Intro Post

< 2025 Semifinals | 2025 Final

Almost two weeks after the grand final, and my review of Eurovision 2025 is finished! Warning: it’s long as hell.

Introduction

My new favorite year, you say? Yes, indeed so. The song lineup of Eurovision 2025 is nothing short of spectacular: out of 37 songs, there are ten that I’ve given a 9/10 or higher, 17 that I’ve scored an eight or higher, and 23 that are at least a seven. Only eight songs this year are below a five (songs I neither like nor dislike). As is usual in Eurovision, most but not all of the right songs qualified, and thankfully the Big Five and host all sent honest efforts, which makes this an exceptionally good grand final. The one problem: the results of the grand final absloutely fucking sucked.

I usually list the top three in the intro of my Eurovision final posts, but this time it’ll make me feel better to list the top five. The fifth place was predictable enough: Italy with yet another male ballad, but it was more likable than their usual ballads for reasons I’ll discuss later. Now in fourth place came the song I wanted to win: “Bara bada bastu” by KAJ, the first Swedish Eurovision entry to actually be sung in Swedish since 1998. Fourth place would normally be a good result, but it’s a cruel joke when you look at the actual top three.

The third place is incomprehensible to me: a joke entry from Estonia with as little musical merit as “Irelande Douze Pointe” or “Flying the Flag (for You)”. Israel sent a sequel to last year’s “Hurricane” and ran another massive ad campaign, which got them a terrifyingly close second place and even a televote win. I will rant about them exploiting Eurovision soon enough. And as for the winner, the juries think that opera vocals automatically make a song good, so they boosted “Wasted Love” of all fucking songs to the top and gave Austria their third victory. That song winning was a nightmare scenario for me already, but the other top three made for a worse nightmare than I could possibly conceive of.

Now the good news is, aside from the top three, almost every entry in the grand final has something to like about it. In fact, there are so goddamn many songs worth swooning over, I’m not prepared and neither are you. And plus, I am absolutely over the moon about my country’s entry: Germany finally sent a song in German for the first time since 2007, and a great one at that! That might end up being the longest review in the post, but we’ll see soon enough.

And now to discuss the opening of the show, which I watched live in the St. Jakob-Park football stadium for a public viewing, seated next to my mom and her friend. My mother only joined me for Eurovision on the day of the final, just so you know. The show begins with a hilarious video skit where the three presenters realize the trophy hasn’t arrived yet and debate over what to do. As the most comedic of the hosts, Hazel offers to make a trophy from her water bottle and aluminum foil, then drops it and says “at least it doesn’t break”. I love this little jab at Nemo breaking the Eurovision trophy last year so much. Then the trophy goes on an epic journey to the Eurovision stage, soon to be delivered by Nemo themself in the hopes it doesn’t get broken. The entire opening film is humorous, yet it amazes me with the production at the same time.

The opening act is your usual abridged rehash of “The Code” (sure, why not). Then comes the flag parade, set to a medley of dancey Swiss hits and some kickass percussionists. Everyone in the parade is carrying just one or two big flags, but they’re all having fun doing it and many of their personalities shine through. The goofy brothers from Iceland, proud and confident Erika from Finland, the classy guitarists from Italy, modest Zoë from Switzerland, it goes on. And finally enter not two, but three hosts: Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer from the semifinals, now joined by Michelle Hunziker. No Swiss-hosted contest is complete without a quick introduction in all of Switzerland’s languages, so the hosts do that and then present us the second audience in the football stadium.

For this blog post, I watched the grand final with German commentary done by Thorsten Schorn. My German grandma said she found the commentary on the grand final hilarious, so let’s hope she’s right!