New Year’s Eve was once again the moment for Eurovision fans to switch on their webradio and listen to Eurovision music all day, as the ESC 250 entries were counted down to a slightly unexpected finale. From the Swedish wave to the Fall of Toy, this is our report.
The experience of listening to ESC250: Georgian rock on a train platform
There’s something quite uniquely Eurovisionesque in tuning in to a webradio on the last day of the year to listen to a very large bunch of songs ranked by our collective mindsets a few weeks earlier. Especially when it can be a day of traveling.
Personally, these last few years, I have often come back to Paris from family vacations on New Year’s Eve, to celebrate the new year with friends in the capital. This year was no exception. Meaning that when we all started with “I Don’t Feel Hate” at #250 (cheeky move by our collective mindset by the way, feels like Martin Green sending fans a message), I was preparing my luggage. When “Blackbird” came at #241 I had to explain to my aunt and grandmother, who were driving me to the station (and listening to the radio on Bluetooth) the injustice of its non-qualification in 2017, and how its victory in UMK was the first national selection I had watched in my life as a fan.
Then on the train platform, I was clearly the only person waiting for the train while listening to Georgian rock, when for some obscure reason “Midnight Gold” ended up at #236. And the list goes on and on. But less about me, and more about what happened.
The Great Renewal and the Swedish Wave
Every year, even though the very top might be a foregone conclusion (but since 2022 we have been given hopes for some changes), we still see a lot of movement in the middle and lower ranks, with quite a few songs leaving the top 250 and a few others “rising in” from lower places, while the songs from the latest edition make their entrance too.
This year, 25 songs from 2025 and 35 songs from below the 2024 Top 250 entered the top. That is 60 new songs, almost a quarter of them. Last year, that total was 44, and in 2023 it was 47. It may or may not be a record, I don’t have all the historical statistics to make sure, but it was a large renewal.
It also meant 60 songs left the Top to sit below, including a few 2024 entries, but also “Birds” (Netherlands 2013), “Je me casse” (Malta 2021), “Ai coração” (Portugal 2023) and even “Toy” (Israel 2018), but we’ll speak about that one later. Russia was also almost wiped out of the countdown, falling from seven to only one song (“You are the only one” by Sergey Lazarev, losing some spots but still in the top 100).
The main country responsible for this great renewal was Sweden. Obviously they could only get one song through in the “2025 entries category”, and they did, at a surprisingly high level (“Bara Bada Bastu” ending up at #6, above “Hold Me Closer”). But a sauna does not make a wave. Decades of history do, however. And among the 35 entries rising in from below 250, 10 were Swedish songs.
Some of these were surprising: who is still voting for “Too Late For Love” after John Lundvik’s disparaging comments at Melodifestivalen last year? And who votes for “En Dag” (Sweden 1990) en masse when “Bra Vibrationer” (1986) remains under #800 and “Augustin” (1959) remains criminally nil-pointed? Perhaps it truly is too late for love…
To be honest, the surges of these songs were not suspicious: it mostly came from a lot of low points (being ranked 5th to 10th by a few dozens of voters). This was also the case for some other “risers”, especially from Albania and ofther Balkan countries, as well as Germany, which had more or less balanced scores putting them ahead. And how glad we were to see Germany 1975 back in the top, and back above the #200 position, with Joy Fleming’s absolute banger that was robbed of a victory.
One song had a more unilateral way to the top, and that was “Yavoh Yom” from Israel 1986.
The rise of “Yavoh Yom”
“Yavoh Yom” did not receive any points in 2024. It received 507 points in 2025, most of which came from 38 sets of douze points (that makes 456 points just from the top marks), enough to make it reach the #186 position. You had to jump to #45 to find the first song with more top marks, “Aijā” (Latvia 2023) with 41.
Considering the suspicions about recent Israeli success in the televotes and the fact that rules had to be changed to reassure other broadcasters (although not all broadcasters were reassured), some people started panicking. Could the Swedish Wave be hiding a takeover from Israeli fans in even higher positions? Well, no. And we had every possible hint to that in advance: “Diva” (Israel 1998) and “Hasheket Shenish’ar” (Israel 2005) had fallen, and eventually the 2024 and 2025 entries did not make it past #30 (with “Hurricane” ending up above “New Day Will Rise”).
So what happened for “Yavoh Yom” to go from zero to that much? It sounds like a simple whim from a group of (likely) Israeli fans to make a random, low-placed song skyrocket, as we have seen before from Finnish or Spanish fans (and honestly, we saw it from Spanish fans this year, when their 1994 entry went from #1294 to #235 with 33 sets of douze points). Why 1986? I started a marathon of all Eurovision editions a few months ago, and my notes on “Yavoh Yom” were quite simple: “As of last year [“Olé Olé”], a less interesting versions of “Hora” [1982] and “Hai” [1983] but it’s a bit less memorable than 1985.” It was Israel pushing a formula to its limit. It finished second to last in Bergen.
And lyrically, it’s an ambiguous song (“A day will come”, “I want to live with the feeling that it will come”, etc.), especially considering today’s context. It could be hopeful for the future, or it could be quite eerie.
The mystery remains complete. Please, if you are reading this and want to organise a movement to push up a random Israeli song from the last century that you feel did not get the result it deserved, there are much better choices, like 1974’s “Natati La Khayay” from Kaveret: a popular band, an incredibly catchy chorus that makes you feel like you’re in the middle of a village dance, and some positive lyrics for the current situation (“One says he’s running out of sky / when there’s enough air for a country or two“). And if Finnish fans are around, “Fantasiaa” from 1983 is still expected on New Year’s Eve at some point and was done dirty by the votes at the time.
The Fall of Toy and the absence of Azerbaijan
So, while one Israeli entry went up more than a thousand spots, another one left the top 250 after seven years: “Toy”, the Eurovision 2018 winner. It is the second winner of the 2010’s to face this fate, after “Running Scared” from Azerbaijan 2011. The only other winners from this century not to appear were those of 2008, 2002 and 2001 (and 2000 but that’s technically not the 21st century).
In 2018, fans were already expecting “Fuego” to do much better than “Toy” and to possibly challenge Loreen’s reign at the top. They were half-right, as Netta debuted in the 23rd position (much lower than the recent winners at the time), but Eleni Foureira had to settle for the runner-up spot, just ahead of the 2017 and 2016 winners.
After this came a controlled fall : from #23 in 2018, to #46 in 2019, #72 in 2020, #121 in 2021… And suddenly, in 2022, Netta’s entry rose up in ranks to #83. Only to fall back to #104 in 2023 and #127 in 2024. Considering the evolution, it felt like it would just stabilise in this 150-100 area. It did not. For on that day, the chicken noises were nowhere to be found, and we discovered that “Toy” lost almost 200 spots to fall down to #321. Lower than Gabry Ponte and Theo Evan. The fandom clearly fell out of love with this song once the recency effect had vanished.
Another notable absent was Azerbaijan. Despite having three entries in 2023 and two in 2024, nobody appeared this time. The highest, “Always” ended up close to entering, at #262, some 21 points away from the countdown: it is safe to say the caucasian country is not always on our mind when voting… Quite a fall from grace for a country that was seen as a powerhouse only a decade ago.
The slightly anti-climactic top 10
Anyway, after hours and hours of surprises (“Midnight Gold” and “Lock Me In” getting in) and reassurances (France above Sweden in 1991), we got to the top 10. As often in this case, at this point, the question was not “who ?” but “in which order ?”. With three songs from last year’s top 10 already out, we had three 2025 songs (which were clearly the entries from Albania, Finland and Sweden) and the seven who remained from 2024.
Weeks in advance, I had made two predictions on the results: Loreen would end up on top (but I was open to the idea of an inversion of her two songs), and “Zjerm” would be the highest-ranked 2025 entry. I was happy to see that I was right!
I was less happy to have Joshua Dodd (the DJ on EFR12 radio for the occasion) spoiling every entry before it was played. Now, make no mistake, I really enjoyed Joshua’s commentary throughout the day, the way he reacted to comments on socials, his shout-outs to some fans, etc. and his recognition that the fandom was not in a great place. Spot-on job throughout the day. I just did not enjoy the editorial choice that was made to have a commentary before every song at the very end.
When we had three songs left, it was Loreen(s) vs Shkodra Elektronike. My predictions were probably right, so I was excited. But there was the slightest chance of “Zjerm” beating at least one of the Loreen songs. But the moment the DJ announced that #3 was a song from 2025, we were robbed of the surprise. Same when he announced that #2 was non-mover.
As a Eurovision fan, I vividly remember 31 December, 2022, when I isolated myself at a New year’s party with friends, just to listen to the very end of the Top250, because we knew that something could happen. Two songs left, it was between “Euphoria” and “Slomo”. No spoiling, just the wait for the first note of song #2, enough to tell us the final result. And as the fog horn made its way to my headphones, I jumped in triumph: “The Queen is down, long live the Queen!”. This time, no such wait, no such moment, we were all but told.
Still, what happened in the end? The 2025 televote winner crashed (as expected), the overall 2025 winner finished at #35 with five other songs above him : among them, “Tavo Akys”, which was probably voted on by the same people who kept “Aijā” very high in the ranking, at my great delight. Malta’s “Serving” underperformed just like in Basel (sadly), and “Zjerm” confirmed its incredible popularity among the fandom by beating “Slomo” and “Cha Cha Cha”. Among quite a divisive year, it gave us something very uniting, and I think even those who do not appreciate the song (which is a perfectly valid opinion and taste) see the positive effects of such a result.
And remember, you can check the full results and stats here.
So, a year is over, happy new year! 2026 will be quite the experience for those who still follow the contest, and not just because of the platinum anniversary. Don’t forget to check us for news updates on national selections and Eurovision itself, as we embrace, each in our own way, this next edition.
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