Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga, may be a comedy starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic pop duo with dreams of dominating on the global stage, but the bops in this quirky musical romp are no joke. From EDM anthems about volcanic guardians to innuendo-laced folk songs and sentimental ballads sung in the Icelandic mother tongue, we’ve ranked the film’s best bangers (but there’s no shame in jamming out to any one of these guaranteed hits).
7. Running With The Wolves
This performance might’ve given us nightmares — the prosthetics were… a choice — but this song, which blends the best guttural screams of a Slipknot-inspired heavy metal artist with the haunting lilt of an Evanescence wannabe to give us a darker love song, one that equates the stages of romance with moonlit romps through the woods. If howling at the moon is your thing well then, hey, we’re not here to judge kinks. Just songs.
6. Come And Play
A severely underrated, Broadway-infused sex party invitation, this entry from Greece is the kind of naughty ditty that we were hoping to see more of during the competition. Performed by actress Melissanthi Mahut and sung by Petra Nielsen, this felt like a cross between a Cabaret joint and the opening number to an erotic space-themed circus. It dips and twists and suggestively bends in all the right places and it speaks to the innermost desires of everyone suffering during this months-long quarantine — we do live in a world of madness, there is too much fear and sadness, we do want freedom. Maybe giant hanging jellyfish sculptures can get us there.
5. Ja Ja Ding Dong
I know, I know. Fifth place feels a bit insulting for this particular tune but we’re not here to reward mediocrity folks. Is this folksy jingle catchy as hell? Of course. We even got pop-culture tastemaker Brian Grubb to devise a scientifically proven method for extracting it from your brain cells. But, when compared to some others on this list, it feels a bit… generic. It’s fun, it’s an easy group sing, but I come from a Southern state whose residents lose their sh*t every time Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline comes through the speakers, so I can 100% confirm that just because it had an audience sing-along portion, it doesn’t mean it’s a timeless classic.
4. Husavik
Unless there’s a scene with a dog dying, or Meryl Streep belting out an ABBA tune, I rarely get emotional over movies. World War II epics, doomed love stories, that one with Cameron Diaz where the oldest sister has cancer and Abigail Breslin doesn’t want to lend her a kidney? These do nothing for me. It feels important to preface this with some form of proof of my black soul because not only did the film’s final ballad leave me absolutely verklempt, it also pulled a lone tear from my dusty-dry eye. I can’t say I relate to loving my hometown, but if I lived in a place where the mountains sang and the whales were gentle people and the Northern lights burst their colors, I just might. Add to that the fact that Sigrit finally finds her Speorg note and sings in her native Icelandic, and this song feels like the go-to melody for every sappy, end-of-year slideshow your graduating class sits through before collecting their diplomas.
3. Double Trouble
Even though Double Trouble is the song that wins Fire Saga a spot in the Eurovision competition (that and the accidental fiery death of all of Iceland’s most promising talent), it’s easy to forget how mindlessly catchy this pop cover truly is. We hear it throughout the film in bits and pieces, always serving as background music to some on-stage disaster — falling from an unsecured harness, getting a miles-long scarf stuck in a giant hamster wheel, etc. But if you take a second to just vibe with this love song, you’ll see it’s got real potential. A campy chorus, an anticipatory build-up, and a tune that literally bores a hole through your brain, Double Trouble could’ve won Fire Saga the competition.. if it hadn’t been for that damn wind machine.
2. Lion Of Love
Unfortunately, as an American, I admittedly know little of music’s annual European Hunger Games, but from what I can gather, the competition is about three things: inclusivity, over-the-top performances, and glitter. This song has all three. Even if we ignore the tour-de-force that is Dan Stevens suggestively groping bare-chested men and wielding a whip like some queer, Russian Indiana Jones (and really, why would we do that?) the song itself feels completely harmonious with the ideals represented at Eurovision. This song — about a man who can’t be tamed, who wanders the savannah hunting gazelle with his flirtatious smile — is clearly an LGBTQ-empowering anthem, one that uses double entendre to allude to forbidden romance and sexual conquests, and it’s powered by the earth-shaking baritones of opera sing Erik Mjönes. It doesn’t just tickle your ear-drums, it tickles your loins as well.
1. Volcano Man
We’re courting controversy by robbing Ja Ja Ding Dong of this number one spot, but hear us out. There are earworms, and then there are straight-up bops. “Volcano Man” is the latter. A 21st-century punk-Viking-fantasy track, infused with synth beats and ambient whale calls, and it tells the story of a timeless hero just searching for love. He protects volcanoes, he guards the land. He’s an environmentalist, and it’s clear why Rachel McAdams would dub an ode to this immortal Nordic dreamboat using Swedish singer, Molly Sandén’s angelic pipes. Will Ferrell adds a percussive element that elevates this to a thumping club banger that you’d want to sweat it out to in an abandoned warehouse with dangerously sticky floors and white girls beating glow-in-the-dark-paint-covered drum sets. This should’ve been Fire Saga’s Eurovision entry, and we won’t hear any differently.
