Just curious if anyone knows what Vietnam ended up broadcasting during that timeslot.

We're all aware of the confusion surrounding the Bhutan national selection but a Vietnamese broadcaster also scheduled some programme titled "Eurovision" yesterday (many of you probably saw that screenshot). This was before the EBU released a statement that Eurovision Asia is not going forward. Does anyone know?

So, I was reading about the song, and I saw two conflicting reasons why the lyrics are nonsensical, despite her fluency in English. 1. It was because it was originally a love is love song, and the Georgian Delegations wouldn't allow that, so she changed the lyrics to be nonsensical to protest.

1. The lyrics make no sense because she wanted it to represent an echo. So, what's the actual deal with her lyrics, other than the fact that she's a Georgian representative?

My partner is a big Eurovision fan. We will be travelling to Europe soon (we are from Australia - part of europe by eurovision rules!), and it is his birthday while we are over there. Do you fine people have suggestions of what might be a good eurovision present or experience while we are over there?

We will be going to Sweden, but not currently planning on going to Stockholm. I'm aware of the ABBA museum, but paying for his ticket to the museum and a detour from our trip probably doesnt rise to the level of a good enough birthday present unless there is something additional. We will also be going to Vienna which I know will be hosting eurovision next year. Is there any fun eurovision-specific experience we could do there?

Thanks for your help!

EDIT: We will be over from next week (early September) until mid October. We plan to go to Sweden, Vienna, Slovenia and Italy, but that can still be adjusted if a great opportunity comes up!

Officially, it is going to take place in late 2025 and has not been canceled yet. A Voxovation spokesperson said in an interview that the songs will be selected in August-September but that is still unofficial.

Rubric–

1. How good was the song this year?

2. Did their previous national final attempt produce anything good?

3. Has internal selection served them well?

France: 6/7. They’ve done well with their internal selections. All the artists were great and had pretty good songs with good placings this decade (except for Évidement, but it didn’t deserve it). I think they don’t need to switch to a national final, but they will probably produce a good song regardless (we have 2021 to prove it). Plus, Maman is just a good song.

Switzerland: 5/7. On one hand we have Zoë Më and Nemo finishing top 10 (Zoë finishing 10th without any public vote points and Nemo finishing first), and on the other, we have consistant nul points from the public vote. They shouldn’t switch to a national final considering how the resulting songs were usually non-qualifying dumpster fires.

United Kingdom: 5/7. They produce constant nul points, but their songs are usually good (in my opinion; much better than what they produced before). I think if they went back to the national finals that produced crybaby, teenage life, and hundreds of more songs blander than british food, they would get even worse results. The internal selection has produced Britain’s best result in years (Space Man by Sam Ryder), so I think they are better off without it. Plus, Remember Monday far outclasses all of the pre-2020 examples, and did not deserve the nul points.

Czechia: 5/7. Kiss Kiss Goodbye was ridiculously good, but didn’t get a good result. However, it makes sense for Czechia to cancel their national final since the production quality isn’t great and they probably don’t have the budget for it. However, their national finals in the past have produced good results before, and I don’t see a reason it can’t again. Since this is their first year, I’m curious to see what’s next in store.

Australia 6/7. With the exception of recent years, Australia has produced some of the greatest ESC songs within recent memory through an internal selection. Their national finals haven’t led to great results (of course they’ve only had 3 and one of them was in 2020, and yes I know 2019 had a top 10 result), and I think they’re better off with their internal selection. As for this year, the song was pretty good, but I think it missed out because the public disliked its sexual content. But because of Voyager and Dami Im and Guy Sebastian, it proves that they’re competent in selecting a good act.

Netherlands 7/7. They produced Arcade, Europapa, C’est la Vie, and others without a national final. Their national finals have lead to less than good results, and I think that they should just keep the internal selection.

Austria 7/7. They’ve only sent good acts with internal selection, and screwed up every single one of their national selections. Wasted Love is great, the Makemakes are not, and the only times they’ve won this century is through internal selection. Keep it for the sake of our eardrums.

Cyprus 4/7. They have sent Eleni once and have been desperately trying to get it back through staging alone. Theo Evan’s staging was great, but his vocals were so weak. The national finals and internal selections rarely select something that scores, so it gets a middle of the road score.

Georgia 4/7. The same goes for Cyprus, but worse. They haven’t had a decent result after 2010, and to me, the music scene has changed so dramatically that it’s unrealistic to recreate it using that exact same formula. They did bad with both types of selections and Freedom was terrible, so let’s move on.

Azerbaijan 3/7. Haven’t had a good result (outlier being 2019) since 2013. However, I do know that this is mostly because the power ballad phase in ESC is over. Their recent results are pretty bad, and while I liked Run with You as a studio version, the live version was just so bad. They should bring back the national final to see if they can maybe bring something good in.

That should be it. I might have missed a country, but I don’t think i did. Overall, I think internal selections are usually good for countries, but if the internal selection team is tone deaf, it’s a major issue

I‘m really proud of this one!

So tomorrow is the official start of the ESC26 season, what are your predictions of what will occur this year?

I reckon we will see a Big 5 winning (France or Italy I reckon) and more countries than not singing in their own language.

Which songs have some sort of reference to the host city, country or language where the contest took place in?

I can think of:

Host city: Germany 1999 and Austria 1979 who both sang about Jerusalem when the contest was hosted there.
Country: I can't think of one which specifically mentions something about the country.
Language: Estonia 2008 and Bulgaria 2012 who sang partly in serbian and had a few lines in azerbaijani respectively.

i made this poster of zoe me's song "voyage" (Switzerland 2025) on canva a few weeks ago and thought it'd be nice to share it here ! ! all pictures are taken from the music video !

New chart! The blue columns are the results of Montenegro. The brown line with shading below it represents the average result for the country for every year. The black line is the 10-year average.

Bear in mind that I give Grand final results a score out of 100, and NQ results a score out of 1 (using decimals). There ARE other bars to show the nation's many NQ results, but they're very difficult to see.

Montenegro's track record

This Balkan nation has competed 13 times, and has only qualified twice. And neither of those were particularly great results.

The end result of this track record? An average score of 6.6/100 if you average all of their results. That number goes up to 8.6/100 if you only include their last ten entries.

No matter how you rank the countries (all of their songs' results, or the last 10), Montenegro is basically a statistical outlier. In fact, their results are closer to San Marino's than any other country. Which puts these two nations in their own weird league.

Quick example:

Remember when I said that Montenegro's score is 6.6/8.6? Well, the country that's ahead of them in my ranking is Morocco (10.5/100) for the overall average, and Georgia (11/100) for the last 10 years. That's, like, a gap of 3.9/2.4.

Compare that to San Marino: a score of 4.4 (2011-2025), or 6.1 (2015-2025). The gap between Montenegro and San Marino is 2.1/2.5. (Note that the 2.5 is rounded up).

If Sweden, Italy, and Ukraine are in the top-tier league, then Montenegro and San Marino are in the bottom league.

Now I suspect that there is a thread somewhere already for this but I cannot find one through the Search, so I'll pose the question again...

Is there a Eurovision entry that has an earlier commercial release than Blanka's "Solo"? 23rd September is the date to beat that appears on download and steaming sites.

Is it just me who thinks 5MIINUST and Puuluup might have been better off at Eurovision with a staging concept similar to this one they made at a talkshow ahead of Eesti Laul? I still find myself going back to this particular performance from time to time

Almost everything was better here imo. I think it felt more engaging and even mysterious, from the fast, well-timed camerashots giving each member a moment to shine and the moment they break into the dance in the second chorus had more of a surprise factor here I'd say. Also loved how kohver stayed serious while everyone else were acting out 😂

Do you think this set-up could have translated well to the audience, and the Malmö crowd for that matter?

I had a weekend trip to Rotterdam recently and was walking along the river Rhine and it had me thinking: wow, it is the same river that I was walking along in May in Basel! If I threw a message in a bottle back then I could have picked it up here again;

Then it strikes me that Rotterdam has been a Eurovision host City as well; and the river Rhine also flows through Dusseldorf.

So then I thought: is the river Rhine the river with the most Eurovision host cities on it?

I guess the Danube is following with Vienna and Belgrade on it (I wrongly assumed that Munich and Zagreb were on the Danube as well)

I was pondering about this yesterday.

Context: in those years mentioned, the top 10 from the previous year will be AQ the following year. If any one in the top 10 is a Big 5, the 11th place will AQ. If there are 2 Big 5 countries, then the 12th place will also AQ. And so on.

Let's say that rule continues until now. How would the grand finals line-up from 2009 onwards and how it will affect the GF song quality? How will it affect the quality and public perception of the semifinals and grand finals shows? And how will it affect the behavior of the broadcasters or population of consistent well-performing countries like Sweden and Ukraine towards their own national selections?

This may be a bit of a "weird" post considering Sweden’s been doing amazingly well this decade, but hear me out.

Eurovision has become much more competitive lately, and I’m personally in the opinion that Loreen (Tattoo), Cornelia and Kaj were much stronger entries than the (still very good) entries they sent in between 2016 and 2019 after Mans won. I think their entries in the latter half the last decade would’ve struggled to get the same placements in this decade of Eurovision.

Tusse, and dare I even say by extension Marcus and Martinus, have proven that also Sweden is "vulnerable" at this point and not necessarily guaranteed to do amazingly well with such entries.

I think they’ve pulled some incredible entries out of the bag so far with Loreen, Cornelia and Kaj, but I question if they’re gonna be able to keep it up this decade, or if the "male pop formula" is gonna continue and leave them at risk of not doing well (outside the top 10).

I enjoy watching modern ESC, of course like the rest of us, but without a doubt it's the songs from the contest's past which I enjoy listening to the most. I love how entries were truly unique each year, and listening to how studio versions were adapted for orchestra, and how different orchestras from different host nations sounded.

In fact, I love this so much I spend some of my off-time transcribing a few of these entries to a semi-exact level in MuseScore, utilising audio separation software to isolate each section of the orchestras and then working out by ear the notes, duration and playing style. (I've been doing this for a few years and have a few songs completed, might post here but don't know if it's something that people would be interested in! - plus they're not AMAZING in quality, I'm not a professional musician)

When I started doing this I knew I would have to do it by ear because I thought the original sheet music written decades ago surely wouldn't exist anymore, and copies wouldn't exist online because I'd imagine nobody actually cares about this sort of stuff, until yesterday when I found a few pictures of the sheet music titled "Ouverture" (Overture) written by the then musical director of the Metropole Orkest for the show, Rogier Van Otterloo, played to open and end the 1980 contest. This made me realise, maybe the sheet music exists. I wanted to try and transcribe the few pages of this - the whole score is available online from EUROVISIE SONGFESTIVAL 1980, OUVERTURE | Muziekschatten but I'd need to pay 22.50EUR to access it, and I was considering it until I realised this next point - the score was messily written in pencil, and I can't really make out any of Van Otterloo's obscure markings, so there was no point buying the whole score if I can't read it. I know the music could be written more cleanly - see the first picture in this post, taken from the 1974 contest. I know some fan arrangements exist on MuseScore and other websites but they're not the real deal I'm looking for.

My question now is, does anyone know if any of this original sheet music could be found anywhere on the internet? Are these arrangements protected by licensing and copyright? (I hope this doesn't sound like a stupid question but I would've thought the songs as a whole are protected, not the orchestral arrangements) I was thinking of asking a few broadcasters (BBC, NOS, RTÉ in particular) about this but I wanted to ask if you guys knew anything.

Happy ESC off-season!

I have been messaged by a lovely fan to continue my bite size personal rankings for the 2020’s. I write all the reviews by myself, with NO AI. And here are my opinions on the class of Merseyside expressed in a way designed to be brief:

1 Slovenia Carpe Diem - incredibly joyous throwback to mid noughties British rock

2 Austria Who The Hell is Edgar - hilarious and contagious satire on songwriting (which aged really well over the next 2 years…)

3 Sweden Tattoo - it may have been something of a sequel to Euphoria, but the magic touch remained very much there and her sound was as fresh in 2023 as it was in 2012.

4 Israel Unicorn - when she challenges you to see her dance, this makes the song another memorable Medalieist work.

5 Norway Queen of Kings - feel good Viking tinged pop stomper

6 Ukraine Heart of Steel - atmosphere is quite unique and brooding and gives the song strength

7 Australia Promise - contagious, positive retro rock with iconic keytar solos.

8 Portugal Ai Coração - hectic but thoroughly traditional Lager ad music is a very likeable listen

9 Belgium Because of You - enjoyable early noughties-style coming-out anthem with soul and retro garage touches that are undeniably appealing.

10 Finland Cha Cha Cha - surprisingly addictive song which became a major favourite amongst fans

—————-

11 Italy Due Vite - impressive adult contemporary ballad whose emotional delivery allows it to grow.

12 Armenia Future Lover - ballad has a beautiful atmosphere and plenty of twists and turns

13 Poland Solo - whatever questionabilities it has, it is an impossibly contagious song that you can’t help but sing along to.

14 Czechia My Sisters Crown - compelling Macaronic alternative electro and folk rap song.

15 France Evidement - a guilty pleasure blend of chanson and disco, but she lacks the gumption to make it truly great.

16 Moldova Soarele și luna - a major change in musical direction, repetitive but with definite authenticity and appeal.

17 Spain Eaea - a unique undercurrent feels like a blend of 1944 and Khteju Tokes, but too low key

18 Latvia Aijā - slow burning indie anthem, weaker than Slovenia but still a great calling of mid noughties britrock to mind.

19 Switzerland Watergun - the piano at the start and end is lovely, though this emotive ballad about desensitisation to violence is a bit predictable

20 Serbia Samo Mi Se Spava - unintentionally funny but undeniably contagious bilingual Hatarist electro-punk

21 United Kingdom I Wrote a Song - very, very catchy, but repetitive and poor stage presence

22 Albania Duje - slightly basic, but traditional whilst being quite upbeat - and the whole family has a role!

23 Estonia Bridges - relaxed cinematic ballad calls Katie Melua to mind.

24 Lithuania Stay - sweet Running Scared soundalike, though it doesn’t quite hit the same buttons.

25 Malta Dance (Our Own Party) - contagious song but vocally lacks a magic touch.

26 Greece What They Say - lack of presence and national flair undermines this sweet, self made ballad-anthem

27 Croatia Mama Sč - unhinged rock opera lacks musical merit but is still exciting to see and hear.

28 Romania D.G.T. (Off and On) - unholy and unerring, but somewhat under appreciated, fusion of blues rock and hip hop soul

————————-

29 Germany Blood and Glitter - feels a bit too textbook for a Viking metal song

30 Azerbaijan Tell Me More - sweet jangle but with random rap parts that don’t go well with it.

31 Iceland Power - sang and performed very well, but thudding techno lacks much excitement

32 Denmark Breaking My Heart - contagious but feels too heavily vocoded

33 Cyprus Break A Broken Heart - basic and vain male ballad-anthem

34 Netherlands Burning Daylight - tries to be sweet but doesn’t go anywhere

35 Georgia Echo - good atmosphere but too generic and too little direction

36 Ireland We Are One - spirited but very generic.

37 San Marino Like an Animal - retro feel but cringe lyrics and a lack of impact next to other rock entries - this felt rushed.

So as many of you know, Wales competed in Junior Eurovision for a couple of years. I was wondering, if Belgium wanted to return, could Flanders and/or Wallonia compete seperately like Wales did?

After finishing off the 2021-2025 edition of my Eurovision Subway Map, I was on a high and decided to do another top 50 but instead being from the start to 2020 (I did join Eurovision quite recently, so have had less time to absorb each individual contest. As I knew less about them, I did a sample listening of most songs and rounded it to my personal top 50.

As the range of songs spanned 64 years, I split them up into scores (50's and 60's, 70's and 80's, 90's and 2000's, 2010's and 2020) (score = 20 year groups/2 decades). I have also included "Funnest Song" for each group and added this to the 2021-2025 map.

some notes:

• It’s in dark mode to not flashbang you
• It’s inspired by Vignelli’s NYC map
• The country is written either in the national language, or the language used in the song (Austriche (Austria) for Loin d'ici, Norwei (Norway) for Haba Haba))
• The geography is odd, so for example, the Baltic Sea coast and Iraq Australia are not in the right position/detailed enough
• I couldn't use Arabic, so Morocco is Al-Maghreb
• Yes, the 2010/20's have 4 first placers, all equally tied
• The further away a song is from Luxembourg within its country, the higher it ranks for me personally (Oliver > Mata Hari > Haba Haba..., Sound of Silence > Zero Gravity) (In Luxembourg (the centre), Poupée de cire, poupée de son is higher)

PLEASE PROVIDE FEEDBACK (in case I did something wrong/you liked it)

reasonings for the top 3 each score + funnest song award:

2010/20's (year order backwards):

• 🇦🇺 Australia 2016 | Sound of Silence by Dami Im. I chose this as I am almost certain this was the second Eurovision song I'd ever heard (after Waterloo, of course). I vaguely remember hearing my mother play this as well as having a Dami Im poster on a cabinet circa 2016/17. Dami Im also has amazing vocals and I'm sorry to whoever will be offended, but I think it should've won in 2016.
• 🇩🇰 Denmark 2013 | Only Teardrops by Emmelie de Forest. I love this song. As a recent winner, I learnt about it and Euphoria quite quickly through my "Switzerland 2025" through the contests, but it has stuck as a clear favourite of mine.
• 🇸🇪 Sweden 2012 | Euphoria by Loreen. Need I say anymore? It is such a wonderful song, although it is overplayed (which is why it is tied with so many others).
• 🇫🇷 France 2012 | Écho (You and I) by Anggun. A great song. It feels like ( like it would fit perfectly into ABBA's "The Visitors" album (despite being mostly in French, and having different, but still amazing vocals), which is my personal favourite album of them all. Indonesia also has a special place in my heart and Anggun is also of Indonesian background.
• 🇷🇺 Russia 2012 | Party For Everybody by Buranovskiye Babushki. It is a very fun song and definitely has the most memorable staging of this era in my opinion. It also has the word "party", AQ to the funnest song award.

1990-2000's (1st, 2nd, 3rd + funnest song award):

• ⍰ Yugoslavia 1990 | Hajde da ludujemo by Tajči. It is a BANGER, and I prefer it to Yugoslavia's winning Rock Me. AFAIK, it is also remembered fondly in ex-Yugoslav countries
• 🇳🇴 Norway 1995 | Nocturne by Secret Garden. I wish that orchestras/live instruments can return because we'll have more beautiful songs like this. I love the flow and movement of the song!
• 🇹🇷 Türkiye 2009 | Düm Tek Tek by Hadise. Fairytale is good. Düm Tek Tek is better. This was a big hit for me and one I enjoy listening to!
• 🇮🇸 Iceland 2006 | Congratulations by Silvia Night. Perfect troll song, she was born in Reykjavik in a different league, she was no Eurotrash-freak. She'll freaking win— SHE DIDN'T QUALIFY? biggest robbery of the century.

1970/80's:

• 🇸🇪 Sweden 1974 | Waterloo by ABBA. As I said before, this was the first Eurovision song I'd ever heard, and as one who grew up listening to every ABBA song, this has to be up here. btw, Wer Im Wartesaal Der Liebe Steht is my favourite ABBA song of all time.
• 🇳🇴 Norway 1979 | Oliver by Anita Skorgan. If not for ABBA, Oliver would win this era by miles. Sampling through the songs, Oliver unusually stuck out. It's a banger and her performance was simple, yet perfect. "Dans med henne, Oliver, Oliver"
• 🇲🇨 Monaco 1971 | Un banc, un arbre, une rue by Séverine. The 70's and 80's were the decades of bangers. When seeing many people talking about it, I had a listen, and now love it.
• 🇳🇴 Norway 1976 | Mata Hari by Anne Karine-Strøm. I liked Mata Hari 2021, Anne Karine-Strøm sunglasses blinded me and now I can't hear or see Efendi's song without having a hallucination of them. Besides that, this song did not deserve last place, it's such an ear worm.

1950/60's:

• 🇱🇺 Luxembourg 1965 | Poupée de cire, poupée de son by France Gall. I discovered this song before LPMLS was released and enjoyed it. Then with LPMLS, it has transformed into an amazing character arc for the doll. Plus, I learnt the lyrics purely from listening, I can't speak conversational French, and my Francophone friend said I pronounced it amazingly.
• 🇨🇭 Switzerland 1956 | Das alte Karussell by Lys Assia. I like Refrain, but Das alte Karussell has a charm to it that Refrain can't match. A nice song about the old carousel was not a song I'd expect to be on this list, but it's amazing. Thanks to its' charm
• 🇳🇱 Netherlands 1964 | Jij bent mijn leven by Anneke Grönloh. Very catchy song that I love, you just got to listen to it!

Thanks & sorry if you read all of that!

Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is the first time ever that stage performances are filmed and broadcasted in 25 frames per second in a technique called "Progressive Segmented Frames". In short, it is shot in 25 frames per second and broadcasted with double the frame rate. This differs from the one shot and broadcasted in native 50 frames per second like in 2023 and before. Notice short fade between title card and the actual performances

According to the organizing committee in SVT (Swedish Television), this kind of technique will give the perception of music videos, but it still have a feel of live TV show. This has been tried in Melodifestivalen months prior.

This kind of technique then used again by SRG SSR the next year. And if I have to be frank, some of the 2025 songs are "okay" to be shot and broadcasted these way.

What are your thoughts? Shall ORF keep this technique for 2026, or should they go back to 50 frames per second?

Edit: wrong title