Bye Felicia!

Finally, we head to Eurovision, where Sweden selects Felicia with “My System”, and we give an honest review of the vocals, the staging, the lyrics, and the immaculate production that may still be a bit too “by the numbers”. If you’ve got thoughts on four-day weeks, screen-free schools, or whether Sweden’s Eurovision entry is a contender, hit play, share it with a mate, and leave us a review.

#eurovision #eurovisionsong contest #eurovisionpodcast #eurovisionaustralia #eurovisionfunny

Transcript

Welcome And Sweden Check-In

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Bonjour, good prevet and hello back to the Despoir Podcast as we go and dissemble ourselves an episode of Sweden this week on the Despoir Podcast. Well, how can we sum up the last few months for Sweden? Huh, other than saying, Sweden, you okay, buddy? We need to check in on Sweden because the last few months have been, how do I put this politely, a Scandinavian fever dream. Firstly, winter tried to kill Sweden. Sweden got hit with extreme winter storms and temperatures not seen in decades. We are talking your eyelashes frozen together type of cold. Daily Sweden described January 26 as a quote, brutal, unforgiving reminder of Nordic winters. Sweden basically woke up, looked outside, and said, ah, cool, the ice age reboot is here. Oh cool! Sweden announced plans for electronic tags for children at risk of gang recruitment. That's right, electronic tag, electronic tags for kids. Yeah, really, this is a real router's headline. Some countries give kids after school programs. Sweden said Fitbit, but for crime prevention. Sweden moved ahead with plans for a brand new foreign intelligency agency because apparently the old one wasn't enough to keep up with. Hmm, looks at notes here. Russian-linked tankers being detained off the coast. Sweden is firmly now in its, you know what? We should maybe get a couple of more people in on this spy game. Sweden schools began cutting back on digital learning and returning to good old-fashioned books. The PBC reports that this was a deliberate shift away from screens. Sweden, of course, carries on. It is, and we have talked about this before, I was shocked because I never knew this until I did know it. Sweden is one of the largest producers of arms in the world. So Sweden was helping boost its bottom line because rearming Europe is at an all-time high. And in one of the frankly, sexiest and most exciting bits of news, Sweden's largest union wants to kill the 40-hour working week. The major Swedish union has said, let's end the 40-hour work week with research showing shorter weeks improve well-being. So what this is, you would work four days instead of five, but still receive the same amount of pay as a five-day week. Sweden continues its long tradition of being better at work-life balance than literally everyone else. Now, some companies around the world have been trying the four-day week, and companies have come out and said, yes, it is remarkable the difference that these have on employees. It's remarkable, but when you don't beat your workers almost to death, things happen like they're happier. When they're happier and when they're able to actually rest, they're happier, they're rested, they actually are more productive and productivity increases. Now, when it's been countries such as France saying this, you expect politicians to be like, well, it's the French. Of course they've said that. But now there are actually Japanese companies that have tested this method and have found the results. So now surely the Japanese, who are some of the most hard-working, efficient people on the planet, when even they say a four-day week is better, surely we have to get the politicians who only work part of the year on board. And in the opposite direction from living the dream, we have living the nightmare. Daily Sweden reports that AI bots in Sweden had created their own essentially social network and started debating whether humans should exist. Thanks, Sweden. You have universal healthcare, parental leave, and now robot existentialism. So in the last 12 months, Sweden has survived a once-in-a-decade winter. Tagged children like wildlife, built a new spy agency, banned iPads in schools, rearmed Europe, won a European football title, tried to kill the 40-hour week, and accidentally created Skynet. Hurrah! Thanks for that, Sweden. Now let's have a look and see who they have selected to represent Sweden on the Eurovision stage. They have selected Felicia, who will be singing My System. Felicia was born on the 5th of October 2001 for winning Mela de Vestal Allen 2026. Felicia was the vocalist for Frockenschnask. Froken Schnask. That's such a great name. Which translates as Miss Miss Smut. Essentially, it was a Swedish musical act and persona who would wear a pink balaclava, a lot like Pussy Riot, to maintain anonymity. Anonymity. But when Felicia left, the role was taken over by a new unidentified performer in April of 2025, and Felicia began her solo career. In September of 2025, Felicia released her debut solo single Black Window. In 2026, she would compete in Melody Festivalen with the song My System, which would eventually win with 161 points and provided her the opportunity to represent Sweden at Eurovision 2026. Let's have a taste of Sweden. Now there is definitely a trend happening here. Originally, Felicia would appear in Frankenst with her balaclava. Now on the national performance and it appears on stage, she is singing with what looks like a bejeweled lower face mouth mask. Look, it was definitely a decision that was made. We're halfway through. I have to be honest, she is definitely not the strongest singer by any stretch of the imagination that Sweden has had. She is having some problems with some of those bigger notes. Now, listening to some of the lyric to this song, because now you're in my head, my heart, my body parts. You're always coming back on the weekends. Ew. My body parts? Ew. Like, ew. It's such a way of disassociating yourself from your body. If you need to disassociate with what's happening with your vagina, I don't think you should be doing it. Look, we've come to the end of the song, and look, it's Sweden. It's a well-polished machine. The production values, the lighting, the effects, the lasers, the strobe, it is all on point. I just I think I'm finding from Sweden is look, this is very by the numbers. This is not bringing anything new, original, or exciting. This is, I think, very stock standard. It'll go through. It's not gonna win. It's just not in any way, shape, or form exciting me like some of the other songs we have experienced. Whoever designed these lasers though, and did all that on point, you deserve a bonus. I think you are the real star of this production. Go, you anonymous laser operator.