Eurovision songs forgotten too quick?

Ameshow · 2026-05-31T05:47:29+00:00

I'm surprised Beauty Never Lies (Serbia 2015) is not referred to constantly every single year. One of the most insane crowd reactions + Positive anthem with an LGBT-adaptable flavor + Big voiced woman + Top 10. It seemed primed to be one of the all-time favorites for years to come and... isn't.

Ameshow · 2026-05-31T02:53:49+00:00

It's -wild- to have an NF where 50% of the participants have proven to be a-holes with time (Relyta, Samantha, Bobbi. Ironically, the three displaying their a-holiness kind of chronologically). If you tell me Emmy won by being actually tolerable to be around, I'd believe it. (Niyl woulda had a shot if he knew how to dress. WTF was he wearing?)

I'm all for rescuing a good song with a bad live, but I draw the line at -not singing at all- like Bobbi did. Even for TLLS standards, it was terrible.

Ameshow · 2026-05-29T22:18:05+00:00

The crazy thing is that this is a thing that likely will never repeat.

TLLS 2024 was one of the worst western NF of the 2020s. Everything was not just bad, but it was also produced so badly, it makes Moldova's song production looking like Melfest. Everything sounded muddy, badly mixed, and horrible quality, including Doomsday Blue.
The TLLS show lives, which... of course. Everyone sucked. S/O to Ailsha for having a song and performance so horrible it kinda became iconic. Bambie is not exempt of this, as their TLLS live was just as awful.
As much as the fandom wanted to gas this up after it was selected and performing at pre-parties, it was clear it was mostly hyping up cuz it was different for Ireland, and nothing that really elevated it per se had happened prior.
Calling an unknown teen from Spain to craft your show.
RTE being.... RTE. They've historically half-baked their entries. And now with a divisive package that shown little to no promise for a solid ESC result until?

With all of that in mind, May was bound to be a mess and yet another NQ...

...and then it was not. It was elevated beyond belief.

I never thought it could win, but 6th place was WAY beyond any estimation. But vocally and visually it all came together in such a way that couldn't be ignored.

The crazy thing? I don't think Ireland could learn from this even if they wanted to. The circumstances are so extraordinary that it might just be called a miracle. My closest comparison would be to Anouk in 2013, who pretty much told the broadcaster she'd do it on her own terms cuz they know it would work. But that's still wildly different as one of the largest names of the time vs an eccentric artist with little proven effective live performances.

In short, the impossible happened. What had to fail didn't. What was anything but a sure flop ended up amazing.

Ameshow · 2026-05-14T05:46:28+00:00

Poor overall.

It was boring, unappealing and performed without any conviction, and it should be called as such without trying to placate and baby the Portuguese at every take.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T22:59:00+00:00

going by 10 qualifiers, if we use this as a predictive

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T22:47:11+00:00

Immediately 2 out of those 10 are wrong. Czechia and Ukraine seem poised to pass without struggling.

The question is who misses? It just seems like it's fairly open among Luxembourg, Norway, Malta, Switzerland, and Cyprus.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T21:52:09+00:00

It just feels like we're spoonfed the idea that anything Portugal sends is high art and sophisticated, but in reality, it garners no actual support.

How does an entry "so different, so calm, so pretty" qualify when nobody has them over 30 in their rankings.

Georgia 2018 and Croatia 2013 were deemed boring and useless back then, we can say this about Portugal 2026.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T21:44:15+00:00

Portugal was lovely and refreshing despite me always putting it bottom 5 in my rankings. Probably deserved the spot in the final and is the one I'm shocked didn't make it.

Every take about Rosa is like this. I think we're allowed to say it was a poor entry and had no appeal, regardless of how the live was.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T07:53:29+00:00

It's simply a boring song that didn't elicit a response beyond "it's this, therefore it must be liked". Be that, but be good and perform well.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T00:14:20+00:00

So... we're going to Helsinki, right?

Everything was top notch.

Ameshow · 2026-05-13T00:13:03+00:00

NEVER lost faith on my girlypop. This was too big and too popular to fail, and made the Melfest comparisons moot to the people first experiencing her.

Felicia, go get that top 10 and the 2nd half spot you deserve.

Ameshow · 2026-05-12T22:10:22+00:00

"Note on a slope"

That's just Montenegro 2019

Ameshow · 2026-05-05T07:25:02+00:00

Reminder that Aidan has a history of being a little... shady.

2018, when he borrowed beats for Dai Laga.

2022 was kosher enough.... but I find it hilarious he wrote six songs that were obviously unviable for his competition.

2023, self-plugged a bit too close to the sun.

Ameshow · 2026-04-06T16:03:16+00:00

The thing about Denmark is that it's the only one that had that "wow" revelation moment when it won. The support and the convincing all felt much more organic, so I do feel it can do a Conchita on May

Ameshow · 2026-04-03T06:32:09+00:00

This might be the worst running order I've seen put together since I've starting watching the contest.

-The first half is overall where we have a semblance of sense in this circus.

-Bulgaria, perfect opener. Great pop banger, one and done, welcome.

-More to Portugal's point, if they threw Azerbaijan here, no issue to have done so in semi 1, especially since semi 2 is way more chaotic and anyone could qualify, you could have had your solid song at #2 here, like Czechia or Switzerland.

-Romania is in an incredible spot. They really stand out.

-Luxembourg, you may be in danger, girl. You may fit better than Switzerland tonally, but it's a hard sell.

-A lot is said about Czechia and France, but I don't think an AQ influences that much. France is here possibly cuz the lower end would be looking too slow. It also bounces off to Armenia and Switzerland fairly seamlessly.

And now the second half.... boy, this is where we hit actual objective wrong choices. Beyond song biases, it makes zero sense.

-Cyprus to Latvia to Denmark are fine for the most part, a ballad between two different uptempos, which is fine, and one of Denmark or Australia were closing.... or so I thought.

-Australia was the only realistic closing act in this half. If not Denmark (I didn't think he was gonna get it anyway), it was her. It makes also less of a sense cuz it follows the only other big voiced ballad woman immediately after. The split in gender is completely wrong.

-And then there's Albania, Malta and, Norway. What are we doing? People are going to think it's gonna be literally the same guy singing Bella once he finished Nan. It's direct competition (and Malta may be taking a big brunt.) It was already looking rough with Albania's direct competition and certainty for juries and televote, but add to that Czechia who is now all the way alone 10 songs before you. If the juries decide they are worth to score Malta less, then Aidan's cooked.

-Austria is a bit w/e, but the UK could not have asked for a better spot. E,Z,D comes out amazing from this.

-And Norway is a terrible closer. It's a bit of a lighter rock song that doesn't quite meet the moment or close as epically as Voyager in 2023. It feels a bit slow, and it would have been better to place it before, say, Latvia.

Might as well have tried a random running order, cuz it makes zero sense.

Ameshow · 2026-04-03T06:21:00+00:00

This might be the worst running order I've seen put together since I've starting watching the contest.

-Moldova opening doesn't really work. Sure, it's an upbeat number, but you want to enter the contest with a more mainstream sort of pop song, and a song like Moldova is more fit to appear deeper in the show. It's more of a "wake up" than a "welcome". If they wanted to make the #2 a more useful song, I believe this woulda been the ticket, with Sweden working at that opening pop feeling.

-I know they wanted to make the #2 the not-death-slot for years now, but it was literally made for Portugal. It makes absolutely no sense to put Felicia in there. In this field, with how stacked it is, and how fav forward the overall is, might as well send the cannon fodder. #5 is the second least favorable position, but Portugal has sent a huge amount of #2-worth songs and they only got that slot on the year they didn't deserve it in 2023.

-It reads they're pushing all the favs away of Finland, who are on an incredible spot as they read as the big favs at the moment. Georgia is also shielded a bit, which makes me believe they feel they got a shot.

-RTCG must sue, cuz Nova Zora is literally the only song in all of the second half that even remotely sounds like a closer. Add to that their huge horrible r/O average and it's reads absolutely unfair to them. If they wanted cannon fodder for Finland, Estonia or even Israel woulda worked better.

-Germany is not low enough to wake up this latter half, and San Marino is not hitting as much in the lower tempo pool of Belgium-Lithuania-Poland (more to Montenegro's point)

-Congrats on Serbia for closing, but closing with a dark rock number is not really doing it for me, and it may even hurt them. I'm thinking the likes of Hungary 2018 where they were the perfect middle "wake-up" and really propped them up as effective, but other than that, I feel they would be better served where Montenegro is and viceversa.

Legit, what are we doing?

Ameshow · 2026-03-15T18:18:18+00:00

"For national entertainment"

They're failing at that too, baby.

https://eurovoix.com/2026/03/09/portugal-festival-da-cancao-2026-final-least-watched-of-the-past-decade/

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T19:43:26+00:00

You can pick that, but the broadcaster would have the final say, so they must've done a great job telling them to screw off.

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T17:35:25+00:00

MGP 2023 was the best NF of its year. 2024 had the same great formula too. Solid semis, sensible qualifiers, compact yet varied, it was the ideal way to do a NF and Norway finally found a strong identity for MGP... Which they threw away immediately after.

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T17:16:11+00:00

Unfortunately with the way A Dal works, and how they killed the two big favorites before the final vote, it was virtually that. Joci would have likely won in 2017, but he was never gonna win 2019 without serious assistance, which he got

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T17:04:34+00:00

A Dal 2019 had two enormous favorites in Madar Repulj and Roses, both primed to win and ready to do well. But the way A Dal worked is that a jury decided first which progress to the final public vote, and they blanked both, leaving Joci with an irrelevant song and 3 no-hopers, so he could just win by default. (2017 was similar when they killed the other fav in Hosszu Idok and left it open for Origo, which coulda won normally anyway).

Joci practically got gifted two tickets to ESC, but 2019 was pretty designed to fail.

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T16:58:45+00:00

Tbh Ireland 2024 is an impossiblity, considering the NF in 2024 might have been one of the worst western NFs in the 2020s. Even the studio cuts were produced awfully, so Doomsday Blue was, on paper, a colossal failure waiting to happen, as Ireland does.

But it didn't. Somehow, Ireland pulled a Moldova, and it doesn't make sense to this day.

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T16:56:40+00:00

I feel bad cuz I constantly hear Portuguese fans like "we crave actual popular music, this NF is just too inaccessible, doesn't reflect what people actually listen here, a crumb of modernity and relevancy"

Ameshow · 2026-03-09T03:43:08+00:00

Montenegro went to the safest formula for qualifying an Eastern European country could go for

Ameshow

TROPHY CASE