It would basically be their own fault, though. Israel have been advertising globally to vote for their song, which is against the EBU rules. Last year and this year the public votes look very odd,...
It would basically be their own fault, though. Israel have been advertising globally to vote for their song, which is against the EBU rules. Last year and this year the public votes look very odd, yet the EBU keep changing the rules to make it even easier to game. This year, you could vote online via credit card - making it incredibly easy to game votes.
The main sponsor of the ESC continues to be morrocan oil, an Israeli company.
Curious what the sentiment of Israel and Geopolitics will be after contest. Based purely on the music, it was fine but not a particularly speical song for me. But the whole mess you mentioned must...
Curious what the sentiment of Israel and Geopolitics will be after contest. Based purely on the music, it was fine but not a particularly speical song for me. But the whole mess you mentioned must be putting a bad taste in everyones mouth. Unfair enforcement of already debased rules combined with the high performance of a politically contentious and well connected country. And it also seems pretty clear that any mention of Isreal is being suppressed on the official channels and nothing stops backlash better than censorship /s.
Also looks like there was a big betting market around the contest and this unfairness can not be going down well.
Was pretty interested in the contest for the music but it seems to be a little platform for people to decide where Europeans stand. I know its in the spirit of putting politics aside but we are politically charged time and that politics is changing the rules for competitors. Combined with the US insanity and their closeness to Israel and Russia and real antisemitism being conflated with fair critique and the recent Trump middle east tour being much friendlier than any EU discussions. It's all so messy and can't imagine how people across Europe are unpacking it.
Not the same reason as Australia. Israel is able to participate due to being inside the European Broadcasting Area, which grants their broadcaster the right to join the EBU (European Broadcasting...
Not the same reason as Australia.
Israel is able to participate due to being inside the European Broadcasting Area, which grants their broadcaster the right to join the EBU (European Broadcasting Union). The same applies to many other countries outside Europe, such as Morocco and Egypt, who could participate in Eurovision whenever they wanted (but haven't, except for Marocco who participated once in the 80's, when Israel was absent).
That is to say, Israel's participation isn't special in that way — the ongoing genocide of course is a different matter which IMO should disqualify them.
Australia, on the other hand, has a special arrangement that allows them to participate.
That is the practical reason, sure. Thanks for the added context. I posit that Eurovision is simply a quasi political event and the participation, or lack thereof by eligible parties, is a...
That is the practical reason, sure. Thanks for the added context. I posit that Eurovision is simply a quasi political event and the participation, or lack thereof by eligible parties, is a political act in and of itself.
Always has been. It's a microcosm of European politics and you'd often see states vote in favour of allied or friendly states. Or very specifically not at all vote for states they aren't seeing...
Was pretty interested in the contest for the music but it seems to be a little platform for people to decide where Europeans stand.
Always has been. It's a microcosm of European politics and you'd often see states vote in favour of allied or friendly states. Or very specifically not at all vote for states they aren't seeing eye to eye with. Balkan votes are always funny.
But we all know it's a political farce. Serbia won on their first year of entering the contest after Yugoslavia ceased to exist.
I think if it survived last year with the Israeli song being initially overtly political then hastily rewritten, Israel also using ads to promote last year too, along with the Joost...
I think if it survived last year with the Israeli song being initially overtly political then hastily rewritten, Israel also using ads to promote last year too, along with the Joost disqualification scandal, I think this year is not going to have as big an impact on Eurovision's credibility.
It was more or less the same story last year, except that the vote "rigging" was to a lesser degree. Apparently the Israeli government ran a lot of ads on e.g. youtube in front of all other...
It was more or less the same story last year, except that the vote "rigging" was to a lesser degree.
Apparently the Israeli government ran a lot of ads on e.g. youtube in front of all other countries songs in the days leading up.
I'll also note that a similar story happened last year too; they received 375 points in total, with 323 of those being from televoting (2nd largest televoting score) and 52 of those from the jury....
I'll also note that a similar story happened last year too; they received 375 points in total, with 323 of those being from televoting (2nd largest televoting score) and 52 of those from the jury. This year, they received 357 votes in total, 297 from televoting (1st largest televoting score) and 60 from the jury.
If I recall correctly, until the last few moments, it looked like they might win back then too.
In my humble opinion, JJ was strictly the best singer in the contest, and they also had a great act, so I'm glad for this result. There were some disappointing scores but I'm glad most of the...
In my humble opinion, JJ was strictly the best singer in the contest, and they also had a great act, so I'm glad for this result. There were some disappointing scores but I'm glad most of the songs I liked did well enough. 9 of the top 10 after the end of the jury vote were songs I wanted to do well - I'll admit I (still) didn't expect so many televote points for Israel (despite past events), since while I thought they were decent there were better acts on every metric.
Tuned into the finale cold, except having watched the Latvian entry based on the previous tildes discussion. It was fun forming favourites in the moment. I think my top choices were: Latvia,...
Tuned into the finale cold, except having watched the Latvian entry based on the previous tildes discussion. It was fun forming favourites in the moment. I think my top choices were: Latvia, Austria, Sweden, Finland - mostly for the entertainment and spectacle. So, it was cool to see Austria win. Admittedly, both Italy and Portugal were songs I'd be most likely throw on at home.
I was surprised to see france and Switzerland do so well, I found them a bit boring. Between French songs about mothers, I preferred Netherlands Claude.
Also introduced my partner to it, and it was great seeing his reactions.
Longer article from Sky News. Some personal thoughts: No denying the skill of Austria's singer, but I personally don't like that style of singing. And it feels a little bit derivative of last...
No denying the skill of Austria's singer, but I personally don't like that style of singing. And it feels a little bit derivative of last year's winner, so I'm actually surprised he won.
At the party I was at last night some bemoaned the existence of the juries, but without them, Israel would have won a purely political victory with a song that was just pretty good. The real problem here though is that we're allowed to vote up to 20 times for a single country, which heavily benefits countries with die-hard supporters. Few bother to vote 20 times for their favourite song, but many do for their favourite nation.
There were a few songs where the live performances were disappointing compared to the studio versions. I think this explains how Australia failed to qualify, and how Malta and UK both got zero points from the tele-votes.
Anyone else felt the camera work was better in the semi-finals than in the grand final? I think this hurt the acts that relied on visual gags, like Estonia, Sweden, and Malta.
I want to go back to the voting system/presentation used from 2009 to 2025. It got flak for not leaving any suspence to the end of the voting, with the winner becoming clear partway through; but I much prefer that to the reality-TV-style fake suspence of the current vote reveal, and the cringe of watching the contestants' faces when they recieve the dreaded zero points (or just a devastatingly low score).
20 times per credit card number, and it does not appear that there was any check for virtual card numbers. This added to the way the voting mechanism works (12 points from many countries could...
The real problem here though is that we're allowed to vote up to 20 times for a single country
20 times per credit card number, and it does not appear that there was any check for virtual card numbers. This added to the way the voting mechanism works (12 points from many countries could require votes merely in the low thousands) means that the system could be easily swayed.
The problem is likely that some form of proportional points allocation would make much more sense, but would be much less entertaining.
I agree! I'm Canadian and I've never watched Eurovision before, but I tuned in to this one because my mom liked the Espresso Macchiato guy and sent me a couple videos from the semi finals. He did...
I agree! I'm Canadian and I've never watched Eurovision before, but I tuned in to this one because my mom liked the Espresso Macchiato guy and sent me a couple videos from the semi finals. He did really well too, it was very entertaining!
But if I had to pick my own top 5, would probably be Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Greece, and maybe Malta because it was unhinged.
Bonus mentions to Portugal which I thought was a great song, and Finland - I was initially like "really? is this what we're doing? more of this?" but she won me over. It's a bop. And she put on a show, just mic stands all over the place, none of which were used to hold a microphone.
The staging for the Latvian song gave me chills. The costuming really hit on a 'serpentine siren' vibe, is that what they were going for? I read the write-up that @crissequeira posted on it the other day and was glad to have some extra context!
Totally agree--this was the only song I'd actually choose to listen to. I was really surprised it made it to the final. I did think JJ deserved to win based solely on his vocals, though. Really a...
Totally agree--this was the only song I'd actually choose to listen to. I was really surprised it made it to the final. I did think JJ deserved to win based solely on his vocals, though. Really a unique talent. As a classically trained coloratura, I was astonished that he nearly had my range--very unusual for countertenors (most of whom are in the alto range). I thought the song itself was mediocre, though pleasantly reminiscent of the opera singer scene in the Fifth Element.
Katarsis was just not pop enough for the contest's culture, I think. I do hope the participation and publicity helps them continue and develop their art.
My favorites were: Latvia United Kingdom Luxembourg Portugal Germany Australia A lot of crimes were committed in this year: Latvia didn’t make it into the top 10 (they got at least 3x12 points...
Latvia didn’t make it into the top 10 (they got at least 3x12 points from the jury though).
United Kingdom got zero points from the public. WTF world!?!?!? Holly rightfully flipped everyone of at the announcement. lol Has everyone lost their minds? The song was so catchy! I absolutely loved it! It would have made logical sense for it to get somewhere between 50 to 100 points. Even the jury gave them quite a bit. What’s wrong with y’all!?
Australia didn’t get into the finals, but Estonia did. The vibe is exactly the same. They’re both catchy songs. How did this happen!? Unacceptable! Everyone who didn’t vote for Australia deserves to be pecked by an emu.
Israel almost won. (How are they being allowed to participate to begin with!?)
Austria won. It should have clearly been Estonia though. Nothing personal against Austria’s entry, and the artist is obviously a talented singer, but the song, and everything around it was fatally boring to me. Funny enough, I told friends during the second semifinal that Austria’s entry sounded a lot like last year’s winner (Nemo, for Switzerland). Well, I guess this is the winning formula now?
I loved their song, but in my opinion they were in over their heads and unable to give it the live performance it deserved. Australia was also a weak live performance, while Estonia nailed the...
United Kingdom got zero points from the public. WTF world!?!?!?
I loved their song, but in my opinion they were in over their heads and unable to give it the live performance it deserved. Australia was also a weak live performance, while Estonia nailed the dance routine and gave us some absolutely hilarious visuals.
Israel almost won. (How are they being allowed to participate to begin with!?)
I've heard it claimed that if Israel is evicted from the EBU, it will make it easier for their government to take control of the last free TV stations in the country. Not sure how much truth there is to that.
I love how everyone on Tildes seems to have very different opinions on which songs were best this year. It goes to show how, in my own opinion, the offering across Eurovision this year was so...
I love how everyone on Tildes seems to have very different opinions on which songs were best this year. It goes to show how, in my own opinion, the offering across Eurovision this year was so strong. So on that basis he's my own opinion which differs to everyone else's based purely upon their performance in the final:
Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
Ukraine: Ziferblat – Bird of Pray
Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm
Germany: Abor & Tynna – Baller
Israel: Yuval Raphael – New Day Will Rise.
Austria: JJ – Wasted Love.
Iceland: VÆB – RÓA
Italy: Lucio Corsi – Volevo Essere Un Duro
Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA
The UK didn't rank in the top 10 for me but I'd like to give them some credit for trying something different even though the overall execution was a little weak. Although I ranked my top 10 songs I feel that Sweden and Estonia were far ahead of the rest.
You could practically hear buttcheeks unclenching at the EBU when Israel didn't win. That would have been extremely awkward for them I think.
It would basically be their own fault, though. Israel have been advertising globally to vote for their song, which is against the EBU rules. Last year and this year the public votes look very odd, yet the EBU keep changing the rules to make it even easier to game. This year, you could vote online via credit card - making it incredibly easy to game votes.
The main sponsor of the ESC continues to be morrocan oil, an Israeli company.
Curious what the sentiment of Israel and Geopolitics will be after contest. Based purely on the music, it was fine but not a particularly speical song for me. But the whole mess you mentioned must be putting a bad taste in everyones mouth. Unfair enforcement of already debased rules combined with the high performance of a politically contentious and well connected country. And it also seems pretty clear that any mention of Isreal is being suppressed on the official channels and nothing stops backlash better than censorship /s.
Also looks like there was a big betting market around the contest and this unfairness can not be going down well.
Was pretty interested in the contest for the music but it seems to be a little platform for people to decide where Europeans stand. I know its in the spirit of putting politics aside but we are politically charged time and that politics is changing the rules for competitors. Combined with the US insanity and their closeness to Israel and Russia and real antisemitism being conflated with fair critique and the recent Trump middle east tour being much friendlier than any EU discussions. It's all so messy and can't imagine how people across Europe are unpacking it.
apparently the Spanish broadcaster was fined for mentioning gaza. Why is Israel in Eurovision, again?
Same reason Australia is. This stuff is political soft power masquerading as entertainment.
Not the same reason as Australia.
Israel is able to participate due to being inside the European Broadcasting Area, which grants their broadcaster the right to join the EBU (European Broadcasting Union). The same applies to many other countries outside Europe, such as Morocco and Egypt, who could participate in Eurovision whenever they wanted (but haven't, except for Marocco who participated once in the 80's, when Israel was absent).
That is to say, Israel's participation isn't special in that way — the ongoing genocide of course is a different matter which IMO should disqualify them.
Australia, on the other hand, has a special arrangement that allows them to participate.
That is the practical reason, sure. Thanks for the added context. I posit that Eurovision is simply a quasi political event and the participation, or lack thereof by eligible parties, is a political act in and of itself.
Always has been. It's a microcosm of European politics and you'd often see states vote in favour of allied or friendly states. Or very specifically not at all vote for states they aren't seeing eye to eye with. Balkan votes are always funny.
But we all know it's a political farce. Serbia won on their first year of entering the contest after Yugoslavia ceased to exist.
I think if it survived last year with the Israeli song being initially overtly political then hastily rewritten, Israel also using ads to promote last year too, along with the Joost disqualification scandal, I think this year is not going to have as big an impact on Eurovision's credibility.
It was more or less the same story last year, except that the vote "rigging" was to a lesser degree.
Apparently the Israeli government ran a lot of ads on e.g. youtube in front of all other countries songs in the days leading up.
You can still see them here: https://www.youtube.com/@vote4newdaywillrise
I'll also note that a similar story happened last year too; they received 375 points in total, with 323 of those being from televoting (2nd largest televoting score) and 52 of those from the jury. This year, they received 357 votes in total, 297 from televoting (1st largest televoting score) and 60 from the jury.
If I recall correctly, until the last few moments, it looked like they might win back then too.
In my humble opinion, JJ was strictly the best singer in the contest, and they also had a great act, so I'm glad for this result. There were some disappointing scores but I'm glad most of the songs I liked did well enough. 9 of the top 10 after the end of the jury vote were songs I wanted to do well - I'll admit I (still) didn't expect so many televote points for Israel (despite past events), since while I thought they were decent there were better acts on every metric.
Tuned into the finale cold, except having watched the Latvian entry based on the previous tildes discussion. It was fun forming favourites in the moment. I think my top choices were: Latvia, Austria, Sweden, Finland - mostly for the entertainment and spectacle. So, it was cool to see Austria win. Admittedly, both Italy and Portugal were songs I'd be most likely throw on at home.
I was surprised to see france and Switzerland do so well, I found them a bit boring. Between French songs about mothers, I preferred Netherlands Claude.
Also introduced my partner to it, and it was great seeing his reactions.
Longer article from Sky News.
Some personal thoughts:
No denying the skill of Austria's singer, but I personally don't like that style of singing. And it feels a little bit derivative of last year's winner, so I'm actually surprised he won.
At the party I was at last night some bemoaned the existence of the juries, but without them, Israel would have won a purely political victory with a song that was just pretty good. The real problem here though is that we're allowed to vote up to 20 times for a single country, which heavily benefits countries with die-hard supporters. Few bother to vote 20 times for their favourite song, but many do for their favourite nation.
There were a few songs where the live performances were disappointing compared to the studio versions. I think this explains how Australia failed to qualify, and how Malta and UK both got zero points from the tele-votes.
Anyone else felt the camera work was better in the semi-finals than in the grand final? I think this hurt the acts that relied on visual gags, like Estonia, Sweden, and Malta.
I want to go back to the voting system/presentation used from 2009 to 2025. It got flak for not leaving any suspence to the end of the voting, with the winner becoming clear partway through; but I much prefer that to the reality-TV-style fake suspence of the current vote reveal, and the cringe of watching the contestants' faces when they recieve the dreaded zero points (or just a devastatingly low score).
20 times per credit card number, and it does not appear that there was any check for virtual card numbers. This added to the way the voting mechanism works (12 points from many countries could require votes merely in the low thousands) means that the system could be easily swayed.
The problem is likely that some form of proportional points allocation would make much more sense, but would be much less entertaining.
Also; next time you're in Peloponnese, make sure you pick up a bottle of Sustainable Roditis at Ktima Bairaktaris. It is absolutely amazing.
The Lithuanian's entry was awesome :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F6bwWGhm_s
Hopefully they keep at it and release an album.
I agree! I'm Canadian and I've never watched Eurovision before, but I tuned in to this one because my mom liked the Espresso Macchiato guy and sent me a couple videos from the semi finals. He did really well too, it was very entertaining!
But if I had to pick my own top 5, would probably be Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Greece, and maybe Malta because it was unhinged.
Bonus mentions to Portugal which I thought was a great song, and Finland - I was initially like "really? is this what we're doing? more of this?" but she won me over. It's a bop. And she put on a show, just mic stands all over the place, none of which were used to hold a microphone.
The staging for the Latvian song gave me chills. The costuming really hit on a 'serpentine siren' vibe, is that what they were going for? I read the write-up that @crissequeira posted on it the other day and was glad to have some extra context!
Totally agree--this was the only song I'd actually choose to listen to. I was really surprised it made it to the final. I did think JJ deserved to win based solely on his vocals, though. Really a unique talent. As a classically trained coloratura, I was astonished that he nearly had my range--very unusual for countertenors (most of whom are in the alto range). I thought the song itself was mediocre, though pleasantly reminiscent of the opera singer scene in the Fifth Element.
Katarsis was just not pop enough for the contest's culture, I think. I do hope the participation and publicity helps them continue and develop their art.
My favorites were:
A lot of crimes were committed in this year:
I loved their song, but in my opinion they were in over their heads and unable to give it the live performance it deserved. Australia was also a weak live performance, while Estonia nailed the dance routine and gave us some absolutely hilarious visuals.
I've heard it claimed that if Israel is evicted from the EBU, it will make it easier for their government to take control of the last free TV stations in the country. Not sure how much truth there is to that.
I love how everyone on Tildes seems to have very different opinions on which songs were best this year. It goes to show how, in my own opinion, the offering across Eurovision this year was so strong. So on that basis he's my own opinion which differs to everyone else's based purely upon their performance in the final:
The UK didn't rank in the top 10 for me but I'd like to give them some credit for trying something different even though the overall execution was a little weak. Although I ranked my top 10 songs I feel that Sweden and Estonia were far ahead of the rest.