Eurovision 2025 - After Thoughts

[RedToothBrush]

Austria's JJ won with Wasted Love

Baby Lasagne in the interval - they were robbed last year.
I am so surprised Austria won. It was a very boring song.
I think the UK song is a grower. The chorus bit is catchy but you need to hear the song a few times to ‘get it’. Some will say it’s political but Sam Ryder proves it can be done so the song obviously didn’t connect. They could sing though which our acts from the last two years couldn’t.

Honestly? Great show but wondering now about it being something to watch with the family now. (Helped by the fact that on the player in Ireland there was a horror movie ad in the interval) Really enjoyed uk and Sweden, thought a great job was done all round

Good BBC summary of what went wrong for UK.

Eurovision: 'What the Hell Just Happened' to the UK entry? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crk2nrkv830o

TLDR: too much going on and needed several listens to “get it”.

I agree that the UK song is a grower, so probably not the best choice for the Eurovision Song Contest. I wasn’t keen the first time I heard it - it took a few listens to like it - and many of the public will be hearing songs for the first time during the final. I only heard it beforehand because I looked it up on YT for my DC.

My favourite, and the favourite in our house, was Italy. With Estonia coming a close second!

I'm not surprised Austria won. It was in my top 10 and I could see the appeal tbh.

My favourites were Estonia, the Netherlands, Latvia, Norway and Spain.

Loved the Lighter song. Really catchy from the word go and thought the singer had great stage presence. Also Estonia just brought a smile to my face with his crazy dancing!

The Netherlands and Latvia songs were moving for me. Was quite mesmerised by the Latvian women. Definitely a bit ethereal!

Didn't like the UK song from the start. Yes the girls can sing and harmonise but I just didn't like the actual song. The chorus was almost shouty for me. Loved the staging and outfits though!

I liked Latvia best and didn't mind Lithuania, although the lead singer's moody demeanor wasn't the best, it was my kind of music. I enjoyed the energy and charisma of the UK performance.

I thought Austria was awful and he was out of tune at the beginning 😂 I'll have to watch it again because I must be wrong if he won?!

Buranovskiye Babushki... (The Russian grannies)

Estonia, Italy and Austria were my top 3.

I wasn't keen on the Israeli entrances

I really liked the British entrance bu I didnt think it would do well. Usualy swear words kr comments on hell goes down poorly with Catholic countries. So when Italy gave us 12.points I was surprised.

I HATED Estonia, and still do, but I'm pleased that I was right about Sweden not winning.

As per Loreen, I think the act suffered from over-professionalism. For Loreen, that was ok because it wasn't a novelty song (I still contend that the energy in the room for Cha Cha Cha was like nothing I've ever seen, whereas for Loreen they were merely polite). Bara badu bastu was too slick and not arch enough for a novelty song. It made you say "well done" rather than "lol".

I agree, it was a disappointing year - only the UK entry is going on my Eurovision playlist as it has really grown on me. I didn't even vote because I felt pretty indifferent to the result.

I don't usually post but have been following as I love Eurovision but feel a bit flat after that.
Regarding our entry, really love Remember Monday but that song fell short, it was all over the place. I voted for Estonia, I actually surprised myself!
I know it was mentioned that maybe it would be better to just go by the public vote as the jury and public vote are so different, I think that would be a mistake unless there was a change. Allowing 20 votes means there is a lot of room for manipulation.
I think there was a huge push for votes for Israel and some posters on Mumsnet even said I won't be watching but I'll vote Israel. I think this meant the result for Israel was skewed. The Singer had a lovely voice but the song was just boring and forgettable. Truly awful what she went through but Eurovision is meant to be light and fun.
Is this going to happen every year with Israel? I honestly feel it's ruining it.

Wear a suit and go as Graham Norton.

I didn't like Austria at all. I barely listened to it and thought the distracting tempest tossed staging too much.

I am pondering whether Katrina and The Waves or Jonny Logan would still win nowadays. I think they would.

The actual songs last night were truly unmemorable. It's a bad Eurovision when the interval acts win by a country mile.

I am not surprised we go no points form public vote. I am surprised Sweden didn't do better.

There's an obvious formula - high pitched male singer it seems. Added angst is OK but Sam R didn't need that.

Has a girl band ever won Eurovision? Tatu were a duo, I guess.

12 of us watched last night. Only 2 of us voted properly whereas usually we all do.

5 picked out Austria for the winner. 3 had Israel but with the note won’t win. Rest of us had Estonia and Greece for the winner.

Opening the votes before the show even begins is also flawed.

Did anyone have problems voting last night - we couldn’t get through on the mobile or landline numbers?

I thought it was a bit boring and went to bed half way through. The Austrian song was awful. UK song quite good I thought, but the phrase ‘what the hell’ is a bit sweaty. I thought Israel was great and very moving thinking of her bravery as she sung the lyrics.

My main thought is that the BBC is keeping very quiet about where our 12 votes went. Just mentioned near the bottom of a page that is no longer on their front page.

I agree!

Ukraine's pink jumpsuit?

We do our own scorecards, and this year there was a lot of middle of the road scores. Not many really high or low ones. Ironically Austria was one of the countries most of our group scored low.

The thing that stood out for me was that the jury points were all over the place.Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Sweden, Latvia, Greece, Finland, UK, Germany, Isreal, Albania, and Armenia all got 12 points from
at least one jury. That’s half of the finalists getting at least one 12 points, which is definitely not normal!

As a side note, it’s interesting that despite this spread, Netherlands didn’t get 12 points from any of the juries.

Thanks @RedToothBrush for these threads I have been catching up this morning after watching and hosting a party last night.

I think Remember Monday did pretty well. Wish they had sung another of their songs - Crazy Anyway would have done much better I think. Points were so similar to last year for us it was bizarre. Sad to get zero public points again but I don’t think it means Europe hates us. They don’t hate Switzerland after all. Just means it wasn’t top 10 out of 26 anywhere. It wasn’t quite in my top 10 either. 12 points from Italy’s jury amazing!!!

Semi final results - really interesting to see. My favourites Cyprus came so close but Belgium didn’t in SF1. Sweden only came 4th and Ukraine won it. Estonia came 5th but then were second in the public vote in the final. A different crowd I guess.

SF 2 Austria the winners only came 5th! Not surprised Australia was 11th but surprised how big the points gap was. My favourites Czechia 12th but an even bigger gap so they were nowhere near 😢

Extra hosting things: Loved Rim Tim Tagi Dim and Cha Cha Cha although not so keen on the new bit at the end but that’s because I didn’t know it. I was a bit concerned for Nemo’s mental heath with their choice of outfit and performance at the end. Enjoyed The Code at the beginning. I thought the presenters were quite funny and I loved the Made in Switzerland song in SF1.

My favourite in the final was Italy and I was really pleased with how they did with the Jury and the public. Thought it was real music and a beautiful lyrics. Simple heartfelt performance.

Public votes wise - I will come back to Israel but surprised that Estonia came 2nd - it was fun but not that stand out for fun and the vocals weren’t amazing. Sweden only came third - odds were wrong again. And the winner 4th. Glad Iceland got some points.

UK always vote for Poland who got our 10 and now Lithuania who got our 8. I did like both those songs and I think we have Polish and Lithuanian populations here increasing the votes.

The jury vote seemed much more split this year mostly voting for the lovely ballads which the public weren’t so keen on. I think (apart from Israel) that the juries did more polical voting for their neighbours than the public.

Winning song Austria - I liked the song especially the last 30 seconds, but didn’t love it. I thought the staging was quite clever, but they shouldn’t have kept cutting away to show that the boat wasn’t really moving after all.

The odds were pretty far out this year. No point looking at them really it seems! Makes it more interesting I guess if it’s not a forgone conclusion. KAJ must be disappointed.

Isreal then. Sorry that the thread got derailed into political debate. It’s such a shame that this has made Eurovision uncomfortable. I did really like the song and amazed that this woman survived 7th October as she did and was able to stand up and perform with boos in the crowd. I am a bit cynical about how few points she got from the juries as it was another beautiful ballad. I was so scared Isreal would win and I can’t see how it wouldn’t be the end of Eurovision. Of course the war has two sides but I think if Israel really can’t win without a disaster then they shouldn’t be in the competition. Don’t envy the organisers though in this situation. I hope all their votes didn’t come from bots. I think a lot of people wanted to show some support. Public vote for them was definitely political when you consider Switzerland got zero and Estonia came second. You can’t vote against a country.

Over for another year. I will give it a few days and then pick my songs to add to my ultimate Eurovision playlist and start fantasising about going to Austria in May 2026!

About time we stopped getting involved. The BBC put a huge amount of money into it, and for what? For Europe to take the piss out of us.
It's long ceased to be a song contest. It's a political boot kicking exercise.
The girls were amazing and the song was reminiscent of Abba and the pop we used to get. They also had great staging, energy and unlike most of the others their costumes didn't look like strippers.
Sorry but enough is enough.
I also can't understand how Israel remains a contestant yet they banned Russia over Ukraine? And it should return to actually being European countries.

Just catching up on the Eurovision threads. Crikey, I wish MN would allow you to mute some posters...well done @RedToothBrush on your continued steerage.

Anyway, I really really loved Latvia. The song, the staging, it was kind of nuts but arty without the angst. The harmonies were just beautiful, the choreography was mesmerising and they looked like they were having fun. I really thought it would do better amongst a blandish sea of entries.

I'm a bit fed up of women with big hair in pornified superhero outfits gyrating with backing singers and men with improbably high voices.
I couldn't understand the love for Austria - but perhaps I'll relisten. (I think the staging made me roll my eyes a bit: too busy, too self regarding IMO). I thought Estonia was the best novelty act and actually, the most catchy. Its the one I woke up humming.

As a random sidebar: did anyone else think the Ukraine singer looked a bit uncanny valley? I couldn't work out why. Instagram filtered during his performance? He looked like a Vaselined-out Cybil Shepherd during her Moonlighting years. Bizarre.

I wasn't on the threads, but I did watch it. We really enjoyed Austria and were glad they won. I felt a bit sorry for UK and Israel getting booed! I'm Irish, (living in the UK), myself and I hate that sort of thing. It isn't the performers' fault, whatever you might think of theirs countries' politics or whatever, (and I'm not comparing the UK to Israel btw! I just noticed they both got booed).

Switzerland getting nil points was weird. I wondered if it was the booing put people off? Don't know.

I honestly am going off the whole thing a bit, but maybe that's because Ireland never qualify anymore, and the UK always does so badly.

Really glad Malta and Finland didn't do well though. Graham N always goes on about how the oversexualised acts are huge "fan favourites", but I don't think anyone at home enjoys watching them. Who watches eurovision for that? It isn't meant to be sexy 😂. I just find them embarrassing tbh and same with Olly Alexander last year

I’m currently rewatching the results with DS who went to bed after the performances.

The winner is always a song that I didn’t rate. Then when it wins i realise how good it actually is. But not this time. I still don’t get it!

As for our song, it took me a long time to like it. It’s very west end / musical theatre and I think the UK is quite unique with this. Our west end is famous. So I’m not sure a lot of people in other countries would quite get it. But at least the jury recognised it well. I really don’t think it’s political anymore, Sam Ryder out paid to that, and there are other countries that have done and are doing far worse things than Brexit who are nearly winning each year.