Brer

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

We have our first clash this morning, dropped a message to the affected country x Sitting at 28 confirmed airlines so far

I don't know how people were paying attention enough to clock that KABEAUSHÉ would end up winning! Well done Addy, truly the king of song contests am sure it won't be too long before you claim a Bop Idol win too for the clean sweep of currently regular contests x I'll need to check out the 'full' version of the song but it still got a couple of points from me even with thinking it was a little too short based on the YouTube version. (per Jim's post, there is also the Movie Forum Song Contest which has had 3 editions but it's been a while since the last one so who knows if it'll ever return again, plus a widget was awarded for the Drag Race Song Contest but not sure if that was meant to be a one off or not. Also there was a one off Sports Forum Song Contest ages ago which didn't yield a widget iirc and most iconically of all the now even more buried in history than it already was Shoutbox Song Contest, plus a second edition of it which never got results. And I suppose also the Artist Forum Song Contest was a thing but that was a bit different). Not far off in my prediction for Nfract, glad the bad start for it was misleading! Voted for 7 of the top 10 in total so good going there, particularly glad to see my top pointer 100%WET sneaking in as well as both of the others from my podium being in the lower half of the top 10, hooray for a much better result for Tim Hecker than his 35th place in BJSC. And nice at RATPAJAMA being top 5 not too far behind Boy Harsher. feeble little horse and Surgeon both far too low </3 and would have liked Doctor B's to be a bit higher too but at least it did also recover after floundering at the bottom for some time. Not quite a top 10 for myself in the end indeed but just about making it to triple figure points and finishing in the top half, that'll do me for an obviously divisive entry (I wonder if anyone was really having a bad time with it on SyncTube xx). Thanks Cody for the hostings, an enjoyable edition! And now for the customary hoping that we don't have to wait a whole year for the next one again x

Vundabar was a banger to open the running order, I remember they had a low top 100 hit off TikTok virality a while back which I don't recall caring too much for so was a pleasant surprise how into this one I was. The Videoclub song was cute but a little too Fr*nch for me I fear Not quite finishing with a bang (assuming those were the last votes) so I'm feeling like I've probably missed the top 10 but we'll see x

Pavi pulling a Chez with the self recycling into an unknown contest x (Max Cooper feels a bit too 'known' for this contest at this point really but I'll never complain at hearing more music from him <3 and that was the last of the 4 me recycles x) Thank you for another double figure pointage also! My scores post scoreboard freeze have felt just as inconsistent as before the freeze so no real sense of if I'm likely to still be contending for top 10 or not

Thanks AllStar! (and that's the third of my recyclers unmasked, alas the only one I didn't vote for oops but it was very close) Wondering now if Max Cooper will turn out to have been Pavita again x

Not sure we get rap entries in Unknown Pleasures too often! (then again the contest doesn't happen at all that often these days x). dexndre definitely stood out a lot.

Thanks Joops! Glad to see 100%WET and Vundabar (and Nfract) doing a lot better now than they were a bit earlier x

and ooh there are my votes x Was drawn to the allure of an atmospheric black metal tag on Reddit again, expected it to potentially be an acquired taste as ever with black metal although the vocals on this are so drowned out that they're quite easy to ignore and just get lost in the fantastic instrumental. Been a bit up and down on the scoreboard so far, got off to a great start then dropped off quite a bit but have now mostly recovered again, nice to currently be in the top 10 and hooray that I at least bagged one top score, thanks Dobbo <3 also many thanks to Rollo for the bronze medal, Leww for double figure points and Chez, Jade, uhsting, Iz, Severin, Suede and Addy for the other votes so far! edit: ...and back out of the top 10 now! Great noise pop entry from ar Savan though x

Leww being the second unveiling to have recycled one of my artists, this one from Club Bizarre, another banger from Surgeon