Five Acts Who Deserve Australia's Votes At Eurovision

The annual Eurovision contest has wrapped its semi-finals, giving us this year's crop of 27 successful countries headed to the Grand Final this weekend.

Along with wild-card entrant Australia, teams from Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom will progress to the big, brash ultimate event on Saturday (EU time). Sadly (or possibly encouragingly, for our purpsoses), every single country we pegged as being worse than Sebastian's entry made it through.

Given the unprecedented official Australian presence in the Eurovision mix, it'd be a crying shame to squander the only chance we've had in the competition's 60-year history to take hold of our brief access to the kind of power usually reserved for faded pop stars in swivel-chairs by not voting — and, since we can't lend our support to local ambassador Guy Sebastian even if we wanted to, it's worth knowing that our precious points are going to worthy recipients.

So, we've scoured the field of the 26 eligible countries for whom Aussies can vote, and have come up with a handful of acts that we think stand out from the pack in terms of not being totally embarrassing options to get behind.

Of course, you could always just vote for competition favourites Sweden or Russia - but where's the excitement and potential for upset in doing that? We're supposed to be a wild card, so let's get a little wild.

slovenia

Here For You, performed by Slovene two-piece Maraaya, is a wonderfully madcap assembly of Eurovision earnestness. Seriously, for a performance that only involves three people and a grand piano on-stage, there's a tonne of insanity spilling forth that we'd be happy to see contribute to victory.

From the overly enthusiastic dance-mime up the back and the smiley yet aloof air-drumming of pianist/living hair wax Aleš Vovk to the oozing melodrama of vocalist Marjetka Vovk, the somewhat inexplicable omnipresence of chunky headphones, and the seizure-inducing end-of-song light show, the performance smacks of the kind of irony-free ebullience that serves as one of Eurovision's most endearing features. This would be a fun one to push through to victory.

cyprus

On the other hand, we did say we're trying to limit the embarrassment of affiliation with all this (for those who feel it, anyway; it's our understanding that shame is a prerequisite to feel anything close to a sense of discomfiture) — so why not consider the ultra-cool John Karrayiannis from Cyprus? 

Just look at this adorably nerdy motherfucker. He stands alone, with no need for violent violin charades. Just Karrayiannis, a spotlight and his comically sized glasses as he croons his way through complicated similes such as "my head is spinning like a top" before loosening the tie a little bit and getting flashy with his visual accompaniment. It's understated, it's easy enough on the ears and it's a bit of an underdog in the grand final, so it's a pretty worthy recipient of some antipodean love.

latvia

Then again — why play it safe when artists like Latvia's Aminata are on the table? Hand to God, her pulsing, ambient, electro-pop offering Love Injected is one of the best songs in the entire contest, in terms of not being overly kitschy and actually musically interesting.

If you're not totally spellbound by Aminata's powerful strains, maybe you'll be impressed by the flawless harmonies from her back-up singers, or the myriad aural treats buried in the glitchy, churning instrumental mix. It's incongruously elegant in a competition rife with bawdy spectacle, but that might be the exact attribute that works against it when it counts. 

estonia

There's a sad sparsity of instrumentalism going on in Eurovision, so it's nice to see Stig Rästa strumming away casually on what appears to be a completely unplugged electric guitar for he and Elina Born's entry, Goodbye To Yesterday. We know that the guy from Slovenia had a piano but he didn't seem to be doing an awful lot with it either, so we reward the effort, at least.

And, really, if nothing else, these guys put in some effort. Estonian Bernard Fanning over here is a stone-faced deep-voiced dreamboat while Born does her best to stare him to death, while the whole theme of their set seems to be like a cross between a noir detective film and Melrose Place, which - yeah, we can get behind that.

czech republic

Hope Never Dies, performed by Marta Jandová & Václav Noid Bárta, is a wonderfully overblown duet that begins with gentle piano and hushed vocals and takes less than three and a half minutes, via smouldering looks and Marta pegging her own shoes at the ground, to reach a point where they're both hugging and looking like they're about to deep-throat their own microphones while yell-singing "Never let me GOOoooooOOO".

So, y'know. It's an option, is all we're saying.

The Eurovision Grand Final airs from 5am tomorrow, 24 May, on SBS One.