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Cookie Fonster Makes Sense of Eurovision 2025 (Semifinals): Calm After the (Shit)storm

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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.

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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Cookie Fonster Sails Across Eurovision 2018 (Final): Elaborate Props and Tight Voting

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Intro Post

< 2018 Semfinals | 2018 Final | 2019 Semifinals >

As of the writing, two Swiss cities remain in the running to host Eurovision 2025: Basel with two potential arenas, and Geneva with just one. I’m rooting for Basel because it’s a three hour drive from my grandma’s house in Germany, and thus I’d be more likely to go to next Eurovision if it’s in Basel.

Introduction

In Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, 26 countries battled on the annual Saturday night to take the prize of Eurovision 2018. It was a tight competition this year, especially among the jury votes where the country on top kept changing. Fortunately, no song came anywhere near zero points this year: on the bottom was Portugal with a still impressive 39 points. Two of the top three are countries we usually don’t see this high. In third place (and first in the jury) came Austria, in second place came a huge fan favorite from Cyprus, and the winner was a more divisive but perhaps more fiercely loved entry from Israel, who took home their fourth victory.

RTP clearly had a lot of fun showcasing their country with this show, but for the opening films they seemed to be on a tight budget—all three nights used the same film. On the other hand, the opening act has an indulgent medley of songs from famous Portuguese artists (including the first proper fado representation in Eurovision!), all sung in Portuguese because this country is too cool for anglophone pop. Then comes a nautical-themed flag parade set to Portuguese DJ music, which is just the most charming thing. As with last year, the host country was introduced last. The postcards are what I would’ve hoped Portugal would do: the artists opening a door to a location in Portugal and performing an activity there. As a soft spot for all things Portuguese, these postcards get my stamp of approval.

I watched the grand final with Finland Swedish commentary, parts of which my friend Liv translated for me. Finland Swedish is intriguing to listen to, because it feels like it’s from a parallel universe where Finnish is a Germanic language. The pronunciation is generally closer to the spelling than in Sweden, it doesn’t do silly things like pronouncing “de” (they) as “dom”* or the singsongy pitch accents, and there’s plenty of words that sound goofy to Swedes, but it’s better to ask a Swedish speaker to explain them. I would nerd about languages more, but that’s not the point of these reviews. These commentators are extremely funny and snooty and I’ll refer to them as the Yle commentators from now on, since that is Finland’s national broadcaster.

* That’s actually a simplified description of something more nuanced, which you can learn about in this video.

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Cookie Fonster Sails Across Eurovision 2018 (Semifinals): A Refreshing Revival of Native Languages

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Intro Post

< 2017 Final | 2018 Semifinals | 2018 Final >

Starting from this post, my Eurovision blog schedule will speed up a lot! That’s because I now have a more efficient schedule for when to watch the shows with Liv and when to write the posts.

Introduction

If I had written this post before visiting Gothenburg, Malmö, and Copenhagen for Eurovision 2024, then Eurovision 2018 would be first contest since 1983 to take place in a city I’ve been to: Lisbon, Portugal, a beautiful city that I visited in 2014. I have a huge soft spot for Portugal as a country. It’s a little rustic and less modernized than other western European countries, which gives the country a lot of charm, though Lisbon is very much a modern city deep down. I particularly remember exploring an elaborate network of underground malls there with my dad and sister, and we were all blown away.

But I’m not here to talk about my vacations from a decade ago, I’m here to discuss Eurovision! RTP had waited over 50 years for this opportunity, and I’m blown away by how good of a show they put on. Most of the first-time host broadcasters in the 21st century ranged from “a respectable first attempt” to “ugh, these hosts are stilted and the show is too self-indulgent”. I’d say Finland’s Yle was the best newbie host broadcaster in the 21st century, until Portugal came along. They made their show feel as Portuguese-themed as can be while still passing perfectly as a modern Eurovision year. Hiring four hosts (all women, I can’t remember which is which) is a bit excessive, but they’re enthusiastic and professional exactly as hosts should be. It was one of only two contests in the 21st century (along with 2010) to do away with LED monitors, but this time the stage doesn’t feel any less modern than the last few years.

This contest featured the same lineup as 2017, except Russia came back and for the only time in Eurovision history (unless you count 1996) failed to qualify. This means this year is close to having a complete map of Europe: the most noticeable gaps are Turkey, Slovakia, Bosnia, and Luxembourg. It features an impressive 43 countries, equaling 2008 and 2011 as the years with the most participants.

As with last year, I watched the semifinals together with Liv with Swedish commentary, then alone with German commentary.

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Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 2012 Thesis (Final): A Curious Amount of Native Language Jury Bait

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Intro Post

< 2012 Semifinals | 2012 Final | 2013 Semifinals >

Random fact: Everything in this post from Turkey onwards is written on my brand new desktop computer, which runs so much faster than the laptop I had before and is much better for archiving Eurovision content. It’s my first time owning a desktop computer since Christmas 2016 when I got my first laptop.

Introduction

“Now initially, we heard that the Crystal Hall was built specifically for Eurovision. They’re now poo-pooing that idea, even though they did throw it up in seven months and this is the first event in it.” This quote from Graham Norton tells you a lot about Azerbaijan.

On May 27, 2012 when the clock struck midnight in the Baku Crystal Hall, 26 countries battled to determine who would take the prize of Eurovision 2012. In third place came Željko ballad number 4 from Serbia, sung by the man himself. In second place came shameless televote bait from Russia, and the winner was Loreen from Sweden with one of the most famous Eurovision songs of all time: Euphoria. She won by quite a landslide, and we’ll find out together if it was deserved or not.

Unfortunately, this grand final is also known for getting off to a sluggish start. The beginning is filled with slow, understated ballads, and the exciting stuff won’t begin until song number 6, at least if my memory of the final is anything to go by. Luckily this will be the very last Eurovision contest with the songs are in random order, perhaps to prevent something like this from happening again.

The opening act starts off as a showcase of Azerbaijani folk music, then it jarringly transitions to an unmodified “Running Scared”, the extremely un-ethnic winner of last year. I would say I’d prefer to hear “Running Scared” arranged in ethnic style, but that song doesn’t seem as musically malleable as “Satellite”. The song had quite a few revisions and alternate versions during Unser Star für Oslo, it’s actually pretty interesting.

I’m looking at the lineup of songs and all I can say is gulp. Why couldn’t this final start with an upbeat entry like Greece or Russia? Luckily once I finish this year, I’ll be treated to the most beloved host in Eurovision history. In the mean time, I’ll watch this final with one of the most beloved commentators in Eurovision history, the BBC’s Graham Norton.

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Cookie Fonster’s Eurovision 2012 Thesis (Semifinals): A Barrage of Electronic Dance Soup

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Intro Post

< 2011 Final | 2012 Semifinals | 2012 Final >

In exactly one month, I leave on my first flight for my Eurovision trip. I was already excited for it, but now I’m way more excited because I’ll be meeting a friend there.

Introduction

For Eurovision 2012, Azerbaijan brought the contest to the easternmost place it’s ever been: its capital city of Baku. The semifinals and final began at the usual 9 PM in Central European Summer Time, which was midnight in Azerbaijan.* One thing I’ve learned about Azerbaijan is that the country is obsessed with showing off its sports arenas. Baku frequently hosts Formula One races and football/soccer championships, and they even bidded to host the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. Knowing this, it’s no surprise Azerbaijan wanted to win Eurovision so badly—it was a perfect opportunity for the country to show itself off.

Although Baku had several arenas available to host the contest, Azerbaijan chose to build a new one for Eurovision called the Baku Crystal Hall. This came with controversy because local authorities demolished homes and evicted citizens to make way for the arena. While Azerbaijan used Eurovision to show itself off, some fans, TV hosts, and even contestants used it to draw attention to the country’s human rights controversies, particularly involving LGBT citizens and Armenians. On the flip side, Iran directly to the south condemned Azerbaijan for hosting an LGBT-related event, which Iran considered “anti-Islamic behavior”.

The EBU had hoped this contest could provide a glimmer of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but it unfortunately didn’t work out. Azerbaijan temporarily lifted their ban on Armenian citizens for this contest and Armenia originally was going to participate, but they withdrew on March 7 (the contest was from May 22 to 26). Poland also withdrew due to financial troubles, whereas Montenegro returned after last participating in 2009, making for a total of 42 participants.

After Eurovision 2010 and 2011 opened up voting right when the songs began, this contest reverted to the usual 15-minute voting time window, although the 2010-11 system will return with some extra liberties for the rest of the world in Eurovision 2024. I watched both semifinals with German commentary.

* Azerbaijan is three hours east of Central European Time. They used daylight saving time from 1997 to 2016, so after that the contest started in Azerbaijan at 11 PM.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Final): The Victory of Halloween Costumes

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Intro Post

< 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final | 2007 Semifinal >

Introduction

As with the last two years, the grand final of Eurovision 2006 (in Athens, Greece) featured 24 songs, ten of which had qualified from the semifinal. Overall the semifinal qualifiers scored much better than the finalists: ten of the top twelve (all but 4th and 9th place) had to get through the semifinal first. This was an early hint that the one-semifinal system needed an adjustment.

This year featured two changes to the voting. First, the countries voted in randomized order, which had only been previously done in 1974 and would be done every year up to 2010. Second, to speed up the voting sequence, the spokespersons announced only their eight, ten, and twelve points. Unfortunately, some spokespersons still were keen on hogging up their time in the spotlight, so this shortened the contest’s runtime only by 23 minutes. In all fairness, a lot of time was taken up by the extravagant opening acts. Greece did not hold back with those!

Finland scored their first ever victory this year with the iconic “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. In second place came Russian’s Dima Bilan, who would win two years later. And in third place was a Balkan ballad from Bosnia and Herzegovina, their highest result to this day. This is the second of four years in a row where all Big Four countries scored in the bottom half: the highest was Germany at 14th place. Although at least one Big Four/Five country has reached the top ten since 2009, these countries still have a less than great reputation in Eurovision (except Italy).

I couldn’t find the German commentary for this year, so I went back to Terry Wogan’s British commentary. I expect him to go extra-snarky once the voting begins. One more random fact: this was the first year in which the host country used the euro as their currency.

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Cookie Fonster Chronicles Eurovision 2006 (Semifinal): Begin the Trio of Jokefest Years

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Intro Post

< 2005 Final | 2006 Semifinal | 2006 Final >

Germany selected their Eurovision entry for 2024 yesterday and I don’t like it at all. I wrote my thoughts on that entry here and I would say more about the new native-language entries here, but it’s better to save that for a separate post.

For now, just know that all those semifinal posts are very quick to write. Makes sense because they’re always about 10 to 15 songs, like all the early Eurovision contests. Then I always get a big burst of motivation to write about the grand final and the cycle continues.

Introduction

It’s fitting that the title of this post uses a word of Greek origin (chronicles), because Eurovision 2006 took place in Athens, Greece. Some politicians argued that since Athens got to host the 2004 Olympics, a different Greek city deserved to host Eurovision, but the new infrastructure and stadiums built for the Olympics meant Athens was perfect for the job.

Three countries who participated in 2005 withdrew this year: Austria because their broadcaster was pissed, Hungary due to financial issues, and S+M (Serbia and Montenegro) after having a song ready due to a storm of political drama, though strangely enough S+M was still allowed to vote this year. This means that until 2023 introduced rest of the world voting, this was the only year where a non-participating country could vote in the contest. Serbia and Montenegro became two separate countries just a month after this contest. Armenia made their debut this year, which began the Caucasus trio and continued the 2003-2008 streak of years with newcomer countries. I’ll also continue my streak of watching German commentary this year.

To present the contest, the broadcaster ERT picked a Greek singer named Sakis Rouvas (who competed in Eurovision 2004 and 2009), and a Greek-American TV host named Maria Menounos. If you’re an American fan (like me) and feel weird about being this obsessed with Eurovision, just remember that your country is home to one winner (Katrina Leskanich) and two hosts (the other is Daniela Ruah). If you’re wondering whether Maria Menounous can speak Greek, she can! Can one of my Greek commenters tell me how well she speaks the language?

I wondered why the opening film for this semifinal was so short, then I got my answer. As an opening act, Greece showed the world how happy they were to win the contest with an extravagant medley of iconic Eurovision songs (which included Dschinghis Khan) performed by people dressed as Greek gods. This over-the-top campy presentation style is still what pops into most people’s minds when you say “Eurovision”, but I’d argue the contest has evolved in personality since then—more polished and professional, but thoroughly camp when a song demands it.

This time the semifinal had 23 songs, so we have one reject and 13 non-qualifiers to get through.

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Cookie Fonster Looks Back on Eurovision 2005 (Final): Greece’s Turn to Triumph!

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Intro Post

< 2005 Semifinal | 2005 Final | 2006 Semifinal >

I worked my ass off reviewing Eurovision 2004 and 2005, as you can tell from the speed at which I’ve been releasing my posts. To compensate, I’m going to pause these posts for a week or so before I start reviewing 2006.

Introduction

Out of the 25 participants in the semifinal, ten of them got to join the 14 automatic qualifiers for the grand final of Eurovision 2005, hosted in Kyiv, Ukraine. We’ve got quite a lot to look forward in this final: the first ever winner from Greece, fan favorites from Switzerland and Hungary, and a three-time participating band’s debut for Moldova. But this contest also has some unlucky results for longtime participants: the bottom four consisted of Spain, the UK, France, and right at the bottom Germany. Was this proof that the Big Four weren’t trying hard enough, or proof that Europe hates them? We’ll have to see for ourselves.

The voting system for the final was mostly the same as 2004, but with a few differences. Monaco, Andorra, and Moldova didn’t meet the minimum number of televotes and thus had to use backup juries. And instead of alphabetical country code order, the votes were gives first by the non-qualifiers and then by the finalists, all in performance order—exactly the same order in which I’m reviewing these songs. With 39 countries who each announced their one to twelve points in order, the voting sequence was getting notoriously long and thus was shortened the next year.

Once again, Peter Urban’s German commentary will guide us through the contest. I wonder how he’ll react to Germany scoring last place?

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Cookie Fonster Retells Eurovision 2004 (Final): Ethno-Bops, Balkan Ballads, and Future Hosts

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Intro Post

< 2004 Semifinal | 2004 Final | 2005 Semifinal >

Introduction

The grand final of Eurovision 2004 featured 24 countries that can be split into three groups: the Big Four, the top ten non-Big Four countries from 2003, and the top ten countries from the 2004 semifinal. The running order of the first two groups was determined before the semifinal, so the qualifiers were slotted into the remaining spots.

All 36 countries that participated in the contest televoted in this year’s final, even Monaco which used a backup jury in the semifinal. It was the only grand final in Eurovision history where all the points came from televoters. Ukraine won the contest for the first of three times, Serbia and Montenegro (S+M) made a strong debut with second place, and Greece scored third place for the second time. The top three countries all came from the semifinal, and the bottom three were all automatic qualifiers. This makes sense because the semifinal filtered out the less popular songs while the automatic qualifiers had no such filter.

As an opening act, Sertab Erener performed the reliable combo of last year’s winner and her latest single. I still far prefer the orchestral rearrangements of the previous winner, but this opening act reminds us that Sertab’s career has shined bright since winning the contest.

I won’t lie, I’ve started to warm up to Peter Urban’s commentary. He still sounds like he’s reading from a script at times, but he does what he needs to as a commentator and provides plenty of trivia and side remarks. Maybe that’s why he stuck around as the German commentator for so long. I already discussed the history behind this contest in my semifinal post, so there’s not much else to say—let’s get on with the songs!

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Cookie Fonster’s Treatise on Eurovision 2002: Baltic Host, Baltic Winner

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Intro Post

< 2001 Review | 2002 Review | 2003 Review >

A few hours after this post is published, we’ll find out who Ireland will send to Eurovision 2024. National final season is shaping up!!! (Please tell me they won’t send Next in Line.)

Introduction

Eurovision 2002 began a brave journey through first-time host countries, which meant a lot of smaller, less experienced broadcasters were put up to this task. The first to take on this daunting challenge was Estonia’s ETV, who hosted the contest in its capital of Tallinn. It seemed uncertain at first whether ETV could host the contest, but they pulled through thanks to fundraisers and a loan from the Estonian government.

Once they were certain they could host the contest, Estonia decided to have some fun with it and themed it upon fairy tales, as we’ll see in the postcards. It was the first contest to have an official slogan, which is “A Modern Fairytale”. The rules of the contest were mostly the same as 2001, with one small change: the recap after all the songs were performed was done in reverse order, to reduce bias towards entries performed late.

All countries that were relegated from 2001 (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, North Macedonia, Romania, Switzerland) got to return this year, and six countries were originally going to be relegated this year: Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland. However, Portugal withdrew from the contest, which meant Latvia got to participate after all. Latvia went on to achieve the unlikely feat of scoring first place with one of the least popular winners in Eurovision history.

This year as a whole is something of a black sheep. It doesn’t have many uploads online compared to others in the 2000’s—I could only find British and Spanish commentary, so I went with Terry Wogan—and most of its songs aren’t well-remembered. I’ll come in with an open mind so we can find out together if this year was as bad as everyone says. The hosts are genuinely enthusiastic this time, which is a welcome change of pace.

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