Bronze medal position, and top Nordic country this year, goes to Iceland – and if you aren’t a big Eurovision fan (though I suspect you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t), chances are this is the song that you would have heard in the run up to the contest.

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#3 ICELAND: Daði Freyr (Daði og Gagnamagnið) “Think About Things”

Indeed, “Think About Things ” became viral out in the non-Eurovision world, or certainly viral
in the UK (and US) where you had TV journalists and presenters tweeting about it, also international celebs, famous actors, and I do recall several of my friends as well as work colleagues asking me (as they know I’m a big Eurovision fan) whether I had heard it, asking if it would win, and, of course, why can’t the UK enter something like this etc.

Even after Eurovision’s cancellation, the song’s viral success continued – getting a lot of use on TikTok and between the two official videos on the Eurovision YouTube channel (the live and the music ones, both embedded at end of this post) – it’s had 23 million views. And to complete this story of success outside of the contest, Think About Things is the first Eurovision song in 5 years to make the UK official top 40 singles chart (Mans and Heroes were the last to do it).

To put it mildly, this song had major cut through – and rightly so. Daoi’s creation is a pure delight – it has a really 80s retro electro sound, very Stranger Things. It’s extremely catchy, and while the music video is great and very funny – the live performance is equally engaging and entertaining. There’s a distinct 80s look as well with the green-teal tracksuits and the video game pixel art on their sweatshirts.

Daði Freyr wrote and composed Think About Things; he is a multi-talented musician with a degree in music management and audio production. His daughter, born in 2019, was the inspiration
for the lyrics, and for the song he’s joined by his wife, sister and friends. You can’t help but notice the height difference between him and rest – it’s no optical illusion, he’s 6’10!

Daði would have been such a big star on the pre-contest circuit – he did a Eurovision-themed DJ set as some event/night and you can imagine what fun he’d have brought to the events and at the contest itself. He did prove to be very entertaining during lockdown – doing a home live streamed concert of Eurovision tracks – performed by him but given his very distinct music style treatment.

Despite the succcess, or maybe because of it, we won’t be seeing Daði at Eurovision next year – there’s no automatic place for him in the national final and he doesn’t plan to reenter himself, though he indicated may write a song to put forward to the national final.

Would this have been Iceland’s year? There would have been some poetry in that given the Netflix Eurovision movie that was released in the summer. Certainly Iceland have waited longer than almost any country for that first win. I think it would have been top 5 certainly, probably top 3 but I don’t think it was getting quite as much interest in eastern and southern European countries as it might have needed to in the televote. Many past Eurovision stars declared this their winner though, SuRie included, so there’s perhaps some victory there in the end.

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