Having been exposed to some of the records that got knocked out in the semis, readers outside Europe might be vaguely interested to see what actually did well.

It certainly wasn’t the UK’s entry, “That Sounds Good To Me” by Josh Dubovie, which came last.  And bear in mind that the UK (like France, Germany and Spain) gets an automatic bye to the final because it puts up so much money towards the show’s production costs.  Belarus were only eight points ahead of us.  But if they’d come last, at least they would have had the consolation of knowing that they made it past the semis.  The UK entry almost certainly wouldn’t have.

Masochists can experience the record here, but I honestly don’t recommend it.

This is the third time in eight years that the UK has come last.  The BBC used to blame it on eastern European countries voting for each other.  With western countries winning in the last two years, that excuse is dead in the water.  Frankly, it was always pretty tenuous.  The main reason why the eastern European countries kept winning for a while was because they entered songs that they actually liked, often with acts who had an established fanbase.  Some of the western countries have caught on to this as well.  In fairness, part of the BBC’s problem is that virtually no British artist or songwriter with an ounce of credibility will go near the Eurovision Song Contest.  But they could surely round up a few unknowns who could do better than this.

The winning song this year comes from Germany.  They haven’t won since 1982 and, like Britain, they got into the habit of entering dross for a while.  This year, they came up with “Satellite” by Lena Meyer-Landrut, a record which is actually selling in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  To be honest, it’s probably a better song if you’re not a native English-speaker.  But it’s really not bad, and it’s a fair enough winner.

(Apparently her accent sounds just as odd to Germans.)

Second-placed Turkey have also figured out that, hey, maybe you do better if you enter a song people actually like. They sent maNga, a rock band who won Best European Act at the MTV Europe awards last year. Quite how they were talked into doing it, I have no idea, but the song’s pretty decent. The video, unfortunately, is terrible, but there it is.

The thing about both these songs is that you can easily imagine them surviving in the real world outside Eurovision. Third-placed Romania was a bit more typically Eurovision, but it’s at least got a foot in both camps. And Paula Seling is apparently an established star over there.

Of course, the 25 finalists are something of a mixed bag. For my money, the UK entry was genuinely the worst. The Serbian entry is certainly an oddity, though, and the fact that it made it past the semifinals to place a respectable 13th is something of a surprise. It’s a mixture of catchy brass riffs and WTF verses.

Greece would have dreaded having to host the 2011 contest in their current financial state, but still put in an enthusiastic showing.

Georgia’s choreographer apparently hates their singer, who deserves some respect just for managing to sing while performing this incredibly overengineered routine. Actually, the song’s quite good, in a vaguely Kate-Bush-meets-Disney sort of way.

Actually, while we’re on the theme of singularly misguided choreography, here’s the Polish entry, which understandably got knocked out in the semis, but… well, see for yourself. It gets truly odd at about 2:15.

Somebody has to be concerned about the woes of mankind, and this year it’s the Ukraine. I actually think this is alright, at least musically. I may be in a minority there. No idea what they were thinking with the last few seconds of the video, mind you.

The Russian entry actually got booed when it cleared the semifinals. It’s not exactly a bundle of laughs.

And finally, to represent the usual batch of hi-NRG Europop, here’s Moldova… a video in need of a stylist if ever there was one.