Switzerland 2023: Remo Forrer with ‘Watergun’

Switzerland are quintoupling down in the solo male stakes with Remo Forrer heading to Liverpool:

Released just a day apart from neighbours Austria you couldn't find two countries taking a different approach.

When you consider this is a well produced big English language midtempo ballad, with an easily accessible message and arguably the best vocal of the year with strong similarities to contemporary music (very Lewis Capaldi-eque) it’s very easy to make the case for this with the juries. From everything selected up to this point I would actually stick my neck out and say Jury winner and the closest rival to Loreen anywhere.

The televote is the concern and with the community largely uninterested in anything not somewhat crazy or from a ‘Queen’ expect this to lag in a lot of the metrics. This is too anonymous to ever be a televote winner but there are levels to this and an audience out there for something more normal-think a mum vote of sort. The best case for this is a repeat of Gjon's result for Switzerland: a 1st/6th or 2nd/7th or similar.

The worst case is that NQ being in semi 1 and lacking much voting support. It's a possibility but one we're probably going to overplay. Yes it's more of a jury song than TV but our previous ‘surprise’ jury winners Austria 2018 and North Mac 2019 would have both qualified comfortably on televote alone in tricky semis.

I expect this to be fine (staging pending etc etc) and once in the final a top 10. Switzerland are back after a blip.

Personal Rating: 9/10

Competitve Rating: 8/10

Early Prediction: Semi One 5th-8th, Final 4th-8th