Eurovision 2025 - After Thoughts

[RedToothBrush]

Austria's JJ won with Wasted Love

Musically UK entry was fine, if you listen to the Band of Guards playing it outside Buckingham Palace yesterday it sounds very Eurovision. However the concept, lyrics (what was it even about?)and staging let it down, and it was outclassed by more gimmicky and socially aware acts. JJ deserved the win. I’m not sure why we consistently miss the mark to get a public vote.

Estonia 3rd and Sweden 4th - it seems like they split the novelty vote. They were in the same semifinal and finished adjacent there too. Sweden were favourites with the bookies but Estonia took a lot of their potential votes by performing so early in the line up. So Sweden didn’t win because Estonia were there and Estonia didn’t win because Sweden were widely publicised favourites.

I think they were so popular this year because of the depressing state of the world with wars and economic issues. Eurovision voters wanted escapism but, by splitting the novelty vote across the two songs, a song which no country voted as their favourite - but was technically difficult to sing so loved by the juries - won. And a song from Israel which was not popular with juries at all almost won.

I’m not sure we’d have won. Both Sweden and Spain had strong songs too. Personally I think Spain would’ve won.

I think for Eurovision week airports need to add a question to the did you pack it yourself list: are you planning to vote for Eurovision while you’re in that country.

At least radio two will stop playing the UK song now.
I liked the girls, but it wasn’t a hit with the public vote. Maybe learn to pick a different type of song for next year.
They seem to like high notes type of songs , big ballads not too many gimmicks.

Looking at which country got the 12 points in each televote, Estonia and Sweden are next to each other again and beaten only by Israel. The two countries really killed each other’s chances of winning.

The mind boggles at the sheer number of people involved who thought Nemo’s second performance to be a good idea. Nemo’s a Sam Smith type - the outrageous outfits are wearing Nemo rather than being pulled off with style. The heels and wig were shocking - as was the content of the song. It all felt deeply inappropriate - something more than just Eurovision bad taste. Celine had a lucky escape not being bunched in with it.

More Kaarija and Baby Lasagne would have done - they made the night!

I thought Nemo's second performance was a great audition for Frank in Rocky Horror.

Now that it's over, here are my thoughts.
I have lived in Basel for 15 years, but both DH and I are immigrants. DD17 and I were lucky to get tickets for the afternoon run through of the 1st semifinal and I also won 2 tickets for the public viewing of the finals in the football stadium (DH and DD attended).

I am European (Croatian) and I watched the ESC growing up, but not much as an adult. Now, though, as it was taking place right here, we all followed it quite closely. Basel is a relatively small city and quite international, you routinely hear English, French and many other languages living here (~35% of the population are foreign born).

The first semi ended up being the most entertaining, in my opinion. I liked "Made in Switzerland" very much. As a non-Swiss, I thought Sandra Studer (the moderator who competed in the ESC) was great, Hazel Brugger was definitely not my cup of tea and didn't get better in the three shows.

The atmosphere in the city was nice! I was worried we might have issues with getting to work/school, but those were unfounded. As far as I know, there were not many security issues, either. There was a pro-Palestine demo during the finals yesterday; in the end, the police dealt with it with restraint, and while there were some injuries (3 policemen, don't know how many protesters), they managed to allow protest while not crippling the city and the competition, unlike Malmö last year.

DD and DH had a great time at the public viewing (36,000 people in the stadium, a fun pre-show with Baby Lasagna, among others, and a public choir singing Waterloo). I stayed home and watched it on tv.

My votes went to Albania, Latvia, Austria and Norway. I was glad to see that all of them did ok. The best singers, in my opinion, were Austria, Greece, France. Yuval Raphael also has a good voice, as does Zoë Më for Switzerland (it's sad she got no public votes, but I'm happy she was rewarded by the juries).
The highlight for me was the Baby Lasagna/Käärijä mashup! However, I'm not objective (see: being Croatian).

Something about it reminded me of Tom Holland and Lip Sync Battle.

The winning song was hideous IMO.

Ours was not much better.

Load of politically charged nonsense. Sad really, as it was wonderful once.

How are the Irish getting it so wrong lately? They come second (I think) for amount of total ESC wins. I still remember THE VOICE by Eimear Quinn. I was pretty young and living in a youth hostel and we all thought it was brilliant! Since then I struggle to remember another outstanding Ireland entry.

436 is a really low total for the winning song. In most year that would put you in 3rd position, some years you’d have been as low as 5th. The best you’d do in any previous year (with separate jury/televote scores) is 2nd: Eleni Foureira got exactly 436 points in 2018.

I couldn't sleep last night so I was thinking how best EBU could stop the political voting. I think a pp on thread 2 had it: any country at war can't compete, with the reason/excuse that if they won, the competition couldn't be hosted in a war zone.

I know it would be horrible to say to someone like Ukraine, sorry you've been invaded but also you're disqualified, but them winning and not being able to host really showed the problem.

And the wording of the clause would need to be carefully crafted because e.g. we were technically at war with Iraq and Afghanistan for years but there was no risk of a bomb being dropped on our stadiums.

I assume EBU already do all they can to minimise bot voting. Would one vote per number also help with that?

Oh yes, I remember The Voice! That was when Eurovision was about voices, and musicality, rather than light effects, production, and PVC

At 60 cent per vote I don’t know who can afford to vote 20 times!

Strongest entries were Israel and Spain.
Austria was OK, but I don't think it deserved to win.
Spain I feel for as they generally put in solid entries year-on-year.
UK, an average entry, I wouldn't have voted for it even if I could.
Overall, quite a flat year to be honest.

I thought it was a good year - a decent variety of different song types.

It was my first hearing of the Austria song while watching the final, and I was in tears as it was so beautiful and his voice was so pure. That was one of the two I voted for.

I’d heard Latvia’s song on the radio while listening to the semi-final on Radio 2 and I absolutely loved the harmonies. So that was my winner and the first I voted for.

Switzerland also a lovely song as was Italy.

Never rated the UK entry although they did manage to sing it well.

Same re Israel. The clearly skewed televoting totally spoiled it for me. You could visibly see the presenters willing Israel not to win. They need to be excluded next year.

And joost klein was mentioned Europapa :)

I loved Latvia.
I just find it sad that the whole thing has gone weirdly over sexualized / S + M style. Also sad that the countries seem to be pushed into over staging which has nothing to do with their culture.
I wish the song had to be written and staged by people from each country - it would avoid the regurgitation of the over written rubbish by so called Eurovision ' Royalty ' 😕

To be honest, I think we should get The Proclaimers on next year doing 500 Miles. Add a bagpipe band and we've won.

This.

The reason we don't win very often is that the UK finds Eurovision a bit embarrassing. Most serious UK acts would never put their best track forward as an entry. Sam Ryder did, and pretty much won. Even Remember Monday, I feel, were hedging their bets with an appallingly confused song - like a burger with 10 condiments.

I think that it would help remedy the politics if the winner either didn't host, or didn't host immediately - with a caveat as above that a country cannot be at war in its own territory or with an adjacent territory to win.

But it could be really great to just have countries host as a result of bids. I've always really wondered about the cost element, because people say it's expensive to host, but Liverpool was absolutely heaving, we stayed in Southport and it was still £££. And we stayed in Turin for a week, probably spent about £2k all in? It must boost GDP more than it costs.