BoNF 2023

Best of National Finals 2023

2023′s edition is the 19th BoNF, a contest that survived 18 editions between 2005 and 2021 and, most importantly, the COVID cancellation of Eurovision 2020! Luckily for this contest, all national finals were done by the time the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled, and all internal selections were revealed as well. We basically could go on with this online contest!

2023 is the fifth time in a row for which I write this after the contest is over. I used to be better at keeping things up to date and used to post it as soon as it was over, and more importantly before the actual contest was held in order to get some idea of what the results might be. But I had a very busy end of the year, so I take some free time during the ETSC season to post this article. Moreover, this is posted a bit late because esc 2023 was a bit underwhelming, but then 2021 was historical (the revival of the contest turned out a great success, as Rotterdam had two years to practice, keeping what was a good idea and updating what needed to do better; delegations also had more time to think over, and some kept their artists while others made the smart move to change) and one of the best contests ever, definitely the best this century and the best of the modern era (since 1998, with the language rule and orchestra abolished and televote introduced). So 2023 was pale in comparison, boring or bad NF with often bad results. Once more a very few NF made it all worth while (Finland, Portugal, Serbia, Italy and a still fresh Spanish NF).

I still continued to work harder on getting a good logo, personalized pics for the finalists but I won’t be posting all individual videos of the finalists on youtube because of the site new policies. Now I just create a playlist that features all 15 lives, often posted by the broadcasters themselves. 37 countries took part in the 2023 Eurovisiong Song Contest but I am not couting Australia in BoNF, so we’re counting 38 for BoNF (it was a record 43 countries in esc 2018). 24 of them used some sort of national finals (26 in 2022, 17 only in 2021, 23 in 2020, 25 in 2019, 29 in 2018, 24 in 2017) in which 526 songs were performed (430 in 2022, 377 in 2015, 373 in 2016, 380 in 2017, 516 in 2018, 424 in 2019, 375 in 2020, 250 in 2021) still far from the late noughties figures, with a peak at 650 songs in 2009, but still a big upgrade from the past few years, thanks to San Marino’s insane show. I wrote down a list of 110 songs I liked and then came up with this top 30:

  • Austria – Teya & Salena – Who the hell is Edgar?
  • Belgium – Gala Dragot – T’inquiète
  • Denmark – Reiley – Breaking my heart
  • Denmark – Søren Torpegaard Lund – Lige her
  • Estonia – Ollie – Venom
  • Finland – Benjamin – Hoida mut
  • Finland – Käärijä – Cha cha cha
  • Finland – Kuumaa – Ylivoimainen
  • Finland – Lxandra – Something to lose
  • Iceland – Silja Rós & Kjalar – Ég styð þína braut
  • Ireland – Public Image Limited – Hawaii
  • Italy – Colapesce & Dimartino – Splash
  • Italy – Gianmaria – Mostro
  • Italy – Lazza – Cenere
  • Italy – Madame – Il bene nel male
  • Italy – Rosa Chemical – Made in Italy
  • Latvia – Sudden Lights – Aijā
  • Norway – Eline Thorp – Not meant to be
  • Norway – Jone – Ekko inni meg
  • Poland – Jann – Gladiator
  • Portugal – Edmundo Inácio – A festa
  • Portugal – Mimicat – Ai coração
  • Serbia – Dzipsii – Greh
  • Serbia – Egret – Ako shvatim kasno
  • Serbia – Filip Baloš – Novi plan drugi san
  • Serbia – Luke Black – Samo mi se spava
  • Slovenia – Joker Out – Carpe diem
  • Spain – Alice Wonder – Yo quisiera
  • Spain – Megara – Arcadia
  • Sweden – Theoz – Mer av dig

Semifinal

My friends did not get the mp3 anymore and instead, I made a Deezer playlist. The jury graded each songs with a 1 (awful) through 5 (great) system. For the 14th year, I saved the full results of the semifinal. And so we have from 30th to 16th:

30  Portugal – Edmundo Inácio – A festa (24pts)
29 Serbia – Egret – Ako shvatim kasno (24pts)
28 Finland Finland – Lxandra – Something to lose (25pts)
27 Iceland – Silja Rós & Kjalar – Ég styð þína braut (26pts)
26 Austria – Teya & Salena – Who the hell is Edgar? (27pts)
25 Finland Finland – Kuumaa – Ylivoimainen (28pts)
24  Italy – Colapesce & Dimartino – Splash (29pts)
23 Spain – Megara – Arcadia (29pts)
22  Italy – Lazza – Cenere (30pts)
21  Belgium – Gala Dragot – T’inquiète (30pts)
20 Ireland – Public Image Limited – Hawaii (30pts)
19 Finland Finland – Benjamin – Hoida mut (31pts)
18  Norway – Eline Thorp – Not meant to be (32pts)
17 Italy – Rosa Chemical – Made in Italy (33pts)
16  Serbia – Dzipsii – Greh (34pts)

Finalists scored: 35, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 40, 40, 42, 42, 47, 48, 50, 50, 50 This is one of the best divided results ever for BoNF semis! Some of the lowest scores ever to qualify to the final, but a very strong Top 5 and an obvious Top 3 to battle it out in the final!

Final

So now I had all 15 finalists! As usual by now, I also managed to get the songwriter and the composer down for each of them. A quick analysis first: in 2018 we broke the record of 11 of the performing artists who had written their own songs, and again in 2019 with 12! We oficially broke all records at 15/15 in 2021, though we only got one single song written by just one person, so it’s easy to add the performing artist in the writing team, at least for lyrics. We were at 12/15 in 2022, but only Monika Liu wrote her song all by herself! This year, we get much less songs at least partially-written by the performing artist, but we get more songs written, composed and performed by only one person: Ollie, Alice Wonder, Jann, Luke Black and Filip Baloš: so that’s a third of all finalists (even if, funnily enough, almost all of them are using aliases as performing artists!)

BoNF 2023 is almost a year of no returnees: only two returnees, Madame who got tenth in 2021 and Theoz was picked in 2022 but he didn’t make it to the final round! It’s therefore quite weird that the only returnee is going to go all the way in the end! Still, a very young and fresh edition.

Native languages have resisted very well in BoNF, and this year is no different with almost all songs (11/15) in native languages. Of course, Serbian, Italian or Portuguese are expected to be heard as these countries have strong traditions with singing in native languages. But surprisingly, we also got Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish to almost get a full Nordic house (the only Icelandic song picked in the semi-final was in Icelandic but it didn’t make it to the final)! The 4 entries in English came from Latvia, Estonia, Denmark and Poland!

Speaking of, Spain got its second entry ever in the final (the first one being “Ay mama” last year) and Poland its very first! Congratulations to them! Meanwhile, Sweden came close to not have any for the first time, but like in 2022 it saves one spot in the final thanks to Theoz! In 2022, that did not stop Cornelia from offering to Sweden its second BoNF win!

Last off stat, while BoNF was always a bit more favorable to men (in the first nine winners, only one female and eight men!) the balance swang the other way lately, with many female winners in a row! However, 12 of this year’s finalists were men acts! Only three were females, though it makes sense to see all three in the final Top 10, including one winning again!

Now, I used a computer “random playlist” to get the running order for the final. I made a playlist which you can watch on BoNF’s youtube page. In the meantime, you can click on the postcard to check it out:

  1. Denmark – Reiley – Breaking my heart (Bård Mathias Bonsaksen, Hilda Stenmalm, Rani Petersen & Sivert Hjeltnes Hagtvet)
  2. Latvia – Sudden Lights – Aijā (Andrejs Reinis Zitmanis, Karlis Matiss Zitmanis, Karlis Vartinš & Martinš Matiss Zemitis)
  3. Portugal – Mimicat – Ai coração (Marisa Mena & Luís Pereira)
  4. Poland – Jann – Gladiator (Jan Rozmanowski)
  5. Spain – Alice Wonder – Yo quisiera (Alicia Climent Barriuso)
  6. Serbia – Luke Black – Samo mi se spava (Luka Ivanović)
  7. Italy – Gianmaria – Mostro (Antonio Filippelli, Gianmarco Manilardi, Gianmaria Volpato, Vincenzo Centrella & Vito Petrozzino)
  8. Norway – Jone – Ekko inni meg (Audun Guldbrandsen, Christine Ekeberg, Christopher Colin Archer, Jonas Nes Steinset, Morten Franck & Silje Blandkjenn)
  9. Finland – Käärijä – Cha cha cha (Aleksi Nurmi, Johannes Naukkarinen & Jere Pöyhönen)
  10. Serbia – Filip Baloš – Novi plan drugi san (Filip Baloš)
  11. Slovenia – Joker Out – Carpe diem (Bojan Cvjeticanin, Jan Peteh, Jure Macek, Kris Gustin, Nace Jordan & Zarko Pak)
  12. Italy – Madame – Il bene nel male (Francesca Calearo, Iacopo Sinigaglia & Nicolas Biasin)
  13. Estonia – Ollie – Venom (Oliver Mazurtšak)
  14. Denmark – Søren Torpegaard Lund – Lige her (Lasse Storm, Martin Palme Skriver, Steven McClintock, Søren Torpegaard Lund & Tim Schou Nielsen)
  15. Sweden – Theoz – Mer av dig (Axel Schylström, Jakob Redtzer, Peter Boström & Thomas G:son)

Results