Is that the Dandadan grandma?

Very much agree. I love old Sci-Fi for this reason. The authors dreamt big.

That was gonna be my question.

Maybe to start fights between your crush and their (not you) Valentine?

Oh shit.

Thank you. I don’t have a good eye for famous people.

Thank you. I couldn’t immediately figure out how to get the special(to me) character so I gave up.

Lots of countries not in Europe are eligible, such as Canada.

The requirement is basically only for a nation’s public broadcaster (like the BBC, CBC, RTE) to be an Associate Member of the a European Broadcasting Union, which largely comes down to paying an annual fee.

Should the EBU restrict the contest regionally? Maybe, but they haven’t so far.

Australia has sent acts for the last several years, and they’ve been a great addition.

Who is the guy?

For now!

It doesn’t seem wise to steal from an armed man already on the wrong side of the law…

I had a friend who owned this game. We used to play it all the time. Good memories.

I’ll check these out, thanks for the recommendations!

Their history with selection processes is fun reading for an ESC head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest#Selection_process

Baila el Chiki Chiki got 16th out of 25, which isn’t terrible. It’s a joke song, and there’s a long history of them at Eurovision. They occasionally do well, though not usually.

2022 - Norway - Subwolfer - Give that Wolf a Banana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_AvUlCQ_Cc comes to mind.

Did last year’s swedish song count as a joke song? It’s not very serious but it came in 4th. Third was very much a joke song, by an apparently well known Estonian artist Tommy Cash.

2025 - Sweden - KAJ - Bada Bada Bastu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK3HOMhAeQY

2025 - Estonia - Tommy Cash - Espresso Macchiato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MS_Fczs_98

I dunno if we can make too many definitive statements. There are some biggish artists, some new ones without a single released song. Some dumb songs do well, some great songs do poorly.

The national finals and national selections will still be good fun, and if you vote in those, your money only goes to that national broadcaster and not to the corrupt EBU. I did recommend the many decades of previous contests, and I’m not going to tell other people to boycott the big show with me. It’s up to them.

I don’t know that there will be more eggshell walking than usual. The rules against politics have always been up for interpretation. There are always artists and delegations getting in trouble for flying e.g. Palestinian flags or anti-russian statements (at least until Russia was excluded from the contest). If we cancelled every international event in which a shitty country participates, we couldn’t have any at all.

I made my choice for this year, but I still enjoy the music.

I saw that last year on Lemmyvision! It’s on regular rotation, along with T-Pain.

Hell yeah

Rozalén sounds cool, thanks for the tip. She has apparently indicated she’d be interested in participating in Eurovision, RTVE, the national broadcaster, usually does an internal selection (as opposed to a public competition), so there aren’t many Spanish artists who have had the opportunity to go to ESC if they wanted to.

They’re deeply connected to City Pop history too, as I recall.

I disagree entirely my friend, though there are trends just like in popular music in general.

You might enjoy skipping the ballads and the “pop girlies”, and focus on the Ethobops. They have more obvious roots in the country’s musical traditions, and they’re all interesting, and often quite good.

Here’s the Eurovangelists’ (Eurovision podcast) ethnobops playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XgmR5xfepPxChKq6H5xYL

From that playlist, I recommend in particular:

• Spain - Blanca Paloma - EAEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGnEoSypBhE

• Moldova - Zdob si Zdob - Treneltul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9RJQPZsj8E

• Ukraine - Kalush Orchestra - Stefania https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiEGVYOruLk