My Eurovision top five

For the record: the top five songs from the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, according to my hastily devised song judging system.

The songs and the countries they represented are as follows (click the country name to see general information and the lyrics):

1. It's my time, sung by Jade Ewen, United Kingdom.
2. Rändajad (lit.: ‘Nomads’, also: ‘Wanderers’), sung by Sandra Nurmsalu (Urban Symphony), Estonia.
3. La Voix (‘The Voice’), sung by Malena Ernman, Sweden.
4. Fairytale, sung by Alexander Rybak, Norway.
5. Miss Kiss Kiss Bang, sung by Oscar Loya (Alex Sings Oscar Swings), Germany.

The judging system—whose criteria were being developed and modified throughout almost the entire show—eventually became based on assigning to each song a grade of zero, one, or two (I call this the Haskell system) in each of the five categories:

• Sense or originality
• Voice or language
• Choreography or setup
• Music
• Singer's appearance

A total grade of 0 to 10—along with some extra subjective reasoning in case of equal grades—determined the song's placement on the list.

Both the UK and Estonia got 10 points, Sweden got nine, and both Norway and Germany eight.