With the UK still searching for that ever-elusive 21st-century win at the Eurovision Song Contest and finishing in the top half of the results (the “left hand side of the scoreboard”) just four times this century, the BBC finds itself at a curious crossroads in 2025. In the past, it has been accused of not taking the Song Contest seriously enough and treating the whole thing as a joke. There’s been a change in recent years, so could this finally be the year it cements its place as a serious contender with Remember Monday?
The UK’s Recent History At Eurovision
Since 2022, the BBC has shifted its approach, first sending a vocal powerhouse Spaceman from Planet Tik-Tok, then a cool Gen-Z pop princess who once Grace Kelly’d Mika’s piano, and finally one of our biggest chart-topping stars.
For Basel, the BBC is going all-in with an up-and-coming group with exceptional vocals, Remember Monday.
Finding someone to represent the UK after Olly Alexander’s traumatic experience last year (he famously advised this year’s contestants to “get a good therapist”) was always going to be challenging. All things considered, prioritising a strong live vocal would appear to be a good idea, given that our last three acts gathered 344 jury points and 192 televote points in total. Not only that, but for the last two years, the juries have essentially decided the overall winner.
The weird thing is, the BBC appears to be one of only a handful of countries taking the jury-first approach in 2025. Why is this, and is it a good thing?
What Do The Eurovision Juries Look For?
The juries are made up of music industry professionals, songwriters, performers, producers and others involved in the music industry. Based on their voting record in previous years, it is widely assumed that juries primarily value strong vocal performances and songwriting craft. A captivating stage presence is, of course. important, but historically, juries place less value on ‘novelty’ – performances that rely on wacky stage gimmicks tend to perform less well in the jury vote than the televote.
While the Semi Final is decided purely by the public vote, you can’t be an overall winner at the Grand Final without a decent haul of points from the jury. 2024 was the second year in a row that the overall winner won the jury vote but not the public vote. (Both the 2024 runner-up Baby Lasagne and the 2023 runner-up Kaarija won their respective televotes but failed to secure enough jury points to achieve an overall win).
You would think, therefore, that most countries would note this trend and perhaps weight their entries towards a jury vote. Earnest, well-crafted songs are more likely to succeed in this environment, surely? In fact, 2025 is a rather curious year in that most appear to have done the opposite.
The Sublime And The Ridiculous
Finland is sending a woman straddling a giant microphone, Australia has a saucy milkshake man, Iceland has some bacofoil-clad pirates, Estonia has serial prankster Tommy Cash, and Malta is serving…something some people think sounds rude while bouncing on a space hopper.
Perhaps they’ve seen the commercial success of Kaarija and the virality of acts like Windows 95 Man and Dadi Freyr in recent years and decided that actually, an overall win isn’t necessary. They just need to get the public on their side so they can get through the Semi Final, after which they’ll become icons of Saturday night TV and presumably make money on social media sites and payment when they feature on adverts, teen dramas, or on Strictly Come Dancing.
With so many of these kinds of fun-first acts bumping up against each other, however, it’s unclear what the individual results could be. In the past, they’ve stood out because they’ve been an amusing interlude amongst the more “serious” music. When so many are competing together, the result might be the opposite: the ballads and the more straightforward entries may actually stand out and stick in the audience’s memory more.
Telling a story
For the BBC, this could be good news. For the past few years, they’ve been sending upbeat pop songs with colourful stage acts. Remember Monday brings that same sense of showmanship, but critically, the focus is on the vocal blend. We have three very strong voices in perfect harmony. Their lyrics are irreverent and quirky, with a storytelling approach in the vein of Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. In a year full of bops and bangers, a whimsical, vocally strong country/modern musical theatre crossover song could be just the thing to stand out from the crowd.
As in any year, it’s about more than just the song. Storytelling and making a connection is the most important component of a winning performance. In the past three years, Nemo, Loreen and Kalush Orchestra had powerful stories to tell outside of their songs and performances.
In a year where female competitors are thinner on the ground than most years, there was an opportunity here to tackle the issue of representation and to talk about issues that matter to women. Remember Monday already has form for delivering this sort of song – ‘Hysterical Women’ and ‘Nothing Nice To Say’ both cover this territory in a wry and joyful way. ‘What The Hell Just Happened’ (let’s shorten to WTHJH from hereonin) isn’t that; it’s a fun-filled post-party, hangover anthem, in the vein of Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’ or ‘Waking Up in Vegas.’
What it does have, however, is the element of surprise. Much like Nemo’s The Code played with musical styles, ‘WTHJH’ mixes those gorgeous country-girl harmonies with other genres and plays with time signatures. It borrows at points from Queen, from Chappell Roan, from Taylor Swift. It sounds like five different songs smooshed together to make one. This can sound disjointed on the radio, but has the potential to make for some very interesting moments live on stage (the cry of ‘Freedom Freedom’ towards the end feels like one such opportunity).
One to watch
Will it trouble the left-hand side of the scoreboard in May? That’s hard to say at the moment – but the song offers potential for some memorable staging. Unlike some of the UK’s past entries, which fans have criticised for being too ‘safe’, it does carry an element of risk, which is at least exciting.
While they may lack the star power of an act like Olly Alexander, and they’re not an existing viral sensation like Sam Ryder, what Remember Monday has are strong vocals and the potential to deliver some on-stage surprises. Perhaps there’s potential here to tempt some points out of those ever-elusive juries.
Space Man worked because it sounded uniquely British, and Sam had the opportunity to add theatrical flair to the performance on stage. Off-stage, he was positive, enthusiastic about the Contest and extremely likeable. At first glance, all those ingredients are present here for Remember Monday. What remains to be seen is how they’ll come together on stage.