Intro Post

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Introduction

Well, here we are now for the worst Eurovision year of the 2020’s. I mean that in terms of the show and the EBU’s inability to learn anything, because the song lineup was actually really good. In Vienna, 25 countries (would’ve been 26 if Spain hadn’t boycotted) competed for the trophy and the show was, suffice to say, quite a mess.

In third place came Romania with a massive fan favorite song, which is tied with 2005 and 2010 as their best result. In second place came the country that should’ve been banned yet-a-fucking-gain, but this time it was in part because the song did really well with the juries. And the winner came as a surprise to many viewers: Bulgaria with a catchy kickass girlbop titled “Bangaranga”. They had never won the contest before, but they did score fourth place in 2016 and second in 2017. When I reach Bulgaria’s song, I’ll analyze why it makes sense that this song won and how the song’s victory benefits the contest. No one in the final scored zero points overall, but the UK, Germany, and Belgium all got zero from the televote.

Romania and Bulgaria were among the three countries that returned this year after a hiatus; the other is Moldova, who achieved an excellent eighth place with a song that’s Moldovan to the core. That’s one of the positives about this trainwreck of a Eurovision year: all three countries that returned after taking breaks had a massive glowup. One of the negatives is that Israel still hasn’t been banned and thus five countries boycotted, and another negative is that Austria’s hosting this year was godawful.

A small positive is that just like Vienna 2015, Austria took the effort to open the show with an actual live orchestra which reminds us of Austria’s musical heritage and of the old days of Eurovision. JJ performs “Unknown” again, the same song from an interval act in the second semifinal (did he have no other songs he could perform?), then comes half of the flag parade, a reprise of “Wasted Love”, and the other half of the flag parade. Søren from Denmark comes first in the flag parade and he looks more stoked to be at Eurovision than anyone else, though I’m sure all the others were full of just as much hype. Thorsten Schorn said during the flag parade that Bulgaria’s song could become the summer hit of the year, which shows that by this point it was easily one of the standouts of the year. Sam from the UK got a substantial amount of cheers, though knowing his result they must have come primarily from British fans. Greece and Australia’s contestants were also met with a roaring reception, as well as the home team from Austria at the end. After 18 minutes the show finally begins, which is really excessive.

I watched the final with German commentary since I have an HD copy saved to my computer. Life hack for Eurofans who want to find commentary: for the latest year you can often find it on the broadcaster’s website, and for other recent years (2016 onwards) you won’t find them on YouTube, but rather on its Russian counterparts VK Video and OK.ru, or its Chinese counterpart Bilibili.

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Denmark: Før vi går hjem

Artist: Søren Torpegaard Lund

Language: Danish, because Denmark is actually a cool country this year

Key: C minor

My ranking: 4th

The Danes have a lot to be proud of in this year’s Eurovision. This dancey synth tune in Danish was a major fan favorite since it was selected for Eurovision and ultimately landed seventh place, which is huge for a song not in English, French, or Italian, and really a great result in general. This is the first song in Danish to make it to the grand final since 1997, the best result for a song in Danish since… uh let’s see… wow, 1995. And also Denmark’s best result since their most recent victory in 2013. This was actually the only native-language song in Denmark’s national final this year, which makes it extra cool that this won the selection.

Some fans were salty that this was chosen to open the show considering people saw it as a candidate to win, but I never saw it as a potential winner, and plus it’s nice to start the show with a good song and not a generic girlbop. I’ll have a lot more to say about the excessive stock people put into the betting odds later in this post.

Anyway, about the song! This continues the tradition of Scandinavian countries sending electronic dance bangers, although this one unlike so many others of its type is actually in the local language. From what I’ve read about him I can tell Søren really loves singing in Danish, and likes to use music to show his language to the world. The lyrics are about a romantic relationship that his mind says no to but his heart says YES YES YES to, as shown in particular by the line “jeg er så fucking dum” (I am so fucking dumb), which even the most monolingual English speakers can understand. I wish he could’ve sung the line uncensored, but I get it, F-bombs are a no-no in Eurovision, and “freaking” (an F-water bomb?) is the standard substitute. I’d rather have that than omitting the word entirely. For some reason Poland got away with including “shit” in their song though.

He comes across on stage like someone who can’t help but have his heart lit on fire when he’s going out with his love interest, even though in his head it doesn’t feel right, and he sings with such great expression all the while performing some intensive choreography. All this helps those who don’t speak Danish understand what the song is about. The instrumental in this song is wonderful as well—I’m always a sucker for a good dancey banger and I should definitely cover it in 8-bit at some point. Something you might not notice is that every time he sings the chorus (vi la’r natten stå i flammer…), the instrumental is a little different. The first time it’s just some dramatic stompy bass notes, the second time it has a pumping bassy beat, and the third time some sharp synth strings come in to maximize the hype. This is just one of many ways the song isn’t just a random-ass pop tune to fill time on the radio, but a story told in musical form.

You see, guys, songs like this are why I’m so damn addicted to Eurovision, even while its organizers are being absolute idiots. Søren is such a likable performer that I had to spare some votes for him in the semifinal, but I didn’t vote for him in the final because most of my votes went to the UK, which I don’t regret at all. Well done to Denmark for leaving their NQ streak and sending two great songs in a row!

Germany: Fire

Artist: Sarah Engels

Language: English, because of course German-language music once again doesn’t exist

Key: E minor

My ranking: 34th (last)

Oh man, I am so glad my country scored so poorly this year. Perhaps this sounds petty, but this is by far the least I liked the German entry since I started following Eurovision in 2023. Even with “Always on the Run” two years back, I eventually was able to admit to myself that Isaak is a fucking awesome singer, even if the song itself is a bit anonymous. This song, however, is a painfully generic Fuego clone that manages to have no original elements whatsoever. When I watched the song’s performance in the semifinal and final, both times it passed through me like a non-event. After the show ended, I have no shame in saying I absolutely hate this song. It gets worse every single time I hear it. It doesn’t help that it has such annoyingly smug lyrics, a trope that very often turns me off. “I could go out with all your friends”, “I’m on fire, fire, you’re a liar, liar”… god, what was my country thinking this year?

This landed 23rd place with a smattering of jury points that added up to twelve, and zero from the televote. You’ve heard the term “DAF ballad” that a fellow reviewer of mine invented—the term has been catching on among other Eurofans, because my regular commenter Tigressa Chinesa once called this a “DAF girlbop”. I can’t think of a better way to describe this song.

After some consideration I’ve decided to put this at the absolute bottom of my ranking, because there really aren’t many songs I outright hate this year. The more times I listen to this godawful song, the more I cringe at it.

Obligatory question: did the German national final have songs that were better than this? I mean, yeah, it did (read my review of it), and I would have gladly spared some patriotic votes for Malou Lovis’s song “When I’m with You”, but I don’t think any of them would have done well in Eurovision. Maybe some of them would’ve gotten a decent jury score like Isaak did, but that would’ve required a top-notch vocal performance.

Israel: Michelle

Artist: Noam Bettan

Language: Hebrew, French, English

Key: E♭ minor

My ranking: disqualified

I’m not going to include Israel’s song in my ranking this year. Everyone is fucking sick and tired of them ruining Eurovision and at this point it’s clear the vast majority of fans want them banned just like Russia was. They can return when they’ve voted that dickbag Netanyahu out and stop bombing the shit out of Gaza. Until then I want them to get the fuck out of the contest, but they aren’t going to unless they’re forced to. For now, the broadcasters in the EBU must keep pushing as hard as possible to remove them from the contest. Let me repeat what I said last year: No one actually wants them in Eurovision right now, and ***ABSOLUTELY NO ONE*** wants them to win. I repeat, ABSOLUTELY. NO. ONE. Well, except for those who think the only way for the EBU to get their heads out of their butts is to face the consequences of an Israeli win amidst the war in Gaza. And maybe also those whose heads are extremely ultra far up their butts. I get the impression that even the majority of Israeli fans don’t want their country to win right now. I saw an Israeli fan on Discord say “thank god” the moment Bulgaria was revealed as the winner.

At this point I’ve lost all hope for the EBU doing the right thing and banning that country from the contest. The only way it could happen is if the Boycotting Five expand to far more than just five countries. Fortunately, we already know that Belgium’s Dutch-speaking broadcaster VRT will be pushing hard to ban them from Eurovision 2027. They’ve been extremely firm about their stance on Israel participating the past few years. I’m certain that the Boycotting Five will remain firm in their stance as well, but the Netherlands is an odd case because they could theoretically return under a different member of their broadcasting system. Given that the Dutch fans and Eurovision delegation have been furious at the EBU since 2024, I don’t see that actually happening.

I can tell the EBU really doesn’t want to face the consequences of Israel winning, since just like the past two years they got a super-early spot in the running order. And this still landed second place. SECOND! It helps that the show since 2024 has opened voting at the start of the songs, which means running order doesn’t have much of an effect.

Personally, I just don’t care about this song at all because it’s inseparable from Israel’s continued exploitation of Eurovision to make themselves look good. But my friend who got me into Eurovision (who also wants them banned) actually tried his best to judge the song by its musical merit. He said that in isolation, it’s a well-composed classy ballad that cleverly mixes several languages, and that before 2024, the song would have easily landed in the top 10, which unfortunately meant it had a serious threat to win the whole thing. Upon relistening to the song, I think he has a good point there. It’s not the same flavor of drama ballad that they sent the last two years—it’s more of the pained romantic type. And the lyrics this time don’t seem to me be connected to the country’s war in any way—you’d REALLY have to stretch things.

I still love Eurovision a lot. I’m the type of person who can’t let go of things I’m passionate about no matter how much horrific drama happens related to them—this relates to other interests of mine as well, not only Eurovision. This is exactly why something needs to change in the contest. Something REALLY needs to change. And that something is banning Israel. It looks like the changes to televoting rules really did nerf Israel’s result. They landed third in the televote and got twelve televote points from only six countries (which didn’t include the rest of the world). But unfortunately, the show once again ended in a terrifying split screen where Israel could have won if Dara didn’t get enough televote points, and they still landed second place in the end. Third in the televote and eighth in the jury, but still second overall. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important for the EBU to pay close attention to how televoting works to prevent spam voting, and I’m glad they’re taking steps to increase its security. But this cannot be a substitute for banning Israel from the contest.

As for next year’s Eurovision, I guess we’ll see what happens. We’re at the start of the off season right now, so we aren’t getting much news about the next contest. Obviously Israel should be banned from next year, but I’m not getting my hopes up. Not a lot of countries have confirmed they’ll participate in the next contest, nor has Israel, but that’s normal. Notably, North Macedonia has already confirmed they’ll come back to Eurovision in 2027 after skipping the last four years, which is clearly because Bulgaria is right next door. After this blog post is finished, I’ll focus on other interests as well as real life stuff because Eurovision is trapped in the same shitty cycle year after year now. This cycle can only be stopped if the EBU bans Israel from Eurovision, or if the war in Gaza finally ends.

Belgium: Dancing on the Ice

Artist: Essyla (Alice van Eesbeck)

Language: English

Key: D minor or also kinda partly major

My ranking: 8th. I bet not a lot of fans have it this high!

I mentioned I was surprised Portugal ended up competing in Eurovision this year; the same holds for Belgium. Their French-speaking broadcaster RTBF was on the fence about competing in Eurovision 2026 and decided yes only after the December 4 decision, because RTBF just doesn’t feel as strongly about Israel’s participation as the Dutch-speaking VRT does.

I remember when this entry came out for the first time, I thought “what the actual fuck is this?” and had the impression Belgium’s original idea fell through (rumor has it they wanted to bring back Loïc Nottet from 2015) and they had to scramble to make a plan B. But then I started listening to it on loop the next few days because I found it strangely addictive. I knew that it wouldn’t qualify for the final, because it gives such a bizarre first impression and RTBF has such a bad track record with staging and live vocals. Note I didn’t say I thought it wouldn’t qualify—in my mind, it was a certainty that she wouldn’t.

And I was wrong.

That said, I actually do love this song. Not as much as “Strobe Lights” last year, but it’s a bit strange because “Strobe Lights” I don’t come back to often but always wows me when I listen to it, whereas this song doesn’t wow me quite as much but I come back to it a lot more. I like the way the song starts off super-minimalist with a kick drum and piano, and gradually builds up to be a total dancey banger at the end while keeping that pumping beat. She wears a really bizarre asymmetrical dress (hey, this is the country that gave us the Barbara Dex award) whereas she wore something so much more flattering in her postcard. She has an strange singing style with voice skips like the infamous “Run & Hide” from 2005 (though Essyla’s vocals in studio are more normal), but you know, maybe the whole point of this song is to be a bit eccentric. The juries liked it enough to make it qualify—I guess sometimes they like weird experimental stuff like this. The televoters weren’t quite so big on the song: in the semifinal this got second last place in the televote, and in the final they gave it zero points which didn’t surprise me much.

Albania: Nân

Artist: Alis Kallaçi

Language: Albanian

Key: C minor

My ranking: 12th

And now we have Albania sending their usual drama ballad with all their ballad tropes: dramatic vocals, orchestral instrumental, somewhat freeform verses, and a powerful chorus. The biggest difference between this and other Albanian ballads is that it’s sung by a man, but it’s still very much the same flavor of entry. A lot of Albanian ballads in Eurovision have an interesting subject in the lyrics, and this one was broadcast with subtitles in English so international viewers will know what it’s about: mothers whose children left their home country for a better life and are waiting for them to come back home. I’m perfectly cool with this new pattern of some songs having English subtitles onscreen, since it’s only done for songs where it’s really worth doing.

The song isn’t too different from previous Albanian entries of this type, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What I like most about it is probably the choir that backs up the chorus. I actually like it more and more the more times I listen to it, which is a very good sign. This landed at a respectable enough 13th place. And only three places higher, we have…

Greece: Férto (Φέρτο)

Artist: Akylas Mytilinaios

Language: Greek, with two lines each in Spanish and French, plus English words mixed in

Key: E♭ minor, then F minor in the slow section, then E♭ minor again

My ranking: 13th

The postcards this year are really boring and I’m not a fan of the semi-transparency gimmick used in them, but I do think Greece has one of the better ones because Akylas is just exploding with excitement and I like watching him ride his bike through what looks like an Austrian Christmas market.

Now, about the song. If there’s any proof that “Cha Cha Cha” was lightning in a bottle and you can’t clone its success every year, this song is it. I was never convinced that this could win the contest either, because this kind of song needs to have just as much hype among fans as “Cha Cha Cha” (which is just about the maximum hype an entry can get) and not have a strong enough contender rival to win the jury vote. Noticing a pattern here? Pretty much all the songs in the so-called “favorites to win” I was highly skeptical could actually take home the trophy. I’ll have more to say on this topic when I reach Finland.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like this song overall. It’s fun and fast-paced, has some little Greek ethnic elements to spice it up, and has a nice little message saying that deep down the reason the singer dreams of all this wealth is so that he can help provide for his family. I love his energy on stage, particularly the parts where he rides a scooter as pyrotechnics go off and his little slip down a pole towards the end. And Akylas is a better live singer than Käärijä or especially Joost Klein were. While Joost was overwhelmed with excitement throughout his song and blubbered in tears in the emotional ending (who can blame him?), Akylas keeps his composure as a performer a lot better and sings the slow part of “Ferto” perfectly. But while I had considered this as a candidate for my winner at first, it turns out there are other songs that just spark more excitement in me. In her review, Erica has a good point when she says the song has too much shouting “ferto mou, ferto mou, ferto” and not enough melody compared to “Cha Cha Cha”.

Sorry if you were expecting a more enthusiastic review of this song. There are just so many similar songs in the past few Eurovision years and I don’t have that much to say about this one that I didn’t say about others of its type.

Ukraine: Ridnym (Рідним)

Artist: Viktoria Leléka

Language: English and Ukrainian. Fourth year in a row of Ukraine mixing both languages.

Key: C♯ minor

My ranking: 22nd

Here’s a fun fact about Leléka: she speaks nearly native-level German, better than almost all other non-native speakers I’ve seen. You can hear her speaking German in this interview, though you may need to turn off this stupid fucking auto-dub feature that YouTube is shoving down everyone’s throats now. She said in the interview that the reason she speaks German so well because her family has partly German roots but lost the ability to speak the language, so she decided she should reintroduce the language to her family and moved to Germany to intensively study it.

Anyway, the song itself is a tough one for me to tackle. It’s a sort of dramatic artsy Disney ballad that I actually did think had a shot at winning Eurovision. In fact, it’s the only entry pre-season that I fully, sincerely felt could win the whole thing. Not to say that I knew for certain Ukraine would win, like how I was 99% sure “The Code” would win 2024 after I saw Nemo’s performance in the Malmö Arena—it’s just that I was very much uncertain who’d be taking the trophy home. To an extent I also felt this way about France, but in that case it was more that I feared she would win because both the last two winners were also opera. In the end, this song landed ninth place with 54 points from the jury and 167 from the televote, so it didn’t do quite as well as I expected.

This is a moving and emotional tune with lots of subtle details in the music, mixing traditional instruments and bassy synths, plus some trippy electronic percussion about halfway through. She comes across as a professional performer who feels at home on stage, and she sings a super-long ascending note towards the end that I felt was sure to impress the juries. She absolutely NAILED that note in the national final, whereas in all the jury shows and live shows at Eurovision, some of her performances were better than others. It’s extra tricky for her because the juries vote based on the jury shows, whereas the viewers at home vote based on the live shows 24 hours later. Her timing of the note in the live semifinal was a bit off, while in the final she pulled it off with no issues. Not sure about the jury shows.

Now what do I think of this song personally? It’s one of those songs that impresses me when I watch its performance but I would never casually listen to. Maybe the juries generally felt the same way. But I do know someone who considers this Ukraine’s best entry by far. This gets me thinking, which countries do I think sent their best ever entries this year? Croatia and Romania for certain, probably Bulgaria as well.* All three of those songs will be fun to review.

* While we’re here, I would say Latvia, Sweden, and possibly San Marino sent their best ever entries to Eurovision 2025.

Australia: Eclipse

Artist: Delta Goodrem

Language: English

Key: B minor (first verse), D minor (first chorus to bridge), E minor (final chorus)

My ranking: 18th

After failing to qualify with a song about Aboriginal culture, then failing to qualify again with a joke entry, Australia decided to go back to what they’d previously done so well with: professional ballads performed by someone who sings their heart out. And boy oh boy did they absolutely kill it! Australia’s choice of entry this year shows the benefit of bringing juries back to the semifinals: during the years of televote-only semis, the obvious strategy for countries to qualify was to send televote bait, whereas the Big Five’s optimal strategy was to instead go with jury bait. Australia tried hopping on the televote bait trend with “Milkshake Man” last year, and you can see how that worked out. Now all countries, whether Big Five or not, are encouraged to send a song that appeals to both the jury and televote. It’s just too bad the EBU decided to lock the vote on whether to ban Israel behind this and other much-needed changes.

The list of key signatures in this song should be enough to tell you that this song was designed to wow the audience as much as possible. Indeed, when I saw the song’s music video for the first time, I had a gut feeling that it could win Eurovision or at least come close. My gut was right, because this song landed at an astounding fourth place—Australia’s second best result over! Though I’m sure some Australian fans thought fourth place was too low, just as I felt about KAJ last year. Still, Australia did absolutely everything right with their song and performance this year.

Delta has been wildly popular singer in Australia since the early 2000’s and those decades of experience come across perfectly thanks to her performance. She just beams with charisma and professionalism throughout. At the start, she has a dreamy look in her eyes that brings the romantic lyrics of the song to life, then through the rest of the song she has a perfect mix of romantic attitude and enthusiasm to connect with the crowd. Who can forget her awesome golden sparkly dress, or the part near the end where she stands on a platform that bursts out of her piano?

This isn’t as much my type of song as (for instance) Denmark or Belgium, but it’s still reasonably high in my rankings just because it does everything right. I actually like this one a lot better than Australia’s earlier Eurovision ballads, because it has a strong buildup and gets more and more punchy as it goes on. It’s nowhere near my first choice to come back to this year, but I can definitely see myself going back to rewatch the awesome show she put on.

Serbia: Kraj mene

Artist: Lavina

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Serbian). Thorsten Schorn says this is actually their first song in Serbian instead of English.

Key: G♯ minor

My ranking: 27th

Thorsten Schorn says that this is Lavina’s first ever song in Serbian; all their previous discography was in English. It’s normally more common for an artist that sings in their own language to switch to English for Eurovision, but then again, Serbia has a rule in their national final where at least 51% of the lyrics must be in one of their official languages.

Serbia this year has given us an ultra-grimdark growly rock song, which is extremely not for me and thus low in my ranking. However, I can’t help but respect this entry because it knows exactly what it wants to be and thus appeals absolutely perfectly to its target demographic. That’s why I was not one bit surprised that it qualified. Plus, their costuming and overall staging are over-the-top grimdark in exactly the right way. I also like that the staging gets all red during the growly breakdown section. Overall, this isn’t at all for me, but I totally get why people do like it. I think I like this kind of song more when it’s fast instead of ballady (see “Viszlát nyár” from 2018, which I haven’t actually listened to in quite a while).

Malta: Bella

Artist: Aidan Cassar

Language: English and Maltese plus a pinch of Italian (“che bella”)

Key: E♭ minor

My ranking: 19th

This is Malta’s first time singing in Maltese since 1972, which is a long fucking time if you ask me. For the Americans that was when Richard Nixon was president, and for the Brits that was when… uh, let’s see… Edward Heath was prime minister. Wow, I’ve never even heard of that guy before. The one Maltese Eurofan I know was absolutely delighted that Eurovision finally had a song in his language again, and I can’t blame him one bit.

I’m annoyed that Malta keeps trying to do what Israel does and shove ad campaigns related to their entry in our faces, especially when they landed with a paltry 8 televote points this year, but I won’t let that distract from analyzing this song, which I actually quite like. I’m not a fan of the repeated “bella, bella, bella” parts, but otherwise this is a lovely romantic ballad with a nice expressive voice. It’s just so easy to sing along to “che bella, (something in Maltese), I’ll keep holding onto you, after all of this time it’s you”. I also like the that the final portion of the lyrics contains a Maltese history lesson, because he namedrops the country’s historical figure Jean la Valette.

That said, the song is nowhere near my favorite this year because I’m just more of a hectic party music kinda guy than a ballad guy. Plus, I don’t think I like it quite as much as I did pre-show. I suspect that part of why it got so few televotes is that it appeals most to viewers around my parents’ age, and they aren’t as likely to vote as those my age are.

Czechia: Crossroads

Artist: Daniel Žižka

Language: English. Maybe they should try a song in Czech next year?

Key: B minor, with little hints of B major

My ranking: 25th

Czechia is another country that took full advantage of the juries returning to the semifinals this year, or at least it felt that way. This song has jury bait written all over it—it’s in English, has a polished professional sound, and most importantly Daniel is an extremely consistent performer. The song is quite vocally demanding and he never misses a single note, whereas many of their last few contestants had vocal issues on stage. This wouldn’t have qualified if the semis had been televote-only.

The song itself I don’t have strong feelings on one way or the other. I can see what it’s going for, a cinematic ballad like both of the entries sung by Gjon’s Tears (especially “Tout l’univers”), but this one just lacks the punch that either of them have. Clearly the juries saw more in this song than I did, which makes sense because their whole purpose is to reward good performances.

Also, the camera unfortunately glitched out for about a whole minute of the performance. The Czech broadcaster ČT requested to allow Daniel to perform again, but for whatever reason the EBU denied it. I guess they didn’t think the camera glitches were important enough?

Bulgaria: Bangaranga (the winner)

Artist: Dara (Darina Yotova)

Language: English

Key: C♯ minor

My ranking: 5th. Nice to have a winner near the top again!

When I predicted the qualifiers of this year on April 5 (you can see the predictions here), I predicted for Bulgaria: “Easy NQ, who the hell likes it?”

As you can see, I could not have been more wrong. In the past few years, it had been a common debate topic who would be the next country to win Eurovision for the first time. A lot of people were saying Lithuania, which I think was solely because they had one of the biggest fan favorites of 2020, and we don’t even know how well “On Fire” would have scored. I don’t think anyone had Bulgaria on their mind to win next, which is crazy in retrospect because not too long ago (2016 and 2017) they achieved two consecutive top five results. Clearly, this country had people who knew what worked in Eurovision. But how did Bulgaria get to the point of victory? Let’s dive into their relatively young Eurovision history to find out.

From their debut in 2005 to 2013, Bulgaria seemed to be participating just to fill a spot in the guest list. During those years, the only time they qualified was with “Water” from 2007, a percussive folktronica piece that has grown on me a huge amount since I first reviewed that year. That song achieved an impressive fifth place amidst a sea of flops, and Bulgaria in fact tried sending those same singers in 2013 with a song that failed to qualify (but in my opinion deserved to).

Bulgaria skipped the contest in 2014 and 2015, then decided the next year to take the contest more seriously. In 2016 and 2017, they sent accessible, polished pop songs in English that perfectly match what was trending at that time, at least my understanding of what was trending. In those years I was completely tuned out of the pop music scene (and still sort of am) because all I listened to then was Homestuck music, but their results (4th and 2nd respectively) show that this style of music was all the rage back then. I do like “If Love Was a Crime” from 2016, but with “Beautiful Mess” from 2017 I must have missed out on when those types of sadboy ballads were trending.

Bulgaria continued the accessible pop song approach in 2018 and 2021 (skipping 2019 due to financial problems) and achieved results of 14th and 11th respectively, which were decent enough but probably not as high as they were hoping for. I absolutely hate “Growing Up Is Getting Old” from 2021, but I know a huge amount of fans do love it, and this type of music most certainly matches what was trending at the time. Some fans believe Victoria that year would’ve gotten more televote points if the viewers weren’t craving something upbeat to take their minds off COVID-19.

Then came Turin 2022, when their broadcaster BNT was blatantly out of money and simply sent a super-wealthy rock band that could finance themselves, who sent a song that hardly anyone liked and thus failed to qualify. They withdrew from the contest for three years after that, then in Vienna 2026 they were finally ready to return. And they decided to absolutely fucking KILL IT.

Most fans didn’t think much of “Bangaranga” when its national final performance came out, except for those who REALLY love girlbops. It turns out that behind the scenes, Bulgaria’s Eurovision team were putting all their effort into giving the song and staging the biggest glow-up you could possibly imagine. It got a musical revamp with a new bridge section and top-tier staging that caught Eurovision viewers completely by surprise.

And you know what, people? I fucking love this song now. It’s extremely upbeat and dancey which matches well what’s trending in pop music these days, and especially what Eurofans these days love. It’s one of those songs where I just HAVE to turn my headphones up when listening to it. It has a mix of fast sections and slightly slower sections that make listeners want to dance. It’s innovative, it’s fun and catchy, and it’s not just a clone of prior Eurovision entries that did well unlike, say, Germany or Greece or Czechia this year.

I’m watching the staging as I type this right now, and Bulgaria knocked it out of the park so hard. Dara has got the moves, and I mean ALL the moves, as do her backing dancers. She performs with sass and attitude but also with a slight wink to the audience that encourages people to vote for her. I like her outfit for the song as well—it looks sexy without resorting to one of those weird sparkly bathing suits that seem to be all the rage these days. I also like that she performs gestures that match the lyrics at times, particularly “I’m about to lose my mind”. She truly brings this song to life!

I think this might have actually been the best possible song to win Eurovision this year. We have a new country winning for the first time, it’s an upbeat song that’s already becoming a hit all across Europe (unlike “The Code” or “Wasted Love” which didn’t seem to have much of a life outside the contest), and it also proves that the betting odds mean absolutely fucking nothing. I’ll say more on this topic when I reach Finland’s song, which I also love but never saw as a potential winner. This song winning makes me feel almost as if we’re in the 2000’s again, when new countries were winning left and right simply by what hyped up the crowd the most. I also like that this song won both the jury and televote this year—it’s the first time both sides have agreed on the winner since 2017!

And hell, this song even has one of the best postcards this year. Not that this has anything to do with Bulgaria’s victory, but I thought I’d point that out. Dara explores an ancient library in Vienna during this postcard, and in the semifinal Thorsten Schorn said that in this library, maybe we could find the first song Ralph Siegel ever composed. Speaking of veteran Eurovision composers, this is the first entry Dimitris Kontopoulos worked on that won the contest, and he’s been composing for Eurovision since 2007. His old colleague Philpp Kirkorov is trying to take credit for the song’s victory as well, but we all know that’s total bullshit. He had nothing to do with this entry whatsoever. And it’s not like he was the one who absolutely smashed it on stage.

Croatia: Andromeda

Artist: Lelek

Language: Serbo-Croatian (Croatian)

Key: E♭ minor, F minor

My ranking: 2nd

Speaking of countries that knocked it out of the park this year… give it up for these lovely ladies! This ethnic choir drama ballad is the closest thing we have to Tautumeitas’ wonderful entry from last year, so it was inevitable that I’d be a fan of this as well. But it ended up touching my heart WAY more when I watched semifinal 1 live. These girls absolutely nail their performance on stage and wear an absolutely gorgeous set of white and red shreddy dresses. It’s such a wonderful cultural song and has exactly the type of Balkan ballady drama that wins me over again and again, plus some truly exquisite harmonies! I gave three of my ten votes to this in the semifinal, and one in the grand final. I love how the song starts with a solo voice and puts harmonies into unexpected places, I love the four times repeated “izdajice” (traitors) leading to a key change, and I love the dramatic synthy ending that feels like a true climax.

This is without a doubt Croatia’s best entry in Eurovision now, since by now I’ve become pretty much totally tired of “Rim Tim Tagi Dim”. Sorry, Baby Lasagna. It’s not that I hate his song now or anything, it’s just that it has served its purpose for me. This scored only 15th place and it absolutely deserved to be in the top 10 at least. That said, both the juries and televoters have always tanked this type of song, so landing any higher would’ve been a very pleasant surprise. Still, the juries are totally wrong for giving this only 53 points.

United Kingdom: Eins, Zwei, Drei

Artist: Sam Battle, AKA Look Mum No Computer

Language: English plus repeatedly counting to three in German

Key: B minor

My ranking: 6th

Random fact: according to Thorsten Schorn, the British contestant in fact knows to count as high as twenty in German. Not bad at all, Sam!

I gave seven of my ten votes in the grand final to this one, partly in honor of my birthplace and partly because I wanted the UK to get a decent result for once. My other three votes were one each to Croatia, Romania, and Sweden. Alas, he got only one point in the jury and zero from the televote. I have no regrets, and I’m sure Sam doesn’t either. He handled his last place like a champ and had no reason to be hurt by it. He has a successful YouTube channel and musical career, he had a son earlier this year, and he even runs a museum of all his music technology.

As a song, this is such a fabulous 80’s inspired synthy banger with killer staging and quite genius lyrics. It’s about a man who’s tired of working a 40-hour office job and wants to rethink his life. It even has a slight anti-Brexit tone in the lyrics, particularly in the line “all my pounds, they feel counterfeit / I need some euros to counter it”. I love how the song gradually transitions from straight to swing rhythm in the final chorus, it makes the song even catchier. The one part I’m not too big on is “when I say eins, you say zwei”; I think that didn’t add much to the performance. But I get why he put it there, because otherwise it would’ve just been an instrumental break.

Erica said in her review that everyone else she talked to in the UK thought the song was godawful, and I had the same experience with people I discussed the song with online, barring one or two exceptions. In fact, when Sam got his single point from the Ukrainian jury, someone in the Homestuck Discord server I mentioned previously joked that the point came from me.

Sam totally deserved better, I’m telling you. Couldn’t he have at least landed with 20 points or so, like Lord of the Lost did? I’m guessing the reason why he did so bad was that the song’s sense of humor was too British for the rest of Europe to enjoy, so it came across to them as just a weird joke entry. Compare this to “Espresso Macchiato”, a song I was harsh on in my 2025 review but don’t hate anywhere near as much as I used to. That’s a song whose humor all countries in Europe can equally enjoy, and same with, let’s say “Cha Cha Cha” or “Dancing Lasha Tumbai”. Still, last place with only one point was WAY too harsh. After Eurovision this year ended, Sam started selling shirts that say “LOOK MUM NO POINTS”, so you can tell he wasn’t bothered at all by this result.

France: Regarde !

Artist: Monroe Vata Rigby, or just Monroe—the youngest contestant this year at just 17.

Language: French

Key: C minor

My ranking: 32nd

Oh dear god, now we have the “Wasted Love” copycat of 2026. This song was extremely blatantly written solely for the purpose of winning Eurovision, so I’m absolutely delighted that it came nowhere close to achieving that goal. It landed 11th place with 144 points from the jury and just 14 from the televote.

The whole song is ultra-dramatic in a way that just doesn’t feel authentic to me. It has so much opera showboating and Monroe can most certainly sing, but I just don’t sense any genuine emotion in this track unlike prior French entries of this type. Also, it has the gall to namedrop Paris in the VERY FIRST GODDAMN LINE OF THE SONG! Seriously, how fucking clichéd can you get? At least “Mon amour” two years back had the dignity to wait till halfway through the song to say “Paris”. I wonder if France is going to keep sending drama ballads every year till they win with one, or if they’ll try just once to step out of their comfort zone again?

We have to sit through an overly long interlude with the hosts (including a trailer for Eurovision Asia) before we finally reach…

Moldova: Viva, Moldova!

Artist: Satoshi (Vlad Sabajuc)

Language: Romanian mixed with phrases in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, and an “aloha” which technically counts as Hawaiian

Key: A minor

My ranking: 9th

Something magical must have happened this year with Moldova’s Eurovision team. Watch a recap of their 2025 national final, which was cancelled because of the poor song quality. And now, watch a recap of their 2026 selection. Not only did the song lineup get a huge glow-up; the production did as well. It could totally pass as a live Eurovision show, just as the selections in Sweden and Finland do! For the first time, Moldova hosted their national final in the Chișinău Arena, which was opened in December 2022 and would be a perfect fit for hosting Eurovision.

In Moldova’s national final, one song one by a massive landslide, and I truly mean a Baby Lasagna-level landslide. And that was of course “Viva, Moldova”. Thorsten Schorn described the song as a mixture of Gangnam Style and the band Deichkind, so in other words, a dancey party anthem heavy in rap. I had never heard of Deichkind before because I don’t actually live in Germany, but reading about them, yep, that comparison seems accurate. And it’s always a good sign when a song gets the honor of being compared to Gangnam Style.

This song is just everything Moldova excels at in Eurovision, stuffed into one piece of music. It’s patriotic in a likable way, not in a dumb annoying way like “Flying the Flag (for You)”. It’s upbeat and bouncy, it’s heavy in rapping and ethnic twists, and lyrically it’s not just language soup but a full-out language smoothie. It’s the most language soup-y entry Eurovision has seen since “My Sister’s Crown” from 2023, and that one was more like language borscht. Let’s not forget Satoshi and his crew’s infectious enthusiasm on stage, especially the blonde lady. And who can forget the enormous dress that bursts from the stage for about ten seconds? Wearing the dress is Aliona Moon, who had done a similar dress gimmick in Eurovision 2013.

Some people may critique the song for having too much shouting and not enough singing, but I don’t mind myself. It means the song isn’t my number one favorite, but it’s still quite high on my ranking. Plus, I don’t think anyone could dispute that “saluti a tutti, Moldova is on duty” is a fucking genius line. The chorus is crazy fun to sing along to and I found myself doing just that when I watched the final live. The song just never fails to hype me up, and makes me feel proud to be Moldovan despite not being at all Moldovan. That is surely the song’s intended effect.

I’m obligated to mention that Satoshi’s shirt has the number 373 because that is the country calling code of Moldova, and thus a symbol of the country. My hometown of Columbus, Ohio does the exact same thing with the number 614, since that is the city’s area code. The same goes for plenty of other American cities.

Finland: Liekinheitin

Artist: Linda Lampenius on violin, and Pete Parkkonen on vocals

Language: Finnish

Key: G minor

My ranking: 6th

This song was on top in the betting odds for most of this year’s Eurovision season, and it landed sixth place in the end. Can we all please agree that the betting odds in Eurovision mean absolutely nothing????? This has been the case throughout Eurovision history given what I’ve read about past years. I’m so sick of fans shoving the betting odds in everyone’s faces as if they’re a reliable indicator of who will qualify to the final, let alone who will win. It takes away the fun of predicting the results on my own. Hell, I think betting odds cultists are even more annoying than running order cultists, which is saying a lot. “Shh” last year was placed at the end of semifinal 1 and still didn’t qualify, which taught me that I shouldn’t take running order into account when predicting who qualifies. Personally I think the betting odds have more to do with what countries have done well in recent years than who will actually capture Europe’s votes. Those odds are bullshit, is what I’m saying. The odds do sometimes play a part in where the songs are placed in the running order, but that’s it really. I try my best to ignore anything posts about odds before Eurovision week and I don’t always succeed.

Anyway, about the song! I was never fully convinced that it could win Eurovision because there have always been others that stand out to me more than this. Still, I do love this song and it represents everything Finland has done right in recent Eurovision. It’s a dancey banger that hypes up the crowd and has quality staging with two professional performers. It’s not a duet between two vocalists, but rather between a singer and a violinist. Linda looks so professional and dignified, and she really does play the violin live in this song thanks to pushing from Finland’s broadcaster. Her violin is more clearly live in the final than it was in the semifinal. Pete’s emotion comes across perfectly on stage even if you don’t speak a word of Finnish. I almost feel like I can understand the lyrics, simply because of the way Pete delivers them. It’s not hard to guess the text is about romantic pain, and in fact they’re about a relationship that feels horrid yet irresistible at the same time. It’s a similar theme to Denmark’s lyrics, now that I think of it. Those two countries landed side by side in the final results.

On the day before the final, I had no clue who would end up winning Eurovision this year, so part of me wondered if it might be Finland after all. It wasn’t, and in a way that was inevitable for two reasons: the juries are biased against songs in lesser-known languages, and several other entries turned out to be even bigger crowd pleasers than this.

Poland: Pray

Artist: Alicja Szemplińska, returning from 2020 at long last

Language: English

Key: C minor

My ranking: 29th

Look, I’m happy that Alicja finally got to go to Eurovision six years after COVID-19 ruined her first chance. She wasn’t internally selected in 2021 for whatever reason, she competed in the 2023 Polish selection and lost to Blanka, then she competed in the 2026 Polish selection and won it. Must feel good for her to finally have gotten this chance!

But man, I really dislike this song and was shocked in a bad way when it qualified. Yes, Alicja can sing, but that’s the only good thing about this entry. It starts with an overly long gospel intro with tons of “aaahyahahaayaaaah”, then when it gets going it gains a rather annoying trap beat that reminds me of Samanta Tīna’s entries. It gets a little better when we reach the chorus, but god, this song still annoys the shit out of me. And don’t even get me started on her godawful outfit. She definitely wanted to show off her breasts, but the tin can top and overly thick pants on the bottom just look so ridiculous. It’s like she was begging for a Barbara Dex award.

Rewatching the song, I can see why it did fairly well and landed twelfth place. It’s basically the definition of jury bait, and this year they returned to the semifinals to help boost songs like this. It’s not the kind of song that wins the jury, but in retrospect it’s exactly the type that gets over 100 points from the juries and like ten from the televote. Basically the inverse of Justyna’s result last year. Part of why Alicja did so well with the jury is not only because she can sing, but also because the song fits her vocal range perfectly. You can tell from her thank-you message at the end that she has quite a deep voice for a woman.

I find it really funny that the German jury gave this song twelve points—it’s such a “German jury” thing to do. They always have the blandest tastes, at least when it comes to who they rank on top. I imagine the German jury consists of people who scoff at any music they don’t consider “high art”. For reference, their twelve points in 2023 to 2025 were “Tattoo”, “Unforgettable”, and “Wasted Love” respectively. Over the years I’ve actually started to like “Unforgettable” as a “turn off your brain and dance” type of song, but it’s still a very German jury choice to award twelve.

Lithuania: Sólo quiero más

Artist: Lion Ceccah

Language: Lithuanian, English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. The last two are just one line each, and I barely even notice them.

Key: C♯ minor

My ranking: 24th

This is a sort of artsy ballad that I’ve never been too sure how to describe, yet alone how to feel about it. While Moldova’s song was like a language smoothie, this one is true language soup: some languages contribute the bulk while a few just serve as small spices. It kind of started growing on me before the show, mostly due to the melody in the chorus, but now I can’t click with it unless I’m really in the right mood. Some songs are just like that—I can enjoy them when I’m in a specific mood. That’s better than songs like France which I never want to listen to at all.

His live performance is hit-and-miss, a little out of sync or overwrought in parts, and while that doesn’t necessarily affect the studio version, it can still affect my opinion on the song looking back. I do like the line about subtitles though, and I find it clever that subtitles appear the moment he sings that line. But I can’t say I’m too surprised it landed near the bottom after qualifying, at 22nd place. Just two places higher, we have:

Sweden: My System

Artist: Felicia Eriksson

Language: English

Key: F minor

My ranking: 1st. I thought long and hard about it.

Yes, you read that right. Sweden’s entry which got an undeservedly low 20th place is my winner of this year’s Eurovision. Given how much I loved “Strobe Lights” and “Hallucination” last year, it’s probably not a surprise I like this as well, but it may be surprising that I chose it as my winner. Let me explain why.

The day was February 10, 2026, a few days after the second heat of Melodifestivalen 2026. I was in my car on a break between work shifts. I pulled out my phone and read a message on a Eurovision-related Discord server, saying:

“Felicia has broken the Melodifestivalen record for local streams! Her smash hit “My System” gathered more than 300,000 streams on Spotify among Swedish listeners on Monday, while last year’s record-holders KAJ had only 296,236.”

I didn’t watch any of the Melfest live shows this year except the final, but given how much I loved KAJ’s Eurovision song last year, I knew that if Felicia’s entry was getting even more streams, it must be really good. I pulled up the song on YouTube and listened. The moment the synth riff of the song began, my jaw was on the floor. The melody of the synth riff is a little different in each chorus, which makes the song even cooler. This was a song designed specifically for me to love the fuck out of, or at least it felt this way. I knew this song was going to win Melfest 2026 by a landslide, and it did indeed! I barely remember the other songs that competed in the Melfest final that year.

I just love the absolute fuck out of this song and no one can tell me otherwise. It reawakens the 13-year-old Cedric inside me, the me who loved nothing more than to put on some loud, hectic synthy dance music. The me who had not yet read Homestuck (that was in 2014) and thus listened to nothing but Homestuck music for the next two or three years.* I suppose this is a lot like someone my mom’s age absolutely loving a song because it makes them feel like they’re in the 1980’s again. This is very much how my mom and her German friends feel about “Tanzschein”, but I’ll get to that later.

The point is, “My System” is a song that has me written all over it. It’s fast and dancey, it’s fun to sing and clap along to, and it was just begging for me to turn into an 8-bit cover which I made in the days leading up to Eurovision week, then published after semifinal 1 ended. She kicked ass in her live performance at Melodifestivalen and when I watched the final of that selection live, it was very obvious she would win it. For some reason, the producers remade the staging from scratch for Eurovision instead of sticking to what worked at Melfest, and it ended up looking a little stiff and unnatural. The staging and performance were still decent enough, but just didn’t quite hit the same, and her vocals sounded quite a bit off in both shows. In the final her vocals were off at the start but then she pulled it together.

Despite all the other great songs, Sweden is still my winner this year because the music is simply that good. I’ve thought at length about whether it should still be my winner given that her live performance was kind of a flop, but yes, it still totally is. I relistened to “Andromeda” and “Choke Me”, the other main candidates for my winner, as well as this one, and this still wows me the most. There is really no other entry this year that is more “me” than this one.

* Since most of my readers probably have no idea what Homestuck even is, I’ll link you to what is probably my favorite Homestuck song of all time: Sburban Jungle.

Cyprus: Jalla

Artist: Antigoni Buxton, who prefers to drop her British-sounding surname

Language: English with a few lines in Cypriot Greek mixed in. Yay for regional dialects!

Key: C♯ minor

My ranking: 17th

Given her godawful vocals in the semifinal, this absolutely should not have qualified. She sounded out of breath throughout and barely was able to dance as a result, plus she almost missed a line near the end. In the final she sounded a little better, but Cyprus has still fallen victim to their recurring live vocal issue. On the plus side, she’s full of positive energy on stage which is probably part of why she qualified.

But the studio version! I repeat, the studio version! It’s a fun, dancey bop with ethnic elements that I hum to myself pretty often, especially the chorus (jalla jalla, they want jalla). My favorite part is the ethnic dance break that comes right after the chorus. So if we ignore the live performance, this is a nice and fun song to turn off my brain to, and maybe lift me up if I’ve had a rough day. It’s just nowhere near my favorite of this year.

Italy: Per sempre sì

Artist: Sal da Vinci, the oldest contest this year born 1969

Language: Italian

Key: C minor

My ranking: 11th

Thorsten Schorn at the start of the song said that Italy is one of the three favorite tourist destinations for Germans, so he wondered if this song would be among the three favorites of German viewers. It was not in the German televoters’ top three (6 points), but it was in their juries’ top three with 10 points.

While last year’s Sanremo winner declined to go to Eurovision, Sal da Vinci was happily willing to do it and even postponed his tour in North America for it. He brought us not a dreary male ballad for once, but rather some good old Italian disco, and I’m very glad for this.

Some people are surprised that this landed as high as fifth place given that the staging was kind of a mess, but I’m not. This is Italy we’re talking about and Europe absolutely loves Italian music. The juries and televoters both don’t care about the overcomplicated shenanigans on stage; they see some quality Italian disco that’s easy to groove along to, and they vote for it. And how can you not love the skirt unfolding into an Italian flag? That is just so goddamn Eurovision.

Even though disco is a decades-old genre, this song actually does a good job appealing to younger viewers—perhaps more so than older viewers. I showed my mom this (among other Eurovision entries this year) and she wasn’t too impressed by it, because she found the production to be too synthy and digital. She then went on a tangent about how the Gipsy Kings, a band that was hugely popular in her youth, made much better music than this with live instruments. But I still will happily listen to this song any day, even if I didn’t like it quite enough to vote for it.

Norway: Ya Ya Ya

Artist: Jonas Lovv

Language: English

Key: B minor

My ranking: 15th

Norway’s national final this year was very similar to last year: it was a small selection of English-language pop songs that every Eurofan I saw (at least in Grootyvision, the only Eurovision Discord server I’m active in) complained was absolutely godawful, so my expectations for this entry were rock bottom.  But as with last year, once I heard the winning song of the selection I ended up quite liking it. I’m not going to pretend this is a particularly high-effort composition and it’s nowhere near my favorite this year, but despite all that I reasonably enjoy listening to it. It has a catchy guitar riff that sticks in your head after just one listen, the “ahhhhh, ya ya ya ya” part is quite easy to sing along to, and Jonas just totally owns the stage throughout even if he may come off as creepy to some. My favorite part is probably the percussion interlude before the final chorus.

I’m not fully convinced that this song actually deserved to qualify, but I just can’t hate it. The one part of that bugs me is the ultra-short key change near the end; what was the point of it?

Romania: Choke Me

Artist: Alexandra Căpitănescu, an absolute queen

Language: English

Key: E♭ minor

My ranking: 3rd. Same as its real-life ranking!

Oh my god, Romania. Oh my fucking god. After their disastrous entry in 2023 and two-year withdrawal, I would have never expected them to send a song and performer this awesome, but they went ahead and did just that. That’s probably the best thing about this trainwreck of a Eurovision year: the countries that came back from hiatus absolutely KILLED it, all three of them. This is by far the best entry Romania has ever sent to Eurovision and I hope they continue being this good in future years.

The song itself is already awesome enough—a rock banger with some synthy elemnents that’s aggressive yet also very accessible. It has a tense bassy sound in the verses with guitars bursting in at a few points, then the chorus goes full-blast aggressive with a powerful melody and some opera singing that actually wins me over, since it’s just for small portion of the chorus and, get this, actually adds to the song. I also absolutely love the “choke me, ch-ch-ch-choke me” hook; it helps make the song stick in your head after just one listen, which is absolutely crucial for Eurovision. I’m not a fan of songs that consist entirely of opera singing or of growling, but this song puts in just a little pinch of both and they add so much to this already amazing tune. The staging looks awesome as well with the gothy black outfits and the glowing white strings attached to the guitars, and Alexandra’s stage presence is absolutely through the roof. She feels the lyrics of the song and works the crowd at the same time.

Despite my everlasting skepticism about the “favorites to win”, in the leadup to the final I felt this had a real chance to win the whole thing. I didn’t think it was guaranteed to be the winner, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it did. The juries somewhat tanked it by giving it 64 points, perhaps because it was a bit too divisive for the older jurors, but the televoters rewarded it with a hearty 232 points (more than any other country except Bulgaria) so it landed in third place. I wish it would have been second place instead of that one country, but they still achieved an astounding result.

I absolutely need to make an 8-bit cover of this song at some point. It’ll be a little tricky with the instrumentation, but the song is just screaming at me to 8-bit cover it, just as it screamed at me (and many other viewers) to vote for it. I gave five votes to this in the semifinal, and just one in the final because most of my votes went to the UK. Of the songs I voted for in the final, this was the only one to get points from the rest of the world; seven points to be precise. This was one of two entries to get televote points from every possible country (and the rest of the world); the other was Bulgaria.

Austria: Tanzschein

Artist: Cosmó (Benjamin Gedeon)

Language: German; first time for Austria since 2012

Key: C minor

My ranking: 10th. A lot higher than its real-life ranking!

And to end the show, we have a song in my mom’s native language! When I showed her and one of her German friends several Eurovision songs from this year, this was both of their favorite by far. Therefore it’s fitting that the song got five televote points from Germany, and none from any other country. It got only one point from the juries (thanks Luxembourg), which meant that as is common of host entries this landed second last place.

Clearly I inherited some of my mom’s musical tastes, since I love the song as well. I’m really glad that after so many years of sending songs that were blatantly tailor-made for Eurovision, now that Austria is hosting, they’re showing us what Austrian music is actually like. It’s synthy and has a pumping bassy beat, plus a deep gruff voice that sings lyrics about a dance club. It’s very much reminiscent of 80’s pop songs in German, particularly those by Falco whose most iconic song is “Der Kommissar”, yet it’s sung by a guy born in 2006 which I find pretty funny. He has a youthful energy on stage that reminds me of Marcus and Martinus from two years back, if they were one person.

Every German speaker I’ve seen finds the lyrics to this song incredibly clever and humorous. The chorus has the line “Haben Sie einen Tanzschein?”, which literally means “do you have a dancing license”, but since it uses the formal “Sie” instead of the informal “du”, it has a connotation more like “excuse me sir, may I see your dancing license?” German is one of many European languages with a distinction between formal and informal “you”; the closest equivalent to formal “you” in English is addressing someone as “sir” or “ma’am”. “Tanzschein” itself is an amusing word as well, because in German it’s possible to invent compound words on a whim, and it means “dancing license” just as (for example) “Führerschein” means “driver’s license”. Cosmó goes on to sing that without a dancing license you won’t be allowed in and gives us plenty of fun turns of phrase. Clearly this song’s cleverness doesn’t transcend language barriers, but at least the German televoters appreciated it.

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My full ranking

Alright, now that the songs are done, here’s my ranking:

It’s fairly top-heavy as you can see; basically the lower a song is, the less likely I am to be in the mood for it. It’s worth nothing that Switzerland at 14th is the highest of the non-qualifiers. The 4’s and below I’m never in the mood for, and there is no entry this year that I am less likely to come back to than Israel’s. I’ve noticed that when I go back and rerank a recent year, my ratings for a lot of entries tend to decrease, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I someday decide to rerank 2026 and a lot of songs are scored lower.

Before I add Sweden to my winner list, here’s some changes to my list of winners (last changes were in this post, which included changing 2025 to “Bur man laimi” from Latvia):

• For 1993, I’ve decided to change my winner from “Alle mine tankar” back to Ireland, In Your Eyes, which is proudly an exception to my distaste for ballads because it still just never fails to wow me. And plus, it just feels like the right choice as my winner (sorry Erica).
• Meanwhile, for 1994 I’ll part ways with Ireland as my winner, since Russia, Vechnyy strannik is an absolutely beautiful song that makes people binging Eurovision think “holy shit, this is actually Russia”. I rewatched 1994 on a livestream on June 4 and pretty much as soon as Russia’s song began, I decided it would be my new winner.
• My winner of 2008 is different yet again: first it was “Senhora do mar”, then “Oro”, and now Turkey, Deli because I did an 8-bit cover of it a few months back and realized it’s far superior to pretty much everything else that year.
• For 2017, I’m changing my winner from “Amar pelos dois”, a song I still like but am somewhat bored of, to Belarus, Story of My Life, a fun and happy song bursting with awesome harmonies that just keeps getting better the more I listen to it. I started paying more attention to that song after my Belarusian friend mentioned one time how much he loves it.

So now, the updated list looks like this:

• Belarus, 1 (2017)
• 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, 1993)
• 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, 2 (1966, 1995)
• Poland, 1 (1997)
• Portugal, 1 (1984)
• Russia, 1 (1994)
• Serbia, 3 (2004, 2011, 2012)
• Sweden, 3 (1958, 1996, 2026)
• Switzerland, 2 (1986, 2021)
• Turkey, 4 (1975, 1978, 1985, 1988, 2008)
• Ukraine, 2 (2007, 2016)
• United Kingdom, 3 (1961, 1962, 1981)
• (17 winners)

Rest of the show:

Alright, I’ve finally made it through all the songs, so the rest of this blog post should be pretty easy. There’s a recap, the hosts mention for like the tenth time that you should vote for multiple songs if you can, which is basically the EBU going “we’re too cowardly to ban Israel, but can you guys please not let them win, pretty please?”

Then comes the first interval act which is basically a sequel to the song swap interval act from Tel Aviv 2019, but executed much better. It features entries from throughout Eurovision history covered by other Eurovision artists and they pulled it off really well, since it throws entries at you in quick succession and thus provides plenty of surprises. Max Mutzke still has one hell of a good voice, and the biggest highlight might be Lordi covering “Save Your Kisses for Me”, since it’s such an unexpected but oddly good combo. Ruslana singing “Mon amour” is a little odd though, and she’s clearly not experienced in French, but she’s still a superstar performer and her rock cover of “Euphoria” is pretty cool. The only performer I didn’t recognize was the guy in the glasses; turns out that was Kristian Kostov, the runner-up of Kyiv 2017.

At the end of the song swap interval act, Thorsten Schorn said that this is what the Eurovision 70th anniversary tour would have looked like if anyone had actually bought tickets for it. Yeah, that was a thing the EBU planned and then cancelled because the tickets were ultra-expensive and the planned show with past contestants didn’t interest fans at all. Just goes to show what utter incompetent management is running Eurovision.

Next up is Austrian electro-swing artist Palov Stelar performing his new song “Black Lilies”, written specifically for a Eurovision interval act, and that act is another thing Austria did right in their hosting! As far as electro-swing goes the song is great, and the performance takes full advantage of interval acts allowing as many people on stage as you want. After a boring Professor Eurovision skit about voting and zero-pointers, and Billy Joel yapping about Vienna, we get one last interval act. And you know what, I’m cool with Cesár Sampson covering a song about Vienna by Billy Joel, because he’s got one hell of a good voice.

A montage of every winner in Eurovision history set to the instrumental of “Rise Like a Phoenix” made me realize how Conchita-less the contest has been this year. A few months before the show, Thomas/Conchita posted a statement to Instagram about Eurovision this year, and even though it wasn’t outright stated, it’s pretty obvious the reason for Conchita Wurst’s absence from this year’s contest was due to the Israel situation. A few other past Eurovision winners such as Johnny Logan and Salvador Sobral refused the EBU’s requests for them to appear in this year’s contest for this exact reason, but they’ve been a lot more explicit about it.

Okay, sigh, now for the voting. When I watched the jury voting live, I mostly alternated between three feelings: “shit shit shit Israel is way too high”, “wait no fair why is Sweden so low”, and “please at least SOME points for the UK???” The funniest part of the voting is Greece and Cyprus giving each other twelve points, because as a friend of mine pointed out, it brought back memories of when that was the only thing “politics at Eurovision” meant. Also, isn’t it so typical of the Italian jury to give Belgium of all songs twelve points? They have such wacky tastes each year but I’m not mad about it, because Essyla looked overjoyed to get dodici punti and even made a heart with her hands. Bulgaria ended with a decisive lead in the juries, which makes sense because they were one of few countries to truly do everything right on stage.

I couldn’t enjoy the televote points sequence either because it was basically just a rehash of last year. In retrospect, three countries getting zero points from the televote usually means one got a REALLY high televote score, but that didn’t quell my insane panic at all. The UK’s zero points was undeserved, Germany’s was very much deserved, and Belgium’s didn’t surprise me even though I love her song. Moldova got a nice hefty televote score and Romania an even bigger one, but the country that shouldn’t be there just had to surpass them both because we can’t have nice things. I kind of feel bad for the hosts because they clearly weren’t prepared for the audience’s reaction to Israel’s results. It went like this:

Michael: We’re going to Israel. The au—

(audience starts booing)

Michael: The audience has awarded you…

(long pause)

Michael: 220 points.

A medium amount of cheers came, then an absolute tornado of boos. It was on about the same level as the ones Martin Österdahl got two years back. And you know what? The audience has every right to express their anger at the EBU in this way. Israel winning in current times would genuinely kill the contest. They’re not taking their anger out on the hosts, they’re taking it out on the EBU for being such incompetent morons. Then came a repeat of last year where all countries but one failed to surpass them, and you can tell how pissed off the audience was. When there were three countries left to win the contest, Michael said, “To all of you in countries that didn’t take part tonight, we missed you and you’re always welcome back.” That’s basically the EBU admitting Eurovision has a severe problem.

Last year it felt fairly obvious to me that Austria would get enough points to surpass Israel in the final split screen, but this year I wasn’t quite so certain, so my heart was pounding like CRAZY during the final split screen. When Bulgaria was revealed as the winner, my fingers were shaking and I couldn’t process the result as real for an hour or so. Part of me even wondered for a second if the EBU secretly altered the results to prevent Israel from winning, but it’s pretty clear that Dara won out of her own merit. There is a simple solution to preventing these horrifically nerve-wracking split screens, and it would be a weight lifted off the backs of pretty much everyone involved in Eurovision, whether as a producer or a fan. But the EBU are too spineless to do it. Even if it means Eurovision falling into further disrepute every year, and even if it means five countries pulling out.

And so, as with every year I’ve ever watched the contest, I basically spaced out through the winner’s reprise. My brain was a complete blur when Loreen won, and when Nemo won, and when JJ won, and when Dara won. That also means I completely spaced out through JJ shouting “BITCH! I knew you would win!”, just as I spaced out through Nemo breaking the trophy while watching at the Kappa Bar in Malmö. I don’t know if other fans do the same thing when the winner is revealed, or if that’s just a me thing.

After the show, once I processed Bulgaria winning, I realized that they were in fact a very fitting and well-deserved winner. And when rewatching the winner’s performance now, I love how Dara performed her song impromptu first in the green room, then continued while walking to the stage.

General thoughts:

You can probably tell from how long it took to publish this post that I didn’t enjoy Eurovision all that much this year. I did watch it and enjoyed discussing it with online friends, but the Israel situation MASSIVELY soured the year for me and the godawful hosting didn’t help matters. I’m thankful at least that this year had so many good songs, because otherwise I might not have even reviewed it all. I feel conflicted on whether I want to go to Eurovision 2027. On the one hand, I had a lot of fun going in 2024 and 2025, but on the other hand, there’s still the elephant in the room and it feels like the joy of the contest is waning each year. Plus, it’s too soon to say whether I’d be able to save up money for it. If Israel is banned and I can afford to go there, I would absolutely do it, whereas if they aren’t banned and I have the money, I would need to think about it. I still hope I can save up enough money to go there, because if I decide against Eurovision, then I’d use that money to attend some other extravagant event that relates to my interests.

Basel 2025 was widely criticized for using audience muting and fake applause (let’s not call it “anti-booing technology”) through the entire show, so I’m glad Austria’s broadcaster ORF reverted these changes. They promised before the show that there would be no censorship of the boos, and I’m inclined to believe they followed through with that. I’ve heard from people in the arena that there wasn’t that much booing when Israel performed their song (aside from the guy in the semifinal shouting “stop, stop the genocide”), but as I said earlier, Israel’s televote led to an absolute tornado of boos.

At the end of my 2025 review, I mentioned three hopes for Eurovision 2026: that the EBU stops Israel from making the entire contest about themselves, that the song lineup will live up to that of 2025, and that I’d be able to go in person. Out of these, only the second one came true. At this point I just get depressed thinking about the future of this contest and would rather focus on other interests until the next contest rolls around.