The Eurovision Song Contest took place at the weekend live from Malmö, Sweden and the world was braced for a night filled with controversy and division.
For the most part, the Swedish hosts Malin Åkerman and Petra Mede kept things running smoothly despite a series of incidents where the audience booed Israeli contestant Eden Golan and the results of the votes every time Israel scored any points. That aside, the contest ran pretty much like clockwork.
Now that we've had some time to digest the evening's events, we've put together our 5 key takeaways from the night…
1. The United Kingdom needs stronger material
Olly Alexander was the entry for the United Kingdom and his track ‘Dizzy' failed to make much of an impact. With scantily clad male backing dancers, Alexander ramped up the homoerotic factor and struggled to keep his vocals in tune for the entirety of the performance. When it came to the vote, he was awarded 46 points from the jury and he received zero points from the public vote. By the end of the night he had to settle for 18th. Not a total disaster but not a strong performance either. Compared to many of the other songs in the competition, ‘Dizzy' had nothing that made it stand out. A stronger vocalist would be a good choice next year.
2. Israel had a lot more public support than its critics expected
The controversy around Israel's inclusion in this year's event has threatened to derail the whole contest. From Pro-Palestine protests through to shocking behaviour from contestants towards Eden Golan, Israel's critics were rubbing their hands with glee as they expected Israel to either be forced out or land at the bottom of the leader board. The jury vote was clearly political with Israel picking up only 52 points but the public vote awarded them 323 points. The discrepancy between politics and public was clear, even if people are still trying to claim that Israel in someway cheated in order to secure votes.
3. Novelty acts didn't cut it this year
Finland's Windows95man would have been a shoo in for a top score in most other years but with a more sombre mood around this year's event, their ‘No Rules!' song picked up only 38 points. It's true that the performance was completely bonkers but normally Eurovision goes mad for that. Not this year it seems!
4. Some really great songs got lost in the mix
With the focus split between Israel, Croatia and Switzerland for most of the night, songs like Nutsa's fiery ‘Firefighter' for Georgia and Kaleen's ‘We Will Rave' for Austria didn't get a look in. We were surprised that those songs, along with a handful of others, did as poorly as they did given the performances and vocals were strong.
5. Overly sexual performances didn't fare well
From Spain's semi-naked male backing dancers to Slovenia's leaving little to the imagination body suit, it seems that Eurovision viewers and juries weren't taken with the more sexualised performances of the night. None of the more risque performers made it into the night's Top 10 and the UK's Olly Alexander, in particular, has come under fire from fans of the show for his performance.
Eurovision 2025 will take place in Switzerland next year.
