Okay, so first off, a big congratulations to the winner of my giveaway of a free Kindle copy of Tales of a Stranger Sister. The winner has been notified, and they seem excited to give my story a try. Running a promotional giveaway was an interesting experience. I believe I learned some things from my first attempt at it and am hoping to implement what I learned the next time I try it.
Speaking of contests, Today was the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest Grand Finals. I first learned about the annual European song contest, I think, around 2011-2012. A group of friends had stumbled upon videos from that year’s contest and some of the entries were so bizarre to our American musical sensibilities that we couldn’t help but fall in love with the whole concept.
Seriously, any contest that can produce this:
and this:
Is worth checking out at least once.
Since then, it’s become one of my house’s annual traditions to at least check out some of the entries while noshing on delicious eats and sugary cocktails. As we actually have access to Peacock at this moment in time, we were able to watch the whole finals this year.
I’m not going to get into the WTF-ery of the final votes (Seriously, that is a whole conversation that shouldn’t be within a thousand yards of this site. ) So, instead, I’ll keep things fun and just share my top five for 2025. I think only one of these finished in the actual top five, but these were the songs I enjoyed the most:
5. Ukraine
Ukraine’s vibe can be best described as 90’s anime about musicians trying to stop a space war by doing a homage to a 70s anime about musicians trying to stop a space war.
4. Latvia
Latvia’s entry looks like a group of Druidic familiars who have been summoned to perform the soundtrack for the next Ghost in the Shell reboot/remake/revival. It sounds awesome, but it’s not catchy.
3. Sweden
I love fun, goofy songs and Sweden’s was one of two that were my goofball favorites this year.
2. Luxembourg
I was honestly not expecting this one to hit with my brain like it did, but damn if it wasn’t so friggin poppy and catchy that I was honestly expecting it to win the whole damn thing and was legit surprised that it didn’t do better.
1. Iceland
I like fun dammit and this performance was fun, fun, and fun. Frankly, if Europe is gonna disrespect Iceland like it did this performance, then Ron Swanson was correct on his opinion of the continent as a whole.
So, that’s my very American coverage of Eurovision 2025. Congrats to Austria on winning and I’m sure I’ll be back again soon to talk about anything but the novel I should be writing but instead dedicated 6 hours of my weekend to a European song contest. 🤷♂️
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