outfits. But the contest also often has political undertones, and the run-up to this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden, was overshadowed by the war in Gaza. For months, thousands of Eurovision fans, as well as dozens of pro-Palestinian organizations, lobbied the competition’s organizers to ban Israel because of its war in Gaza.
On Saturday, around 5,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through the Malmo city center to protest Israel’s involvement, and as the final prepared to kick off, a handful of vocal protesters were removed by police from in front of Malmo Arena.
Here’s what else to know:
Eurovision’s organizers refused to bar Israel’s entry. Eden Golan, a 20-year-old pop star, represented Israel with “Hurricane,” a ballad that obliquely references Israeli grief over the Oct. 7 attacks last year. Her performance was met with some boos in the arena.
Organizers banned the Netherlands’ entry. The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, said in a statement that it was “investigating an incident” involving the Dutch artist, Joost Klein, and on Saturday morning, a Swedish police spokeswoman said officers were investigating a man “suspected of unlawful threats” toward a Eurovision employee.
This was the third time that Malmo, a city of 360,000 people on Sweden’s southwest coast, has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest. In the last 30 years, the city has undergone a transformation to become the country’s youngest, fastest growing metropolis.
May 11, 2024, 6:47 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Nemo has given Switzerland its first Eurovision winner since Celine Dion in 1988, who represented the country despite being Canadian.
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May 11, 2024, 6:42 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
Once again, we see that the voters at home often feel very differently about the songs than the national juries.
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May 11, 2024, 6:37 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
And now it is time for the televotes, and if you thought the national juries were complicated, brace yourselves.
The public votes are announced beginning with the lowest scoring country from the jury votes.
May 11, 2024, 6:32 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
We are now at the end of the jury votes, which award half the total points. Switzerland is in the lead with 365 votes, followed by France with 218 and Croatia with 210. It can all change very quickly, though.
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May 11, 2024, 6:24 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
The televotes can make up for a lot of points, but Switzerland is building a formidable lead.
May 11, 2024, 6:24 p.m. ET
Callie Holtermann
Viewers on social media are noting that Iolanda, the singer representing Portugal, performed with her fingernails decorated in a black, white and red pattern that resembles a kaffiyeh, a scarf that is a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians.
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May 11, 2024, 6:15 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
Halfway through the jury vote, Switzerland is in the lead, but there is a much wider spread of points than usual. It is quite an open field.
May 11, 2024, 6:04 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Some audience members in the arena boo the Israeli jury. Then, Israel awards its 12 points to Luxembourg — whose entrant, Tali, was born in Israel.
May 11, 2024, 6:02 p.m. ET
Callie Holtermann
Nemo from Switzerland is celebrating their points draped in a black, purple, white and yellow nonbinary pride flag.
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May 11, 2024, 6:00 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
It is still early, but Switzerland, Ireland and Croatia are doing well so far, as a lot of people have predicted. Britain is yet to receive any points. Some traditions never change.
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May 11, 2024, 5:57 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
The United Kingdom just gave Portugal 12 points. In the media room, a lot of Portuguese journalists just lost their minds and ran around.
May 11, 2024, 5:53 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
Now for the numbers game.
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If you are new to the Eurovision telecast, you might not be aware that it goes on for about four hours. The reason is that the 26 competing songs are followed by a painstakingly detailed announcement of the results, which are obtained by combining points allocated by voters at home and by national juries made up of music-industry professionals.
Since last year, viewers outside participating countries — and that includes the United States — can cast votes. The voting window for the so-called “rest of the world” begins 24 hours before the start of the final and lasts until the beginning of the live broadcast, but viewers in participating countries can vote until around a half-hour after the last song.
At the end, the participating countries take turns announcing how many points their jury allocated to the contestants — a process that takes a while, since all 37 participants are included, not just the 26 in the final. Each country allocates a total of 58 points in installments of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 or 12 points. (Why they don’t give out 9 or 11 points is one of the universe’s great mysteries.)
Once the 37 jury votes have been reported, we switch over to the results of the public vote, which are announced by the hosts. Each country’s audience gets 58 points, just like the juries.
Televotes from the “rest of the world” bloc are also allocated 58 points, meaning even though there are 7 billion potential voters, their votes have the same weight in the competition as the tiny principality of San Marino, population 34,000.
The public vote can dramatically change the ranking: In 2022, Britain was leading after the jury votes, but Ukraine earned the most ever public vote points and vaulted to the top spot. Last year, the jury-favorite Sweden won the contest by surviving a last-minute surge from Finland, which earned the most points from the public vote.
In other words: It’s not over until it’s over.
May 11, 2024, 5:52 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
We’re about to see how the countries' juries vote. They make up 50 percent of the overall score, and can vote very differently from the public.
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May 11, 2024, 5:34 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Outside the arena, the pro-Palestinian protesters have disappeared, but I can hear some distant chanting. There is still a large police presence, including 12 police officers on horses.
May 11, 2024, 5:30 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
Abba sent out the Abbatars to perform “Waterloo.” But what are the Abbatars? Here is an explainer.
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May 11, 2024, 5:26 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
Eurovision's organizers have mocked the rumours of Abba reforming for the interval act by reforming Alcazar, a Swedish pop group known for the song "Crying at the Discoteque."
May 11, 2024, 5:21 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
The quality of the songs and, especially, performances has been strikingly high this year. It’s as if everybody felt they had to raise their game for a contest held in Sweden, a.k.a. the Kingdom of Eurovision. For those new to the contest, 2024 is a fantastic point of entry, though it may set too-high expectations for 2025.
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May 11, 2024, 5:17 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
That’s it! All 25 acts have now performed. Over the next 2 hours (yes, really) we’ll find out who the winner is.
May 11, 2024, 5:14 p.m. ET
Callie Holtermann
Kaleen’s look is so Gaga, with a bedazzled leotard and boots roughly the size of aluminum trash cans.
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May 11, 2024, 5:11 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
And just like that, we’re onto the final act: Kaleen, representing Austria, with the appropriately titled “We Will Rave.”
May 11, 2024, 5:10 p.m. ET
Scott Bryan
“United for music for love and peace,” Slimane said at the end of the performance.
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May 11, 2024, 5:08 p.m. ET
Elisabeth Vincentelli
France has not won since 1977 and at times it feels as if the country is at a loss at what to do about it. France came close in 2021, when Barbara Pravi finished a mere 25 points behind the winner, Maneskin.
May 11, 2024, 5:02 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
I hope the arena singing (and dancing) along to Baby Lasagna came across on TV. It was like a Bon Jovi classic.
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May 11, 2024, 4:57 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Time for the favorite: Baby Lasagna, from Croatia.
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If you believe Europe’s bookmakers, the act onstage now is likely to win this year’s Eurovision: Baby Lasagna, representing Croatia, with “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” — a madcap three-minute mixture of heavy metal and dance music.
The song begins with Baby Lasagna — real name Marko Purisic — singing to his mother that he’s a “big boy now” and wants to leave his family’s village for the city. “I’m going away and I sold my cow,” he sings, before calling for the villagers to join him one last time in a local folk dance. The chorus? “Rim tim tagi digi.”
In a recent interview, Purisic said that although the song may seem a little ridiculous, it was also a serious attempt to draw attention to Croatia’s ongoing problem with youth emigration.
Shortly before he wrote the track, Purisic said, his best friend had moved away from their hometown, Umag, on Croatia’s western coast, in search of work in the city. Many of Purisic’s other friends and relatives had already departed further afield to Germany and Ireland, he added. “I was really sad about it, and started to think about how much young people are leaving Balkan countries because they can’t afford rent, they can’t find a job and they have to go broken hearted,” Purisic said.
Purisic said that he had considered leaving Croatia a few times — once, to work on a cruise ship — but “every time I got cold feet.”
Purisic said that winning the song contest wasn’t his aim. After a long career as a rock songwriter for hire, he said, last year he considered changing tack, and applied for a stable job in Croatia’s tourism industry. But with the success of “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” — which has had millions of views on YouTube — he now hoped to build a career as Baby Lasagna, he said. “If I do that,” he added, “then I win.”
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May 11, 2024, 4:44 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Will Nemo, from Switzerland, be Eurovision’s first nonbinary star?
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Switzerland’s entrant, Nemo, is about to take the stage with “The Code,” an absurdly catchy track in which Nemo raps and sings operatically about their journey to realizing they were nonbinary.
“I went to hell and back / To find myself on track,” Nemo sings in the chorus: “Now, I found paradise / I broke the code.”
Throughout its 68 year history, Eurovision has often featured L.G.B.T.Q. performers, with past winners including Dana International, a transgender woman, and Conchita Wurst, a drag act.
Yet this year is the first time Eurovision has prominently featured nonbinary acts like Nemo and Ireland’s entrant, Bambie Thug.
In a recent video interview, Nemo, 24, said they were “amazed” that Eurovision fans were connecting with their “deeply personal” track. “I think the message behind the song is quite universal,” Nemo said: “We all know that feeling of wanting to break free from something — everyone has a code to break.
“In my case, it was breaking free from the gender binary and finding my place beyond that. But it could be, like, someone unhappy in their job and wanting to let go.”
Nemo, whose full name is Nemo Mettler and who first found fame in Switzerland as a teenage battle rapper, said that they became aware they were nonbinary about three years ago. It took time to share that news with their family, let alone with their fans. “It’s scary to open up,” Nemo said, “but I think it’s in taking risks and opening up where art becomes really interesting.”
If Nemo does triumph tonight, they’ll become Switzerland’s first Eurovision winner since Celine Dion in 1988. “It’s so random she won,” Nemo said, pointing out that Dion was Canadian. “I would love to be the next person after her.”
A correction was made on
May 12, 2024
:
An earlier version of this article misstated a lyric in Nemo’s song “The Code.” It is “to find myself on track,” not “to get myself on track.”
How we handle corrections
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May 11, 2024, 4:20 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Can Angelina Mango become Italy’s next global pop star?
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In recent editions of Eurovision, Italy has developed a habit of choosing acts that go on to become stars outside their homeland.
In both 2019 and 2022, the country selected Mahmood, a singer whose tracks now get tens of millions of YouTube views. In 2021, Italy went for the rock band Maneskin, which has since become so well known that it plays festivals worldwide.
Will Angelina Mango, Italy’s representative this year, follow their lead?
In her track “La Noia” (“The Boredom”), Mango sings in Italian about the joys of boredom, over a catchy cumbia beat. (She has also released a Spanish-language version to broaden its appeal.)
Mango, 23, has already had several hit singles in Italy and critics there consider her a rising star. But, she said in a recent interview, she is naturally a “very anxious” person, and so was trying not to not think about the global audience watching Eurovision.
“La Noia” was a call for people to use moments of boredom for self analysis, Mango said. “Sometimes we need to think about our past, and about everything bad that happened in our lives, so we can then see the positive,” she added.
When she was 13, her father Giuseppe Mango, a singer, had a heart attack while performing onstage, and died before reaching hospital. Two years later, Mango moved from southern Italy to Milan. “I changed my home, my friends, everything,” she said.
Some of her songs were about those challenges, Mango added, but “La Noia” was ultimately upbeat. “Everyone has something that makes them feel pain,” Mango said, “but I found a way to be happy and positive.”
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May 11, 2024, 4:08 p.m. ET
Alex Marshall
Reporting from Malmo, Sweden
Can Britain’s Olly Alexander prove the critics wrong?
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Three months ago, Olly Alexander, Britain’s representative, seemed like the perfect Eurovision act.
A well known pop star in his home country, whose band Years and Years has topped the charts there, Alexander also starred in “It’s a Sin,” a 2021 TV drama about a group of gay friends living in 1980s London under the shadow of AIDS. Throughout his career, he has embraced camp spectacle — just what a Eurovision contestant needs.
Then, in March, Alexander unveiled “Dizzy,” his Eurovision song, and British critics quickly lost hope that he might storm the show.
Marcus Wratten, writing in PinkNews, an L.G.B.T.Q. website, called “Dizzy” a “solid effort,” but one lacking “the soaring chorus” of a winner. Laura Snapes, in The Guardian, said the track was “far too safe to leave anyone reeling.”
To prove his critics wrong, Alexander will need to put on an excellent show. In a preview performance on Tuesday, he danced with a group of topless boxers in a set that resembled a sports locker room. Screens at the back made it appear — bizarrely — like the room was hurtling through space.
Whatever you think of his song, there is an extra reason to watch Alexander closely: To see whether he makes a statement on Israel’s war in Gaza. Of all this year’s acts, Alexander has faced the most pressure from pro-Palestinian groups to withdraw from the event in protest over Israel’s presence at the comeptition.
Last year, Alexander signed an open letter that described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide,” and he has since called for an end to “atrocities” in the region. But he has also repeatedly refused to boycott the song contest.
In a recent interview with The Times of London, Alexander said that he had found the pressure tough. “I wish there wasn’t a war or this insane humanitarian crisis,” he said. “But I still believe it’s a good thing when people come together for entertainment. That’s why I wanted to do Eurovision.”
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