Intro Post

< 2024 Final | 2025 Semifinals | 2025 Final >

I started this post at my German grandma’s house on May 18, wrote parts of it at various airports and on flights, then finished it back at home! I hope you enjoy it, and you better get hyped for my grand final review.

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Introduction

The time of year has come and passed, and Eurovision 2025 has just ended! I was originally going to wait a few weeks to write my review, but the contest had so many results that pissed me off, I decided I need to get my thoughts off my chest as soon as possible. Now the reason the results piss me off is because this year had an absolutely stellar lineup of songs, but not a single one of the top three actually deserved to be there. Two of them are songs I actively dislike, and one I find listenable enough but came from that country—you know, the one that gets a disproportionate amount of votes from their ad campaigns—at the expense of far better songs. But I’ll get into more detail in the grand final post.

Eurovision 2025 was the third edition of the contest hosted in Switzerland, after Lugano 1956 (the first contest) and Lausanne 1989. Four Swiss cities bidded to host (yes, technically the past tense is supposed to be “bid”, I don’t care), and those were Basel, Bern, Geneva, and Zurich. On August 30, 2024, the host city was chosen as Basel (first time in the German-speaking part of Switzerland) and the venue as the St. Jakobshalle: an arena with 8000 seats, and a full capacity of 12,400 when you include the standing audience. I was in this exact arena during semifinal 2, and I have quite a lot of stories from the trip to tell in this and the next blog post. But the main focus of these posts is the songs, not the trip. I will soon start making a YouTube video about my trip to Basel, and it’ll probably be 30 minutes to an hour long. For now, just know I had a fabulous time and the trip completely surpassed Malmö 2024 for me.

The semifinals were presented by a duo of women like last year. As the show points out, we yet again have a brown-haired Eurovision veteran and a younger blonde-haired Eurovision newbie. The veteran is Sandra Studer, who competed for Switzerland in 1991 scoring fifth place and provided commentary in Swiss German most years from 1997 to 2006. The newbie is Hazel Brugger, a TV host and comedian known for her dry wit. A third host, Michelle Hunziker, would join them in the final.

This is the third contest in a row with 37 competing countries. It was supposed to be 38 at first, but that number seems to be cursed. Montenegro returned after last competing in 2022 (and before that, 2019), only to get a dead last place. Moldova was originally going to compete too and even organized a national final to be held on February 22, but on January 22, they dropped out of the contest and canceled the selection, because of the heavy criticism of the entries chosen. A real bummer, because they had had perfect attendance since 2005 and would normally bring something fun to Eurovision.

So in terms of drama, how did the contest compare to last year? It went pretty well actually! I didn’t hear of any feuds between delegations or contestants during the show; it seems like they all got along and everyone was on their best behavior, including the Israeli delegation. In addition, I could tell that Israeli fans felt much safer in Basel than they did in Malmö. Not until the results did anything resembling a shitstorm erupt, but that’s a matter for my grand final review. One other difference from last year is a change to the qualifier reveals sequence: for all reveals but the last, the countries are narrowed down to three before we find out who qualified. I’ll discuss my thoughts on this change later in the post.

Since the German entry this year is a song I properly love, and better yet, a song that’s actually sung in German, I’ve decided to watch all three shows with German commentary. ARD hired last year’s German commentator for the show, Thorsten Schorn. I can tell he’s gradually finding his footing as a commentator and developing his own style that’s a little different from Peter Urban, more actively humorous. I have 11 non-qualifiers to get through in this post. Most of the NQ’s are understandable enough, but one was a major fan favorite that had zero reason not to qualify.

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Slovenia: How Much Time Do We Have Left?

Artist: Klemen Slakonja

Language: English, like all non-qualifiers in semifinal 1

Key: E major

My ranking: 35th. I’ll include all my rankings in this and the next post.

To kick off this post, we have a non-qualifier I consider obvious as you can see from my ranking. I had actually heard of Klemen before Eurovision 2025, because I had seen a video from 2020 where he recreated every Slovenian entry in Eurovision history. After being selected for Eurovision, he did a similar video for all the winners starting from 2000 (and got into a controversy due to impersonating Dave Benton, who he then developed a friendship with). In Slovenia he’s famous for his comedic music and skits where he impersonates politicians. So I find it surprising that his Eurovision entry is a sentimental ballad, or at least an attempt at one.

I suppose Klemen wanted to showcase a different side of himself for Eurovision, but it doesn’t really work for me. I know that the song is about the time his wife was diagnosed with cancer (which she survived, as the kiss at the end proves), and it’s only one of three songs related to cancer this year, but that doesn’t change that I find the song really boring. To me, it’s a textbook example of a DAF ballad. If you’ve read my friend Erica’s blog, you’ll know what the term means, but if not, DAF stands for “dull as fuck”. It’s without a doubt the dullest ballad of the entire year, so the only songs I ranked lower are two that annoy the fuck out of me. Which ones, you may ask? Shh, no spoilers!

Side note: this guy appeared in Eurovision 2011 as well, when he delivered the Slovenian votes. Clearly he had been a fan of the contest for a long time. Although he didn’t qualify, in the end he was grateful to have this opportunity.

Belgium: Strobe Lights

Artist: Red Sebastian (Seppe Herreman)

Language: English

Key: G minor

My ranking: 5th

Hey Eurovision voters. I need to have a word with you.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? HOW THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DID THIS NOT QUALIFY?????

In this blog, I’ve been shocked by non-qualifiers quite a few times, but this song, THIS AWESOME FUCKING SONG, is on another goddamn level. I thought it was such a big fan favorite, but it got second last place in the semifinal, above only Azerbaijan. Did the lovers of upbeat dance songs just flock towards other songs? I didn’t, because I spared five of my votes for this! This isn’t even interchangeable with the other dancey songs; it stands out above all the others for how professional it sounds. Well, there’s one upbeat song in this semifinal that I love even more, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Three of the four songs I voted for (Belgium, San Marino, Iceland; the other is Albania) were upbeat and dancey, but still, I did vote for this. Unfortunately, only four countries gave points to this song, and the rest of the world wasn’t one of them. I should have taken this devastating elimination as an omen that the results of the final would make no fucking sense, but I foolishly waved it off as a fluke. I might even go so far as to say this is the number one most shocking non-qualifier in Eurovision history (unless you count “Planet of Blue”). It’s not just a song I personally adore, like let’s say “Az én apám”. It really seemed like everyone else loved this song, but apparently not the ones who voted.

As for the song itself, it feels almost as if this was designed for me to love. It’s a fast pumping EDM song that manages to sound minimalist and full at the same time. The composition is fairly simple throughout and there’s never too much going on in the music. The focus is mostly on the bass synths, plus the slightly higher synths that play the same rhythm as the bass but with different notes. It never bursts into a full explosion of synths, unlike for example “Hallucination” from Denmark (ooh, that’s gonna be a fun review), yet the whole song sounds rich and dramatic anyway. It builds up so amazingly thanks to the synth production.

Another thing I love about the song is Red Sebastian’s huge vocal range. His vocals may have gotten off to a shaky start, but when I watch his performance I hardly notice. He sings the chorus melody (strobe lights, getting lost in your eyes…) in three different octaves, which takes some serious skill. Sometimes a song is too high for me to sing along in its original pitch, but then moving down an octave makes it too low, yet Sebastian would never have that problem. He makes falsettos sound so easy! Yet the song isn’t intended just as a vocal showcase unlike certain other songs this year. It’s a pumping dance song first and foremost, which makes the vocal stunts all the more awesome.

On the bus ride home from the Eurovision Village in the MesseQuartier Basel, where I watched semifinal 1, I heard a few fans from Belgium discussing what just happened. They were speaking Dutch which I can’t understand, but I could hear in their voices that they were pissed. I cannot blame them one bit. This song fucking rules.

Azerbaijan: Run With U

Artist: Mamagama

Language: English

Key: Tough because this is a four-chord song. Let’s go with the first chord, which is C minor.

My ranking: 28th

I think this was the most obvious non-qualifier of the night: no one really cared about it that much. After the song ended, it looks like the camera operator couldn’t find anyone waving an Azeri flag, so they settled for people showing the flag on their phones, which shows how unpopular it is. It makes sense this got last place. In fact, it got the fewest total points out of any song in the semis or final: just seven.

This song is alright enough to listen to, especially in the studio version where the singer sounds like he’s doing a Michael Jackson impression, and not a half bad one. It has decent synth work and the bağlama solos after each chorus are a cute touch (though there are other songs that use ethnic guitars so much better). I’m just put off by it using one generic four chord progression, which means the whole song feels like one long chorus. Additionally, something about the live performance bugs me. The singer looks like he’s trying to sing and work the crowd at the same time, without really knowing how to do so, so he just comes off as awkward and so do the rest of the band.

Croatia: Poison Cake

Artist: Marko Bošnjak

Language: English

Key: F♯ minor

My ranking: 31st

I don’t want to ignore all the cool postcards here, so I’ll give shoutouts to the one for this song—it’s one of my favorites. Marko with a Swiss tour guide explores an ice cave and drills a little hole, then out comes some water that he can drink. Caves kick ass in general, and icy caves twice as much.

I actually have a fun little story to tell related to this song. In Basel I met a Swiss girl who told me she met Marko Bošnjak at a meet and greet event and told him “Poison Cake” was her favorite of the contest, which got her a hug from him. It’s such a bizarre choice to put first, but this shows that every song in Eurovision, no matter how unpopular, has someone who absolutely loves it. Her choice of winner became more understandable when she told me she loves “Chains on You” and “The Moon Is Rising”, because this song has the same kind of trappy bass beat that turns on and off a lot.

Now don’t get me wrong, this song is nowhere near as bad as those two hideously repulsive pieces of trash. But it’s very much disappointing, considering last year Croatia fielded out a crowd pleaser that achieved second place. It’s an attempt at a sassy angry song about one-upping your haters, but it just sounds stilted and messy. The staging is just as much of an awkward mess as the song. And plus, the chorus is nothing but title repetitis, which is another term that Erica coined. He sings “poison cake” so many times that by the end of the song, it stops sounding like a word (or I guess two words).

Cyprus: Shh

Artist: Theo Evan

Language: English

Key: D minor, which seems to be a recurring theme this year

My ranking: 20th

I know this is meaningless to people without perfect pitch, but if someone who does have it is reading this post, then are you as annoyed as I am that so many songs this year are in D minor? Not that I have a problem with this specific key signature, of course I don’t. It’s just that key signatures for me are a way to distinguish songs, so if two songs are in the same key signature, they often blend together in my head. This is annoying with Eurovision 2025, because when a song from this year plays in my head, it’ll often abruptly transition to a different song just because both are in D minor. “Lighter” could transition into “Shh”, then to “La poupée monte le son”, then to “Laika Party”… you get the idea. “Shh” shows up a lot in the transitions because of that unusually catchy synth riff, which makes an elegant segue into discussing the song itself.

I don’t want to like this song because the staging is so tryhard and it’s yet another case of Cyprus trying to be Sweden (or pre-KAJ Sweden, perhaps), but god dammit, I do like it. If I don’t admit to myself now that this is a great song, then I’ll regret it later. That’s what happened to me with “Unforgettable” from last year, and I had to edit my review to acknowledge I like it now.

This is a great pumping dance song with tons of cool synth work, and a really catchy synth riff to tie it together much like in “Unforgettable”. It alternates between hectic rapping and dramatic singing, a trope that very often wins me over. It’s the kind of song I could casually listen to any day, even if there are many better entries this year. The problem is that the staging tries way too hard to impress—another way Cyprus is trying to be Sweden. All the stunts on metal bars are just too much, and Theo Evan comes across as some random dude hired to sing some random song. He doesn’t connect to the audience at all and neither do his backing dancers. That’s why even though I think this song will be a keeper, I’m not really sad it didn’t qualify. Besides, most of the qualifiers deserved to make it.

Rest of semifinal 1:

First off, I’d like to say the opening act was fucking awesome. It’s Switzerland telling the rest of Europe—by which I mean the rest of the world—“hey bitches, it’s us”. It’s electronic and cinematic, it’s got alphorns and yodeling, and it cleverly quotes the melodies of three Eurovision winners: Waterloo, Arcade, and of course The Code. Then come in the presenters, and I’ll say now that even though their hosting style is clearly inspired by Petra and her sidekick of the week, I enjoy them a lot. They get through the show efficiently and know how to be funny and not just stupid, without going overboard with jokes.

Speaking of imitating Sweden’s hosting, the first interval act is a musical number sung by the hosts called “Made in Switzerland” that tells a satirical tale of Swiss inventions and ties the story of William Tell with the founding of Eurovision. Not the first time a Swiss interval act referenced William Tell—if you have a sharp memory, you can think back to the interval show of Lausanne 1989. The song is clearly inspired by the musical numbers in the Swedish contests, but it actually did a good job replicating those songs’ sense of humor. Plus, Hazel and Sandra look like they’re having an absolute blast performing the song, which proves they aren’t afraid to get silly while remaining charismatic. I love how Petra Mede herself is dragged into the interval act near the end, portraying William Tell. Even after having to host the shitshow contest last year, she hasn’t stopped adoring Eurovision. In the final, she joined Edward af Sillén to commentate the show for SVT.

Then comes a skit with Hazel Brugger at the Eurovision opening ceremony. I was at home during the ceremony and my first flight left later that day, but seeing it, oh my god I miss Basel already. Instead of crying that it’s over, I’ll smile because it happened.

What’s next? The usual trip down Eurovision memory lane, narrated by the hosts this time. During the top 10 most streamed non-winning songs, even a few seconds of “Cha Cha Cha” is enough to make the crowd go wild, and of course they rember the CLAP CLAP in “Soldi”. I just wish the EBU didn’t pretend “Europapa” doesn’t exist. A pre-recorded message from Celine Dion in English and French leads to the second interval act, a cover of “Ne partez pas sans moi” by a little orchestra plus four of last year’s Eurovision contestants: Marina Satti, Jerry Heil, Iolanda, and Silvester Belt. It’s not quite as good as the first interval act, but it’s a cute little tribute and shows us that these four will gladly jump at another opportunity to be in Eurovision.

There are a few moments this year where we see the legacy of the Joost Klein incident, and one comes before the qualifier reveals: Martin Österdahl appears on screen for a few seconds without speaking, then Hazel confirms we have a result. It absolutely cracks me up that this was the EBU’s solution to “oh god, what if Martin gets booed again?” And you know, the solution actually worked.

I’ll mention here that this year introduced a change to the qualifier reveals. Since those reveals are my favorite part of Eurovision week, I was skeptical that portion needed any adjustment, but I actually like what they did. The triple split screens are helpful for casual viewers who don’t know the contestants off the top of their head, but even for hardcore fans like me, the split screens can lead to some insane surprises, like the choice between Portugal, Slovenia, and Azerbaijan—three that I thought wouldn’t qualify.

I filmed my reactions to the qualifier reveals live from the Eurovision Village, and you’ll get to see them in my upcoming video on Eurovision 2025. For now I’ll just list the most surprising moments. There’s always at least one qualifier per show that makes me scream in joy, and in semifinal 1 that was the fourth one: Iceland. I voted for it yet I didn’t think it would actually make it through! They got eight points from the rest of the world, so my votes were partly responsible. The ninth qualifier was the underdog split screen I mentioned in the last paragraph, and that was the moment that sold me on the qualifier reveal system. There were more important things that the EBU could’ve changed for the show, but I’ll discuss that when I review Israel. I’m not entirely sure Portugal deserved to qualify, but they should be proud of their five-year qualification streak!

Now the final qualifier was the big shocker. When the hosts listed the remaining countries, the audience I was in cheered loudest at Belgium. I thought for sure this would be Ukraine’s first time not qualifying. But nope, it was Ukraine after all. I like Ukraine’s song and I’m glad it qualified, but I would’ve totally traded it for Belgium. Holy shit, I can’t even imagine how pissed off the Belgians were.

I suppose closing acts for the semis are the new cool now, because the show closes with one of the Olsen Brothers (Jørgen Olsen) performing “Fly on the Wings of Love” with new lyrics about Eurovision. You know, I don’t mind the show ending with a throwback to a Eurovision classic. Nice way to chill out and process the results.

OK, now on to the second semifinal, which I watched live from the St. Jakobshalle!

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Australia: Milkshake Man

Artist: Go-Jo (Marty Jo Zambotto)

Language: English, plus spoken lines from the ladies in French

Key: C minor, with a tinge of major for spiciness

My ranking: 12th

Australia was robbed, you guys! Not quite as horribly as Belgium, because there weren’t enough slots for all the good songs to make it. Israel and (to my chagrin) Austria were obviously going to qualify, so that leaves eight slots for actually good songs to reach the final, and all were filled by songs that I felt deserved to make it. But still, it’s a real bummer that this didn’t qualify. When I went to Basel, all the Australian fans I talked to admitted that Electric Fields last year weren’t all that great, but they absolutely loved Go-Jo’s entry as I could tell from attending his Wiwibloggs interview. I can only imagine how gutted they were that Australia didn’t qualify. Even my Australian friend who would rather his country wasn’t in Eurovision had to admit this is a damn good song. So imagine how this felt for the Australian fans who do root for their country. Go-Jo himself struck me as the kind of person who would be honored he got to go to Eurovision no matter what result he got, and that’s exactly how he reacted to not qualifying.

To me, this is the “No Rules!” of 2025: a song that’s objectively tacky as all hell and more than a little perverted, but I find it an absolute joy to listen to. It’s not quite as good as “No Rules”, but I do like it a lot. It’s fast and pumping, it has a good mix of rapping and singing, and it sounds just a tinge funky as well. Beneath the gags, it’s a genuinely well-composed piece of music, unlike some songs this year. And by “some songs”, I actually mean just one song. Also, I dare you to not follow along with “when I say sweet sweet, you say yum yum”. My favorite part of the song comes right after: the crazy solo played by an out-of-this-world synth. I can just imagine Go-Jo on the computer creating the craziest-sounding synth he possibly can, then writing the craziest synth solo he can.

The staging is a joy to watch as well. I love the part where he enters the milkshake prop and does a costume change while surrounded by smoke, and how he starts singing before he’s walked out. And the part where two ladies ask him in French is he has milk for them is really funny too. That part tells viewers that people around the world really do love the milkshake man. Whether the song really is about embracing your true zany self, or just a perverted tune about cum, is up for debate. But I don’t care because this is fun as hell to listen to.

“Topless after three minutes. What would happen after four and a half?” —Thorsten Schorn at the end of this song, translated to English. Just a remark I found funny.

Montenegro: Dobrodošli (too lazy to put in the Cyrillic title)

Artist: Nina Žižić, returning from 2013

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Montenegrin)

Key: D minor. I’ll count the number of songs in this key, we’re now at two.

My ranking: 17th

Last time we saw Nina in Eurovision, she did the singing parts in the bizarro joke entry “Igranka”. Now she’s back with a serious song which… didn’t do so well.

Anyway, welcome back to Eurovision, Montenegro! Oh wait… this got put into the death slot and then got last place. Poland survived the death slot in semifinal 1, but this song didn’t. The Montenegrin broadcaster RTCG wasn’t too let down by this, since two days after the grand final they already expressed intent to return next year. I suspect quite a few countries will hesitate for months on whether to participate like the Netherlands did last year, but I’ll save that topic for my rant about Israel.

Nina’s vocals sounded weirdly flat on the night and even had a voice crack, which came as a shock to fans of this song. It’s not a case like with Mustii last year, where the pre-parties made it clear he couldn’t sing live. It’s just that the emotion she had previously performed this song with wasn’t quite there.

But even with those less than great vocals, this is an absolutely lovely song that did NOT deserve zero points from everyone except Serbia. Serbia did in fact give this song twelve, and Montenegro reciprocated. It’s a classy Balkan ballad which is built around two memorable melodies: the fast “nasmij se, izdrži sve, proći će” (a phrase that is repeated three times in a row, but with the words shuffled each time) and the slow “dobrodošli meni vi”. Those melodies are also played on the instrumental for some extra flair. I love the way the song builds up and the entire tune beams with class.

My brain lumps this song together with “Rise Like a Phoenix” and “Before the Party’s Over”, and not just because they’re James Bond ballads: also because they’re in D minor. To me, the key of a song is as obvious as the color of a physical object. Which is to say, usually it’s straightforward to tell, but an object can have multiple colors, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell what color something really is.

I look forward to seeing what Montenegro puts out for Eurovision 2026. I can tell they actually want to do well and aren’t just there to send joke entries.

Ireland: Laika Party

Artist: Emmy Kristine Guttulsrud Kristiansen, who is from Norway

Language: English

Key: D minor (number 3) plus a random change to F minor at the end

My ranking: 37th (last)

The story behind this song getting selected for Eurovision is so goddamn weird. Ireland organized their usual Late Late Show national final and had a few songs clearly intended to replicate the success of “Doomsday Blue”, except oops, all of them fucked up their vocals. Because the national final was so small, the winner was instead a reject from Norway’s national final which has five songwriters, only one of whom is from Ireland. And the backing dancers are all from Norway too. This means the song is a Norwegian entry in all but name: it’s exactly the type of kitschy pop Norway is obsessed with sending to Eurovision. Normally I don’t have a problem with such entries from them, but this one is truly a nightmare of kitsch. It’s not so painful on the ears to warrant a 1/10, but it’s so annoying that I’ll gladly give it a two.

The main thing that bugs me about this song is the lyrics. Emmy learned the story of Laika, a dog that the Soviet Union sent to space in 1957 as an experiment knowing full well the animal would die. Then she decided the best thing to do was write a song where the dog is having a party in the sky to this day. It’s completely unrealistic and painfully childish. Dogs don’t live that long, they need food to survive, and they get lonely without a human giving them attention. Even if dogs were immortal, didn’t need food to survive, and could talk and dance to music, it doesn’t even make sense for a single dog in space to have a party, because a party requires multiple people. A more respectful way to sing about Laika would be to say she wishes she lived in a world where the dog safely returned to Earth. Perhaps that could tie in with wishing that other real-world tragedies never happened. That would actually be an interesting subject for a song.

Not only is the subject of the lyrics annoyingly childish, so is her voice and the instrumental and the staging and just everything. Normally I can enjoy any Eurovision entry when watching it live from the arena, even the ones I don’t like. But not even the arena could stop this from being a chore to sit through. I applauded at the start and end out of politeness, but inside I was glad when this song ended.

Luckily, Latvia saved the day right after with an absolute palate cleanser. Thorsten Schorn made a few snarky jokes about their postcard and song before it started, but was blown away when it finished.

Georgia: Freedom

Artist: Mariam Shengelia

Language: Georgian and English

Key: D minor (number 4) in the verses, let’s say still D minor in the chorus. That sounds about right to me.

My ranking: 32rd

Oh man, there were so many songs between Ireland (song #3) and Georgia (song #10) that I have interesting stories to tell about, but those will have to wait till the grand final.

This is the most obvious non-qualifier of the entire show: seriously, almost no one likes this one. I think it was my Belarusian friend who said this sounded like one of those old-timey Soviet ballads he used to hear on the radio, and he did not mean that as a compilment. Almost all fans find this to be nothing more than a weird dissonant mess. I actually think the verses sound pretty nice, but the chorus is way too discordant for me. Yet I still prefer this over five other songs this year. Yes, five.

You know what? Even though I don’t like this song, I don’t mind it being in Eurovision because it’s so Georgia-weird. In fact, I’m kinda glad Georgia went back to being weird after successfully breaking their NQ streak. She does sing it damn well and the staging looks interesting, it’s just way too dissonant for me. I’m sure there is some fan out there who absolutely adores this song, like that Swiss girl’s affection for “Poison Cake”. Or me with “Funny Girl” from 2018, which isn’t a hated song, just one most fans ignore. My face still lights up whenever that song comes up on my Spotify playlist, and it isn’t even Laura Rizzotto’s best song.

I totally expected this to get last place in the semifinal, and perhaps even get zero points, but no, it got a respectable enough 28. You see, that proves this song indeed has its fans. They just aren’t any fans that I have met.

Czechia: Kiss Kiss Goodbye

Artist: Adonxs (Adam Pavlovčin), who is from Slovakia

Language: English

Key: A minor

My ranking: 23rd

Sorry Adam, I know your stage name is supposed to be pronounced Adonis, but you will always be Adonks to me. Stage names replacing a vowel with X is a pet peeve of mine; that’s not what the letter X is for! It’s probably most common with languages that don’t use the letter X.

I think the reason this didn’t qualify is because it doesn’t have as clear of a target audience as the the songs that did qualify. If you’re like me and love eastern European folk music, Latvia and Greece are the songs for you. Rock lovers have Lithuania, girlbop fans are content to vote for Malta and Luxembourg, and Denmark is perfect for Eurodance enthusiasts. And some songs are just obvious crowd pleasers like Finland. This song though… it’s a power ballad of sorts, with a weird fast dance break that comes out of nowhere. Not a clear target audience here.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually quite like this song, just nowhere near as much as many others this year. It’s the kind of ballad that’s pleasant to listen to and not DAF, because of the powerful punchy beat and the expressive vocals. I like the way he switches between high and low vocals swiftly, and how Adonks and the backing choir take turns singing “kiss kiss goodbye”. If I’m in the right mood, I can live with the dance break too.

It’s just too bad he had a few vocal mishaps. I think his mind was somewhere else the moment the second chorus began, so he scrambled and sang “kiskisgoodbyyyyyyyyye”. Overall this is a song I wouldn’t put on a playlist, but wouldn’t mind listening if it did come up.

Serbia: Mila

Artist: Princ (Stefan Zdravković)

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian)

Key: F♯ minor, also a fairly common key this year

My ranking: 19th

I love how much snow there is in these postcards! Most contestants had their postcard filmed shortly after their songs were selected for Eurovision, so the earlier the contestant got selected, the more likely there was snow. Princ was one of the later selections, having won the national selection on February 28, but still early enough to be filmed amidst snow. It helped that he was filmed in the mountains.

I was totally expecting not to like this one, since I’ve seen some people say I would call this a “volume = quality” ballad. But no, I actually do like this song a lot. Must be the Željko Joksimović magic, because after the song won Serbia’s national final, he did some production help for the revamp. That’s right, this is Željko’s sixth entry for Eurovision, but sadly the first of his that didn’t qualify. Listening to the original version after the revamp, I can tell the Z-man (that’s my nickname for him) gave it a huge glowup, yet the voters still didn’t like it too much. The song got just 28 points—twelve from neighbor Montenegro and ten from almost-neighbor Austria.

Princ sings this very well, it’s got all the lovely instrumentation a Balkan ballad demands, and it builds up really nicely too. Perhaps it’s a bit derivative of other Balkan ballads, but I enjoy listening to it nonetheless. It’s slow and delicate for the first half as Željko ballads tend to be, then gets all dramatic and heavy in guitars in percussion in the second half. But what’s interesting is, between those sections we have a lovely little piano solo, which is a cool way to pause and release the tension. The one problem is that I feel the ending is begging for a final chord, yet we don’t get one. I also don’t get the part where the backing dancers drag him as if he just got arrested, but whatever, he still sang it well.

Rest of semifinal 2:

I quite like the first interval act of this show, because it feels like the old-school type of interval act, and you know how nostalgic I am for those. It starts as a little presentation on Switzerland, then it turns into an interpretive dance piece about time with performers in red, yellow, green, and blue suits. We have no idea who these dancers or the presenter are, we just know that it’s a dance spectacle themed upon Switzerland. It’s shorter than most interval acts of the old days, so it’s no wonder we’ll get a second interval act later on, and that one is themed upon Eurovision.

Before interval act #2 comes a skit of fans from four different countries being interviewed in Basel, which is a great way for me to miss Eurovision 2025. Good time to remind myself to smile that it happened!

Now the second interval act is pretty goddamn awesome if you ask me. It’s a medley of four entries from Eurovision 2020: “Répondez-moi” by Gjon’s Tears, “On Fire” by The Roop, “Cleopatra” by Efendi, and “All of My Love” by Destiny. It was so cool getting to see those in the arena, because it felt like I was treated to a sneak peek at a timeline where Eurovision 2020 wasn’t canceled and I got a ticket. Gjon is still one of the most gifted musicians in Eurovision history and gave one of the most moving performances of the night. The Roop are masters at working a crowd, Efendi’s staging with the backing dancers is mesmerizingly awesome, and Destiny is a natural on stage who means every word she sings. What’s cool is, since Gjon and Destiny were internally selected, I believe this is the first time they got to perform those songs live on stage. Efendi was an internal pick too, but she already got to perform “Cleopatra” for a crowd in Poland back in 2021.

Qualifier reveals round 2—how did I react? Well, in the arena, I actually flipped my shit in excitement right before the qualifiers started, because those reveals are my favorite part of the entire week. Lithuania and Israel qualifying weren’t huge surprises, but then Armenia got me moderately surprised. I had them predicted as a non-qualifier before the show, but Parg gave an awesome performance in the arena, so when he was announced as a qualifier, I was like, “yeah, I can see why he made it”.

Then shit got really exciting when Denmark was announced as qualifier number four. I LOVE the look on Sissal’s face when she qualified, and I think the entire arena shared her excitement, because this is her country’s first time qualifying since 2019. Germany’s commentator Thorsten Schorn shared the arena’s excitement as well. Austria qualifying was no surprise, Luxembourg a bigger surprise but I’m glad they kept their streak. Finland as the seventh qualifier was very obvious—Erika had a look on her face saying “I knew I was gonna make it”.

When Latvia was revealed as qualifier number eight, I absolutely flipped my shit and shared my shit-flipping with a few others in the arena, but that’s a story for the grand final post. Malta is another NQ streak broken, and yeah, she totally deserved it. Now for the tenth qualifier, there just weren’t enough good songs to make it through so I’d have been happy with any except Ireland (and Georgia was obviously not gonna make it). Thinking about it, Greece was the best of the songs that could’ve been the tenth qualifier, so I’m glad it was them.

The semifinal closes with Sandra Studer singing “Insieme: 1992” live, and you know what, that’s a good choice to close things off on. A song about uniting Europe is fitting once more for the times we’re living in right now.

Since I was in the arena for Israel’s semifinal, there’s one last thing I’m obligated to mention: did I hear any booing? Last year in the arena, I heard a huge mix of cheers and boos when Israel was about to perform, but this year not so much. I might have heard one or two boos when Yuval Raphael entered, but they were faint and far away from me. I think there just weren’t as many people who would boo Israel in Basel as there were in Malmö.

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See you next time as I write rants about all of the top three and gush over most of the other songs. Look forward to a crazy story from the trip related to Tautumeitas, a deep dive into Abor and Tynna, and a technical analysis of “Bara bada bastu”.

>> 2025 (Final): My New Favorite Year