Big Blue Flash

Eurovision week has been and gone, and by this point, most of the commentary has understandably been focussing on the... shall we say... nailbiting Grand Final results. However in the week before that, eleven entrants were knocked out in the Semi Finals that took place on the 13th and 15th of May, some of them very unexpectedly indeed. So let's take a look at how their live performances went and whether they deserved being kicked out. Here's a quick recap of my scoring system in 2 parts: first for the song composition itself, incorporating the studio recording. This will be the same as my initial (p)review scoring unless something drastic has changed to the recording used for playback. no stars = if I had control of the playlist I would turn it off or skip ★ wouldn't skip if it came up on shuffle ★★ on my "2025 Eurovision Favourites" playlist on Spotify ★★★ spent my own money getting a digital download; gone digging around their back catalogue for more stuff ★...

Here's my final batch of Eurovision 2025 reviews: 5 entries, none of which really inspire me if I'm being frank, but which I wanted to review in the interests of completeness. So with apologies in advance for my lack of enthusiasm, let's get these reviews finished! And remember, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed... (Scoring system recapped at * below) San Marino: Gabry Ponte - " Tutta L'Italia "  ★ This stands out in the competition by being in 12/8 meter (as ever, the vast majority of entries are in 4/4). I quite like the touches of folk instrumentation. It's pleasant enough but quite simple in concept and overall sounds like a football chant. It suffers a little from using the same chord progression in both the verses and choruses (though at least there's a bridge section with a different progression). Gabry Ponte (formerly of Eiffel '65) looking quite... Blue   Honestly, I've mostly had enough of this song at the half-way point. ...

Well, it's been a while - over a month, in fact, since I last posted any reviews. Thankfully that's because my spare time has lately been taken up fulfilling some other Eurovision-related ambitions, namely researching for some of the Overthinking Eurovision content on YouTube and doing some musical arrangement work. There's plenty to say about the 4 songs below and so I've had to self-edit quite a lot in order to make the reviews at least readable. For Sweden in particular, I've got a whole other post (possibly a series of posts) lined up, based solely on things I want to write about but that would turn a song review into an essay. So here goes, 4 of the most interesting 2025 Eurovision entries, subjected to my questionable cultural criticism - GO! (scoring system re-capped below* as ever): Austria: JJ - " Wasted Love " ★ Even though I don't particularly want to listen to it independently, I still admire and respect Austria's entry this year. Thei...