Delta was my favourite song from the whole competition. I’m glad she did well.

I can’t see myself streaming anything else from this years competition.

I think this years winning song is truly awful.

4 hours ago, Colm said:

Some other thoughts. It seems that Italy can do no wrong. While I don't really dislike Italy - I certainly loved them a lot more between 2017 and 2021 - they could send anything from almost any genre and because it's in Italian Europe will throw points at it. Their last nine finishes - 6 5 2 1 6 4 7 5 5.

The UK should take a break. Hear me out. This year they tried something different. It didn't work. There just seems to be something of a mismatch between what the UK sends and what the voting public of Europe find entertaining. And that's fine. That's not an indication of the quality of the entry - just that it doesn't work in Eurovision Just take a break for a few years and spend a while thinking about a different approach.

After reading this, I'm starting to think the UK should try an Italian-language entry!

I just think that the UK always sends a decent songs (bar Spaceman which was amazing), and if you're not in any individuals Top 5, then it usually translates to no votes!

You definitely have to meet that threshold to get some points!!!

It’s not just the Italian language, although it definitely helps stand out. Italy always send extremely confident performers or straight up belters with a decent song (most of the time - I was not a fan of their 2025 entry at all) that knows its audience. I mean it is also most of the time a winner of a huge national song contest so that helps a lot lol

I would loooove for UK to use something other than English (which had actually never happened before !!). There’s Scots, there’s Welsh, there’s Irish!!! The overwhelming majority of the entrants recently have been from England too which is such a waste of talent and potential.

P.S: I don’t count this year’s terrible pronunciation of the three most basic german words which added nothing to or changed the song in no way as a venture into foreign languages LOL

I do find the Italian success every year a real head scratcher. I have liked many of their entries in the past but the post Måneskin years have seemed to me like default success. This year’s in particular I thought seemed very old fashioned with staging that was quite odd, but maybe it was just lost on me.

I suppose Italy is just so admired and respected as a culture and Italian as a language that maybe their entries get subconscious jury support as being a seal of quality, especially when they have often had to win the competitive Sanremo to even get here. This song was a naff, dated disco number with weak staging, so not sure what the quality seen here was, but maybe got some nostalgia votes from older viewers? I feel like 1st and 3rd were driven by younger voters and 4th to 6th by older viewers looking for something more conservative and more traditionally Eurovision. I'm not surprised several of these did well because a lot of younger viewers may have been more likely to boycott this year.

The Italian entry is so corny that I'm sure it would have been a televote nul pointer for the UK.

I don't think the UK will ever take a break unless we were to actually leave, because even though viewing figures are way down, over 5m is still very impressive in this day and age. It's a banker of a show for the BBC, I'm sure they don't mind just sending any old thing, barely promoting it, and not putting much effort into supporting the artist, as long as we have an entry in the mix. They could screen the show without us being in it of course, but it wouldn't have anywhere near as much engagement without a home entry. The sad thing is for the UK fans who have to put up with these terrible results every year and can see the ways BBC are going wrong but have no power to do anything about it.

It does feel really unfair that every year Germany and Uk get destroyed by the public vote, yet Italy seem to benefit. Sometimes they have sent great songs but I cannot find much in this years song

I’d go as far as to say the three countries could send the same songs, sung in the same way and Italy would still get a three figure score, with the other two getting nout

I was thinking similar about Italy - I'm clearly out of the loop of what catches on, but as much as I liked their songs from the last two years I thought both of them had single-digit points written all over them when I first heard them - and then they both ended up inside the Top 5! I have no explanation for it although the suggestion above around it being the Italian language is a fair shout.

9 hours ago, Riser said:

After reading this, I'm starting to think the UK should try an Italian-language entry!

It worked for Estonia last year

One thing I find fascinating about Italy’s success is that for a contest that celebrates individuality and is very popular with the queer community, Italy as a country is quite conservative.

I love Italy but yeh I have no idea how they were top 5 this year, personally in my bottom 5. But I guess the nostalgic vibes of the song worked for many.

I agree UK should take a 2-3 year break but I doubt they ever will. I dread to think what they will send next. I think they should send a Rock song. It’s rare a rock song would win but I don’t think they should even be thinking of that. Something unique that would at least get some televote points and some jury points: all the rock songs this year did relatively well and UK is known for its rock and indie scene.

2 hours ago, gooddelta said:

I suppose Italy is just so admired and respected as a culture and Italian as a language that maybe their entries get subconscious jury support as being a seal of quality, especially when they have often had to win the competitive Sanremo to even get here. This song was a naff, dated disco number with weak staging, so not sure what the quality seen here was, but maybe got some nostalgia votes from older viewers? I feel like 1st and 3rd were driven by younger voters and 4th to 6th by older viewers looking for something more conservative and more traditionally Eurovision. I'm not surprised several of these did well because a lot of younger viewers may have been more likely to boycott this year.

The bolded is the most important part. Sanremo is probably one of the, if not THE most competitive music contest in the world (after the ESC grand final) so winning that is a huge feat itself.

Personally, I think the staging was fantastic! They did classic ballet there, the dancers were amazing and there was a clear storyline.

Also, italo disco is pretty popular subgenre in Europe. I have been to Italo theme parties in my home town. Yes, the sound is nostalgic but it's the overall vibe that people love.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by Sour Candy

I also disagree with the statements that Italy this year wasn't good. Maybe not top 5 good but top 10 for sure. The staging was amazing, the song indeed seemed nostalgic and catchy enough, the meaning was 100% transparent even if you don’t understand a single word in Italian and the story kept me captivated the whole time. It’s not the most modern song by any means and can seem corny out of context but I was living.

Quite impressive how we got two 50+ year olds in the top 6 this year, I’m pretty sure this is a rare occasion.

And Delta Goodrem is 41, so she's not exactly representing "the youth" either.

Didn't realise Delta was still that young actually. So she was only 18 when she had all those UK top 10s!

I don't believe for one minute that the UK or Germany could have gone top 5 with either of Italy's previous 2 entries. Bottom 5 more like. Have they ever had a bad slot in the running order also?

Always found it weird Sweden got so much grief for being overrated EBU pets and Italy never have.

Had San Marino sent the same song by the same artist with the same staging, which could feasibly have happened (more feasible than UK or Germany sending it anyway), I'm really struggling to see that it would have been even in the top half of the scoreboard. In fact they kind of did go down the same route with Serhat, which granted did pretty well for San Marino second time around, but was hardly a bumper success.

I do understand that many people may have enjoyed the nostalgia and staging, but at the same time believe personally that Italy got an inflated position with it. But then again I was shocked that it won Sanremo too, so clearly it has something about it that eludes me.

One word: Brividi

A song so awful that the studio and live versions are awful for two entirely different reasons. And still Albania decided to give it 12 in the televote.

He probably doesn’t even know, but someone from his team definitely does because there are too many coincidences xD