Reviewing the entires of semi-final 2 – ESC 2026

Now that we've reviewed the entries of semi-final 1, it is time to take a look at what the second semi-final has to offer. Without further ado, let's fire up the keyboard and rate some songs.

 

Reviewing the entires of semi-final 1 – ESC 2026

 

Another month of May is upon us and we all know what that means – it's Eurovision season again. And yet, despite having immersed myself in the contest with near-religious piety for the past twenty years or so, I don't think I've ever been this unenthused about it. What used to be a Christmas in May for fans like me is now nothing short of a raging dumpster fire – and it hasn't even started yet!

Following two years of a certain participating country unashamedly manipulating voting outcomes for politial benefit and propaganda purposes, the EBU (the European Broadcasting Union) has in its boundless wisdom and disappointing, if not surprising, spinelessness chosen to double down on not doing anything to address the issues at hand. They even went on to ignore their own rules in order to prevent a member-requested vote on said country's participation, instead offering a vote on a much-needed rule reform, but only with the caveat that a 'yes' on the rule reform also automatically meant a 'yes' on the Israeli participation. This was all the more farcical considering the rule reform was obviously drafted as a reaction to Israel's actions in the past two editions of the contest to begin with. It's like slapping a bandaid on a leaking dam. YouTubers Stuart MacLean and ESC Gabe have excellent, informative, and well-researched videos on the matter if you're interested.

Previous Eurovision head honcho Martin Österdal was good to go after being booed off the face of the planet, it seems, but any hopes that people might have had for his successor Martin Green have been put firmly on hold over his naïve-at-best, disingenous-at-worst takes on the apoliticality of the contest and his constant unwillingess to respond to and acknowledge the outrage from the fans and national broadcasters – publically, anyway.

Consequently, a mini-exodus of sorts took place, with Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, and Iceland boycotting the contest. Yes, that's right: we lost five countries – including a seven-time winner as well as one of the Big 5 – just to keep a non-European one in. (Now, just to be perfectly clear: I do not have an issue with Israel participating in general. In fact, my first Eurovision memory that I can recall is of Dana International winning back in 1998. However, the way the country and its broadcaster have operated in the context of the show has made a mockery of it without as much as a slap on the wrist from the EBU, and that is a disgrace.) So yeah, an altogether pretty steep price. I sure hope the EBU is happy, because the ESC community is not.

And to top it all off, the powers that be decided that what the Eurovision really needed was a visual revamp that nobody asked for, so now we've even lost the iconic Eurovision logo in exchange for what looks like an AI slop take on a children's TV show title card. Not to be unnecessarily dramatic but it really feels like the Eurovision we all know and love is eroding away in front of our very eyes.

I did seriously consider boycotting the contest this year, and I was not sure if I wanted to write anything on it either. However, just like for any ESC superfan, the Eurovision is one of the highlights of my year and usually a constant source of joy and light in my life, and that is not something I want to lose. I don't want that to be taken away from me. So, let's soldier on and rate some songs.

Review of ESC 2025 – Grand Final

Now that the first and second semi-finals have been battled out, we finally have a full lineup of 26 entries for Saturday's Grand Final – one of which will ultimately be the winner and snatch the coveted glass microphone trophy! There were some surprises among the results, but more on them later. Before we move on to the remaining entries, here are a few thoughts about the 2025 contest so far.

Having now heard all the songs from this edition of the contest, I don't know if this comes across as a particularly competitive year. This is not meant as a dismissal of any individual participants nor of what they bring to the table – it's just that compared to other recent contests, few songs emerge as immediate classics to be added to the Eurovision tapestry. I have a sneaking suspicion that 2025 might in the future be remembered as an in-between contest of sorts between stronger years, one that won't be looked back upon with exceptional fondness.

Perhaps paradoxically then, considering the 'weaker' overall level, the playing field seems to be much more level than usually. Mind you, I have intentionally been avoiding any betting odds so I might be completely off the mark. Still, I don't think there is a clear frontrunner at the moment whereas normally at this point, there would only be a small handful of contestants with a perceived change of winning. This makes the final night all the more interesting.

In the semi-finals, there seemed to be some small production issues. Some kinks with the camerawork and props could be noticed, and hopefully they will be ironed out by the final show. Such is the nature of live entertainment, of course, especially with this many moving parts. At least there's been nothing to the extent of 2022's infamous black sun fiasco.

The sound mixing was a more notable issue, however. The audience mics were turned jarringly low, which made the crowd sound muted and killed any sense of interaction between the performers and the arena. No doubt this was done to eliminate any signs of booing – they have been using anti-booing technology for the past decade, after all – but at what point does it simply become dishonest? Erasing negative responses and diminishing positive ones takes away from the authenticity and the live feel of the show, and there have even been comments circulating online about canned applause being employed to drown out the booing. But sometimes even the lead vocalists sounded oddly low in the mix.

Another thing I didn't care for was the new way of announcing semi-final qualifiers. It felt unnecessarily cruel to have constant close-ups on the contestants that kept failing to advance to the final and to have the camera zoom in on their disappointment multiple times. It served no meaningful purpose for storytelling or drama, so I truly hope they ditch that by next May.

Alright, now that I got all that off my chest, let's take a look at our Grand Final lineup!

Review of ESC 2025 – Semi-final 2

After having reviewed the entries of the first semi-final, it is now time to take a look at semi-final 2 and what it has to offer. The same rules apply here, i.e. the reviews are based on (mostly) first reactions, I will use official live recordings as preview clips whenever applicable, and the automatic qualifiers are included in the semi-final line-ups. Got it? Great, let's get going then!

Review of ESC 2025 – Semi-final 1

With May arriving, it's that time of the year again – the Eurovision season is almost upon us! That, of course, can only mean one thing, namely that we have a whole new batch of Eurovision entries to go through and form opinions on.

Sadly, Moldova announced its withdrawal earlier this year, citing 'economic, administrative and artistic challenges' as the reason. We're sorry to see you go, Moldova – may you be back soon. In more uplifting news, on the other hand, 2025 marks Montenegro's return to the contest after an absence of a couple of years. The country has given us some amazing Eurovision gems throughout the years, such as 'Igranka', 'Moj Svijet', and 'Adio', so this is definitely a pleasant return. Welcome back!

Last year, Nemo cracked the code, spinning and rapping and belting their way into Europe's hearts and to Eurovision victory. Perhaps in a fitting conclusion to last year's contest that was rapidly devolving into a raging dumpster fire of controversy that the fan base could not wait to get over with, Nemo accidentally broke the trophy immediately after receiving it.

But hopefully this year's Eurovision week is going to be a smoother and more drama-free experience for us all. In order to try and predict who will follow in Nemo's footsteps and snatch the coveted glass microphone trophy, let us take a closer look at what this year has to offer! As usual, I am going into this relatively blindly, having only heard a handful of the songs before. Most of the reviews are thus going to be based on first reactions as I find that to be the fairest way. Official live versions will be used as preview clips whenever available, otherwise I'll just watch the music videos instead. I've also steered clear from any betting odds to not let them sway my opinions. Finally, the automatic qualifiers (i.e. the 'Big Five' together with the host country) will be included and reviewed in the semi-final line-ups.

Enough chit-chat, let's get to it!

Review of ESC 2024 – Grand Final

  

Now that the semi-finals are over, it's grand final time! The biggest surprise was definitely Latvia qualifying as it was predicted to be the most unlikely qualifier in the odds. That said, I'd definitely consider it a deserved outcome as the vocals were top-notch.

In terms of non-qualifications, I was most gutted about Australia. Despite an off note or two, they had an amazing performance with otherwise great vocals, vibrant visuals, and a didgeridoo that gave me the chills. I would've loved to see them perform again on Saturday but alas, that was not to be. I was also expecting Belgium to qualify but the live singing was simply too weak. Azerbaijan is another entry that I would've liked to see in the final, though maybe the staging and the costumes felt a little disjointed.

Other than that, the semi-finals went rather expectedly and the shows themelves were great, as you'd come to expect from Sweden. Petra Mede remains a Eurovision legend and Malin Åkerman is also there. I'm surprised they haven't found a way to bring Måns out yet (he's like the Michael Bublé of Eurovision, every year he just pops out of nowhere), but maybe they're simply still defrosting him.

The interval acts were alright, just not on the same level as the past two Swedish-hosted contests. The segment about re-soundtracking Swedish film classics with Eurovision songs felt like a low-effort way to fill in a blank time slot, and the 'We Just Love Eurovision Too Much' act somehow managed to read both self-depracating (yay) and condescending (nay) at the same time. While it started funny, it also just ran way too long.

All the same, Sweden still knows how to put together a show and that is something they do excel at, so props to them and thank you for a so-far marvellous Eurovision spectacle.

Yet, although the week peacefully enough all things considered, the situation has swiftly been devolving into a chaos over the past 24 hours. Italy's televote results for the second semi-final were accidentally leaked, showing a staggering 39% of the vote going to Israel (for reference, back in 2022 Ukraine received a 'mere' 24% share of the Italian semi-final televote). The results were apparently incomplete but together with Israel qualifying for the final, caused the country to spike in the odds.

Israel's participation has been a contentious topic this year and the tensions started showing in the press conference for the second semi-final qualifiers. Then the Dutch representative Joost Klein was reported to have been involved in an altercation of some sort with a photographer. The EBU has remained tight-lipped about what had transpired, which means that rumours are spreading like wildfire, but the Netherlands were then excluded from the rehearsals as well as the jury show.

Meanwhile, the EBU is rumoured to have had a crisis meeting about the situation, also cancelling a scheduled press conference with the automatic qualifiers. Executive producer Martin Österdahl was furthermore reported to have been absent in the rehearsals. To add fuel to the fire, there have been stories about Israeli journalists harassing and provoking people. And you know things have gone to shit when someone whips out John Lennon's 'Imagine' as a way to soothe people (did they not learn anything from the pandemic times?).

How on earth did this all happen? Thing is not known. Despite the (now tame in comparison) Loreen vs. Käärijä drama last year, I sure bet Finland is happy they're not in charge of hosting this dumpster fire.

I am alredy dreading to see how things unfold come Grand Final night, but I'm here for the music first and foremost, and we've got a grand total of 26 finalists to go through, so let's get on with it.

Review of ESC 2024 – Semi-final 2

Now that we've got the first semi-final sorted out, it's time to take a look at what the second semi-final has to offer. Without further ado, let's move on to the entries!