By the time the last glitter cannon fizzles out over Switzerland on 17 May, the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest will have fulfilled its annual duty: confusing millions into asking, "Wait, who won again?"

Once, Eurovision was a regal showcase of continental songcraft - a noble endeavour to unite post-war Europe through harmony, melody, and music. Today? It's a diplomatic rave. A pantomime. A technicolour fever dream stitched together with auto-tune, pyrotechnics, and geopolitical subtext. It's not really about the songs anymore. It's not even really about the artists. It's about the spectacle. The chaos. The shared absurdity of 37 countries earnestly pretending that this means something.

And yet, for reasons no one can quite articulate, people can't stop watching.

Celine Dion once stood beneath those stage lights, representing Switzerland with a power ballad. ABBA emerged from Eurovision like a pop phoenix. Cliff Richard twice tried to win it. Domenico Modugno, Olivia Newton John and Julio Iglesias also took part. But somewhere between then and now, the contest lost its musical soul and replaced it with LED screens and tactical glitter.

Today's entries are Frankenstein's monsters of genre. It's less a musical contest and more a collage of noise with lyrics that, many times, just do not make sense. The more insignificant the words, the more noisy the music, the better for today's Eurovision standards.

We used to get actual songs. Remember songs? Verses that built into choruses, choruses that meant something, lyrics that could be quoted in an emotional moment? Now we get words that follow each other in some meaningless phrase that cannot be grasped.

To survive Eurovision as a viewer, one must abandon all expectations of logic or genre coherence.

There's a phrase often tossed around Eurovision forums: "It's so bad, it's good." That could easily be the event's slogan. Songs oscillate between farcical and surreal. There's no quality bar.

Somehow, that's part of the charm. Eurovision doesn't reward restraint. It rewards audacity. It rewards flamboyance. It rewards everything but music.

The blinding bias at voting time

Eurovision's voting system is a Rube Goldberg machine built out of nostalgia, soft power, and ancient grudges. In theory, it's a democratic celebration of musical talent. In practice, it's a festival of passive-aggressive alliances and soft-core nationalism.

The jury votes and public votes now exist in a bizarre dance of mutually assured confusion. One year, the jury gives the UK a respectable haul, only for the public to respond with indifference. The next, a heartfelt entry receives zero from both, prompting existential questions across entire nations.

Geographic bloc voting is tradition now. The Nordics huddle. The Baltics high-five. The Baltics likewise. Meanwhile, the UK, still emotionally processing Brexit, receives a politely awkward silence. The collective sighs of the audiences in the theatre, and the millions watching at home, when the douze points are announced expose the obviousness of the voting patterns, year after year.

And don't even get Malta started.

Malta: Eurovision's eternal optimist

Malta is the heart of Eurovision. Not musically, perhaps, but spiritually. No nation invests more emotional capital into the contest. Every year, Malta wants to win. Every year, Malta expects to win. Every year, there is talk on the venue of next year's edition and who will be presenting the contest. The same names come up each time.

Local Maltese television devotes hours to national selections, rehearsals, interviews, and breathless speculation. When invariably, the song does not even make it to the final or, when it does, it ends up far away from the top places (gone are the years when Ira Losco and Chiara were runners-up), it's treated with the quiet devastation of a national tragedy. Political pundits and vocal coaches sit side by side on breakfast shows, analysing the results like they're discussing inflation trends or the Middle East crisis.

Eurovision is Malta's Super Bowl, Nobel Prize, or World Cup. It's more important than the conclave. And not winning stings sharper than a jelly-fish, sparking conspiracy theories and bad moods across the country.

TikTok fame and instant amnesia

Eurovision, curiously, has never been better at generating attention - and never worse at creating stars. Social media platforms explode in the weeks leading up to the event, with TikToks, reaction videos, and painstaking analyses of costumes and performances. For a brief moment, Europe's attention is entirely consumed.

And then? Silence.

Winners vanish. Second-placers vaporise. Even the novelty acts that got everyone tweeting "What did I just watch?" fade from memory faster than a soap bubble's life. It's the only major televised competition where 250 million people can watch someone win and still collectively forget their name by breakfast.

Even the biggest winners struggle. Take Måneskin, Italy's rock revivalists and rare post-Eurovision success story. They broke out, yes - but arguably more despite Eurovision than because of it. Most others disappear into the digital ether, occasionally resurfacing in obscure music festivals.

Why we still watch (and always will)

If Eurovision were purely about musical quality, it wouldn't still be here. It survives - or, better, it thrives - because it offers something no other show dares: pure absurdity on a continental scale.

It's appointment viewing for cynics and idealists alike. Some watch ironically. Some watch earnestly. All watch together.

Eurovision gives us a moment of shared nonsense. In a world that often feels fractious, grim, and unhappy, Eurovision is gloriously, defiantly human. It's people in questionable outfits singing implausible songs to a stadium of strangers waving flags while many more follow in the comfort of their homes.

Eurovision is Europe's annual reminder that we can all go crazy for a few hours. That sometimes, the dumbest thing can also be the best thing. That sincerity wrapped in kitsch, shouted over a drum machine, can still unite us - even if only for one very long Saturday night.

And that's why we keep watching. For the chaos. For the silliness. For the catharsis of offending countries that did not give yours one single point.

Because no matter how forgettable the songs may be, Eurovision itself is unforgettable.

And somewhere in Valletta, someone is already writing Malta's song for next year.