There’s an ever-growing amount of music available today, a few taps (or clicks) away. I for one feel like there’s a lot of great music in many genres and styles, coming from many countries, and in many languages. And there’s always new, interesting stuff coming out regularly.
Whether a new release from an artist you like, or an old one you want to go back to, there are so many options to choose from at any given point in time. Yet we can only hear one at a time, so we must choose. So…
How do you choose what to listen to, and how do you keep up with everything you want to keep up with? Do you manage to listen to everything you want to on a regular basis? Do you instead choose to articially limit yourself to keep sane? Or is your music taste narrow enough this is of no worry?
I listen to the music I liked as a youngin: grunge, 90’s alternative, nu-metal, weird Al, and sea shanties.
I also watch and listen to the Eurovision Song Contest every year since I found it a few years ago. That gives me ~40 new artists every year that I might like. I follow a few favorites and see what else they’ve made. Watching some of the national final competitions gives me dozens more songs.
ESC?! Hell yeah! I only follow the finals, though. I generally go in without spoiling much for myself ahead of time, so it all ends up being a fresh listen (other than when I already heard the song elsewhere, like Viva l’Italia, which I’ve heard before knowing it was part of the ESC)
I don’t really watch the nationals either. I did once, for Spain (the finals). I was gonna do it another year, for Spain (not sure which year came first tbh), but the one song I knew ahead of time, by Rakky Ripper, did not make it onto the finals :(
Honestly, I wonder what the best way to enjoy ESC would be. Following semis? Nationals?? How much should I invest myself? But then I think it works as is, and would be too much work following everything. Plus, a lot more options to my already large pool of artists and music.
Watching the national finals starts to feel like work. This year there were, I think, three Super Saturdays with several multi-hour shows to watch. Oof.
Benidorm Fest from Spain is usually good. San Remo (Italy) is great, of course, since they’re the template on which the ESC was based and because the Italians view THAT as the real show. Ukraine’s Vidbir is interesting because you can tell they have no budget and are often bombed during the show. Portugal’s Festival de Cançâo has some amazing songs, because they don’t care about winning ESC, they’re just focused on highlighting the best Portuguese acts.
I have some favorites from 2025 that didn’t make it out of the national finals - From Ukraine I loved Future Culture’s Waste my Time Vidbir Live - Music Video . From Finland I’m still listening to Goldielocks’s Made Of UMK Live - Music Video . Germany sent the wrong song again, they should have gone with Feuerschwanz’s Knight Club is super fun. NDR live - Music video .
I found the Eurovangelists podcast, and they’re a lot of fun to follow along with. Taking in too much media ABOUT the contest can color your enjoyment of the songs, though.
Well, best I get before the show is a Switched on Pop podcast episode about Eurovision. And I may or may not hear it before the show, depends on how much I care about going in unknowing to the finals. Portugal did definitely make a banger this year, and so did Italy. Viva l’Italia was one of my favourites ahead of the finals, and Espresso Macchiato won me over quickly. I wasn’t at first big into the eventual winner, but soon as they were the only one left for scores at the very end, I quickly changed my mind and needed them to win (I got kinda heated there…). Plus, the song isn’t bad either (though I wanted Espresso Macchiato higher up, and will deem it second place in my mind)