american-eurovision-nerd

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The History of Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Part 4 — Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦 (1993-2016)

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From the Junior Stage to the Eurovision Stage: Junior Eurovision Alums Who Later Competed at Eurovision

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The EBU hasn’t released their full Participants List yet, but I’ve updated the list in my pinned post to include all countries who have confirmed so far, with most recently the Netherlands 🇳🇱, who have finally decided to participate after the controversies of 2024. (Joost has already announced he’s not going to be their artist for 2025, and the broadcaster is currently in the process of selecting their entry.)

The current number of participating countries is at 34, if I remember correctly, and there are still a few countries that have not yet announced their participation status:

Australia 🇦🇺 — Usually has to be invited by the EBU to participate as an Associate Member. We might not find out their status until the Participants List is released.

Bulgaria 🇧🇬 — Last participated in 2022. Has not announced any signs of returning, but I’m imagining the possibility is still open.

Monaco 🇲🇨 — Hasn’t participated since 2006, but I’m including them here because they recently regained EBU membership status with a new broadcaster, and most notably they have not yet confirmed or denied participation in 2025, when in most years previously they already would have announced non-participation by September.

North Macedonia 🇲🇰 — Last participated in 2022. There were signs last year that their broadcaster planned on budgeting for 2024, but it ultimately didn’t pan out. (They’ve continued to participate in Junior Eurovision throughout its Eurovision hiatus.) With fellow ex-Yugoslav country Montenegro 🇲🇪 returning in 2025, the possibility of North Macedonia returning is definitely still open.

Poland 🇵🇱 — Have probably already made their decision on participation as the grace period deadline of October 15 has already passed, but they have not yet made an announcement.

Romania 🇷🇴 — Withdrew in 2024 for financial reasons, but has not yet announced its decision on its participation status for 2025.

Only Andorra 🇦🇩, Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦, and Slovakia 🇸🇰 have definitively announced they’re not participating.

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Checking In

Hello, readers! I’m just doing a quick check-in post to let y’all know what’s been going on lately. I kind of had to step away from blogging for a brief bit there because of Hurricane Milton hitting my home state of Florida last week. Although my hometown experienced flooding in several parts of town and road damage, thankfully my part of town did not flood and my house got through the storm…

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The History of Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Part 3 — The Collapse of Yugoslavia and Its Final Three Years at Eurovision (1990-1992)

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Brotherhood of Man’s (Eurovision 1976 Winners) Martin Lee Dies at Age 77

This is a very brief post to recognize the death of Brotherhood of Man lead singer, Martin Lee, who died on Sunday (29 September) from heart failure following a short illness. Brotherhood of Man won the 1976 Contest with the song “Save Your Kisses for Me” representing the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, and was one of just a handful of entries to be performed first in the Grand Final’s running order and go on…

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Martin Lee Dies at the Age of 77

This week the Eurovision fan community is mourning the passing of Martin Lee, the lead singer of Brotherhood of Man (winners of Eurovision 1976, representing the United Kingdom 🇬🇧). Martin died on Sunday from heart failure following a short illness. He was 77.

Born Martin Barnes in 1946 in Purley, London, England (in the southern part of Greater London), he spent the first few years of his life in Australia before returning to England with his father (shortly after Martin’s mother died). He formed his first band as a teenager and eventually began a professional music career as a young adult. After performing with a few other bands, his big professional breakthrough came in the early 1970s when producer Tony Hiller was looking to form a new lineup of his band Brotherhood of Man (whose first incarnation had split up) and extended an offer to Martin to join. The second lineup (known as “Brotherhood of Man II” amongst fans) came together and they released their first single in 1973.

After having their first major hit with this lineup with “Kiss Me, Kiss Your Baby” in 1975, Hiller, Lee, and bandmate Lee Sheriden decided to work on a song in the hopes of entering Eurovision the following year. While Lee Sheriden had written much of the new song in 1974, the three of them reworked the song into what eventually became “Save Your Kisses for Me”. They submitted the song to the BBC in early 1976 and it was selected as one of 12 songs competing in the British national final, which it ultimately won by a margin of two points over second place. At Eurovision it won (despite being the first song performed in the running order) with a total of 164 points (including 12 points awarded by seven different countries), and defeated runner-up France by a margin of 17 points.

Off of the song’s win, “Save Your Kisses for Me” became a hit all across Europe and even charted in the United States, reaching number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. It was the last Eurovision winning song to chart in the United States until 2019 winner Duncan Laurence’s “Arcade” charted in 2021, peaking at number 30. “Save Your Kisses for Me” was the only song from the Brotherhood of Man II lineup to chart in the United States.

Brotherhood of Man had two more number one singles in the United Kingdom and continued to tour (with pretty much the same lineup) up until the band’s decision to retire from touring in 2020.

Martin, who was married twice, is survived by a daughter from his first marriage and by his second wife, Sandra Stevens. Sandra was also his bandmate in Brotherhood of Man (she’s the blonde woman of the two female singers; the brunette is Welsh singer Nicky Stevens, who is not related to Sandra). Martin and Sandra had been together since she joined Brotherhood of Man in 1973 and had been married since 1979.

Here is the full performance of “Save Your Kisses for Me”, which was uploaded to the official Eurovision YouTube channel earlier today.

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The History of Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Part 2 — Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Beginnings, Victory, and The First Signs of Collapse (1961-1989)

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The History of Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Part 1 — The Birth of Yugoslavia (World War I to 1948)

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The History of Yugoslavia at Eurovision: Introduction

Welcome to my next deep dive series here at American Eurovision Nerd, and this is the series I was attempting to write on the American Eurovision Nerd Tumblr before I decided to move my deep dives here. I had only posted the first part last year and was attempting to write the second when my dad (who I live with; my mom passed away from Alzheimer’s four years ago) went through a series of…

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A Couple of Quick Updates

Hello, readers! (However many or few of you there are.) I’m just popping in for a quick update on the blog itself, specifically its navigation. I’m slowly getting the hang of the Site Editor here in the JetPack App (which is what I use to post to my blogs here on WordPress), and as such I am finding new ways to make this site a little easier to navigate. So the latest update I have going on…

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Eurovision 2025: List of Participating Countries and Entries

Here is the list of confirmed countries so far, and their artist profiles (if available). I’m pinning this now as of 2 September, but this post will be edited considerably throughout the Song Selection and National Final season. We don’t even know all of the Participating Countries just yet, so there may be more added once the EBU makes their participants list available. Once the Semifinals are drawn, I will also edit this post to reflect which countries are in each semifinal.

Semifinalists

Albania 🇦🇱

Australia 🇦🇺

Austria 🇦🇹

Azerbaijan 🇦🇿

Belgium 🇧🇪

Croatia 🇭🇷

Cyprus 🇨🇾 — Theo Evan

Czechia 🇨🇿

Denmark 🇩🇰

Estonia 🇪🇪

Finland 🇫🇮

Georgia 🇬🇪

Greece 🇬🇷

Iceland 🇮🇸

Ireland 🇮🇪

Israel 🇮🇱

Latvia 🇱🇻

Lithuania 🇱🇹

Luxembourg 🇱🇺

Malta 🇲🇹

Montenegro 🇲🇪

Netherlands 🇳🇱

Norway 🇳🇴

Poland 🇵🇱

Portugal 🇵🇹

San Marino 🇸🇲

Serbia 🇷🇸

Slovenia 🇸🇮

Sweden 🇸🇪

Ukraine 🇺🇦

Finalists

Switzerland 🇨🇭 (host)

France 🇫🇷

Germany 🇩🇪

Italy 🇮🇹

Spain 🇪🇸

United Kingdom 🇬🇧

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Eurovision 2025: Theo Evan for Cyprus 🇨🇾

The first artist of the 2025 Contest has been selected! (Originally posted 2 September 2024.)

Theo Evan is the stage name of Evangelos Theodorou, a 26-year-old singer, actor, and dancer from Nicosia, Cyprus. A graduate of The English School in Nicosia, he attended college at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He released his first single, “The Wall”, in 2021. His acting experience includes performing in theater in his youth and some work as an extra (most notably in an episode of the American drama series Euphoria). He has said his music is influenced by a whole bunch of different artists and genres including Michael Jackson, Stromae, and reggaeton.

Theo is the first Cyprus-born artist to represent the country since Hovig in 2017, and the first solo male artist born in Cyprus of Cypriot descent to do so since John Karayiannis in 2015 (Hovig is of Armenian descent, Sandro was both born in Germany and also never got to compete due to the 2020 Contest being cancelled, and Andrew Lambrou was born in Australia).

Theo’s song will be released at a later date.

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Eurovision 2025: Hello Basel, It’s Europe Calling!

It’s official! Basel, Switzerland has been named the host city for Eurovision 2025 and we also have dates for all three shows.

The dates for Eurovision 2025:

Semifinal 1: 13 May 2025

Semifinal 2: 15 May 2025

Grand Final: 17 May 2025

You can read more about the selection process at the Eurovision official website.

And here is the video announcing Basel as the host city:

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Eurovision Artists Known in the United States for Other Songs: The 2010s and 2020s (Part 2)

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Eurovision Artists Known in the United States for Other Songs: The 2010s and 2020s (Part 1)

NOTE: I originally posted this series over on my American Eurovision Nerd Tumblr, but due to the limitations of Tumblr and the Tumblr app, I’ve decided to repost it here, reworking some of the parts to keep posts from running too long. And thankfully, I’ll be able to create categories here for each series to make for even easier access than just a tag and a chance for the app to eat my hard…

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Eurovision Artists Known in the United States for Other Songs: The 1990s and 2000s

NOTE: I originally posted this series over on my American Eurovision Nerd Tumblr, but due to the limitations of Tumblr and the Tumblr app, I’ve decided to repost it here, reworking some of the parts to keep posts from running too long. And thankfully, I’ll be able to create categories here for each series to make for even easier access than just a tag and a chance for the app to eat my hard…