ESC Etc.

We have all the songs!!!!

Country: Azerbaijan
Artist: Mamagama
Title: Run With U
Songwriter(s): Asef Mishiyev, Hasan Heydar, Roman Zee
Tempo: 116 BPM Mode: Minor Key: G Duration: 3:03

I had to sit with this one a bit before deciding how I feel about it – I do like the fact that Azerbaijan is sticking with homegrown acts instead of going back to Sweden to shop for MelFest rejects. That said, after repeat listens, I have come to the conclusion that I like last year’s Azeri entry much more, but I feel like this one’s got a better chance at advancing. Mamagama are cute and fairly experienced (they’ve been together since 2021), the video for the track is colorful and well produced, and Run With U is a strong showcase of their indie pop/funk-adjacent sound. I just wish the song was a bit more eventful and dynamic – it’s a perfectly fine entry with a catchy enough chorus and good vocals, but it lacks a moment or one specific component to make things really exciting. Pop fans should appreciate this, but in a year with several bangers in the mix, they they will most likely turn their attention towards more interesting entries with a more attractive package.

Jury Potential: This is definitely more of a jury song, and it is fairly radio-friendly with lyrics in English, so I could see it getting 2 or 3 points from a few juries (UK, Australia, the nordic countries). Will it top any jury’s ranking? Nah.
Televote Potential: I feel like this is more accessible than Özünlə apar, and I would expect the staging to be a bit less dour and solemn, but I fear it won’t be memorable enough to stand out.

Country: Netherlands
Artist: Claude
Title: C’est la vie
Songwriter(s): Arno Krabman, Claude Kiambe, Joren van der Voort, Léon Palmen
Tempo: 124 BPM Mode: Major Key: A Duration: 2:40

First of all, I’m incredibly happy to have the Netherlands back in the mix after last year’s disaster, and on top of that, Claude is one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen which should count for something – never underestimate a hot man’s ability to sell their entry (especially considering the ESC viewer demographics). I will say that the fandom seems to have taken to this song, which is always a good sign, and that it is a perfectly competent entry with a catchy chorus, solid production values, and a Stromae-inspired music video that seems to bode well for the live in Basel. That said, I don’t love it. It is absolutely not a skip when it comes up on my Eurovision playlist, but I don’t find it particularly exciting or memorable, and the code-switching in particular is a hard sell for me especially in the context of lyrics are really about nothing (stuff like “C’est la vie, et quelle miracle/Sometimes in love, sometimes misérable” would be borderline intolerable already in a JESC entry, but here it comes across as a clumsy attempt to dress up the verses and redirect the audience’s attention). I don’t really agree with others who are calling this a potential winner, but it is poised to have a respectable showing, and I can live with that.

Jury Potential: Obviously a jury song, but it won’t be the one, which ultimately probably still means left side of the board considering how the new voting system has reshaped the scoring these past coupla years.
Televote Potential: This will need to be as close to the music video as possible to really stand out, as well as a good spot in the running order (which is more likely than not, I’d imagine).

Country: Switzerland
Artist: Zoë Më
Title: Voyage
Songwriter(s): Emily Middlemas, Tom Oehler, Zoë Më
Tempo: 170 BPM Mode: Minor Key: C Duration: 2:59

I love this, and it is the best ballad of the bunch for me (and the only one in my personal Top 10). It’s gentle and soothing and moving, and the hook really lands in spite of (or perhaps thanks to) the minimalistic production that really highlights Zoe’s vocal and delivery (it’s a much harder song to sing that you’d think). I’m really afraid this might go the way of Portugal 2018 (the hosting country following up their win with a quiet, beautiful ballad that gets paid dust), but it drew an excellent spot in the final’s running order (#19) which should help, especially if sandwiched in between the more bombastic entries that tend to be selected to close the show.

Jury Potential: Ballads are generally much more appreciated by juries than voters at home, and while the direct competition here is looking fairly strong (Greece, France), there aren’t a lot of solo female acts this year, which should help.
Televote Potential: Switzerland doesn’t have to worry about qualifying this year, so there’s an opportunity to focus on thoughful staging that enhances the mood of the track. Yes, it can be done for ballads, too. Refer to Nielsen, Sanna and her laser prison for additional details!

Country: Austria
Artist: JJ
Title: Wasted Love
Songwriter(s): Johannes Pietsch, Teodora Špirić, Thomas Turner
Tempo: 133 BPM Mode: Minor Key: C♯/D♭ Duration: 2:45

ESC WINNER ALERT. Austria has quietly reinvented itself as the most eclectic ESC country we currently have since that resounding 2022 flop, making great use of songwriting camps and internal selections. As a result of that, in the span of three years we have been served three completely different yet equally outstanding entries – from the goofy, irrestistible dance pop stylings of Edgar to Kaleen’s techno rave banger to…popera?! Wasted Love starts as a delicate, soaring pop ballad about unrequited love, with JJ’s countertenor register in full display, only to…well, I won’t spoil the last 30 seconds of the track for those that haven’t listened to it yet, especially because watching faces crack in various YouTube reaction videos to this song has been one of the greatest joys of my 2025 ESC season. This entry was written and produced by people with a deep love for and knowledge of the contest (hi Teya!), which more than makes up for the fact that this is also clearly a package conceived and engineered to do well at Eurovision, and I cannot wait to see it live.

Jury Potential: This is your jury winner right here.
Televote Potential: Austria’s record with staging is spotty at best, but my feeling is that they know they have something here, and they will stage this accordingly. If this ends up Top 5 in the televote, as I suspect it will, it’s over.

Country: Czechia
Artist: ADONXS
Title: Kiss Kiss Goodbye
Songwriter(s): Adam Pavlovčin, Adriano Lopes da Silva, Geargo Masters-Clark, Inés Coulon, Lorenzo Calvo, Michaela Charvátová, Ronald Janeček
Tempo: 186 BPM Mode: Minor Key: A Duration: 2:57

Having announced the name of their artist (without a song) in December 2024, Czechia immediately put themselves in a dicey position. On the one hand, it’s good to bounce back from a NQ year by mobilizing early to find and work with an artist; on the other hand, the anticipation for a song slated to drop late in March is always incredibly hard to live up to. The fatal flaw of Kiss Kiss Goodbye, a perfectly serviceable album filler track, is that it lacks the immediacy a late ESC release would need to carve out a spot among tracks that the fandom has already been consuming for 1 or 2+ months. Is it well performed and produced? Sure. Is it exciting? Unfortunately, no. Midtempos are already at a disadvantage at ESC (the last one to win dates all the way back to 2011) by virtue of occupying a space to which neither juries nor fans tend to gravitate, and the need to dress up the composition to move it a bit more comfortably (with a oddly placed dance break in this case) hardly ever pays off. Adonxs is adorable, however, with a booming bass register that contrasts nicely with his aesthetic.

Jury Potential: This is pop-adjacent, which should help to a degree. That said, juries have a few truly formidable pop radio-friendly bangers to choose from already.
Televote Potential: This might not qualify, which is bad considering the fact that Czechia is already on their last nerve re: all things Eurovision.

Country: UK
Artist: Remember Monday
Title: What the Hell Just Happened?
Songwriter(s): Charlotte Steele, Holly-Anne Hull, Julie Aagaard, Lauren Byrne, Samuel Brenna, Thomas Stengaard, Tom Hollings
Tempo: 136 BPM Mode: Major Key: G Duration: 2:57

How many more years do we have to wait to call Space Man a flash in the pan? Oh, UK. It pains me to say it, but it’s been diminishing returns ever since Sam Ryder arguably almost won the whole thing in 2022. This entry is…a choice? I’ll give it that it does sound very British, but it all feels kind of forced and discombobulated, borrowing from Elton John and Queen in ways that sound contrived when they should feel innovative. Yes, the vocal harmonies will make some jurors happy, but the track itself is so disjointed and inaccessible (it peaked at #95 on the UK charts) that I don’t know exactly where the points will be coming from.

Jury Potential: Definitely higher than televote, but I fear still bottom 5.
Televote Potential: This one’s got last place written all over it.

Country: Sweden
Artist: KAJ
Title: Bara bada bastu
Songwriter(s): Anderz Wrethov, Axel Åhman, Jakob Norrgård, Kevin Holmström, Kristofer Strandberg, Robert Skowronski
Tempo: 106 BPM Mode: Minor Key: A Duration: 2:47

ESC WINNER ALERT. Nåjaa!!! This year’s Melodifestivalen will forever be remembered because of A) Måns Zelmerlöw getting pelted in the face by a handful of toilet paper as part of the clunky, weirdly Christic staging of his atrocious entry Revolution and B) KAJ being the first act to win the contest after being ranked LAST in the first set of odds released by the bookies. The title of Måns’ song is particularly ironic because, apart from there being absolutely nothing revolutionary about a track that sounded incredibly dated, cheesy, and ultimately devoid of any meaning, the real revolution was actually Sweden choosing to send a fun, incredibly well produced and performed novelty song in Swedish (for the first time since 1998!!!) over a former ESC winner who was the prohibitive fave to win it all, again (alas…there’s only one Loreen). “We’ll see in the juries made the right choice in May,” Måns bemoaned immediately after the end of the contest. Guess what, sore loser? Sweden’s now #1 in the odds and poised to win the televote for the first time since Euphoria in 2012. Bara bada bastu, sung in Vörå dialect (KAJ are Swedish-speaking Finns), is a joyous ode to saunas and the feeling of camaraderie that is part of a cultural/social practice that brings the nordic countries together. It’s also a banger with an earworm of a chorus that, also thanks to the inventive staging, just feels immediate even to listeners who don’t understand the lyrics. Is it too soon to go back to Sweden in 2026? Nahhh.

Jury Potential: This did surprisingly well with the MelFest international juries, and it’s actually really polished and well sung beneath the novelty patina. It will need to come Top 3/4 here to have a shot at winning, but that feels entirely achievable.
Televote Potential: This is your televote winner right here.

Country: San Marino
Artist: Gabry Ponte
Title: Tutta l’Italia
Songwriter(s): Andrea Bonomo, Edwyn Roberts Clark, Gabriele Ponte
Tempo: 128 BPM Mode: Major Key: F♯/G♭ Duration: 2:57

I might be mistaken, but I really do think this is the first time that a song used as a jingle in a music competition/national final gets selected by another country as their ESC entry. I mean, what are even the odds?! Tutta l’Italia was submitted to Sanremo last year and (recklessly) rejected by the new artistic director Carlo Conti (whose idea of current music is apparently old-style Italian ballads with a handful of rap entries thrown in for good measure) who later selected it as the official theme song for the festival. The song promptly turned into a viral phenomenon, so much so that there were calls to send it as Italy’s entry upon Olly’s withdrawal. Alas, San Marino got to it first, making this their most competitive entry since Adrenalina (which…what happened there? I’m still not over it). Penned and produced by Gabry Ponte of Eiffel 65 “I’m blueeee da ba dee da ba daa” fame, Tutta l’Italia is a dance banger that fuses EDM with tarantella with nods to la Gioconda and Toto Cutugno – in short, it’s the most Italian thing ever sent by a country that isn’t Italy. This is why I love Eurovision.

Jury Potential: Ponte is fairly well known in the European music scene, which should make up for the fact that this isn’t exactly a jury song.
Televote Potential: Pending the staging revamp, this is San Marino’s best shot at cracking the Top 20 in the final…ever.

Country: Portugal
Artist: Napa
Title: Deslocado
Songwriter(s): André Santos, Diogo Góis, Francisco Sousa, João Guilherme Gomes, João Lourenço Gomes, João Rodrigues
Tempo: 76 BPM Mode: Major Key: F♯/G♭ Duration: 3:00

Again, for the sake of efficiency…Portugal is taking a step back this year. This is a nice song that thematically resembles Rim Tim Tagi Dim and has become a huge domestic hit, which explains how it won FdC, but it’s not competitive and generally not even expected to advance to the finals. It’s vibes, though!

Jury Potential: Juries won’t be there in the semis to save this one.
Televote Potential: This will be very competently performed, but staging options are limited (NAPA is already 5 people that will be taking up the stage, so I’m expecting a concert-style performance) and the song is very subdued.

Country: Israel

How to help civilians impacted by the Israel-Gaza conflict

Country: Cyprus
Artist: Theo Evan
Title: Shh
Songwriter(s): Dimitris Kontopoulos, Elke Tiel, Elsie Bay, Lasse Midtsian Nymann, Linda Dale
Tempo: 142 BPM Mode: Major Key: G Duration: 2:57

I first listened to Shh in my car when it premiered on YouTube and, for a couple of weeks, didn’t really give it a second thought. While it felt like something I should like, it didn’t really stick the landing, nor did it strike me as a particularly competitive entry. And then…my brain started randomly revisiting it. Bits of the production here and there, the pre-chorus, some of the lyrics, the eponymous “shhhh.” So I decided to listen to it again. And again. And then some more. And now I have it on heavy rotation and I’m low-key obsessed with it. Does it do anything particularly well? Not really. Is it a contender? Nah. Can I bump to it? Absolutely yes. This is what I would usually call an uneventful bop – there’s not a lot going on and nothing specific to look forward to, but it works perfectly for what it is, the vocal is solid, and we’re being promised one hell of a show. I’m seated!

Jury Potential: Theo sounds good live, and considering that this is not that straighforward to sing, I could see some juries appreciating it.
Televote Potential: Rests entirely on the staging, which is reportedly very ambitious and being kept under wraps. It’s also closing its semifinal, which will definitelyn help.

Country: Georgia
Artist: Mariam Shengelia
Title: Freedom
Songwriter(s): Keti Gabisiani, Buka Kartozia
Tempo: 153 BPM Mode: Major Key: G Duration: 2:50

I don’t know about this one. Is Georgia giving up? It feels dated and weirdly philo-Russian/propagandistic, and I don’t really want to touch it.

Jury Potential: It’s DOA.
Televote Potential: DOA. Dead dead dead.

Country: France
Artist: Louane
Title: maman
Songwriter(s): Louane, Tristan Salvati
Tempo: 88 BPM Mode: Minor Key: G Duration: 3:00

France was the first country to release their entry in 2024, and they were the last this time around. In fact, much was made of Maman premiering at the Stade de France as the interval act of a Six Nations Championship match between Scotland and France. No expense was spared: Louane was introduced by a marching band and sang the whole song on a platform hoisted up in the air with foreworks and plenty of fanfare. The reception was…lukewarm? In a way, this bombastic introduction had the opposite of the intended effect – just too much going on in service of a quiet, introspective, mournful pop ballad with a sparse instrumentation that got almost entirely drowned out in the live. While I really do appreciate that, for the second year in a row, France is sending a well-known, established artist to the contest (they want to win and they’re finally taking it seriously), I find maman to lack any immediacy, in spite of the lovely vocal and the message behind it, and the direct comparison to Voyage doesn’t really do it any favors. That said, it’s a quality entry that is looking at yet another Top 10 finish, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Jury Potential: This will do well with juries across a bunch of countries, but it is not as rousing as Mon amour and, unfortunately for it, Austria exists.
Televote Potential: This will need a good (as in, late) spot in the running order, as most ballads do, to ensure it stays fresh with viewers at home.