Monthly Archives: December 2025

ESC250 2025: My predictions and analysis of the results

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Happy new year, everyone! It’s still 2025 in Ohio as I’m writing this post, but not for much longer. I’ve decided to send off my blogging about Eurovision (for now) with something fun: an analysis of the results of the annual fan vote ESC250, specifically those for the entries of Basel 2025. The results were streamed on a French radio station on December 31, then once the stream ended the full results were published. Here are my votes with the position each song ended up in:

Here are my predictions of how high each entry would score:

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Eurovision Side Post: Changes to My List of Winners (end of 2025 edition)

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To any Eurofans reading my blog: this will be my second last Eurovision-related blog post for the time being. My last will be an analysis of the ESC250 2025 results on New Year’s Day, since I made a list of predictions of where each 2025 entry will land in the ESC250 and want to see how right I was. After that, I probably won’t blog about Eurovision (not even about past contests) until the 2026 contest happens. I’m not sure yet if I will review Eurovision 2026 or not; I’ll see how I feel in May.

Anyway, it’s time for some updates to my list of winners of each Eurovision year! My latest version of the winners list was on my 1974 re-review. Most of these updates I was gonna save for my re-reviews of each year, but I’ve decided to put those posts on hiatus.

In my 1975 round 2 review, I was going to surprise you guys by changing my winner to Turkey, Seninle Bir Dakika. I did start writing that post and here’s a snippet of what I said about my old winner, “Ding-a-Dong”: Now, I’m afraid, I’ve gotten a little tired of this song. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it, but I’ve overdosed on it so much that it doesn’t have quite the magic it used to. I’ve even had to demote it all the way from a 10/10 to an 8. Still, I think this song was absolutely the right winner this year, because it leaves a stellar first impression and that’s exactly what’s needed to do well in Eurovision. Turkey’s entry, on the other hand? Now that has massively grown on me and I curse the juries for giving it last place. That’s not how you treat a Eurovision newcomer! This song is a truly gorgeous minor key ballad whose singer gives an emotional, passionate performance.

Next up is another retcon to Turkey, and it has to do with my 8-bit cover project on YouTube (which I am still doing). When searching for entries from 1985 to cover, I realized that “Didai Didai Dai” would be absolutely perfect for an 8-bit cover, since it’s got a really nice funky beat that reminds me of Mario music. Soon after, I decided my winner of the year would be “La det swinge” no longer, but Turkey, Didai Didai Dai. It helps that MFÖ are such likable performers!

Speaking of MFÖ, my winner of 1988 is now Turkey, Sufi. For 1988 it was a real challenge picking a song to 8-bit cover, because I really don’t like most entries that year. But then I stumbled upon the studio version of “Sufi”, and what a banger it is! It’s much better than the orchestra version and once again has a cool funky 80’s beat. Now I can say that 1988 at least has one song worth listening to. Sorry, Lara Fabian!

And speaking of my 8-bit covers, I’ve changed my winner of 1992 to Finland, Yamma Yamma. Hey, don’t look at me funny—the song is catchy as hell! By Eurovision 1992 standards it’s a total banger. Not to say it’s the most amazing song in the world, but since 1992 is a notoriously weak year, I’d say it did not deserve last place.

My new winner of 1997 might surprise you. It was originally “Dinle”, then I temporarily changed it to “Sentiments songes” (whose singer Fanny Biascamano died of cancer a few days ago, 46 is much too young to die), and now I’m giving the honor to Poland, Ale jestem. It’s a song that took quite a while to grow on me, but now I utterly love the fuck out of it. It’s a mind-blowing composition that throws so many cool melodies and instruments all in the course of three minutes and is in close contention with “River” from 2022 with the best Polish entry.

And finally, let’s skip ahead to 2025. I know I had retconned my winner to “Bara bada bastu” not long ago, but now I’m changing it to what I should’ve chosen the whole time: Latvia, Bur man laimi. I’ll never forget how much the song knocked my socks off the first time I heard it, which was when I watched the Supernova semifinal, and I love it just as much today. It’s hard to think of a Eurovision song more “me” than this one. In a Discord server I asked people for fun which Eurovision entries they associate with me, and this was an answer that one person gave. Other answers I got included “Europapa”, “Alcohol Is Free”, “Funny Girl”, and “The Moon Is Rising”—the last of them because I frequently mention how much I hate it.

EDIT: Wait, I missed one. I’ll change my 1980 winner from “What’s Another Year” to Morocco, Bitaqat Hub because it’s such an awesome and unique Middle Eastern song. I also love that the lyrics are an earnest message about peace, in a way that doesn’t feel clichéd.

Alright guys, here’s my updated winner list:

  • Belgium, 3 (1957, 1976, 2003)
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2 (2001, 2006)
  • Denmark, 2 (1963, 2000)
  • Finland, 6 (1974, 1983, 1989, 1992, 2010, 2023)
  • France, 3 (1977, 1990, 1991)
  • Germany, 5 (1956, 1968, 1979, 1982, 1999)
  • Greece, 1 (2013)
  • Hungary, 2 (2005, 2019)
  • Ireland, 2 (1970, 1994)
  • Israel, 1 (1987)
  • Italy, 1 (1964)
  • Latvia, 3 (2002, 2018, 2025)
  • Lithuania, 1 (2022)
  • Luxembourg, 3 (1965, 1972, 1973)
  • Moldova, 1 (2009)
  • Monaco, 1 (1960)
  • Morocco, 1 (1980)
  • Montenegro, 1 (2015)
  • Netherlands, 7 (1959, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1998, 2014, 2024)
  • North Macedonia, 1 (2020)
  • Norway, 3 (1966, 1993, 1995)
  • Poland, 1 (1997)
  • Portugal, 2 (1984, 2017)
  • Serbia, 4 (2004, 2008, 2011, 2012)
  • Sweden, 2 (1958, 1996)
  • Switzerland, 2 (1986, 2021)
  • Turkey, 4 (1975, 1978, 1985, 1988)
  • Ukraine, 2 (2007, 2016)
  • United Kingdom, 3 (1961, 1962, 1981)
  • (18 winners; hoping my math is right!)

See you again on January 1! And remember, people: Fuck the EBU.

Iceland is skipping Eurovision 2026; here are my thoughts

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Today, Iceland became the fifth country to quit Eurovision 2026 over Israel’s participation. They were on the fence about it for a few days, but now they’ve made their choice, helped no doubt by all the protesters outside the RÚV headquarters. There was just no way the Icelandic public would want their country participating in Eurovision during these circumstances.

And that’s actually so fucking sad. I mean, I’ll give a heartfelt takk to RÚV for doing the right thing, but it’s sad that it had to come down to this. All the countries that love Eurovision the most are leaving. The Netherlands and Spain both have massive Eurovision fanbases, and while I don’t know much about how popular the contest is in Slovenia, I do know the country has a knack for sending fan favorites even if they don’t score well on the night, and that a lot of the country’s best-known musicians took part in the contest. I know from my trips to Malmö and Basel that the Irish are absolutely obsessed with Eurovision, and I can tell the Icelanders are just as obsessed if not more. Most of Iceland’s recent entries have been great, interesting songs, even some I wasn’t too kind to in my blog posts. “Með hækkandi sól” from 2022 has massively grown on me the past few months, and even the fan unfavorite “Scared of Heights” from 2024 is growing on me because a friend of mine frequently mentions how much he loves it (hi if you’re reading this!).

Iceland is the country many fans believe would’ve won in 2020, and even the country where much of the Eurovision movie was filmed. Till this point, they had never missed a Eurovision year except in 1998 and 2002, which was just due to the relegation system. The fact that a country that loves Eurovision this much is leaving the contest is not fucking normal. It proves that the EBU has made a shamefully wrong decision. Why is the EBU doing this? Why the FUCK is the EBU doing this??? WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE TO LOSE BY JUST BANNING ISRAEL ALREADY LIKE THEY DID WITH RUSSIA? Answer: they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. But nooooo, they want to do everything the hard way. I don’t fucking understand why they prioritize keeping Israel in over four, now five other countries.

I mean come on, even Eurovision legend Johnny Logan thinks Israel should be banned from the contest, because he’s actually a sensible person unlike those fuckhead idiots at the EBU. Noa, one of the singers of “There Must Be Another Way” from 2009, also believes her country should skip the next contest in solidarity with all the suffering civilians. That’s exactly what I wanted Israel to do since late 2023. That’s exactly what they should’ve done and Eurovision would’ve never been constantly on the brink of disaster. No one would have thought the worse of Kan if they decided to just read the fucking room!

Maybe there’s no point in me ranting about this, since I’m sure plenty of other people are doing the same. But as someone who became a massive Eurofan since 2023 and made a lot of great friendships thanks to the contest, I need to get these thoughts off my chest. The EBU can’t just fucking spam the phrase “United by Music” everywhere and pretend everything’s OK. It was a great slogan at first but now the EBU just uses it to rationalize their shitty, cowardly decisions.

I genuinely did not think it would be possible for any Eurovision year to be a greater trainwreck than 2024. I was wrong. Eurovision 2026 is still five months away and it’s already turned into a worse shitshow. The next contest is going to be an absolute fucking disaster and then the EBU will either have to REALLY change things or face even more countries dropping out. Will future Eurovision contests recover from this? I don’t fucking know. The best thing I can hope for is that Eurovision 2026 is just an ultra-dark spot in the contest’s history and the EBU will then have no choice but to get their shit together. But I don’t know how on earth the contest can regain the trust of fans after all these blunders. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. I can’t say it enough times. Fuck the EBU.

My thoughts on the EBU’s decision on Israel participating in Eurovision 2026

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Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Just imagine me repeatedly saying that a hundred times. Or more, if you like.

Today, the European Broadcasting Union made the immoral decision to allow Israel to participate in Eurovision 2026, even though that country is still bombing the shit out of Gaza, even though they manipulated the televote with some help from their government in both the past two contests, and even though four broadcasters (RTVE from Spain, AVROTROS from the Netherlands, RTÉ from Ireland, RTVSLO from Slovenia) said they would withdraw from the contest if Israel is allowed in. And these four countries did indeed quit the contest for 2026.

Muchas gracias, RTVE. Dank je wel, AVROTROS. Thank you and go raibh maith agat to RTÉ. And najlepša hvala to RTVSLO for being the first broadcaster to threaten to withdraw. You guys have so much more spine and integrity than the EBU. Fuck the EBU, by the way. Fuck the EBU. Israel’s broadcaster Kan are incredibly fucking selfish as well, to insist on participating in the contest despite how much of a shitshow it would be for everyone else.

I’m at a loss about this decision. It is so obviously wrong on so many levels to do this, and I am pissed off and disgusted at the EBU for doing this. Even if I had a full-time job that could pay for it, I will not go to Eurovision 2026. Not just because the EBU made an immoral decision, but also because I believe there will be a huge amount of protests against Israel participating in 2026, and I would not feel safe being surrounded by so many. I don’t think there will be quite as many protests as there were in Malmö 2024, since Malmö is such a Muslim-heavy city, but there will be a lot nonetheless. I felt very unsafe surrounded by all those protests when I went to Malmö and I’d much rather not go through a repeat of that in Vienna 2026. There would simply be no way to ignore the elephant in the room if I go to the next contest. I have no idea yet if I will even watch the show at all. Maybe I’ll just watch the songs and rank them on my own, and not engage with the Israeli entry at all.

Honestly I’m starting to question why I even went to the contest in 2024, when I knew ever since October 2023, when the war in Gaza began, that Israel participating would turn it into a massive shitshow. I don’t regret going there—I’m glad I got to see all the entries from that contest live (semifinal 1 in a rehearsal, semifinal 2 the live show), and I’m glad I got to meet and make a handful of friends there, except for one person I spent most of the trip with who was a complete asshole to me. I’m similarly glad I went to Eurovision 2025, which was a much happier experience for me, despite the show ending on an extremely sour note where the country that should’ve been banned almost won.

The EBU has such a fucking obvious double standard it’s unreal. Back in 2022, they were quick to ban Russia when only two broadcasters (ERR and Yle) outright said they would not participate if Russia is allowed in. To be fair, there were more that made it clear they felt Russia should not be allowed in, but still, the EBU has a big double standard and is willing to bend backwards to keep Israel participating even if it causes four other countries to leave the contest, probably because they’re scared that if they don’t do that they’ll be called antisemitic.

I’ll say it a few more times: Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU. Fuck the EBU.

Fuck the EBU.