That Eurovision Review - 2026

Hello again,

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

I will not write a Eurovision review this year.  Not enough time.

...Ah.  I think I might have accidentally written a Eurovision review this year.  

Enjoy, share, and agree or disagree with as much of it as you like.  

Wheresoever possible, I've based reviews on the National Final performance for each contestant, resorting to videos or other broadcasts only where I've not been able to find the first-named.  Any drastically altered choreography from National Final to (semi-)final proper may, of course, make me look a pillock, but I don't usually need much help in that regard anyway.

Nominating my idea of an outright winner is proving utterly beyond me even at this relatively close order; nominating my ideas of what ought to tank (with nul points, even) rather less so.  The quality threshold between the very best and very worst strikes me as somewhat more stretched this year than last - you too?

J xx

Semi-Final #1

MOLDOVA

SATOSHI - Viva, Moldova!

It doesn't take much to work out why this was drawn to open the evening's proceedings.  An immediate bolt of energy, and the first of several entries this year which get by largely on unsubtle, shouty, force of will.  

Largely, you'll notice, rather than solely.  As a love letter to Moldova, Viva, Moldova! succeeds utterly.  Feed the lyrics through the translation service of your choice and try to discern any cynicism or playing down of the country's various attributes.  You won't succeed.  

That infectious sense of pride and wonder may carry this one a little further than, with the best will in the world, the late-1990s iteration of the rap-rock hybrid offered up strictly merits. 

SWEDEN

FELICIA - My System

Masks, then.  If BAJ's selection for Sweden last year caused a few metaphorical masks to slip, revealing John Lundvik as a sore loser and in part setting the wheels in motion for Måns Zelmerlöw's dramatic fall from grace, then Sweden's masks this year are actual, physical, worn masks.  

(It's quite the year for masks if you think about it, factoring in also the chosen attire of alternative music's hottest property in 2026, French-Canadian microtonal rockers Angine de Poitrine.  If only the late Frank Sidebottom were also still here to ride the pro-mask tide).

Felicia Eriksson has spent much of her public career partly or - as the original singer for the Swedish musical project Fröken Snusk - wholly masked, and continues to derive the comfort that at least some covering provides as an anxiety battler.

That last detail alone wins her my sympathy and empathy, as a lifelong grappler with the same affliction myself.  It's a condition broadly incompatible with performing entirely happily at any level (it's what effectively killed off acts from XTC to Northern Picture Library as live entities); and if I need a Propranolol before and a long rest after delivering a ten-minute paper to just a couple of colleagues at work, be under no illusions about how much of a toll giving fully of herself many times over in front of thousands during the Eurovision campaign will exact upon Felicia.

On that account, I genuinely wish her a successful and fulfilling Contest week.  On the song's account, not quite so much.  

Sweden's retreat back into precision-tooled eurotechno after the delightful Vörå epadunk surprise of Bara bada bastu netted them "only" fourth place (an uplift on 2024's ninth, but perhaps not what was anticipated after a record-breaking points victory in Melodifestivalen) is perhaps not the greatest surprise.  

Even by recent standards, however (compared to, say, Unforgettable in 2024), this feels a particularly antiseptic, stingingly cold example of the type - all the more jarring, considering the torment evident in the lyrics.  One or two fiddly little fills check momentum at inopportune junctures, too, and the visuals of red light flashes on a black background have surely been done to death by now.

It's not a substandard piece of work by any stretch of the imagination.  This longstanding powerhouse of Eurovision would not entertain allowing such.  It's simply not as loveable as I'd have liked it to be for my, and more especially the performer's, sake. 

CROATIA

LELEK - Andromeda

Missing out on national selection last year (they were fourth) might just prove to be a blessing for Lelek, for either or both of two reasons.  

One, it kept them away from Latvia's fellow ethno folkists Tautumeitas and avoided a potential splitting of their share of the vote to each others' ultimate detriment. Two, the fact that Bur man laimi overachieved to the extent it did (how many honestly had them down as high as thirteenth overall beforehand?) will have emboldened selectors and public at home alike that a song of that nature can still gain some degree of traction in a present day Contest. Win win.

Andromeda is no lazy facsimile of Bur man laimi, however. It's the shade to that track's light. Rather than an evocation of happiness, Lelek's entry offers a pained, impassioned exploration of the Ottoman Empire's persecution of Catholic Croats. 

Nearer to 2024's Veronika by Raiven in weighty historical subject matter, then, if sonically on a different page to both that one and, to a certain extent, Bur man laimi.  None of the subtle, Mark Bell-alike clanks of the Latvia track here; instead, this could easily pass as something released by one of the more precious, art-house acts on 4AD during the 1980s.  

And whether you liked those acts will ultimately determine whether you regard that as a compliment.  I'm not sure how many Dead Can Dance fans will be giving up their Tuesday night to watch the first semi, but Andromeda would mop up the vote among them. 

GREECE

AKYLAS - Ferto

One of those instances where it's possible to know too much, as the avaricious, greedy, consume at all costs lyrics (think Here We Go by Stakka Bo ramped up by infinity) inevitably detract from the overall charm of the package.  

This one ought to be flypaper to me; lots of the winningmost traits of early-1990s chart techno and Eurodance, impeccable Game Boy era-inspired visuals (save, perhaps, for when multiple Akylases vomit coins which look more like oranges) and a bridge which goes from heartfelt to cheeky in the time it takes yer man to smirk a quick "whatever".  So long as I bleach the worst excesses of the content from my brain, I'll be reyt.

PORTUGAL

BANDIDOS DO CANTE - Rosa

Never let it be said this Contest doesn't teach you things. Cante Alentejano is a regional Portuguese music genre of unaccompanied vocals, which was inscribed in 2014 in UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.  

It's also Bandidos Do Cante's stock in trade, and whilst Rosa only grants them thirty seconds or so to demonstrate that gift in its purest form before the instrumentation kicks in, that backing is so subtle and slight as not to obfuscate their delivery to any discernible degree.  

It's an arrangement which affords the quintet no hiding place, but on all performances seen so far none has been needed.  Another song of quiet grace and poise from the nation increasingly becoming synonymous with the like.

GEORGIA

BZIKEBI - On Replay

Although having fired fewer darts, the record of Junior Eurovision for anointing future senior stars has proven even worse than that of Junior Wimbledon (at least, for every twenty or so Gianluigi Quinzis or Noppawan Lertcheewakarns, the latter does unearth the odd Iga Swiatek).  

That didn't augur well for 2008 Junior Eurovision champions Bzikebi's prospects before the contest, and they're little better for having heard On Replay, a dance-pop number written by another former Georgian Junior Eurovision contestant that's serviceable but simply too unremarkable in comparison to its genre-mates elsewhere in the line-up.

I'm not sure whether Bzikenbi's initial fame spread far enough beyond home for a credibility issue to linger over them even now - tellingly, they're still described foremost as "children's music" on their Wikipedia entry.  Their winning track in 2008 was Bzz..., a novelty track performed in a made-up language whilst dressed as bees.  I'd give my eye teeth to see Georgia send prog nutters Circus Mircus back to Eurovision with an adult upgrade of that. 

ITALY

SAL DA VINCI - Per Sempre Si

The past is vast, and there's a lot of perfectly good music in it.  Italy understands this.  

It also understands instinctively when to bring that music of the past out of cold storage and upgrade it for the present day (Måneskin's repurposing of seventies hard rock constituting the ultimate example), and when instead to offer absolutely pristine reproductions.  Lucia Corsi's Bolan-era glam last year got it mostly right, and Sal Da Vinci's orchestral disco this year even more so.

Sal's commitment to and respect for the craft, the song and the showmanship is too obviously sincere for its legitimacy to be questioned.  There is not the faintest trace of smirking-into-sleeve parody.  The dinner suit and soft bow tie.  The immaculate hair.  The wandering up to the front row of the audience to shake a hand or two (in the National Final, at least; please God don't let the crash barriers before the stage thwart him during Contest week proper).   

And the song, of course.  The note-perfect engaging with a song as much in love with the idea of love as so many of the songs from the Neopolitan Song repertory on which he's based a professional reputation.  

Shoutier upstarts may harbour greater claims of winning the Contest outright than Per Sempre Si, and whether Ver Kids (as the music weeklies always used to call them) engage with it at all is a moot point, but few if any performers and tracks will present themselves quite so authentically, or do their thing so naturally well. 

FINLAND

LINDA LAMPENIUS & PETE PARKKONEN - Liekinheitin

A generational talent on the violin, both solo and with orchestras.  A collaborator with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Jim Steinman, Jeff Goldblum, Celine Dion, Page & Plant and (on the last sessions before her passing) Ofra Haza.  An actor.  A fire-eater.  An author.  A rally driver.  A dancer.  A model.  A cider entrepreneur.  A politician.  

Read through all of that, and it's hard to work out why Linda Lampenius (formerly Brava; formerly also, to the British tabloids, Bach Babe - ugh) needs to add Eurovision to the CV, not least if the back and forth - ongoing at the time of writing this - concerning whether she'll be permitted to perform live rather than mimed violin ultimately doesn't find in her favour.

And then you hear the song.  In truth, the fiddle seems to play second... second... oh what's the word?, to the worried, rushing, haunted synths and vocals of the verses, and you can quite imagine there that some live heft might be more than useful.  Come the chorus, however, and that soaring, repeated riff, plus the almost Noxagt-esque abrasive scrapes, are already doing their job, egging Pete on and raising his bar accordingly.

Opinion appears divided among Eurovision commentators as to whether Pete is still reaching the high notes consistently enough for maximum confidence, and with one relatively early in the song it does perhaps remain to be seen whether Liekinheitin's fate is sealed within the first thirty seconds, one way or another, with the once-a-year viewers.

Nail everything, however, and this will run anything and everything in the Contest mighty close.  And what a joy it is, by the way, to have a song which mentions fire copiously (Liekinheitin means flamethrower) without resorting to fire-higher-desire rhyming.  There be fire in the staging, though.  Tick bingo card accordingly. 

MONTENEGRO

TAMARA ŽIVKOVIĆ - Nova Zora

Power in beauty, beauty in strength, strength in love, and all possible permutations thereof.  Tamara's embodiment of the empowered, unbreakable female persona was undermined (although not obviously with terminal consequences) in the National Final by a stage presence that exuded more frown than feist and a dance routine which lacked polish.  That can all be worked on; the limitations of an electro-pop track lacking in memorable moments compared to its Contest peers, not so much.

ESTONIA

VANILLA NINJA - Too Epic To Be True

"This song sounds older than me" ... "This song will be breaking the charts worldwide in '98" ... "How humble from Estonia giving their Grand Final spot to other countries!" ... The pelters among the YouTube comments for Too Epic To Be True are neither hard to find nor appreciate.  

Nowhere near as effective a summoning of its chosen past musical style - either as influence or reproduction - as some of those songs already reviewed; risible, cliched lyrics; and all of the grit in the oyster of Vanilla Ninja's rockier, more urgent 2005 Swiss entry Cool Vibes clinically sanded off.  And yet, for all that, still not the most disappointing effort in the entire Contest for me.  No, no, that comes up pretty soon... 

ISRAEL

NOAM BETTAN - Michelle

People far more versed than me in the study of media rhetoric will be able to confirm how the facts are being spun in Israel (i) that it continues to keep its place in Eurovision, and (ii) that - for all of the protestations and eventual boycotts - the 70th edition of the Contest features only two fewer participations than the 69th.

Are these being posited as validation or endorsement of the Israeli worldview and the Netanyahu administration's actions?  That seems a reach, unless the delegations of any of Bulgaria, Moldova or Romania have actively cited the ongoing offensive against Iran or Palestine as informing their decision to rejoin the Contest.  

Whether as many countries would have turned up this year had New Day Will Rise landed the 2025 prize by fair means or foul is a moot point also.  It can't be too controversial to suggest that Vienna is a simpler, more centrally located and less intimidating part of the world for allcomers to commute to than Tel Aviv would have been.  Not every delegation would have relished imperiling their intended contestants with a trip to the latter.

Only a slightly more depleted field of rival competitors it is, then, and a line-up of front-runners so strong that, on paper at least, Noam Bettan ought not be getting as close to bagging Israel victory as Yuval Raphael a year prior.  Put it another way; if he does, then EBU director Martin Green's avowed actions against disproportionate promotion campaigns and gaming of the voting system haven't been worth the candle.

And it's possible to say this because Michelle is a thoroughly unremarkable piece of work.  Although in a six-eight pop rather than a lovers' reggae styling, it's otherwise coincidentally reminiscent of the Jamaican Andru Donalds' 1994 European smash Mishale (pronounced Michelle, too) both in key signature and love-torment lyrics.  Pleasant enough, but merely pleasant does not a Contest win.  Ordinarily. 

GERMANY

SARAH ENGELS - Fire

Although there is plenty of music which I don't particularly care for, it takes a lot for a piece of music to make me genuinely, properly angry.  This year, the German delegation have succeeded.

So Abor & Tynna's Baller couldn't manage higher than 15th in last year's final, taking with it Stefan Raab's previous perfect score of six top ten finishes from as many Contests as he'd been involved with.  As we say in Germany, naja.

It did, however, gain major online traction and netted the duo a top ten hit in eight or nine mainland European territories, topping the charts in two.  Moreover, it felt like the first German entry in time immemorial that had some degree of cool about it; one that had been selected and curated with intent; one that mattered.

Expectations still ought to have been pegged realistically beforehand.  A country on a long run of mostly hideous results, humiliations, nul points, last-place finishes and all, could surely only improve eventually, but to go from last to first place in a single leap?  Even Spaceman didn't manage that, and that was a song with a more empirically universal appeal and open, ubiquitous performer than Baller, for all the latter's many undoubted qualities.

First place, however, was exactly what was demanded four months before last year's Contest by Inga Leschek, programme director of RTL, in order for that private broadcaster's partnership with regional broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (via national broadcaster ARD - think BBC1) and Raab in coordinating Germany's Eurovision selection process to survive into a second year. 

The rest you know, and so it has come to pass that the selection process has fallen solely instead into the lap of Südwestrundfunk, another regional broadcasting constituent part of ARD.  No commercial heft courtesy of RTL.  No expertise from Raab.  And to be honest, no clue whatsoever.

Hence Fire.  A song in which the elephant traps of fire-oriented lyrical banality which Liekinheitin sidestepped (even in translation) are routinely blundered into, whilst the sound of something Christina Aguilera would have rejected early on in her senior career tiddles away to no great effect.  

Proficient but by no means exciting up to that point, Sarah Engels looks ill at ease performing the mid-song floor writhing.  Compared to which, despite being 51 and with two knees shot to shit, my lumbering around ParkRun of a Saturday morning appears positively sprightly.

I shouldn't care so much.  It's just a Song Contest rather than a bellweather of all that's good or not good about my country of origin, and Frau Engels doesn't feature anywhere on our Hohmeister family tree or Christmas card list.  

The killing stone dead of the renewed optimism and momentum engendered by Baller is really, really hard to take, however, avoidable as it almost certainly was; and I fear nothing can save Fire from a zero score in at least one, if not both, of the jury and public tallies.  Video clip shared with the heaviest of hearts and no little reluctance. 

BELGIUM

ESSYLA - Dancing on the Ice

If anything in the world travels quicker than bad news, it's evidence of a flawed pre-Contest performance, and over 75,000 YouTube viewers have already seen Essyla muff her recent execution of Dancing on the Ice on the Belgian version of The Voice alone.  

Mumbling and tuneless in the opening stanzas written in a key signature almost certainly too low for her (as the song is largely self-penned, was this her choice or that of its arrangers?), but not tremendously convincing once the song gets going in earnest either.  

As has been commented elsewhere before now, too, it's hard to reconcile Essyla's broadly static presence with a song that literally mentions dancing in the title.  You could call it a misstep, were she actually taking that many steps in the first place.

There is a brooding, dark piece of reasonably arresting electropop waiting to be better served, and serviced, in amongst the wreckage; though the knowledge that better tracks than this have failed to escape the semis for Belgium in the past two years doesn't augur well, even if a transformative performance is pulled out of the bag when it matters.  A pity.  

LITHUANIA

LION CECCAH - Sólo quiero más

The bald head and silver face paint are nothing new - enduring French spacerock act Rockets were carrying off the same look over five decades ago.  And that, I think, is the nearest I can offer to a criticism of Sólo quiero más.  

A deliberately lone figure on a vast stage set-up containing nothing other the cloak from which he emerges, amplifying the feeling of smallness within an ever-growing vacuum of the artificial (let's hope for irony's sake that the stark background behind Lion wasn't AI-generated, eh).  A robotic figure, stilted, jerky movements and all, nevertheless striving against all increasingly pervasive instincts to try to find what's real, what can be felt, what hurts, what can be enjoyed.

Less a song, then, more a paean to those lived human experiences and passions, with no artifice or superfluousness about the fact it's sung in all of Lithuanian, Spanish, English, German, French and Italian.  

And a voice - at once technically unimpeachable but still laden with emotion - honed by years of crafting in environments from Vilnius College to the drag clubs of Lithuania.  The arrangement doesn't require Lion to try to match the octave-shredding range of JJ, but the money notes are still there to be hit, and are.  

Whisper it, but Sólo quiero más feels a more complete three minutes' plus of work than Wasted Love, too - no need to tack on a dance wigout at the end to make up the running time.

A thoroughly convincing entry, therefore, and as compelling a piece of art as has made this year's Contest (which, by the way, it only did after garnering more public support than the National Final rival it dead-heated with - we could have been looking at one of the best songs never to qualify otherwise).  

I don't band the term "art" around casually here, incidentally.  Threats to art (in all of its manifestations) in my own personal and professional orbits are sadly not hard to find - from the use of hastily implemented and insufficiently "trained" large language models to produce AI-generated content for hobby publications, to the accelerated deforesting of arts, language and humanities courses from academic institutions and secondary school curricula.  On account of which, I watch and listen to Sólo quiero más, and feel seen and heard.

Were the unthinkable to happen and Lion lift the title, the irony would not be lost on me that the victory of a song mounting a defence of art and feelings and experiences would be announced on outlets such as the BBC, an organisation which has gradually stripmined exactly those sort of evocations ever since the then Culture Secretary John Whittingdale put the frighteners up it back in 2010 (I refer you to Stewart Lee's writings on this). 

Odds of between 100-1 and 250-1 in the caveat emptor markets at the time of writing this review clearly suggest victory isn't anticipated, for all that they actually place the song in midfield rather than among the genuine stragglers.  In terms of a credible each-way punt at a rewarding price, however, look no further.  And dream. 

SAN MARINO

SENHIT - Superstar

A guest appearance from Boy George at any point this century, let alone as deep into it as 2026, carries with it none of the cachet or hubris of San Marino's parachuting of Flo Rida into its 2021 entry.  Quite the opposite; the possibility of being tarnished by association with a drug user who's served time for assault and false imprisonment wouldn't be for everyone.

It's Senhit you have to feel sorry for.  This is now a fourth Contest campaign for this most willing of Eurovision workhorses, of which only the first back in 2011 didn't have the appreciable distractions of either a global pandemic or broadly incompatible celebrity guests.  

Superstar (co-written by Senhit herself) is frothy and good-natured to a fault, delivered as wholeheartedly as you've come to expect, but the slightly dated feel to it don't necessarily constitute the sum total of its problems.  At least she moves around a lot good deal more than Gabry Ponte and company, mind. 

POLAND

ALICJA - Pray

Trying to stuff all of the musical styles that have formed you as a person and musician into a three-minute running time is setting yourself quite the tall order, unless (i) you are influenced by one style and one style only, or (ii) you're Cardiacs.  

Alicja goes for the trifecta of gospel, R&B and trap, and actually makes a decent fist of melding them into a coherent whole, her bombproof Beyoncé-alike delivery and the clean, simple arrangements smoothing over a lot of the potential rough joins.

A lot more enjoyable than it might have been in inexpert hands, though a little suspension of disbelief is required on those instances when the full gospel choir samples kick in, yet all you can see on stage with Alicja are three or four energetic but largely mute herberts in suits. 

SERBIA

LAVINA - Kraj Mene

First things first: what is Luka Aranđelović fiddling with for the first 15 seconds?  What's he doing?  Is it a homage to Stewart Lee's choreographed struggle with the Man-Wulf costume?

There are certainly things to admire about Serbia's anointing of Lavina as a Eurovision contender, and competition for the metal enthusiasts' vote is hardly in plentiful supply.

Equally, as with Katarsis's representatively bleak Tavo akys for Lithuania last year, there's something to admire about Lavina's determination not to give Vienna a competition-friendly, Lavina-lite iteration of themselves.  Kraj mene was even translated back into Serbian from the English they penned it in to ensure it better fits their idiom.

For about the first two minutes, however, this plays like a more straightforward rocker than the band's identification as a prog metal band might otherwise connote, and the screaming of the final third just feels a bit too tacked on.  A missed opportunity, all things considered.

Semi-Final #2

BULGARIA

DARA - Bangaranga

Such song as there is in Bangaranga - and away from the key vocal riff, there isn't a lot - has its momentum interrupted by three fills, at least two of them pretty jarring.  And that detail is not, I fear, going to be lost on the national juries.

More so than any other entry this year, however, Bangaranga is built for memes, TikTok, Snapchat, the lot - basically, wherever nothing more than Dara hollering Bangaranga is required to soundtrack a short clip.  If you're not already seeing and hearing it used in such, you've done well to miss it so far. 

A sizeable public vote seems assured, and whilst that ordinarily ought not be sufficient basis on which to anoint it as the overall winner as far as I'm concerned, a jury verdict split too evenly between a generous handful of worthy contenders this time around might - only might - make things a bit more interesting. 

AZERBAIJAN

Jiva - Just Go

You'd swear that this lifeless, artless combination of a last-century chart ballad arrangement and feeble lyrics was a will-this-do?, something cobbled together hastily for or by a national delegation with time and resource running out to seek out or create anything better.  

Extraordinarily, however, it was actually the pick from 186 songs submitted early enough to Azerbaijan's internal selection process this year.  Songwriting must be a dead art in Baku and environs, or else there's a whole selection board's worth of tin ears in need of alternative employment.

ROMANIA

ALEXANDRA CĂPITĂNESCU - Choke Me
Like for like comparisons with Serbia are probably unhelpful to both parties, but to this pair of ears Romania executes what it needs to within the metal idiom the more successfully of the two.

The earnestness of Alexandra's back line borders on cliché in part, what with the drummer and keyboard player trapped behind cages and the guitarists pulling their Sunday best deadpan gurns for all they're worth. 

Alexandra herself is a consummate, confident, commanding presence, however, ably negotiating the Bambie Thug fills and Kate Mille-Heidke trills studded throughout this otherwise pretty faithful reproduction of the sound of peak Evanescence. 

This might have scored Romania a sizeable result circa 2003, as an exercise in tapping into a prevailing musical zeitgeist pretty successfully.  Twenty-plus years on, it still ought not die a death. 

LUXEMBOURG 

EVA MARIJA - Mother Nature

Twelve months on, and Luxembourg offer up another winsome performer with an essentially sweet-natured song.  Eva Marija appears genuinely hard to dislike, nor am I of a mind to try to.

Unlike La poupée monte le son, however, a nagging sense persists that Mother Nature isn't being performed in the musical style that best fits performer or song.  Indiepop instead, possibly, or better still acoustic folk.  

Neither of those are genres that qualify especially often, of course, much less majorly trouble the scorers (My Star, the third place finisher in 2000 for Latvian indiepoppers Brainstorm, remains the most glorious outlier in that regard, and one possibly never to be repeated), leading to the conclusion that this pretty piece was, regrettably, never going to be the right Contest vehicle for Eva.

For what it's worth, I've no idea whether Luxembourg have been following Finland's lead in pressing for live rather than mimed violin playing, but if so granted, isn't Eva Marija's brief fiddle sting bound to suffer from comparison with Linda Lampenius's virtuosity even more than it already does? 

CZECHIA

DANIEL ZIZKA - Crossroads

Claims such as those preceding Daniel Zizka at the moment, namely that the process of writing Crossroads took two years to complete, aren't necessarily the flex the utterers may think they are.  "Two years and it still only sounds like this?"  It's hiding to nothing territory.

Or at least it would be, were this not an almost unqualified success.  By turns brooding, introspective, thoughtful and vulnerable in a way that precious few Eurovision offerings are (and, in truth, not much else outside of a Mark Hollis composition is), for much of the journey Crossroads feels like a sonically similar, if less lonely, relation to Anouk's similarly captivating Birds from 2013.

I'd personally have preferred Daniel not to feel the need to hit the high notes late in the piece, but nothing much else feels out of place about the most arresting Czech entry in many a long year. 

FRANCE

MONROE - Regarde!

Those of you who have long been itching to cross off the box marked "Congolese Mormon singing operatic pop" on your Eurovision bingo cards can rejoice - this is your lucky year.  

For all that hitting the high notes at some point has increasingly become a feature of Eurovision entries, and not without some measure of success, I can't immediately recall another track - not even Zero Gravity by Kate Miller-Heidke - as heavily loaded with examples of the opera singer's gifts (there's a hint of chanson, but no more than that).  And Regarde! makes very sure almost from the get-go that Monroe is going to demonstrate all of those gifts.

You get the sense that failure isn't being entertained by the French this year - here is a young, fresh, visually distinctive performer (long blonde braids, ties, wide belts) already the right side of a number one classical album, television competition success and scholarship back home, and it's time for the rest of the world to discover how big a deal she is.

That's fine and all, but the truth?  Regarde! is ultimately an exhausting listen.  The dips down to a cooed vocal delivery, or a cheeky shush, offer occasional respite, but it's not long before you're strapped to the front of the tank again, the almost Wagnerian orchestration just adding to the crushing force of the song at its most intense.  Your Bangaranga fans aren't going to want a bar of this.  

Regarde! also exists in a conversely completely stripped-down form - just Monroe, three relatively unobtrusive backing singers and a pianist.  It won't surprise you to learn it's my preferred rendition.  As a largely unadorned showcase of her talents, it's also the one I think would have served her better. 

ARMENIA

SIMÓN - Paloma Rumba

The law of diminishing returns does apply to a certain extent here.  

Yes, we're back in party metal territory.  Yes, Paloma Rumba is not as good an example of the type as Rim Tim Tagi Dim, in turn not quite as good an example as Cha Cha Cha.  Yes, it's nevertheless still a tremendous amount of fun - it's just that the other two tracks mentioned set the bar exceptionally high.  

It does boast at least two key points of difference to those genre forebears; the insistent, catchy ethno-pop motif repeated often, and the masterstroke of the ramped-up time signature late on.  Just when it couldn't go any faster, it does.  Paloma Rumba spanks, and at speed.

The strictures of the Contest limit the run time to the mandatory three minutes or thereabouts, but probably more so than any other track this time around, I'd welcome the existence of a much-extended out of competition version.  Props to any alternative club night who drops this into a mosh yourself silly interlude amid N.W.O., Bulletproof! and the like. 

SWITZERLAND

VERONICA FUSARO - Alice

Some music theorists will want to leap on me for mentioning doo-wop in the same breath as Alice, citing a chord progression - absent from this track - as the genre's defining characteristic rather than a time signature that accommodates rolling triplets.

Be that as it may.  To me, Alice feels as much a hybrid of doo-wop and indie rock as Only in a Dream by The Louche FC was of doo-wop/shoegaze and Doo-Wop Music by Trembling Blue Stars was of doo-wop/trip-hop.  That's today's niche hill on which to die, anyway.

What it doesn't feel like to me is a song which, although likely to be a net gainer from the return of juries in the semis, will go deep into the contest.  And that has nothing to do with Veronica's execution of the song (accomplished) or the contents (the exploration of physical and psychological violence against women will land with many).

Rather, singer-guitarists, either as a soloist or as the frontperson of a group, can't buy wins in the Contest these days.  None have achieved the feat since the Olsen Brothers in 2000.  No female has managed it since Nicole in 1982, Katrina Leskanich having operated solely as a vocalist when sweeping the board in 1997.  

Are they seen as too static, distant or unexciting to connect with the audience?  Or has the trend towards greater theatricality and stagecraft in recent times increasingly mitigated against just plonking some people onstage with instruments, and expecting that to resonate?  One suspects Alice's prospects could live or die on what Veronica is doing the moment the lights go up.

CYPRUS

ANTIGONI - Jalla

"You know how this one will sound before playing it" would be as inaccurate as it is facetious, considering Cyprus offered up a ballad three years ago and that EDM riddler guy last year.  

All that said, some of my comments for Cyprus's previous most recent dance number, Liar by Silia Kapsis in 2024, do indeed apply here.  Jalla also bounces along at a fair rattle, and is also inoffensive in that way which doesn't necessarily translate into favour and thus votes.

It's not pushing the boat out too much to suggest this isn't an entry or performer which Cypriots have taken to their hearts as one, though you'd be forgiven for thinking the main gripe is less Antigoni's north London nepo baby status (as the daughter of celebrity chef Tonia Buxton) and more the accompanying video's featuring of motorcycling without helmets.  People are funny. 

AUSTRIA

COSMÓ - Tanzschein

I don't have overly much time for those online wags commenting that Austria really like to go out of their way to make sure they don't win Eurovision two years in succession.  

Whatever real or perceived shortcomings there may be with Tanzschein, it represents an infinitely more satisfying offering than that in 2015 of The Makemakes, the piano-burning zero-pointers set the unenviable task of following on from Conchita Wurst.

 

It's actually a real multum in parvo track, a triumph of much from little.  

Slight, minimal and fairly unadorned electropop, coupled with a staging budget that really does appear not to have extended much beyond salvaging some masks from Subwoolfer's bins and repainting them.  Yet, for the narrative of the track, skewering the general awfulness of those lairy men, aggressive bell-ends and steroid abusers the singer observes in nightclubs, nothing much else is needed. 

A word for Cosmó himself, too.  Still only nineteen years of age, and with a body of work encompassing original jazz pieces, Frank Sinatra covers and classical piano renditions alongside the sort of pop he (by turns) chirps and growls his way convincingly through here, this is a performer whose ceiling remains high.  Don't bet against seeing him display a very different side of his multifarious talents to those on show in Tanzschein at a future Contest. 

LATVIA

ATVARA - Ēnā

Without the benefit of the lyrics, Ēnā successfully scratches the itch of those who need a big, emotive ballad executed perfectly satisfactorily in each Contest, Atvara hitting the money notes late on as well as everything else that's gone before.

With the lyrics, the complete package makes more sense.  The view from the inside of a drinking glass, and the suspended shards it smashes into, are not just a neat visual touch, but instead also the quietly devastating visual accompaniment to a tale of how alcohol dependency puts physical and emotional distance between the sufferer and those who care for them.

There's usually a song or two each year that I find easier to appreciate and admire than enjoy outright.  Ēnā fits that description as well as any in 2026. 

DENMARK
SØREN TORPEGAARD LUND - Før vi går hjem

(to follow)

AUSTRALIA
DELTA GOODREM - Eclipse

(to follow)

UKRAINE
LELÉKA - Ridnym

The description of Viktoria Leléka's voice by one Jazzthetik writer in 2019 as, "a bright, soft sound full of captivating natural power" puts it far more economically than I could ever hope to manage, and applies as much to this from-darkness-came-light, optimistic ballad as to her work in the jazz clubs of Dresden seven years ago.

A captivating performer, thankfully informed by her previous struggles with depression rather than defined by them, the new destiny she sings of sewing can be taken to mean her own as much as that of her still-embattled home country.  The sudden break around the two minute mark and resultant reach for the high notes is a little unnerving, but Viktoria's warm, generous delivery carries singer and listener alike over the finish line in safety. 

Eurovision participation, and strong, successful participation at that, continues to represent an important soft power for Ukraine.  With eyes on another Finals qualification (Ukraine's record remains unblemished in that regard) and potential top ten finish in mind, it's perhaps understandable that this version of Viktoria is the one gracing the Contest rather than her fiercer electronic art-pop alias Donbasgrl, the latter's Glastonbury appearance notwithstanding. 

UNITED KINGDOM

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER - Eins, zwei, drei

First things first; the claims by some that Eins, zwei, drei is the most British entry the UK has ever sent to the Contest don't stand maximum scrutiny.  

Yes, we're in boffin territory with Sam Battle (for it is he).  Yes, he could pass physically for a peak career Thomas Dolby or Howard Jones if squinting.  But as for performing amid massive banks of keyboards and dials?  Should that staging come to pass, it would only replicate what those peerless deadpan Belgian pranksters Telex effected with Euro-Vision, still one of my top three all-time Eurovision songs, a mere 46 years earlier.

Likely less disputable is that Eins, zwei, drei is the loudest, most impossible to ignore three minutes ever draped in a Union flag and posted off to the continent to an uncertain critical fate.  

Like Ich komme last year, a song sung in the performer's native tongue has had some shouty German words bolted on to the chorus for maximum bellow-and-respond potential.  It's certainly fun, and effective up to a point, though Erika Vikman's Finnish filth fest remains the more compelling of the two tracks by a respectable margin.

Where Eins, zwei, drei falls down a little is the comparatively undernourished vocal delivery.  However loud Ich komme got, Erika could match it.  Sam, conversely, presents on occasion as overwhelmed by the beast he's created, and what could have punched away like the chorus of TKO by Le Tigre winds up more like the straining vocal pipes of some of Adamski's ill-advised self-sung tracks (Flashback Jack, anyone?).

It won't tank. It's too interesting for that. It's brasher than What The Hell Just Happened? (the shortcomings of which, incidentally, have merely been brought into sharper relief recently by the stunning album by Haute & Freddy), but still easier to love. In a year with its share of shouty tracks, though, others may bay for attention more successfully.

ALBANIA

ALIS - Nân

For clarity's sake, "Nân" appears to be Albanian for mum, so whilst this is a song about family, don't expect any references to grandmas from the north of England (or even a snatch of a certain John Shuttleworth track).  

Do, however, expect a Balkan ballad high on emotional charge and raw power... plus a couple of missed notes, if the National Final performance is any guide.

Afficionados will additionally have their own views on whether the Eurovision Final criterion regarding the number of people permitted on stage ought to be observed in National Finals, in the interests of consistency and parity.  It would be easier to name the Albanian choristers and orchestra members who didn't back Alis when winning Festivali i Këngës; good luck paring that lot down to just five friends on the night, son. 

MALTA

AIDAN - Bella

"When I was 26, it was a very good year...", etc.

It's required a forgiving nature from the Maltese public broadcasting services for Aidan Cassar to get his shot at the Contest at last, previous concerted efforts in 2018 and 2023 having been disqualified for breaches of composition originality and social media blabbing respectively.

But here he is, at last.  Older and wiser, certainly, though whether his pipes are quite storied and mature enough yet for him to pull off this respectful bash at a September of My Years-era Sinatra crooner-pop number one hundred percent convincingly is a matter of opinion.  

He does get most of the way there, at least, lacking just occasionally for optimum clarity and diction; and the lack of a build up to any big money finish - one that this style of song doesn't necessarily need anyway - favourably recalls the similar restraint exhibited to Contest-winning effect by Salvador Sobral nine (nine?  Already?) years back.  Sympathetic, rather than competing, backing by the Bulgarian Symphonic Orchestra aids his cause also.

It's about as far removed from whatever Miriana Conte was serving for Malta last year, and, as has been mentioned elsewhere before now, a smart move from this competing nation in the year that jury input has returned to the semi-final stages of the competition. 

NORWAY

JONAS LOVV - Ya Ya Ya

There is an episode in the audiobook version of Bunny vs Monkey which I listen to with my daughter, in which Monkey - possibly, but likelier not, paying homage to Lost In Art-era Pere Ubu - keeps the other woodland creatures awake all night by twatting a drumkit whilst shout-singing Ya Ya Ya.

Readers, that remains my favourite song of that name.

Credit to Norway where at least some is due. It's great to see that the inexplicably, undeservedly low finishing position suffered by Gåte two years ago hasn't cowed the Norwegian public or delegation out of sending more rock to Eurovision.  However, this offering just doesn't seem anywhere near as comfortable in its own skin.  

Seemingly on the face of it a calculated attempt at belatedly riding Måneskin's wave (right down to Jonas's leather waders - compare and contrast with Damiano David's outfit five years earlier), Ya Ya Ya instead strays on occasion too close to last year's hapless Azerbaijan entry Run With U musically.

My problems with the song lie deeper, though. Whilst nothing entered in Eurovision will ever again reach the same levels of seedy, greasy lecherousness as Like An Animal by Piqued Jacks, Ya Ya Ya goes a bit too far down that route for comfort.  "Baby I'm an animal, I got no self control / left it right all over you and your pretty clothes".  Ugh.  

Considering the previous three years' semi-finals have been rounded off with (in reverse order) complete bangers in Ich komme, Europapa and Promise respectively, concluding the 2026 qualifiers on this note feels like a misstep - as well as, on a personal note, an anticlimactic way on which to end after far too many thousands of words!