UK Eurovision song contest entry Remember Monday review: What the Hell Just Happened? is head-spinning, but not in a good way

And I also get it - given I would have been legally allowed to smoke had I wanted to when Katrina and the Waves and then Dana International won Eurovision in the 1990s I’m hardly target audience for any of this. But honestly, this year’s UK entry, which was revealed this morning, is going to have its work cut out to see success at the annual festival of camp and glitz in May.

For those who missed it (and if you had a headache you’ll be grateful you did), Remember Monday’s song - the aforementioned What the Hell Just Happened? - was unveiled earlier. They are described as a “country group” in some places, although you wouldn’t mistake this for a Johnny Cash track.

Lyrically it’s got girlpower Taylor Swift personal diary intimate confessional vibes - it’s about waking up after a big night out in last night’s clothes, with the room spinning, and looking at a new tattoo (must have been a very big night) but with the pay-off “I liked it” - so carpe diem, embrace life, jump into the swimming pool etc. So far, so fine.

But the audio side of it… if you thought Bohemian Rhapsody was a shapeshifting track, this one throws up a new song every 30 seconds or so. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

It opens with gentle vocal harmonies (a bit West End show-y as is the way at the moment), keyboards and a synthesised flute, and just as the fairly pleasant melody starts to sink in… bang, at 24 seconds there’s the first chorus. Fifteen seconds later and the pace picks up into pulsing synth pop, which then develops into a very 80s-sounding soft rock harmony section. Throw in more of the “What the hell just happened?” refrain, then return to the pulsing electro-pop, this time with extra synth flourishes on top, and then it crescendos with added soft rock arpeggios to the final flourish. And we’re done, three minutes in. The room was spinning for me too, but it wasn’t a hangover.

Two decades ago people rightly praised Girls Aloud’s single Biology as a song comprised solely of choruses - ie every single part of it was catchy. Here we have a song made up completely of bridges - what should be a distinctive part of a track but which also functions as link to the verses and chorus. This is why it feels the equivalent of a cut-and-shut car. It’s got drama and it should make a good stage show. But it feels like it’s been written by committee, not by a songwriter, or as if AI was told to assemble music from a list of prompts which might attract Eurovision votes (quiet emotional bit, shouty chorus, Europop…). Good luck girls, but I fear you’re going to need it.