Whose points? DOUZE POINTS!

It’s time for the annual global televised musical spectacular sensation recapped by an American who is very enthusiastic but has no real skin in the game so I CAN JUST YELL ABOUT IT. Usually it’s “SHUT UP SHUT UP LATVIA IS ON”

IT IS EUROVISION TIME. When a bunch of countries with ties to the Broadcasting Union pick someone not necessarily even from their own country to represent them with a song they think will win and then pit them against each other in a madcap week of performances cut through with nonsensical intermission acts about the host country emceed by that country’s C-list celebrities and former contestants styled by people they appear to have just mortally insulted. It’s the musical equivalent of a drunken drag night at the Tower of Babel and I love it.

I’ve been familiar with Eurovision for a while (Abba, Celine Dion, Maneskin, anyone?), but I am a new fan to live Eurovision, only getting into watching it as it airs since Peacock started showing it in 2023. That was also the first year that the US was allowed to actually participate in the televote as part of The Rest of The World (a single dump category for non-eligible countries), so that was kind of a big deal. If you’re new to this, here is a very brief summary of the rules and how this works:

1. This year there are 37 participating countries that are all part of the European Broadcasting Union. (Australia is an Associate Member or something, they got invited, whatever, they’re part of it.) They all get 1 song to represent them.

2. Song rules: 3 minutes max, 6 members max, no plugged in instruments, all lead vocals must be live, no live animals, all members must be 16+. Can be in any language and representatives do not have to be from the country they represent, though some countries have internal rules about that. Some countries have contests, others have committees that select their song.

3. The host country is whoever won the year before; this year, that’s Switzerland. Germany, UK, Spain, France, Italy, and the host country automatically advance to the final, but they do get the chance to perform during the semi-finals so you get to preview the song before the final anyway. The 5 non-hosts get to advance automatically because their broadcasters are the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union. You pay more money, you get more perks. It’s also a disadvantage: they often get underscored because they’re automatic finalists and people hate that.

4. Of the remaining 31 countries this year, they need to qualify 20 remaining spots in the final (making the final 26 total countries). There were two semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday this week, with roughly half of the countries competing for 10 spots each night. (Australia’s crazy “Milkshake Man” song and Ireland’s “Laika Party” about astronaut dog Laika having a nightly rave in the stars both didn’t make the 2nd night cut but are adorable and worth the watch!). The semi-finals are decided all by televote now, it’s all the countries who are in that semi-final plus one dump category called “Rest of the World.” You can read more here, there’s math.

5. 26 finalists get randomized, they all perform, then voting happens in two parts.

   1. JURY: all 37 countries send a representative via live feed one by one. They get to give points to their top 10, with their #1 pick getting 12 points (often greeted by yells of “DOUZE POINTS!”).

   2. TELEVOTE: People at home get to vote! It’s a bit more than $1/vote for a max of 20 votes. You can’t vote for the country you’re in. So if you’re in Germany, you can’t vote for Germany, but you can split your 20 votes however you want. The US is lumped in with The Rest of The World. Whatever country gets the most votes from a country gets the top score from that country, 12 points. For example, if there were 10000 total votes cast from Germany, and the biggest number were cast for Latvia, Latvia would get 12 points in the Televote from Germany, and then on down the list of their top 10 would get different amounts of points.

6. If this seems confusing, just remember: it’s supposed to be about the music. So try to enjoy it for that. And turn it off before the voting.

Up front, my predictions and favorites (we’ll see by the end if this holds up!)

Spirit of Eurovision, the ones I think really embody what this contest is about and should win: Latvia. They bring a cultural experience with folk rhymes and witchy folklore weirdness in their costumes and staging. It is the most musical and harmonically complex piece, with choreography that Beats Antique would be proud of. Even Royal has said, “In a just world, they would win.” If they get at least one jury’s top 12 point vote, I would be so happy because they are incredible.

Who will win the Televote: Sweden’s “Bara Bada Batsu.” So it’s actually 3 Finnish guys but they’re from Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority (5% of the population!) singing about how good sauna is for you. That’s it, that’s the song. And there’s an accordion and a fake sauna. Audiences love this thing. It’s currently running #1 in the online betting pools.

Who will win the Jury vote: Hard to tell. I think it’ll either be Austria or France. It’ll really come down to this live final performance and who nails it harder. I don’t think the Jury is going to go with Sweden for style and political reasons (Sweden just won in 2023, so I think they’re going to be less inclined to award it to them again). Juries tend to go towards the more “serious” or complex numbers, so that makes them tops. Italy will probably also do very well with juries.

Overall winner: I think we’re looking at Sweden, Austria, or France, and I think the Televote is going to push Sweden over the top. Potential dark horse winners would be Albania, who has a huge audience support, or Switzerland, who are bringing a very lovely and different energy.

AWAY WE GO!

Norway: It’s a strong start for the show because he’s a cute dude in full faux armor with lots of pyrotechnics and a basic bop. Kyle Alessandro sings about how he’s his own “Lighter” now and nothing can burn him. It’s lyrically dumb and and I feel dumber for listening to it but he’s adorable.

Luxembourg: Super cute pop song that translates to “The Doll Turns Up The Sound” with lots of marionette-style dancing. As Royal points out, the musical arrangement is so much more clever than Norway’s entry which makes it a marked contrast that helps me regain an IQ point or two. I found out that it’s actually a response song to Luxembourg’s Eurovision winning song in 1965 about a doll being controlled, and this is about the doll taking control back over. Very pro-feminist and cute and catchy.

Estonia: IT’S NOODLE MAN NOODLE MAN WE LOVE NOODLE MAN WE MUST PROTECT HIM. “Espresso Macchiato” by Tommy Cash is so cute and stupid and I understand Italians are a little like “uh, stereotypes much?” but I also wonder if these same people have ever seen Eurovision because it’s all like this? It is weird that Estonia isn’t anywhere near Italy so it might be more cultural appropriation than appreciation? I DO NOT KNOW. I AM ONLY HERE TO APPRECIATE THE NOODLEY MAN RIGHT NOW. He just dances all over the place and he’s a funny little man and it’s such a joy to watch.

Lithuania: I think it’s nice that Men’s Wearhouse gave them a discount on the matching suits that were rejected from the local psych ward for being too sedating. They made it into the final over Australia and Ireland. I still don’t get it. I have nothing further to add.

Spain: “Esa Diva” SLAAAAAAAAAPS. Fabulous and fearless vocals. Them boots. And that Carmen Sandiego giant hat. Honestly it’s one of my favorite songs Spain’s produced for a while, and she started with one of my favorite drag skirt tricks that Nina West was an originator of, where people are pretending to be part of the skirt then peel away, and it’s so effective and cool. THEN THE FLIP AT THE END. I would like to be here when she grows up, and I would like to be able to afford her extensions. And however she affixes her costumes so her…assets. Stay. Assetted. It’s super fun. I don’t think it’s got enough of that something-something to win it, but I feel like it’ll at least do upper half?

I looked Melody up and it turns out that I know her from when she was 10 years old and released a song that was The Hottest Song In Spain in the Summer 2001 and so my high school Spanish teacher was obsessed and we listened to “El Baile de Gorila” a LOT. So good for her, glad to see she’s still making music!

Ukraine: Before each performance there are these little 20-30 second little moments with postcards showing a different part of Switzerland and then the band getting introduced goes to that part, meets someone there, and does something cool there. I love these postcard moments so much and the Ukrainian band looks so happy eating cheese. On to the performance which is so weird and you can’t look away. The energy and the costumes came right out of Star Trek: The Original Series. VELOOOOOUR! Giant studs! Wall of sound production! Feathered bleached haircuts! My uncle would LOVE this song! The backing female vocals remind me of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast where Space Ghost jokes about their opening high notes being sung by Betty Rubble. I know that when they hit the guitars we’re not really hearing them since they’re not allowed to plug in instruments but they’re so into it. When the lead singer hits his knees and the stage does full blackout, my breath actually catches for a second. It’s surprisingly good. The lights at the end look like a Klingon ship uncloaking which seems apropos for a song called “Bird of Pray” but maybe that’s just my brain.

United Kingdom: It’s called “What The Hell Just Happened?” by Remember Monday and it’s darling. I have a very soft spot for tight three-part folky harmonies (cough PDX Broadsides cough) so they had me from the first time they locked in. I don’t care that it’s an Abba x Disney Princesses x Katy Perry ripoff, they are CHARMING and I love them. It’s a sonic departure from the electronica processed BOOM-DA-BEEP of a lot of the entries, making it a little more musical theatre, and they are so girl group choreographed and I’m here for it. It won’t earn zero points (nil points, as they say in Eurovision) which happened to a couple of recent UK entries, so that alone will be a win for them. This is good.

Austria: Contratenor is a LITERAL SUPERPOWER. Last year’s winner, Nemo from Switzerland, set a new trend for very operatic power pop electronica, and this is exactly in that groove. The notes that JJ is hitting are otherworldly, and the staging with the floating paper boats and then the assembled ship in the storm is simple but powerful. He was a little flat on one of the big notes, but the performance was largely very clean and strong. This is going to be the song to beat tonight.

Iceland: “This sounds like literally every song in the “Greatest Showman.”” - Royal. They remind me very much of a kids’ musician, a woman who wears wigs and I can’t remember her name, but she sang a bunch of very ear-wormy things a few years ago. If you can remember who I’m talking about, let me know. The one nice thing about this super hyper pop song about boats, in Icelandic, and includes some actual Icelandic geography, history, and cultural references, which I appreciate. Otherwise, it’s not one of my faves.

Latvia: SHUT UP SHUT UP LATVIA IS ON. Their postcard is amazing because they’re 6 haunting ethereal witches learning about robots, then they come onstage to sing about hexes and how they will destroy steel bridges with their oaks. “Curses and hexes, curses and hexes, never can they ruin me,” they sing in Latvian over Baltic instruments, lighted headpieces glowing as they move through hanging curtains in highly choreographed movements looking like drowned forest sirens. They are the best and really the heart of Eurovision. More of this forever. This video is from their national final:

Netherlands: Hudson loves to say “Claude” which is a fun name to say, honestly, and it’s super cute. It’s one of Huddy’s standout faves of the set. Claude is a Black Dutchman singing full-chested and full-hearted about his mother’s voice being inside of him telling him that this is life. It’s upbeat, it’s beautiful, it’s musically smart, and the way he breaks with tears and joy at the end, I feel it for him. It’s a pretty simple song, but he’ll place high and I’m so happy to see him here.

Finland: ERIKA VIKMAN. Look. Let’s make no bones about this (heh), this song is about orgasms. It’s called “I’m Coming” and she looks like she runs Club Vandersexxx from Eurotrip. She is bold. She tells you EXACTLY what she wants. She has faced a lot of criticism for being so openly sexual and she has taken no crap about it, just been like, “Okay, bye.” She rides a microphone prop suspended from the ceiling with sparks shooting out the end at the climax (heh again) of the chorus. It’s one of the most fun songs of the year.

Italy: This is weird, but Lucio Corsi’s is the only song out of the whole contest that has English subtitles. Mixed feelings about that. I appreciate the accessibility since I don’t speak all of these languages. I look up all of the lyrics in English during/after semi-finals, but there’s also something to be said to just experience the song and what they want to give us without fully understanding the lyrics first. He also has Andy written on his boot like Woody from “Toy Story.” He is reportedly a huge fan of Randy Newman and tours with a Woody toy. The song is touching and vulnerable about how he’s just a guy out here living the best way he knows how. He wanted to be a tough guy, but he’s just him. I think it’s lovely and a strong showing from Italy.

Poland: get DOWN in them heels, dancers. The singer Justyna is representing Poland for the second time, and her first time was in 1995. THIRTY YEARS AGO. She’s doing aerial, flips, mad dance breaks, while hitting some crazy notes in a sparkly catsuit in super high heels, and she’s FIFTY-TWO with three kids. I have a bit over a decade to get into the kind of shape she’s in. Challenge accepted. The song is about being a goddess? I think? There was a dragon and some running and a lot of things going on here.

Germany: Electric cello opening, yay! There is a boombox stage piece that pulses the whole time: there is actually a human back there who is pumping it the whole time to make it beat like that. We stan a practical prop effect. This is one where the beat slaps but looking up the lyrics later was kind of a disappointment (“I shoot holes in the sky so the stars fall on my roof,” rinse and repeat, just…meh) so I am glad I experienced it without the translation first so I could jam out. Royal really likes it. I bet him that if it places in the top half I’ll do the dishes.

Greece: Royal and I have taken to calling Klavdia “Vichelle Misage.” She looks so much like the RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage that it’s a little unnerving, but vocally…my god, she’s got those vocals runs that you hear in Greek traditional music down cold and it’s thrilling. “Asteromata” is a song written for refugees about the bond between a mother and a child who are separated, like refugees and their homelands, and how they are still comforted by their love for each other. It is beautiful and heartrending.

Armenia: PARG! That is his name. In all caps. You must scream it. It is mandatory. In his leather pants, studs, greased up hair and chest, flame effects, and the treadmill he’s running on…he’s basically just singing his own wrestling ring entrance music. Someone get WWE on the horn, PARG is ready to RUMBLE.

Switzerland: Because Nemo won with “The Code” last year, they were an automatic finalist, but this song would have made it in anyway. “Voyage” is soft and lovely, and then suddenly cutting and operatically building in the bridge into a big entry into the final chorus that gets suddenly quiet to just her voice around plucked strings. No dancers, no big instrumentation, no electronica, just her and stripped instrumentation. All in French, one of the four official Swiss languages (French, German, Romansh, Italian), it’s about just wanting someone you love to go with you on that adventure of love together instead of hurting you. It’s so lush and pretty.

Malta: Miriana Conte is SERVING. Literally. It’s the name of the song. Well, it WAS “Serving Kant.” “Kant” means “singing” in Maltese, but also sounds like a phrase used in drag and queer scenes to imply that someone is being very femme and fierce that is also kind of rude, so they, erm, changed it. 🙂 Lyrically, the very clever “Do-re-mi-fa-s-s-serving” gets me every time and she’s bouncing and slamming and slaying. It’s a hot anthem for Pride and I’m here for it.

Portugal: This entry makes me a little mad because it’s such a melodic warm-milk snooze-fest but then the lyrics…it reminds me a bit of Ricardo Arjona, because they managed to tell such a beautiful lyrical story in 3 minutes. They got this spot in the final over Australia’s “Milkshake Man” and I just don’t think that’s quite fair, but here they are, so.

Denmark: It’s Denmark’s best song for a minute, and that’s a bummer because it’s basically Loreen’s “Tattoo.” Tattoo won in 2023, so you know, good song, but the backbeat is literally a copy-paste. The chord progression in the middle is almost identical. That “ooo-oo-cination” is the same as “tat-ooo-ooo” and frankly if I submitted this as a written paper it would have been flagged for plagiarism for overlapping similarity. Here’s Sissal’s “Hallucination” if you want to compare for yourself.

Sweden: I wrote about them up above but I love these weirdos. And this is even better than their semi-final performance. SAUNA. I sang along and Huddy did a little dancing. Royal is now also looking up more about Swiss wrestling because of their postcard visit. In English, the style of wrestling they got to do is called “britches-lifting” and is similar to sumo. I am glad they didn’t get broken in half before their number.

France: I gave “Maman” by Louane my full attention and had to take a second to write about it after because I knew it would make me ugly cry (and it did). This song made me cry before I even read the lyric translation earlier this week. I speak some French, so I picked up a little context and knew it was to her mother when I saw it in the semis. Her mother died in 2014 from cancer, and now she herself is a mother. The song is to her mother to say that she has been hurting and processing her grief, but she is in an okay place and now that she has someone who calls her “Maman.” In this finals performance, you could see how emotionally moved she was the whole time, with the hourglass sands falling around her the whole time, and how hard she worked to keep it together while absolutely nailing the vocals. And with the last notes when she pointed up and let the child’s voice take the last “maman” and her voice cracked as she said thank you to her own mother…oh boy. France could take a lot of points here and I’d be here for it. Could be a surprise winner.

San Marino: Oh thank Jesus, we’re following France with this absolute weird ode to things Italian. Fun fact: Gabry Ponte is Eiffel 65. The guy who wrote “Blue (Ba Da Bee).” YUP. Royal: “What the hell, is Michaelangelo behind him chewing bubble gum?” “Yes.”

Albania: From all reports, this is a big crowd favorite, and even CNN ranked it shockingly as #1. The energy in the arena definitely went UP UP UP when they came out. It’s a bald man and a woman in dark red robes who looks straight out of a Game of Thrones cult singing about healing each other, the world, finding peace, in a sort of dark but uptempo electronica? It’s cool. Another dark horse potential winner. They’re not my favorite, but I do appreciate the energy and the simple staging.

Intermission acts: nice to see the Swiss previous entries that did well from the past, both old and new, and get a taste of the history. And then a #EURODAB with two of my FAVORITE acts from the last two years: Baby Lasagna from Croatia and Kaarija from Finland doing a mashup of their two hits plus adding something new and it kicks ass, THIS SHOULD WIN FOR 2025.

Jury voting time! This is where each of the 37 participating countries get their voting bodies together and assign points to their top 10 countries, ranging from 1 to 12 points, with 12 points being the top score they can give. The scores for their 10th-2nd place votes pop up on the screen next to their representative (1-8 points, 10 points for 2nd place), then they verbally announce who gets their 12 points (1st place). They can’t vote for themselves. They zoom in on the national delegations every time they get awarded a top score and then show the leaderboard getting updated with all the points. With 37 juries, this takes a while, but it’s fun. Every time Latvia gets 12 points I’m pretty sure you can hear me several blocks away, I’m so thrilled for those fabulous witchy ladies!

Big takeaways after jury vote: Austria wins the jury vote with 258. Switzerland surprises with 214 in second place, juries really appreciated the composition (and it won the Composers Award from the Press just hours before). France’s moving “maman” is in third with Italy close behind. My fave Latvia picked up SEVERAL 12 point awards which was surprising and gratifying to see them get recognized, and Great Britain got some jury points including a 12 pointer from Italy so they won’t get shut out this year! Sweden did not do great with juries, hanging in 6th, so we’ll see what the televote brings.

So now we get to the televote. This is where they put together the points from all over the world, starting with whoever placed the lowest in jury votes and working their way up. This time, that’s Iceland, who got 0 points in the jury vote. Once all the math from various countries have been added up, they get 33 points. Then they move on up to the next country. Sometimes you get a big jump in points.

Televote is going. Couple of surprises in the first few: Poland picks up 139 points in addition to the 17 jury points, a huge surge forward. Albania picks up a whole bucket of points landing them temporarily in the top 5! Denmark only gets 2 points, eek. Israel is expected to get a big televote hit and they do: 297. This is a startling number and is immediately greeted by boos in the arena and calls of vote rigging. Considering this is shortly followed by the fact that UK gets ZERO televote points, the audience is confused. Estonia gets 258 points and lands exactly one point behind Israel. Latvia and Netherlands each pick up 42 points, which is good for Latvia and not good for Netherlands, so nobody knows what to do with that. Israel remains in the lead through several more televotes. Betting table favorites Sweden get less than 200 televote points, it won’t be enough. Italy and France also don’t do very well in the televote, despite France picking up both the Press awards for Artistic and Media choice earlier in the day (and making me cry my face off). So we’re down to Switzerland and Austria for running a chance of winning this thing.

Switzerland: ZERO TELEVOTE POINTS. They came in with 214 jury points, they’re the host country. Getting zero points on that beautiful song makes NO sense. The audience noises are very upset.

Last shot. Austria’s beautiful electronic operatic number needs 100 televote points. They finally announce: 178. Total 436. Austria is the Eurovision 2025 winners and will be hosting next year. It’s a cool song and a good representation of the contest, and what a superpower of a voice JJ has.

This is a pretty upsetting ending, to be honest. I had hoped to just avoid talking about this entirely, especially given that they weren’t highly ranked in the jury voting, but Israel picked up a bunch of points from delegations that had previously asked them to be excluded, which was quite confusing, and that confusion was reflected by the audience who loudly booed when scores for them were awarded. Ireland in particular had been very vocal about not wanting them there, but then Ireland awarded them 7 points. People smarter than me have things to say about Israel’s continued inclusion in Eurovision so I’ll let them say it. I don’t know if the votes were tampered with, but something seems very suspicious and I don’t understand the results.

I enjoyed the music I enjoyed and while I’m glad that Austria won, I’m really going to be over here thinking about “maman” and “Bur Man Laimi” and “Asteromata” for a while while asking myself: “What The Hell Just Happened?”

As the lasses say, “No clue, but I liked it.”

This’ll be the last thing I write before I turn 41, so thanks for letting me send this year out on a very goofy note full of music and weirdness and just letting my brain be my brain with you. Thanks for subscribing and reading and encouraging me to write down the silly things I hope entertain you. Sending love.