The Eurovision Song Contest wrapped up today, once again bringing an end to a big global party that the U.S. is completely fine being left out of, don’t even sweat it, we have our own one now anyway. Which means that, for those of us who’ve been experiencing the contest mostly through Twitter images of a Finnish man in a lime green vinyl bolero glowering and kicking his way through various wooden pallets, it’s time to check in on what this year’s winner actually sounded like.
Said honor has gone, for the second time, to Swedish musical artist Loreen, who also won the competition back in 2012. This year, Loreen won for her performance of her hit single “Tattoo,” a pop ballad that came complete with choreography that had the singer compressed between the floor and a giant video screen, forming a sort of cosmic panini press for her to writhe within.
To be fair to the angry rock-rapping Finnish man—whose name, Käärijä, will use up The A.V. Club’s entire stock of umlauts for the month—he did manage to come in second, with 526 points to Loreen’s 583. (Scoring in Eurovision is done by audience vote, with each country getting 58 points to allocate on a weighted formula complex enough that we’re sort of starting to get why the U.S. isn’t invited to participate in this thing.) Israel’s Noa Kirel came in third in this year’s competition.
Loreen’s victory means that Sweden will likely host the competition next year, as is Eurovision tradition—although the U.K. took over duties this year on behalf of last year’s winner Ukraine, which couldn’t host the competition on account of the war and yeah, whoops, there went the fun music contest vibes. Whoops!
Uh, here: Have a video of former Great British Baking Show presenter Mel Giedroyc churning butter like a huge ham while Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham tries to get the show back on track to make up for the bummer.
