Nemo’s winning song The Code is a Eurovision rarity – it’s actually great
The Eurovision found Nemo. And, I have to say, it was the right result on the night.
I surprised myself watching their performance when I tweeted that they could win. As an aging rock critic, I don’t think I am the prime audience, and don’t set much store by my own ability to pick Euro winners. Indeed, the first time I had seen the Swiss entrant perform their song during a semi-final, I was rather distracted by staging that involved Nemo Mettler spinning around on what looked like a satellite dish designed for a children’s playground by a child-hating sadist.
Nemo accomplished this feat whilst delivering a lush, catchy pop song with a very insistent hook, a fast-attacking rap and a huge, almost operatic vocal. I recognised there was something impressive about it but I wasn’t sure whether to admire their musical ability or sense of balance. Certainly not their dress sense. The Eurovision is renowned for its loud and ludicrous costumes, but the 24-year-old Nemo, who is non-binary and uses different pronouns, looked like they’d just had a bit of a rummage around their sister’s wardrobe. In a way, that carelessness added to Nemo’s charm.
During the actual contest, I heard something more in the song, a pop exuberance that reminded me of Mika at his most charismatic, with a gorgeous vocal tone and delivery, and a woh-ho-ho hook that I had a sneaky feeling I was still going to be singing in the morning. Despite deeply odd lyrics (the line “Like ammonites, I just gave it some time” isn’t going to win any poetry competitions) it’s a pop song with addictive fizz and spirit, and there was something about Nemo’s complete commitment to it, the wild energy and skill that they brought to their performance, that caught the giddy silliness of the occasion and turned it into something transcendent in its own ridiculous way.
Amidst all the political shenanigans surrounding this year’s Eurovision, it was probably a year for something frivolous to win. The French offered a gorgeous ballad, whilst the Israelis’ had an emotionally freighted one. Croatia was the bookie’s favourite with its grindingly trite but mercilessly catchy techno rap nonsense. Nemo offered something more innocent and hopeful than that. A youthful blast of pure escapist joy. It almost makes me interested in what they come up with next. Almost.
Not that the Eurovision is a great indicator of future stardom or artistic potential. It is, really, only tangentially connected to the business of pop music. It’s a fashion parade, a production extravaganza, a fetishised cheesy ball mixed with an unabashedly camp celebration of trashy gay culture that has found its space outside of our increasingly fractured pop music scene, sealed in a gaudy alternative TV dimension of its own.
It never really carried muster as a “song contest”, and now, perhaps less than ever, with every production breaking the bank and blowing the mind in its display of bizarre visuals and outlandish choreography. About halfway through the endless parade of histrionic muti-lingual genre mashups and frenetically sexed up dance routines, I start to fantasise about a 21-year-old Bob Dylan walking on with his acoustic guitar and harmonica to perform a devastatingly direct version of Blowin’ In The Wind. And scoring nul points.
There were, indeed, Zero points from the public for UK entrant Olly Alexander, an established British star crashing and burning at this most merciless of competitions. “I don’t know why that happened,” said Graham Norton. Well, maybe I can enlighten him. It was an ordinary pop song, with underpowered vocal, delivered with an orgiastically lascivious production apparently set in a public toilet. No blaming Brexit for that. Just not good enough. Again.
Nemo occupied a similar pop genre to Olly Alexander’s Dizzy, but had a catchier song, a more flamboyant vocal, and a more giddily committed performance. Whether we will hear from them ever again, I really don’t know. But I think they won this Eurovision on merit. Woh-ho-ho.
