I listened to every Eurovision 2025 entry, so you don’t have to

The plucking of a stringed instrument provides a peppy introduction to this song. It reminds me of something you might hear in a Legend of Zelda soundtrack.

Alas, that chipper tone doesn’t hang around. Instead we leap into a terrible spoken word chunk in the middle, dinging an otherwise fine track.

So Armenia are bringing us a hard rock vibe this year. There’s heavily-distorted electric guitars, some spittingly-speedy lyrics and exceedingly questionable rhyming schemes.

(“Survivor” does not rhyme with “Staying alive”, no matter how much you elongate the last syllable, guys).

This song starts with the familiar progression from “Green Sleeves” on a xylophone. From such innocent beginnings is spawned a song overflowing with absolute filth.

This song is choc-full of cheap sugar.

Go-Jo knows exactly what he’s doing and, no, I absolutely will not be calling him “the Milkshake Man”.

There are a lot of tortured water-based metaphors in the beginning of this song, which initially had me thinking this would be utter dross.

What I wasn’t expecting was a quick tilt from mediocre ballad into operatic style. Maybe I should have; Austria is famous for its opera.

But the surprises didn’t stop there; I was also not expecting the mid-song drum and bass drop.

Clearly inspired by last year’s Swiss entry and absolutely mad.

Mamagama was clearly using a T9 keyboard on an old Nokia when he wrote the title for this song.

Aside from the poor spelling, this is an enjoyable fusion of modern beats and what I assume are authentic Azerbaijani instruments, twanging away atop.

This is a song of high-drama, clubland mist and colossally clichéd lyrics.

It ups the ante and energy as it goes on; which I appreciate.

There’s an impressive falsetto towards the finish; but as ever, the live vocal will be what counts. Will it sound as good on the night?

This is the latest in a long line of food-related Eurovision songs. Classics of the genre include 2014’s Belarussian and Latvian entries, Cheesecake and Cake to Bake, and the 2021 Moldovan entry, Sugar.

It’s hard to not see the connection to last year’s Irish entry, though this is much more erratic. The delirious musical style ranges from death-metal, to spoken word, to sugar-pop.

Nigella would never.

We are off to clubland with this interminable track that’s filled with more clichés than a drag brunch bingo event.

The choruses are fine, I guess, but the whole thing is delivered without any real charisma. For an attempt at a gay club banger, it needs a lot more sex and fervour.

There’s a rich tone to the vocals in this song and it’s a decent, mid-tempo, moody ballad.

The middle eight doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the song. Ramming a dance track breakdown into a ballad is a cheap trick to breathe life to a corpse and in this case, it wasn’t necessary.

Now this is why I come for Eurovision!

Denmark is serving up supreme Scandipop. A good beat, slick production and a cracking vocal.

I was hooked from the first few seconds.

The catchy falsetto riff in the chorus is a sublime earworm. The orchestration reminds me a little of Euphoria.

Douze points from me.

I had assumed this would be a stylish response to Sabrina Carpenter. You know, like when Miley did Flowers as a massive “fuck you” to her ex-husband by interpolating Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man.

Instead, we get a cheap, nonsense song with almost no redeeming features.

Next!

I guess we’re still trying to replicate Cha Cha Cha then.

This has a ridiculous vibe. Like something out of an 80’s musical B-movie.

Erika hasn’t shied away from the sexual innuendo. The lyrics are pure filth; they’ve got spunk – literally.

I have a habit of dismissing the French chanson style and that is unfair. It’s a beautiful style and I’m learning to like it. Listening back to old Eurovision albums gives me an increasing appreciation of the style.

I don’t know if this is strictly within the chanson genre but, nonetheless, there’s a woman singing dramatically.

And then a random child at the end.

Some terrifyingly deep vocals lurk underneath this somewhat bonkers song. I feel like witness to a dark arts ritual at which there will be a sacrifice.

The gear shifts between the verses and chorus are pretty jarring, and rip you out of the moment a bit.

We’ve got high-pitched synths and nonsense lyrics in this trance track.

The styling of the vocals – stuttering and sputtering – is fun and unique.

I like it.

I like the sound of the titular word “Asteromáta” – it’s fun to say and to listen to.

The first 1:30 of this song are dreary and uninspiring. There’s some more texture in the second half; more synth, more percussion, more drama and more power in the vocal.

But it never quite goes anywhere. I certainly don’t feel like I’m transcending to the stars.

Well, there’s certainly nothing calm about this.

Another predominantly spoken word and rap number, with clear inspiration from Windows95Man, of last year’s Contest.

Dire.

This threw me straight back to The Logical Song (the cover by Scooter, not the original by Supertramp)

This is generic, dance floor-filling trash and I love it.

I miss the days of Israel being fun at Eurovision. They days of Toy and Golden Boy.

Nevertheless, this is a ballad in three separate languages – English, French and Hebrew – which is an impressive twist.

There are flashes of Celine Dion in this track as it crescendos towards its conclusion.

Another year, another Italian man singing a dreary song with a sloppy rhythm and the occasional shouty lyric.

The lyrics, if you look them up, are marginally disturbed.

Anyway, meh. Just give us more opera!

This is a classic of the “bunch of women screaming nonsensically atop a heavily over-orchestrated backing track” genre: a Eurovision staple but hardly worth the three minutes.

A miserable, droning verse crashes into an angsty chorus in this “experimental rock” track.

The vocalist sounds like he’d rather be having a root-canal than singing this song.

There’s a forceful momentum to this song that’s quite fun.

It’s different from almost everything else. Perhaps a bit cheesy, though the lyrics are somewhat more serious than the puppet metaphor would imply.

I am aware of the controversy surrounding this track and that it was originally titled Kant (it’s the Maltese word for “singing”), and that “ah” wasn’t the word that appeared after “serving” in the chorus. It was this year’s “veggie and pussy” moment.

Clearly that was a publicity stunt but it almost wasn’t necessary. This is a sassy banger.

Three minutes of high-energy, four to the floor drums and confident vocals.

For a song entitled Welcome this song isn’t half… well… unwelcoming.

It’s incredibly dramatic. It’s almost like a Bond-theme, with an undulating melody that rocks up-and-down the scales on the keys.

Well this is chockablock with completely nonsense French-isms that no French person probably ever says.

I don’t hate it. It’s got a fun rhythm and musicality to it. It just feels a bit forced.

This is classic Scandi-pop, which obviously means I bloody love it.

This is dark and moody and, given the title of the song, I suspect intended to help you find your spiritual centre and respect Mother Earth.

It’s a droning mess of noises undercut with a distorted beat. Not for me.

Piano, acoustic and electric guitar, and a lilting vocal come together for this Beatles-adjacent, gentle track.

It’s pleasing enough but it also feels unresolved. It ultimately goes nowhere.

This sounds like it was ripped straight out of an early 2000s Eurovision Song Contest.

Yes, dear reader, it’s that bad.

Obviously I know that San Marino is landlocked inside Italy and that they will share a cultural affinity; but I am baffled as to why you would sing a song about Tutta l’Italia when, you know, you’re not representing Italy?!

One of the dreariest ballads you could possibly imagine. There’s a late-game rock guitar and choral drop that does nothing to improve the overall miserable impression.

Oh my word is this sad. You can feel the pain in this song right from the very first line.

Maybe I’m feeling emotionally fragile but I genuinely had a tear in my eye.

A beautiful ballad.

This feels like a sexed-up, modernised flamenco.

A lot of distorted synths, maracas and a flamenco guitar underpin a defiant, almost vengeful, vocal.

Eh… what?! What happened?!

Slick Swedish pop is why I fell in love with Eurovision. This isn’t that. It’s a cheesy 1990s era comedy track.

Don’t get me wrong, it has its charm, and I have no doubt there’s a gimmick that will catch the eye of the voting public (no one wins Melodifestivalen and gets to represent Sweden by accident) – but I am nonetheless baffled by this.

Soft, breathy vocals and a floating melody come together to create this perfectly pleasant song that I suspect most people will forget; it’s nothing special.

The last minute attempt at injecting some life into it with a staccato, violin breakdown doesn’t really do anything to save it from what I suspect will be inevitable obscurity.

Given the song title, I was expecting something more Klingon.

Instead we get this electric guitar-laden, soft-rock number, filled with chorus chants and false stops. All very late 90s, which is probably where it should have stayed.

This song is a disjointed mess. The tempo shifts are jarring.

For a group that is allegedly a country group, there’s nothing country about it.

It seems the vocals will be strong but the song is just awful. Musical theatre-style nonsense.

Just a few years ago, it felt like the UK has found its groove again. Space Man was a heavenly Brit-pop track that deserved the pedestal upon which we all placed it.

But this?! Not this. Anything but this.