Guy Sebastian Might Actually Bradbury His Way Through Eurovision

A combination of his submitted song not being as terrible as was largely expected and a generally unmemorable field of global entries for this year's Eurovision Song Contest might actually serve inaugural Aussie contestant Guy Sebastian well, putting him in a stronger position than previously assumed by virtue of everybody else's weakness, a la local 2002 Winter Olympics hero Steven Bradbury.

At first listen, there's nothing overwhelmingly outstanding to recommend Sebastian's entry, Tonight Again, as surefire Eurovision gold; released overnight, the original Australian Idol's track was revealed not to have followed expectations into schmaltzy ballad territory, but rather takes a page from the soul-pop book of the moment to drop an up-tempo earworm all decked out with polish and catchy hooks and introspective bridge. It's as formulaic as algebra, but, hey, it could be worse:

However, Tonight Again starts looking like Mr Holland's freaking opus when one starts to cast a wider eye and ear across the emerging Eurovision playing field. Take, for example, England's entry, Still In Love With You, by Electro Velvet, which has resoundingly and justifiably been pegged as tantamount to aural torture:

If you made it past the first 10 seconds of the song, you'll have discovered that England seem to have misunderstood the task sheet, stepping out with an electro-jazz-country, weirdly Americanised nightmare composition featuring ill-advised, totally out-of-nowhere scat session; never even mind that those strings immediately evoke the ones played by ZZ Top in Back To The Future Part III. If you asked somebody to pick one song to encapsulate what existential despair sounds like, this would be a prime candidate.

That's not to say that playing it safe is the way to go, though, which seems to be a lesson lost on a frightening number of entrants in this year's competition. From Norway, we have Mørland & Debrah Scarlett presenting A Monster Like Me, a benign, slow-moving melodrama that someone on YouTube actually accused someone of being "too simple minded" to understand when they expressed the very relatable opinion that, essentially, more entertainment could be derived from watching grass grow through drying paint than listening to this:

It's hard to know whether that's better than the kitschy power anthem that is Warrior, by Georgia's Nina Sublatti, which does power anthems something of a disservice by hitting every dance floor-ready note it can, right down to the tom-heavy tribalised percussion and requisite "drop out all the bass and filter that treble, son, because oh shit here's the drop back into the chorus" build-up part that literally every person with a working knowledge of GarageBand has created at least once in their lives. To be clear, it's nothing against power anthems in general; it's a thing against crappy music.

Sebastian might face some unexpected competition from Israel's Nadav Guedj, though, whose Golden Boy touches on more than a few of the soul-pop hallmarks old-mate Guy has worked into his entry, though has infused his approximation of being the Middle East's own Michael Buble with an inexplicable club-friendly flavour, which spins it out from being an earnest prospect at its outset to an ostentatious party starter partway through its first verse.

Admittedly, it's a pretty good trick for the Eurovision arena; overly cheesy crap gets lapped up with unironic vigour for the duration of the competition every single year. But where Guedj may hit a wall where Sebastian won't is in the fact that it's a trick that's been used pretty widely in 2015: see, for example, Belarus' Uzari & Maimuna and Time, or Swedish entry Heroes, as performed by Mans Zelmerlow and a bunch of cartoon holograms (which, in fairness, is actually a pretty cool effect). Still, in other words, Guedj, for whatever charm he might possess, just isn't all that special.

Neither, however, is N'oubliez pas, the track being sung by French entry Lisa Angell, which measures up as a warbling Celine Dion offcut from the mid-'90s. Nor is Playing With Numbers, performed by Irish entrant Molly Sterling, who has been left to play the Adele card three years too late. The Netherlands' Walk Along, by Trijntje Oosterhuis, is depressingly mundane, Macedonia's entry of Autumn Leaves, by Daniel Kajmakoski, is only worth it for the clip, and Estonia's Elina Born & Stig Rasta never really get out of first gear with the sappy inactivity of Goodbye To Yesterday.

Sure, there are probably some gems in the expansive field, and maybe we're not looking at these contributions with a totally Eurovision-appropriate eye but, with any luck, all Sebastian will have to do is hang back and wait for everyone else to blow it to secure our victory, which, let's face it, will be fun if only to see all of Europe flip their lids about a non-European country taking out the title.

The Eurovision Song Contest will be broadcast on SBS from Wednesday, 20 May.