The entries for this year's edition of Ireland's Eurosong have shocked me by being half decent. Well, some of them. I've also been shocked at just how incompetent RTÉ have been with revealing the songs. Revealing one per day is great! Build up some interest. And revealing them on the Ray D'Arcy Show, which I gather is reasonably popular, makes sense! But why haven't they been released otherwise? Last year when they were all revealed, you could listen to them on RTÉ's website. This year, they haven't clipped them out. And not all of the songs are available to listen to anywhere else. Not on YouTube, not on any streaming sites, nowhere. Thankfully some enterprising fans have uploaded them all to YouTube, so I have listened to them all. Here's my ranking.
- Love Like Us by Next In Line - No official upload. This is the most generic boyband song I've ever heard. It turns out that Louis Walsh keeps putting together boybands, with diminishing returns. See also: HomeTown, which yielded Brendan Murray. These boys have been around for more than a year now and haven't released any music, because they don't have a record deal, because they suck. Who did he bribe to get them included?
- Let Me Be the Fire by Isabella Kearney - This song is just a bit forgettable sorry. She's posted an acoustic version but not the main version.
- Judas by JyellowL feat. Toshin - It's rap. I do like to see it! We're overdue a half-decent rap song at Eurovision. I'm not really into rap, so I don't want to judge too harshly. So I won't.
- Love Me Like I Do by Erica-Cody - Bonus points for actually releasing the song lol. I like her voice, and this sort of female empowerment anthem can have wide appeal. And I'm sure she'll serve on the stage. I just like the other two better.
- Doomsday Blue by Bambie Thug - Yeahhhhh! A lot is being said about the Käärijä effect already, there certainly does seem to be a bit more weird, metal-influenced music this year. Speaking of which...