Here’s my brief interview with CNN’s Max Foster, in which we discuss my prediction for 2025, and review two of the Eurovision archetypes – the Euro-banger and the French Chanson.
This year’s Eurovision blog will, as always, contain a song analysis of all 26 finalists, as well as my pre-voting predictions for the top 3. For now here’s my 2024 blog, with an analysis of all 26 finalists.
Here are some excerpts of a BBC interview, in which Sam Spencer and I talked in some depth about the songwriting characteristics of Eurovision winners over the years (full article). Sam was also interested in my corpus analysis of 259 Eurovision finalists
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How to win Eurovision, according to the experts
(From BBC News, 11 May 2025)
Samuel Spencer
The Eurovision Song Contest was watched by around 163 million people last year – meaning there are potentially 163 million different opinions on what makes a perfect entrant.
Do you go for a soulful ballad, guaranteed to leave Europe misty-eyed and full of love and peace?
Or do you opt for a cheesy extravaganza, complete with saucy takes on regional costumes and eye-popping staging that will have the entire continent (and Australia) raving in their living rooms?
The perfect song
Forensic musicologist at Boston’s Berklee College of Music Joe Bennett has analysed hundreds of Eurovision finalists, identifying two dominant musical styles.
One is the “Euro-banger” – high-energy, 120+ BPM songs with kick drums and synth-heavy production, like Sweden’s winning entries Euphoria (Loreen, 2012) and Heroes (Måns Zelmerlöw, 2015).
The other is the slow-burning ballad – typically around 70 BPM, such as Portugal’s Amar Pelos Dois (Salvador Sobral, 2017) and the Netherlands’ Arcade (Duncan Laurence, 2019).
There is a cliché that Eurovision songs are only about love and peace – reinforced by a song performed during the 2016 contest’s interval about writing a perfect Eurovision song, called Love Love Peace Peace.
According to Bennett, there is some validity to this, with every Eurovision song falling under six broad lyrical themes: “love, unity, self-assertion, partying, history and songs about making music”.
He adds that “songs of self-assertion or lyrical self-empowerment do very well” – as seen with Austria’s 2014 winner Rise Like a Phoenix (Conchita Wurst).
[…]
The key is key
Minor-key songs increasingly dominate Eurovision.
Bennett debunks the idea that “major equals happy, minor equals sad”, adding that “minor keys are more a shorthand for emotional depth”.
In 2023, 85% of finalists performed in minor keys, according to the Press Association. In the last 20 years, only two major-key songs have won – 2011’s Running Scared (for Azerbaijan) and 2017’s Amar Pelos Dois.
[…]
Earlier Eurovision winners were often mocked for their nonsense lyrics, like Sweden’s 1984 winner Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, but Bennett argues this highlights Eurovision’s strong focus on melody.
“Eurovision really needs big melodic hooks. You want people across Europe to be singing that melody. The need for a very accessible, catchy chorus is essential.”
Key changes have long been a way to introduce novelty into Eurovision songs. The 2000s saw multiple winners follow this formula, including Olsen Brothers’ Fly on the Wings of Love for Norway (2000), and Serbia’s Molitva in 2007.
But as Bennett points out, though they are still present in around a fifth of finalists, no song with a final chorus key change has won since Molitva almost 20 years ago.
[…]
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