Brer

somehow

We demand 'Revolving door' belatedly claim its rightful #8 peak x

Would we be allowed to use songs with featured artists in this btw? x

Put this playlist on in the car on my way home, thanks Wardy for compiling the Spotify x (also started on the solo men playlist but I'll finish that off tomorrow morning). 1 Christina Aguilera - Genie In A Bottle 2 SASAMI - Honeycrash 3 Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Home 4 Addison Rae - Aquamarine 5 Mary J. Blige - Be Without You 6 Ellie Goulding - Burn 7 Louise - Borderline (who is this? x) 8 Rina Sawayama - This Hell I did actually know the SASAMI song already as it was in a PopJustice Song Contest before (and got my 12 there! still sounding great today), I've enjoyed all of the songs I've heard from her across the song contests so hope she'll survive this round and give me a new song to listen to in the next round (unless said next song is just one of her other song contest entries lol). 'Genie In A Bottle' is too much of a classic to be topped though and I'm not even much of a Christina fan x

I did notice somewhat of a proliferation of Japanese entries this month and they all ended up in the same semi! My song of course being one of those, shoutout to Mic the Snare (excellent YouTube channel) for very briefly mentioning Kikagaku Moyo in a recent video and intriguing me into checking them out. Unfortunately the band doesn't exist any more but they had a decent sized discography to comb through for something worth sending x I think my song is quite elevated by the visuals so I hope people will be watching the YouTube video / paying attention on SyncTube. (Although given the aviation theme of this contest I hope the video - which features a rocket taking off and then crashing about a minute and a half into the song - won't be a bad omen haha). Think there are only 3 songs I've already heard from this contest, Avalon Emerson from the Electronic Track of the Week poll + SASAMI and YEJI from PJSC (they came 2nd and 1st respectively there, while the Openside song is also a former PJSC winner although from years ago and in a contest I didn't enter). I'll give my early hype to SASAMI out of those 3 although tut tut at Mothertopia self recycling just 2 months after their first entry by her (there are actually quite a few artists in this contest who were already entered once this year, the recycle cycle is accelerating I fear). No common songs in BJSC & PJSC this month although surprisingly PJSC does have a different Ummet Ozcan song.

This is how I find out Clara Kimera is from Agar Agar x The Persephonia recycle fad seems to be dying down again now, only one of my past song contest artists showing up this month (Luna Shadows making her BJSC debut - minus one The Naked And Famous song she was part of the group for - but I previously sent her to the Pop Forum Song Contest).

Hooray for this contest finally taking off (and I suppose this thread is slightly higher quality AI slop than those posts in the odds thread last month x) Shoutouts to Neliöär, easyJet 2, Jetty Nelson (omg Jafet hype! x), farcoleptic airways and Hindenburg Air as my fave airline names.

'Baller' climbing would love if this is a sign of it being the latest Eurovision song to transcend the contest and become a genuine hit but I doubt it, fingers crossed it now has a decent chance to make the top 40 at least though. I suppose it's healthy news for the music industry to see Skye Newman getting an immediate follow-up hit so we have a new British name who might actually be a consistent hitmaker rather than just another TikTok one hit wonder. Can't say I particularly like 'Hairdresser' though so I'm not rushing to hear this new song.

Afraid I can't join tonight oop so I'll be in the dark again I guess x

I think 'catch these fists' has become my favourite song to date from them at this point (I've been listening to Radio 1 a lot in the car and it's pretty unavoidable there at the moment so it's really wormed its way into my head). Does remind me a lot of Viagra Boys/IDLES although obviously also not straying far from their usual formula.

Really surprised that Lucio Corsi is one of the ones showing up on Spotify - a perfectly fine song but would never have called it being one that people would rush to stream after the contest. Happy to see VÆB making it in though! Not sure how likely any of the songs are to make the top 40 this year but 'Espresso Macchiato', 'Bara Bada Bastu', 'Wasted Love' and 'What The Hell Just Happened?' should all at least be close if not sneaking in, and perhaps 'Baller' as well (happy that it looks like it should be a top 100 at least, although I think the studio version is going to take a few listens to get used to with the vocal chop in the hook being quite different to how it sounded live and a little jarring on first listen!)

Its 'core audience' most likely haven't even listened to the song let's be real The title is in German. Roughly translates as 'shoot'.

You can still sneak an entry in now if you want! (We'll get the contest going soon I promise xx)

My ranking after the final: 12 Lithuania 10 Albania 8 Latvia 7 Germany 6 Austria 5 Sweden 4 Spain 3 Portugal - y'all are still haters xx 2 Switzerland 1 Ukraine 11th Iceland 12th Greece 13th Denmark 14th Luxembourg 15th France 16th Italy 17th Finland 18th Armenia 19th San Marino 20th Poland 21st Estonia 22nd United Kingdom 23rd Norway 24th Netherlands 25th Malta 26th Israel Songs that notably grew on me on second listen: Albania (was already a fave but became an even bigger one, I thought 2nd/3rd was a tossup maybe leaning to Latvia for me but Albania are now a pretty clear 2nd for me although my whole top 3 is excellent), Ukraine, Greece, Luxembourg, France, Estonia. Plenty more that I'd say sounded better on second listen as well but those are the main ones. Songs that I liked less on second listen: Finland (I understand why everyone here loves it but idk I just find the chorus falls really flat at least in the live performance? and felt that even moreso in the final than in the semi - I might like this more in studio form, will endeavour to check out the studio versions), Armenia, Israel (I was being generous not ranking it last in the semi, in retrospect I was being a little too mean to Miriana x) Felt the 0 to the UK from the public was inevitable as I just can't picture who this song would be appealing to - other than perhaps juries who would highly reward the admittedly strong live vocals, so I guess it was nice to see us ending up with a not totally disastrous result overall thanks to a top 10 with the juries (although us finishing a place lower than last year with almost twice as many points?!) 0 to Switzerland from the public however was ridiculous! I swear French ballads usually do quite well with the public, then again France themselves also did quite poorly on the televote so... 'Wasted Love' is easily my favourite winner since 'Stefania' so happy for JJ, it's a bit of a meh that it's the third year in a row a song was given the win by the juries while being a way off the public's top spot but given what was #1 in the televote this time this isn't the right time to be complaining about that. Israel doing so well is disturbing though, it's really a ticking time bomb until Israel flukes out a ridiculous win either via the competition being too split or just the juries giving them too many points (I'll take it as mildly reassuring that Israel actually got a lower televote score than last year, they just came closer to winning because scores were more spread out). 'Espresso Macchiato' finishing ahead of 'Bara Bada Bastu' is wild, happy for Tommy even though this song is, er, not his best work. Italy's song was fine but I really don't know how it apparently stood out enough to come 5th here, I guess Italy are just destined to come top 10 every year no matter what they send. Either that or it was the harmonica solo carrying it. x I really deluded myself hard into thinking Albania would be more of a contender than they were but at the end of the day for this kind of song 8th is a very respectable result. Beatriçe and Kolë you will forever be legends #zjermnation. Very pleasantly surprised that Latvia finished top half, and I'll happily take 16th for Lithuania as although it was comfortably my favourite I wasn't deluding myself that would be troubling anywhere near the top end (and there was a massive gap from them to the top 15 so they pretty much won the 'best of the rest'). The UK jury showing absolute taste in giving decent points to both of those including the 12 to Latvia! Portugal robbed, Spain robbed, Iceland robbed (0 from the jury is very rude). San Marino was not amazing but they didn't deserve to come last. Assuming whoever updated the Wikipedia article is reliable, the semi winners were Ukraine and Israel (so LOL at a not insignificent number of people really thinking Ukraine might be out this year, though they were at least not an overwhelming winner like Israel unfortunately were), but then the second places are iconic - Albania and Latvia(!!!). Sweden and Estonia only coming 4th and 5th!

We're missing the following countries who entered last month ~ (plus the 3 banned nations) Hinterlandia Palmyra Singerpurear The Spodic Empire Thelonia Utopia I need to finish veto research and realistically not getting that done during Eurovision, maybe this isn't a good week to hold confirmations but I should get it done later tonight x Aware Popchartfreak said he's not entering but @hinterland @CianS @Colm @lewistgreen @RabbitFurCoat if you wanna sneak an entry in tonight or so

The cutoff for that is under 51 entries I'm pretty sure ~

Albania take my energy and win me money I hope if we do go the way of jury bait French ballad winning that it'd be Switzerland again rather than France, 'Voyage' is miles better than 'Maman' for me. Would be happy with either Sweden or Austria winning though! (But yes, rooting for the small but not entirely nonexistent chance of an Albania win x)

Outrayyge

Not me reading the thread back and seeing Lithuania slander. Heathens

Lithuania is the one this year. (I knew it would be after hearing like 2 seconds of it in the clip played at the end of the first semi but it lived up to that x). I thought they would probably qualify but was nice for my nerves that they were announced through first. Thrilled for Latvia to have made it somewhat against the odds too, think it's close between that and Albania for my 2nd fave overall this year. I lost 2 of my top 5 and 1 more of my top 10 as in semi 1, but happier with the results overall today - my favourite of the DNQs musically was Georgia but I am not weeping for it being out due to the dodgy politics behind it oop. A shame to see Serbia and Montenegro both out though, big RIP to the whole ex-Yugo bloc this year. (Albania to win in solidarity pls). 1 Lithuania 2 Latvia (Germany) 3 Austria 4 Georgia 5 Serbia 6 Armenia 7 Finland 8 Greece 9 Montenegro 10 Denmark 11 Ireland (France) 12 Luxembourg 13 Czechia (United Kingdom) 14 Australia 15 Israel 16 Malta I liked Malta marginally more than I expected to. Having said that, it was still pretty cringe and probably still beating out Slovenia as my least favourite of the year. Also thought Israel's song was, musically, a little better than last year's. But still pretty bland. The UK girls are good live performers but the song feels like a bit of a disjointed mess unfortunately. I see that Australia was the big 'surprise' DNQ in this semi but I actually thought it sounded like a fairly obvious DNQ! Oop Glad that Denmark finally qualified again, this song was a little bit Tesco Value Loreen but it was fun enough. I've stuck a cheeky £5 on Albania to win as 40/1 odds on Bet365 seemed a little too generous to pass up, I think there is a plausible path to them cleaning up the televote and doing well enough with juries to come out on top. Cue them coming like 15th now.

Also have just seen it pointed out on Reddit that there were only 6 fully English language songs in this semi and 5 of them DNQed (!)

Belgium robbed, Croatia robbed, Portugal appreciation post to counter all the slander that I assume is in this thread, Albania to win (pending semi 2) 1 Albania 2 Belgium (Spain) 3 Sweden (Switzerland) 4 Croatia 5 Portugal 6 Iceland (Italy) 7 Ukraine 8 San Marino 9 Cyprus 10 Poland 11 Azerbaijan 12 Norway 13 Estonia 14 Netherlands 15 Slovenia My rankings from first impressions (I've managed to completely avoid hearing any of the songs at all before the contest this year so it's all on a nice fresh even playing field). Only 7/10 of my top 10 qualifying isn't too great as I didn't think this was that strong of a semi-final (although by the same token I can't say I really care about Cyprus being out, that and Norway may as well be interchangeable passable mid dance pop), I think I'll want to come back to my top 6 plus Spain and Switzerland from this lot, Italy and Ukraine may be growers, can take or leave the rest (and definitely leave Slovenia, shame as I feel like they're usually a good country for me). The clips of semi 2 sounded on the whole quite promising though so I'm hoping that'll be a stronger batch overall. I wasn't following the odds but I did definitely get the sense that Belgium and Portugal were the big surprise results and that indeed matches with what EurovisionWorld had predicted (Portugal being dead last! Dons teas), a little more surprised to see that Iceland were predicted to be out as I thought that was a strong opener, reminded me a bit of 'Queen Of Kings'. As if Slovenia allegedly had a better chance to qualify!

Oop I meant to look for an entry for this yesterday but I forgor. Will find something this evening x

Anonymous contest btw xx

Anonymous contest btw xx