Junior Eurovision 2023 — My rankings

I ranked the sixteen contestants in Junior Eurovision 2023 during the live show today, before the public vote opened.

As ever with the contest, this is my opinion of the songs and staging, not the children themselves; they all did wonderfully. (Having said that, the ability to hold a long note is something I respect — eg with Albania and Estonia — and Germany’s use of sign language was really lovely.)

Serbia and Kazakhstan competed last year but not this year. They were replaced by Germany and Estonia, the latter of which had never participated before.

1. 🇪🇸 Spain — Sandra Valero — Loviu
2. 🇩🇪 Germany — FIA — Ohne Worte
3. 🇳🇱 Netherlands — Sep & Jasmijn — Holding On To You
4. 🇦🇱 Albania — Viola Gjyzeli — Bota Ime
5. 🇫🇷 France — Zoé Clauzure — Cœur
6. 🇮🇪 Ireland — Jessica McKean — Aisling ^{(footnote 1)}
7. 🇪🇪 Estonia — ARHANNA — Hoiame Kokku
8. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom — STAND UNIQU3 — Back To Life
9. 🇦🇲 Armenia — Yan Girls — Do It My Way
10. 🇺🇦 Ukraine — Anastasia Dymyd — Kvitka
11. 🇲🇹 Malta — Yulan — Stronger ^{(footnote 2)}
12. 🇲🇰 North Macedonia — Tamara Grujeska — Kazi Mi Kazi Mi Koj
13. 🇵🇹 Portugal — Júlia Machado — Where I Belong
14. 🇮🇹 Italy — Melissa & Ranya — Un Mondo Giusto
15. 🇵🇱 Poland — Maja Krzyżewska — I Just Need A Friend
16. 🇬🇪 Georgia — Anastasia & Ranina — Over The Sky

Footnotes

1. Someone in Ireland thinks a great formula is to have a red-haired girl in a big embroidered dress singing a fantastical song about light and dreams — they’ve done it for two years running. They even had Sophie Lennon (last year’s entrant with her song “Solas”/“Light”) join Jessica halfway through the song, with a lyric about being “the light… welcoming you back”! And yeah, it is a good formula. A bit self-indulgent, perhaps, but I still enjoyed it.
2. Yulan kinda looks like Kelly Clarkson (long brown hair, fringe, smart black suit) in one of her songs from 2011. The title is appropriate too: I can’t tell who’s the stronger.