Eurovision 2025

Let’s get this started. (San Remo’s 75th anniversary week has just started coverage.)

Apparently the UK entry has already been picked, according to Radio 2 DJ SCott Mills, but it's not been announced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Tm51mvt7o

Sort of Girls Aloud/Darkness energy. I like it? The Billy Joel bit too.

No discussion of 'Serving Kant' on this thread? Recently announced that they will be censoring it.

Okay my annual Eurowhat podcast appearance is up:

https://www.eurowhat.com/266

And we have a stage preview...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9Qo5aHtTw

Turquoise carpet in eight hours!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P3kiqOHVzQ

Semifinal one in three hours!

Yep. Feel a bit downbeat about it this year, I think with the clusterfuck that was last year and their refusal to ban Israel I've just given up on the organisers ever making a good/right/moral decision. Not even going to hope for it, just glumly accept that even Eurovision is depressing. However! I am hosting some SoLs for the final, and we WILL make it fun.

I AM wondering how everything will exactly shake down, yeah.

It feels like I've heard fewer people speaking up about it this year but I might have missed it, I'm hiding my head in the sand a lot at the moment. I wonder if they'll have to craply edit out the booing again.

In brighter news, I'm only 7 shows away from having watched (and voted on) every single Eurovision!

Very pleased about Poland, Albania and Iceland going through, also glad for Ukraine and god forgive me I liked San Marino, gutted for Belgium and Croatia.

Belgium I was a little sad about, true, but pretty much all the other ones I wanted to go through did, so I'll take that. (Plus some random ones but here we are.)

found the chillwave design language intriguing

FIIIIIIIIINLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

Holy shit.

Yeah I knew Finland would bring it and having them close the half was perfect. Very content with the overall results in that across both semis all my particular faves made it, so roll on Saturday!

yeah finland

Big fan of Finland but I also loved Latvia’s ethereal girl group. Felt like semi final 2 contestants were a whole level above semi final 1??? I thought a lot of 1’s performances were boring.

RE Israel: the hosts did make a speech about everyone being welcome, good or bad (basically), which seemed pretty pointed. Idc that much if they’re allowed to compete or not but last year and this year’s contestants were boring.

Also: are Malta’s contestant this year and Malta’s 2020 contestant (destiny, who performed yesterday at the end of the show) related? I thought they were the same person for a second.

I'm going in cold tonight- only seen the UK's entry (which I really like! Wonky pop + Billy Joel).

...you are welcome to it.

yeah it's not that bad. don't know if it will be enough to get in the top half, but feel like jury votes should be enough to keep it off the bottom.

looked up the Israel entry on genius and it's even worse than I thought, barely-disguised propaganda. also the music is rancid. I was actually served a youtube ad today asking me to vote for it, which is fun.

I'm 20 mins behind due to my child feeling ill!
Norway - feel like all Eurovision songs sound like that
Luxembourg - fun, catchy, not too bad

Netherlands guy was really good

A lot of the songs seem to have a massive amount of reverb on them, especially the vocals.

Malta all the way

great night for fans of chunky thighs

my kid's been throwing up, so I'm behind and more sober than I'd like :(

Latvia one of my favourites so far

UK, Finland and Malta the clear crowd favorites at the gay bar where I’m watching this (Armenia got a warm reception too but not necessarily for musical reasons lol)

Malta not bad, bits of sound like I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Posting without reading: gave 10 phone votes to Ukraine and 10 to Latvia. Utterly incredible the both of them

not getting all the love for greece or France

Latvia was robbed imo

also feel bad for the Icelandic kids, hoping a data entry glitch will be discovered and we'll see all Israel's points reassigned to Iceland

i am absolutely hopeless at guessing who will get public voter points

c'monnn Austria

fuuuuuuck I was shitting myself there

yeah me too
dont really get the love for Austria either but what the hell do I know!

seriously!!! xp

This kind of tension was uh not what I wanted from Eurovision, fuck off UK public, well done mournful Austrian child I guess

THIS close to there having to be a People's Eurovision in Estonia next year

Deserving winner

Especially in the circs

points seemed more evenly spaced this year than I remember in recent years.

and yeah Iceland absolutely robbed

I don't even remember the Austrian song

All that and Pinoy pride!

xxp Iceland weren't any worse than any of the others.
going to go listen to Latvia on repeat lol

Austrian one was good cos it delayed the drop for almost the entire allotted 3 minutes or something

I did not love the Austrian song but he seems like a nice kid and really, just pleased to tell the alternative option to fuck off

Iceland and Finland the true winners

they cannot let Israel enter next year, they are trying so hard to game it, just disqualify them for their attempts to rig it if they are too cowardly to face the politics

oh yeah the end is a banger

xps

lol glitter cannons killed the encoder (also it's all gone a bit Crystal Maze)

Truly delighted at the popular vote total for the UK entry, which is what it deserved

UK song genuinely might have been the worst one but there was some real guff in the second half especially. There was also a completely insane run about 1/3 of the way through

it definitely wasn't the worst one as that was Israel.

Well yeah musically those two were just about as bad as it can get

Norway and Netherlands also absolutely awful and then I stopped bothering to score the songs but there was a bunch of terrible nonsense like the Swiss one

My main takeaway is how all the Baltic states brought it hard though

thought Norway was OK, nothing I hated musically this year apart from Israel. Even Germany sent something decent. The trouble with the UK song is that they treated it as a laugh, which just looked unprofessional, it's like when English people go to karaoke in China (this reference may be not relatable)

xp I liked Lithuania, you don't normally get anything like that at eurovision

It was so good and done so well! And yerman just raised his glass sombrely at the public vote total lol

The UK song was decently sung, but "what the hell just happened" is a bafflingly terrible phrase to try and turn into a hook that gets repeated like 60 times

It just kept getting worse and they kept going

UK was ok but kinda felt like it had been put through a translation app too many times or something.

(and as one who participated in the dress-over-pants phase of the late 90’s i found that one girl’s outfit deeply triggering)

my emotional favorite is Italy. The Bowie/Ronson pandering worked wonders on me

I had my heart in my mouth right til the end because an Israel win could have really meant the end of this in a way that them being simply participants doesn't.

The UK entry was terrible and those Quiz sale rack dresses were an aesthetic nightmare. I was so shocked at the poor showing for Denmark, Malta and ESPECIALLY Iceland.

iceland & denmark were robbed

enjoyed nemo & the rigi digi dig chachacha face off

lol that was fun

I became instantly enamored of Hazel Brugger after she ran on stage and yelled at Baby L and Kaarija "What now?! We kiss?!"

Deadpan Hazel definetely one of the few highlights.

Thought the UK entry was quite fun, a Spice Girls pastiche.

Italy and Latvia were my favourites.

Austria too chaotic, and uneven, despite the vocal mastery.

San Marino biggest WTF moment. One of the few opportunities to shine as your own country and then...

The MoroccanOil Israeli sponsorship put me off immediately at the start. And then the Dutch gave 12 points to them as well. Good point upthread about Israel winning being the end of the contest in some dark, sinister way.

Two years I've boycotted now, they're destroying themselves

Feeling a bit put out here as I thought the UK entry was a belter this year, very Girls Aloud vibes.

Otherwise, Malta and Iceland, obviously, found Sweden a bit tryhard, could definitely have a good time in a club to “Baller”, Patrick Bateman vibes from Portugal.

I want to note that me and my Jewish family were v happy that Israel didn’t win.

I know I should be boycotting (and did in 2019) but I genuinely don't think it will make a difference, they are set on this bullshit. And much as I'd like to claim that Israel are cheating (because who actually liked that dogshit song??), I don't think they need to - the people who support them being in the competition only have to vote for one country, the people who don't want them there have no way of expressing that via votes. It is absolutely ruining the competition.

Finland were 100% my favourites, but I liked a lot of the entries this year - the bad scores were few and far between. Austria a fair winner, and thank fuck for that operatic boat lad rescuing us all from hell.

Really shocked by Malta doing so badly in the popular vote, but found it incredibly hilarious that the UK got nothing (had literally commented how funny it would be just before it happened, tee hee).

Oh I quite liked the UK performance!! I thought it was catchy 🤷‍♀️

Sweden sucked. I don’t get why they were so hyped going in. Them and Estonia both terrible singers. Tommy Cash looks like the kind of guy who skulks around parks after dark wearing a trench coat.

Latvia's track was a little bit fabulous. Though subtitles had my inner student of chemistry wondering whether they might be misrepresenting the properties of copper.

I really didn't mind the UK song either. It at least vaguely sounded like something that could have had a life outside of Eurovision.

Ludo OTM about San Marino lol. (I only watched a delayed broadcast of the final, so didn't yet understand that remark when I read it yesterday.)

I loved Latvia but the choreo needed a little tightening, and their headpieces kept getting caught in the string curtains! Was almost wonderful tho, loved the song & the design/costuming

I also adored Latvia (my fourth place), but I am getting a terrible reputation in my Old Eurovision watching group for loving all of the new age and folky songs. Poland (my second place) underrated - Justyna also performed in '95, she's a fantastic singer and a Goth Queen of Eurovision.

Sweden were a good novelty act imo, solid performance and very catchy song. Estonia's was catchy but way more lightweight: some people in my group were also put off by his 'creepy man' schtick, but it's very much an intentional bit he's doing (tbf I think he might also genuinely be a creepy man, he is a comedian after all). Did something happen during San Marino's set that I missed or was it just that you thought the song sucked? I was basically the only person in my group who liked it because it is a fucking stupid-ass song but y'know, he was in Eiffel 65, got to give the gnarly drug casualty some respect for being pop royalty.

Pleased to see all the ILM love for Latvia (my own favourite), as my other long-time ESC buddies weren't so enthused. I never thought that bookies' favourites Sweden was a winner, but I didn't see Austria coming at all (not that I disliked it). UK TV commentary-wise, Rylan Clark and Scott Mills were excellent together - genuinely funny, and genuinely affectionate of the whole caper - and I'd much rather have them covering the final than Graham Norton, who has distinctly lost whatever sparkle he may once have had.

one of the saddest things is how Graham Norton has become completely neutred and safe since his Channel 4 peak

Waiting for the final score to come in it struck how historically ... interesting ... it was to be wholeheartedly rooting for Austria against Israel. (And not only because the Austrian song/performance was a lot better, obviously.)

Seeing how close Israel are getting to winning it again purely by public gaming (tho I do also wonder if the relatively low juries scoring had taken this prospect into account), plus becoming more conscious of the sponsors, does have me thinking yes I'll stop watching (I missed all but the last two songs this year anyway).

I checked in on twitter and the pro-israel crowd were boasting about how many times they'd voted for Israel by using different phones / VPNs etc. and that they hadn't even watched it. letting people vote even before the performances started and allowing 20 votes per person both seem like insane decisions especially in this context.

Insane yes but I did use all of mine lol, hopefully they don't do that again

Re San Marino: it's just amusing that this microstate which eternally invites the question "why the heck didn't they just join a united Italy in the 1860s?" submitted a song all about... Italy and the fun one can have in that neighbouring country (and competitor in this competition) instead of telling us something more distinctly Sammarinese. The song could almost be an actual unification anthem really lol. Suitably, the Italian public gave it 12 points and few others bothered with it IIRC!?

Italian love across the continent was given to coffee instead.

instead of telling us something more distinctly Sammarinese.

Or better: something more universal and relatable across the whole continent. Constantly crossing over the Italian border probably truly is an integral part of the Sammarinese experience, to be fair lol

After careful consideration I have decided that Spain is a classic - if Italy can do their 1972 Bowie thing, why can't we have a 2008 Eurobosh/flamenco anthem.

(live versions are better than recorded)

Ireland won’t take part in Eurovision if Israel does
https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-wont-take-part-eurovision-israel-does/

Public broadcaster RTÉ said Ireland’s participation alongside Israel “would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza.”

Wouldn't be surprised if there's a bit of a cascade effect.

hope so

The other factor is that hair care company or whatever it is that's the big underwriter.

I am really fucking hoping more countries join in on this. Respect to Ireland but one country alone won't be enough.

Slovenia already said the same before Ireland did

Spain have been mooting it too

hearing Netherlands are out

Yup

for those unaware the Netherlands is the 6th highest paying contributor to the EBU, the highest outside of the big 5, at this rate there will not be a Eurovision Song Contest unless Israel are removed. https://t.co/7UK3LcbBub

— faith🌛 (@EurovisionFaith) September 12, 2025

Oh wow. Obviously the venal and corrupt UK won't join the boycott but this is looking like it actually has momentum now.

Spain too