There is something so ugly about crushing an acoustic guitar. Making it buckle, making the middle of it explode in splinters. That might be personal to me, as someone who grew up with a dad who was what you might call a campfire guitarist — not a performer, just a dad who used to entertain us with songs like “Dark as a Dungeon,” a little folk tune about the lethal dangers of coal mining. Maybe to you, it’s not the guitar. Maybe it’s the cameras or the vinyl records.

A little more than halfway through the new ad for “the thinnest Apple product ever,” an enormous hydraulic press bears down on an acoustic guitar — and cameras, and records, and other things that hold reservoirs of emotion for people who make art. Paint, pencils, a dressmaker’s mannequin, books, a wooden model of a person, a not-yet-dry clay bust, a video game cabinet. Everything is flattened under its power. But the most spectacular crushings are of musical instruments — that guitar, a piano, a drum set, a trumpet standing on its end until it gives way.

The ad — which Apple has since apologized for — is meant to communicate, I suppose, that this tiny, thin iPad can contain what is important from all these things. It can replace them all. You can make your music with it. You can paint with it. You can play games on it. You can take your photos with it. And it suggests this means you can finally destroy all those things that have been so burdensome, like massive pianos and messy paint.

But these are not practical items to begin with. Nobody owns a piano because it’s practical; it’s about the least practical thing you can own. It can wreck your floor. It goes out of tune. And if you happen to get a new place, you don’t just need movers for it; you may need special movers. You don’t own a piano to get from point A to point B in the most direct way you can. You own a piano for the reason we had one in my house: a person plays it. Someone sits down, as my mother did, and plays the “Maple Leaf Rag,” and you can hear the pedals lightly squeak, and you can watch hands skitter across keys, and of course you are listening to music — but also, those are your mother’s hands.

Of course, to be fair, the ad is also meant to cause controversy, because you do not crush beautiful things and offend accidentally. The ad says almost nothing about the iPad itself except that it’s very thin; the point is all the crushing, the point is the ugliness, so admittedly, to recognize that ugliness is to serve the ad’s purpose.

But its ugliness is also what proves the folly of its concept. The reason people will react as emotionally as they do to the vulgarity of the ad is precisely why the thinnest iPad yet cannot do what they say it will do. It cannot replace the things that people have, over hundreds of years, learned to carry and live beside, and to incorporate into their creation of what they hope will be beauty. Art is intertwined with humanity, with all its flawed dimensions, and the two cannot be separated. In the making of art, there is family, there are friends and collaborators, there is both fragility and permanence, and there is the passage of time. And there is physicality.

In our current environment, the ad plays as an extension of, or maybe a companion to, the idea that artificial intelligence — or what travels under that name — can take over the production of art: of books, of illustrations, of music, of films. We are enduring an all-out assault on the need for anyone’s idiosyncratic individuality to be involved in the creation of art. It is an attempt to reduce creative acts to devices with the right capabilities, to the point where machines can make it all entirely without us. We will, in this vision, order a book or a film as we do a mass-produced piece of fast fashion, and as such, it will be cheap and disposable and reliant on the exploitation of labor.

But the very fact that Apple knew this ad would make people so angry is how you know this reductive approach to art is doomed to fail. The people who made this ad specifically chose to crush things that are valuable not only because of their capabilities, but because they are things that creative people imbue with meaning, that they save up for and hand down to their kids. Those things will not be replaced by iPads.

You can make beautiful music with an iPad; you can make beautiful digital art. But that art will be made alongside other music, other art, not stacked on top of the corpses of old violins. If you think of new frontiers in art as an opportunity to destroy sculptures or explode bottles of paint, you never understood art at all, and you never will.

In certain kinds of stories, “I am not worried” is the last thing you say before the monster devours you. But while I am worried about the economics of art and its creation, I am not worried at all that art made by humans will ever vanish or be replaced by the thinnest iPad ever. The gasp that went up from so many people when they saw that guitar explode, that sound came from the part of a human being that makes art. And that part instinctively understands that beauty isn’t fixated on tech-world dominance. It doesn’t demand to crush what is loved in order to chase the fantasy that you can fit everything that matters into the pocket of a briefcase.

There are multiple dance duets in “Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms,” a mixed-media theatrical production that debuted last month on the Las Vegas Strip. They are highly acrobatic and borderline risqué — this is Vegas, after all — and they are also feats of wonder, for the dance partner is not another human but an animated character.

Particle is his name, and he’s a glowing white figure with a circular head and a rectangular body, a mix of simple shapes that can convey an array of human emotions via elastic, exaggerated movements. Animation, rooted in imagination, has long had the power to amplify human feelings and heighten reality. But in “Particle Ink,” animation enters our reality, as Particle, for instance, leaps from wall to pillow, dashes across a bed curtain and even cries into a physical bucket.

“I wish I was 3-D,” Particle scrawls at one point on the wall, but the show makes us believe that he is vaulting among us. Look into a mirror, and Particle sits and walks atop our heads, becoming essentially a virtual animated pet. At one point, a dancer contorts herself as she carries Particle, tucked in a birdcage, across a room. Actors appear to hold Particle’s hand, and Particle even does battle with metaphorical demons, his projected body bounding across a room and swirling in and out of a toilet bowl.

Animation, with “Particle Ink,” has entered its live-theater era. It’s doing so via an exploration-focused production, meaning guests wander from room to room following actors as the acts unfold — or, in the case of “Particle Ink,” guests may be trailing animated figures or a puppet.

Think of it, then, as a sort of next-generation “Sleep No More,” New York’s long-running immersive production that is set to close this year. Only here, the theme is an original fairy tale rather than “Macbeth,” one where animation and augmented reality tools are used to explore our inner world, bringing it to life on walls, floors and furnishings with whimsical, highly active drawings that appear born of light.

Created by an enigmatic three-person creative team known as the LightPoets, a group with roots in Las Vegas, “Particle Ink” dates to 2017, when a proof-of-concept installation was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. It caught the attention of entertainment industry vets Jennifer Tuft and Cassandra Rosenthal, who, with their mixed-reality company Kaleidoco, have been working to bring “Particle Ink” to life. The show had a brief run in 2022 in downtown Las Vegas, but pre-pandemic it was planned for New York, where Kaleidoco once had a 10-year lease on a five-story Manhattan building targeted for the show.

“We went big,” Tuft says, noting the group was about six weeks from loading when the COVID-19 lockdown began and altered the “Particle Ink” plans. Most of the initial costs proved to be recoupable or able to be redirected to a different space. “Particle Ink” now is committed to the Luxor Hotel & Casino for at least four years, residing in what used to be the hotel’s wedding chapel.

The inward-looking fantasy is set in multiple black-box rooms with minimalist furnishings — a communal, ritualistic hub, a library, a bathroom, a bedroom and a mini forest among them. The dancing is rigorous, with performers often seeming to be wrestling with themselves as they do battle with sometimes hidden (and sometimes not) existential demons. Fast-moving digital artwork comes alive on walls, much of it drawn via a wand, by a nameless artist, portrayed by Elenah Claudin, who serves as the show’s protagonist.

His rainbow-colored creations spring from a chest, and in one moment he turns a couch into a piano and in another sketches out a mystical horse and appears to gallop through his invented world. The images split the difference between something childlike and fanciful street art. Strategic use of projections among the sets allows the animation to appear tangible.

This merging of tech and animation into a believable landscape — what the LightPoets refer to as the “2.5 dimension” — is the triumph of “Particle Ink.” But it’s not the show’s heart. This is ultimately a story about loss, and searching to regain one’s footing after extreme grief. A black-lighted scribble on the wall in the show’s lobby spells it out: “Some of us are dead,” alluding to characters in the show that may live on only as memories or creative visions.

“It’s about everything from childhood wonderment to grief and loss, to really accepting yourself,” Tuft says. “It’s about striking a balance about reaching within and understanding oneself. These are concepts that don’t necessarily lend themselves to what people generally consider ‘Las Vegas entertainment.’”

Times Game Critic Todd Martens interacts with the animated character of Particle in the new Las Vegas immersive show “Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms.”

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

And yet here it is, complete with nods to mysticism, as well as tarot and oracle art. “Particle Ink” ultimately strives to tell a personal narrative about the journey to regain one’s creativity, relying primarily on movement and animation to do so. There is little dialogue outside a wandering puppet, a sort of wise man who can exist between worlds (or fill in narrative gaps for those who choose to focus on one of the show’s touchscreen-like walls and handful of augmented reality devices that further the adventures of Particle and his pals).

“Particle Ink” is a story of heartbreak. It follows the artist, his partner, Lilith (Dani Maloney), and the world he conjures. It pulls from age-old tales of light and dark, and how our minds are factories of fascination but also places of imprisonment. It also wants to remix the theatrical experience, as it not only heavily relies on technology but also takes influences from the world of gaming. A projection of a sword being drawn emerges on a wall, and then it becomes a prop for a battle scene. Its narrative too is quest-based, a journey for Particle to recover pieces of his creator’s shattered heart.

Animation comes alive via light and projections in “Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms,” a show that explores how an artist (Elenah Claudin) harnesses the power of creativity in overcoming grief and heartbreak.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

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Jo Cattell, a Chicago-based theater director and one third of the LightPoets, sometimes even intermingles the word “player” and “audience member,” noting that immersive theater only works if attendees quickly understand the rule-set of the creative work. While there’s no real onboarding in “Particle Ink,” the first scene builds to a communal ritual centered around light-gathering stones, one that allows our distressed artist to briefly tap into his creativity only to quickly lose it again. Particle, then, prods the audience on a journey of recovering his splintered heart.

I saw “Particle Ink” twice, the first night focusing heavily on interacting with the animation. Throughout the theatrical space are tablets that are reconfigured to look and feel like magic mirrors, further glimpses into the so-called 2.5 dimension. The second night, however, I decided to zero in on the narrative, and found both charm and anguish in the way Particle strives to heal his creator’s broken heart — Particle’s tiny size, playful nature and purposefully hand-drawn feel created a sense of fragility. Grief can be a stubborn place, but I felt moved in the way “Particle Ink” used creative tools — painting, creating and animation — to show how what we lose continues to live with us.

Thinking about the future of theater, Cattell wonders about today’s younger generations weaned on smartphones and games. While she says this isn’t a LightPoets thesis, she’s eager to experiment with ways to make theater a more active experience. The tradeoff is that the experience is less controlled, but those who go along for the ride can home in on certain characters or emotions. In theory, it creates a more personal show.

“I don’t want to call it a playground because I think that has connotations,” Cattell says. “But we definitely want people to play and create and have fun and enjoy, but at the same time watch something that might move them. Depending on who they are, or what moment of their life they’re in, it might break their heart.”

Manifestations of grief and inner turmoil here emerge as giant characters outfitted as ink blots. The metaphor isn’t terribly difficult to uncover: With depression, and a loss of purpose, life is depleted of color. But it’s how the story is told that matters, and with a mix of animation and highly athletic dance, “Particle Ink” is 75 minutes of unexpected theatrical interactions. Cattell, for instance, estimates that there are about 10 hours of original animation, and creating a show in which performers would be interacting with walls and objects was a challenge.

“When you go to theater school, you don’t get taught to play with the walls,” Cattell says. “It’s been interesting coming from a theatrical background. We’re going to break rules. We’re breaking rules in storytelling, in genre and format. But there’s a reason those rules exist. How do we still make sure the performer is connecting with the audience when the performer is now turning away from the audience?”

The solution: Find a way for those wall-bound animated characters to break free. And then let them dance.

Switzerland’s Nemo rehearses “The Code” before the second semifinal.

Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty

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Switzerland’s Nemo rehearses “The Code” before the second semifinal.

Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty

Year after year, the Eurovision Song Contest delivers a dazzling, glittery spectacle of only barely contained chaos. There’s all the lights, fireworks, flags, sequins, disco balls and dance breaks, of course – but there’s also the songs themselves, which this year boast displays of (vocal) gymnastics more impressive than anything you’ll see flipping across a mat in Paris this summer.

Know this: 2024’s brace of 26 Eurovision finalists represent what is, even for this contest, a maximalist bunch. These songs go big. I’d go so far as to say that the broadcast on Saturday (starting at 3:00 p.m. ET on Peacock) is shaping up to qualify as Peak Eurovision, so prepare to bask in the glorious bombast of it all.

Musically, expect the usual mix of pop bops, baroque ballads and club bangers. Also, as always, stirring anthems about (pick one or more) standing up or holding up or looking up or not giving up. But in terms of vibe? This year’s roster teems with performers positioning themselves as quirky/witchy iconoclasts. You know the sort: bold, irrepressible individuals who reject the (checks notes) conformist RULES of (checks notes again) SOCIETY.

The welcome presence of such gleefully bonkers acts as Ireland’s Bambie Thug, Finland’s Windows95man, San Marino’s MEGARA, Slovenia’s Raiven and many others – including several performers highlighted below – makes it official: Eurovision 2024 is The Year of the Weirdo.

For those of us who’ve had to suffer through the past few years of the contest, which were overstuffed with wan, weepy young men warbling about heartbreak, I say: Bring it on, ya joyous freaks.

And, though Eurovision organizers see the event as “non-political,” it has been, as in the past, a televised concert with synth beats, glitter on the floor, and geopolitical undertones. Earlier this year, artists from Finland and Iceland called for Israel to be banned from the competition outright for its military offensive in Gaza. Israel was asked to revise the lyrics to their entry in the competition this year, when an initial song seemed to refer to Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Anti-war protests are planned outside the Malmo Arena on Saturday.

Here’s what you need to know before Saturday’s Grand Final.

The rules

Finland’s Teemu Keisteri, also known as Windows95man, emerges from a denim egg while performing the song “No Rules!” during the first Eurovision semifinal in Malmo, Sweden, on Tuesday, May 7.

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Finland’s Teemu Keisteri, also known as Windows95man, emerges from a denim egg while performing the song “No Rules!” during the first Eurovision semifinal in Malmo, Sweden, on Tuesday, May 7.

Jessica Gow/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty

We won’t be diving deep into the internecine details of Eurovision voting, because they’ll spend a lot of time during Saturday’s broadcast explaining everything in punishing detail (which is historically a good time to refresh your drink and/or nip to the bathroom).

But, very basically: The 37 countries participating in Eurovision this year each submitted a song to compete in two semi-finals which took place earlier this week. Of those 37, 26 are competing in Saturday’s Grand Final. Six sailed through easily: every year, the so-called “Big Five” countries – France, Spain, Germany, Italy and the U.K. – automatically qualify for the Grand Final, as they contribute the most money to the competition. Also guaranteed to advance: Whichever country won the previous year’s contest, thereby hosting the competition this year. In this case: Sweden.

This year, the 20 other countries that made it to the Grand Final were entirely determined by viewers watching at home, the so-called televote. This put an interesting spin on things, because in the past, placement in the Grand Final was determined by a 50/50 combination of the televote and the votes of an international jury of music industry professionals.

Doing away with the jury vote in the semifinals meant that performers who brought a lot of crowd-pleasing visual flair to their qualifying performances had a better shot than in years past. The international juries will be back for the Grand Final, however. How their historically conservative, wet-blanket sensibilities mesh with the voting public’s love of shiny glittery fiery extravagance is a big part of what makes Eurovision so damn compelling and unpredictable.

So, during Saturday’s Grand Final, 26 countries will perform – the 20 qualifying countries, the Big Five, and the host nation, Sweden. Each performance must adhere to the following rules:

1. Songs must be original.
2. Songs must be no more than three minutes in length.
3. Lead vocals must be performed live.
4. No live instrumentation of any kind is permitted.
5. During a song, no more than six performers may be onstage at the same time.

Just to underscore Rule 3: Eurovision is not and has never been a lip-syncing competition. These performers are singing live, though their instrumentation and backing vocals are pre-recorded. If on Saturday you find yourself beginning to doubt that fact, particularly for countries whose performers incorporate propulsively aerobic choreography like Georgia, Cyprus and Austria, remind yourself that you’re not watching a lip-sync, you’re watching tremendous breath control.

The live vocal performance is all-important. Over the years, more than a few acts have sailed into the Grand Final favored to win, only to have a hesitant, breathless or off-key vocal in the live performance destroy their chances. Stakes. Gotta love ’em!

And as for Rule 4: Whenever a performance involves a “band” wailing away on their drums, guitars and/or saxophones, remind yourself you’re not watching them actually shred, you’re watching them mime. It’s kind of cute.

Ireland’s Bambie Thug performs “Doomsday Blue” during the first semifinal.

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Ireland’s Bambie Thug performs “Doomsday Blue” during the first semifinal.

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The Grand Final

Last year, for the first time, viewers in the U.S. were able to vote for their favorite Eurovision performances – though those votes got pooled with other non-participating countries around the world. This year the U.S. will again have a chance to vote in the Grand Final via the Eurovision app.

Here’s how Saturday’s Grand Final will proceed. First, the 26 countries will perform their songs. Then the audience will vote. (NOTE: Viewers in participating countries cannot vote for their own country, which at least notionally prevents the big population centers from dominating the contest.) The audience vote will be tallied. Then the jury votes will be collected over a series of glorified Zoom calls to representatives in each participating country, which will be marked by video lags and audio dropouts; this process is awkward, interminable, cringeworthy and delightful. The jury votes will be tallied, which may or may not completely supersede the televote. The winner will be announced, a trophy will be handed out, and the winner will perform the winning song again. The end.

Here are the songs with the best shot to win this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, as determined by me, a middle-aged queer American man who loves bops and hates ballads. Which is to say: This is a highly subjective list. If you want to know what the oddsmakers think, go here.

Netherlands: “Europapa” by Joost Klein

This goofy, peppy, earwormy bop is classic Eurovision – and that’s even before you factor in its lyrics, which are essentially a love song to the European Union itself. Specifically, to the ability to galavant around the continent freely, cheaply and without a care in the world. (At the end, he also sneaks in a tribute to his late father, “Who told me once the world has no borders.”) Basically, this song represents the catchiest, sunniest possible way to say: Eat it, Brexiters!

Estonia: “(nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (kull) midagi” by 5MIINUST & Puuluup

Sure it’s a bunch of burly, beardy dudes dancing a TikTok-ready folk dance, playing folk instruments and, yes, throat-singing. In other words: Eurovision Bingo! But it’s so much more than that: These performers radiate undeniable bear-daddy charisma, and the driving uptempo beat, paired with that plaintive, soaring vocal (“Oooooooooh, yea-eahhhhhhhhh”) will crawl inside your medulla oblongata and set up housekeeping. The title translates to “We (really) don’t know anything about (these) drugs,” and the Estonian lyrics read like a suspect pleading his innocence on a drug arrest: “I don’t know drugs, I know soda and cider/Couldn’t tell the difference between vitamins and speed.” “We avoid intoxicating substances, that’s something rich people do.” Uh-huh. Suuuuure.

Croatia: “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” by Baby Lasagna

In many ways, “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” offers a sardonic counterpoint to the Netherlands’ “Europapa.” Where that song celebrates the freedom of travel within the EU, this one laments the loss of opportunity in Eastern Europe which is causing thousands of young people to leave their homes and migrate to the West. Granted, performer Baby Lasagna puts a wink on it all (“Bye mom, bye dad/Meow, cat, please meow back”), all set to an insistent, Rammsteinian marching rhythm. But he finds a way to lean into the melancholy at the same time (“There’s no going back/My presence fades to black.”) It’s that kind of narrative turducken – and, let’s be real, a killer hook – that make this at least a Top Three contender, if not the outright winner. Croatia has never won Eurovision, so that would be a big deal.

Italy: “La Noia” by Angelina Mango

“La Noia” means “The boredom,” and Angelina Mango saturates her vocals with a fitting amount of over-it-all ennui even as the syncopated, percussive melody swirls and throbs and compels you out of your seat and onto the dance floor. (In this case, the dance floor is your living room.) Lyrically, the song’s about a woman who turns to dancing and partying to deal with “these wasted days.” “A crown of thorns will be the dress code for my party,” she sings, which is a deeply Italian but weirdly emo sentiment for a song so doggedly determined to set your booty shaking. Mango’s got a huge following because she’s a mesmerizing performer who never breaks a sweat, even during those passages when the tempo suddenly accelerates and the lyrics start speeding by so fast they threaten to turn the song into a five-Vespa pile-up. Keep an eye on her.

France: “Mon Amour” by Slimane

Slimane invests this straight-down-the-middle ballad with a searching, plaintive, torch-song quality that’s more quintessentially French than a beret slathered with Camembert and stuffed in a baguette. If you go by the lyrics, the guy’s kind of a pill: Urging his lover to return to Paris, promising things will be different, demanding to know if they love him, and at one point asking the most hilariously red-flaggiest of all questions, “What do we do about my pain?” But Slimane emotes all over the stage, and his insinuating vocals slide you right past the ick of it all. He’s not a flashy performer, so the televoters might not pick up what he’s putting down, but the jury is sure to give the technical skill on display here the love it deserves.

Ireland: “Doomsday Blue” by Bambie Thug

“Doomsday Blue” is an example of my favorite Eurovision phenomenon – the underdog glow-up. When Bambie Thug’s queer, witchy mix of metal and melody won them the right to compete for Ireland, there were plenty of rolled eyes, clucked tongues and shrugged shoulders. “Too weird,” they said. “Too dark,” they said. But somewhere on their way to Sweden they upped their game and have arrived at an even weirder and darker stage performance that’s, well, spellbinding. The spell in question is a hex, to be sure – the singer deftly switches between summoning black magic to torment an ex-lover (“Avada Kedavra/I speak to destroy”) and murmuring a light, sweet tune of resignation and acceptance (“I guess you’d rather have a star than the moon/I guess I always underestimate you”). Bambie Thug’s performance in the first semifinal electrified the crowd, and it tells a story: They dance with a demon and, in so doing, gain the ability to subdue it, and defeat it. I predict the voters at home will eat this all the way up, while the jury voters will find themselves some pearls to clutch.

Spain: “ZORRA” by Nebulossa

Strictly speaking, zorra means a female fox, but as commonly deployed, it’s a coarse term for a, um, free-spirited woman, or at least a woman you don’t like. You know how Old Hollywood movies used to bust out the word “vixen” – a female fox – to describe the kind of woman played by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis? It’s like that, only ruder. In this song, Nebulossa does solid work not only reclaiming the word, but luxuriating in it. Translated from the Spanish: “I know I’m not who you want me to be (zorra, zorra) /I get it, it’s driving you up the wall (zorra, zorra)/But this is just my nature (zorra, zorra)/Can’t be bothered to change for you.” Preach. In the run-up to semi-finals her vocals have proven, to put it kindly, a bit uneven, so this could go either way. The caked-up male backup dancers in thigh boots, butt-floss thongs and corsets should help smooth things over. (Confession: This song doesn’t have much of a path to winning; I just like it, and the aforementioned dancers, a tremendous lot.)

Ukraine: “Teresa & Maria” by alyona alyona and Jerry Heil

Pop singer Jerry Heil and rapper alyona alyona come together for this song that urges faith and perseverance by invoking both Mother Theresa and the Virgin Mary. The risk when blending two such discrete musical approaches is that each will lose its singular character once combined, but that’s not the case here. The two performers remain distinct, and they create a kind of two-sided musical conversation – a song that comments on itself. Ukraine always comes into the competition with a certain amount of international goodwill, but they also consistently stage their entries in ways that make indelible visual impressions on the home audience. Don’t underestimate Ukraine, in Eurovision and in life.

Austria: “We Will Rave” by Kaleen

Several countries submitted club bangers with extended dance breaks this year. (See also: Georgia, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta.) But Austria’s “We Will Rave” is the best of the sweaty, sexy bunch, in no small part because it’s not content to serve you up just a dance break. You’re not even through the first verse before the song outfits you with its own remix. No more long weeks waiting around for some DJ on Ibiza to do that heavy lifting for you – the club mix is already here, factory installed for your convenience! Also: a fake-out ending followed by a breakbeat finish? Are you kidding? Yes, it’s dated – it’s giving “Night at the Roxbury” – but it’s also, not for nothing, catchy as hell. Why this song has a shot: Kaleen’s a known and beloved Eurovision presence – a dazzling dancer who’s fully capable of turning it all the way out in the live performance. Why that shot will probably go awry: Even if the home viewers eat this up, Eurovision’s international juries have not been kind to dance music, as they are made up of music industry snobs – the very fuddiest of duddies – who wouldn’t know a stone cold groove if it bit them squarely on their stone cold groove things.

Switzerland: “The Code” by Nemo

Eurovision oddsmakers (yes, that’s a thing) say this song is one of the clear favorites to win the contest this year, which makes sense, as it’s the perfect distillation of ESC 2024’s whole heedlessly maximalist vibe. It’s got a bit of opera, a bit of (light!) rap, some drum-and-bass EDM – it’s, you know, a lot. Toss in the lyrics about performer Nemo realizing their non-binary status (“Somewhere between the 0’s and 1’s/That’s where I found my kingdom come”) and it’s gonna be tough to beat. Any song crammed with this many different styles can come off like something assembled in a lab, but Nemo brings us along with them, fluidly and effortlessly sailing through each transition. If they can pull it off live, this one’s got all the earmarks of a showstopper – and a winner.