Eurovision 2025, the good songs, ranked

I like 11 of them, out of 37. The live performances will make some other songs OK too. This is a major improvement on 2024 (4 enjoyable studio versions of songs) and 2023 (5), after which I couldn’t tell if Eurovision was getting worse or I was getting older.

With 11 songs, we can have a little list!

#11: Bird of Pray (Ukraine): So goofy and so silly, zero flow (better than if there was flow), and each individual part is fun. Like six mini-songs in one.

#10: What The Hell Just Happened? (UK) — I’ll never put this on because they went full musical theater and Queen, you can’t listen to this on a walk or a run or while reading or while working so when can you? But it’s pretty melodic — “real hard yeaaar!” — and I’ll enjoy it on shuffle.

#9: Gaja (Poland) — It succeeds. I unthinkingly make tiny nods.

#8: Zjerm (Albania) — Gets *so* epic-moody and self-serious-string-orchestra twice, so unreasonably, from a pretty melody and the catchy “Zjerm” rap. But the whole thing is novel, of course some parts won’t work. Genuinely interesting. You always want more Zjerms.

#7: Asteromata (Greece) — Takes an astoundingly long time, for a modern Eurovision song, to show off its chorus. More memorable for it. Pretty throughout, and the crescendos are very pretty and very satisfying. I can’t believe the composers got away with 1:20 of build-up.

#6: Milkshake Man (Australia) — No pro-milkshake bias from me, I swear. A bit of Shake Your Coconuts by Junior Senior here, but that is duly missed! I don’t need to write more words. Accept your fate of living on Earth during Milkshake Man.

#5: Hallucination (Denmark) — Repetitive, a 300 km/h train, and so well-made! Like the highlight and peak of an Above & Beyond Group Therapy episode. With songs like this, people say that it sounds like a bunch of other things. Absolutely it does. But these melodies have not been chopped-up and delivered in this way before. The Sissal team made it good, just like other people have made it good.

#4: Baller (Germany) — So crisp. German is absolutely perfect for these types of songs, for some reason the language and the genre feel made for each other, exhibit A: Kabinenparty, exhibit B: Skifahren. If Kabinenparty was a Eurovision song it could have won.

Baller is on rotation forever. It knows exactly what it’s fucking doing, and how to get you from A to B.

#3: Ich Komme (Finland) — Squeezes out pure perfection within its realm. Songs #2 and #1 do not do this. A sex annihilation. 10/10 marks for everything you can rate a song on, except complexity, which is like a 6. The only song on this list that has any chance of winning, and that is at 20/1 odds (3% chance). Whatever you love doing most in the world, go do it to this song! Bye!

#2: Run With U (Azerbaijan) — In one day I listened to all the 37 songs, found my 11, spent a few days letting the 11 play in whatever order, and then found myself clicking on this thing. A lot. It takes maybe five times to worm inside of you and methodically take over each of your organs?

At first you can only process the Azeri lute and Daft Punk-y vocals. And, listen by listen, the rest of it builds out in your head. And it’s all melodic, light, smart, cheery. Whatever real or fake accent they’re doing sounds very good. I need a break from it. We all do.

#1: Bur man laimi (Latvia) — Firstly, I am open-mouthed-amazed that a Latvian Eurovision song is my favorite. To date Latvia has been capable of: 1. unbelievable goofiness, some intentional and most unintentional, sometimes melodic and fun, and an air of post-gender harmlessness, and 2. the most boring songs you have ever heard in your life. Next year’s best Eurovision song can truly come from anyone. Even Lithuania.

This is not a perfect song. And due to genre, I’m going to listen to it much less than a few of the preceding songs. But Bur man laimi is a magical song. And the live performance here is the only one that I’m embedding, and you can tell from the thumbnail that it’s worth something.

It’s medieval, earthy, witchy, takes risks, underwater or in the sky above or in whatever golden world they’re in, audibly gorgeously builds out in the background beneath the vocals, flows in and out and up and over and around. And it’s a song, not some other thing that’s “a song” but not really a song. This is a thing and a song, and your mind playing with it all. The first time you hear or see it, it’s genuinely exciting. Songs aren’t *exciting*. Best of the year.