It’s the Eurovision down season, and don’t you for a second think we’re going to stop speculating, arguing, and pushing our heated opinions. Our latest series will look at the national finals of Eurovision, and discussing how we would reform the national finals of Eurovision. Today we’re having a look at Luxembourg Song Contest.
In part nine of this series Daniel, Angus, and Kittens discuss what changes they’d make to Luxembourg’s national final.
What is Luxembourg Song Contest?
The Luxembourg Song Contest debuted in 2024 with the country’s return to Eurovision. In 2024, the show featured eight artists and took place on one night. To determine the winner, there were two rounds of voting. The first round used a 50/50 combination of a jury and televote to determine the three superfinalists. The second round of voting followed the same format, though just containing the three super finalists.
Do we like what the NF does so far, and do we think there’s a chance of it producing a winner?
Daniel
That’s a fun question because the honest truth is I have no idea. The Luxembourg Song Contest is one of the National Finals I’m most looking forward to next year because of one simple reason. What Now? They had the big extravaganza homecoming show with about 500 former Eurovision winners invited, but the second edition is far less special, and is just any old National Final, how do RTL deal with that? Ask me again in 2025, and I’ll give you a proper answer.
Angus
Daniel raises good points, but if we just look at 2024 I feel conflicted. I really liked how the regulations meant that the music industry of Luxembourg would be involved with LSC. I was saddened to see that this involvement felt fairly minimal in the end. The party was fun, but it at times overshadowed the actual national final part of things. And the songs themselves were not up to the standard I had hoped for. Can it produce a winner? I say this in all of these: sure, anything is possible. But as things stand I highly doubt we will see Luxembourg win anytime soon.
Kittens
Look, I’d hope just in terms of the amount of money thrown at this NF they could use last year as at least a lesson learned. The output last year was…fine. Slick, but ultimately unmemorable, and I genuinely forgot that they were in this contest, to be quite honest. It’s unfair I suppose to ask them to hit their stride immediately upon re-entry. I’d like to think that they could produce a winner, and at least they had production values which is something some other shows lack.
What changes would we make to the National Final?
Daniel
The superfinal seems incredibly stupid and redundant, especially as it seemed painfully obviously Tali was winning beforehand. Give that the chop, or if you are 100% insistent on having one, drop the third song in it and have it be a straight knockout – having Joel Marques Cunha in there this year was just silly. Other than that, the show is mostly inoffensive. It’s a decent little national final. I think the over the top intervals should probably go as they take the focus away from the actual contestants, but I expect that was just a first edition thing anyway. My only other major gripe currently is a lot of the songs feel a bit generic, there wasn’t really much in this year’s version that you wouldn’t get anywhere else, I think they need to be very careful they don’t turn themselves into Melodifestivalen Luxembourg Edition.
One thing that should stay the same is Sennek being on the Belgian jury, keep her forever because she is a robbed queen.
Angus
I can only agree with Daniel, the superfinal has got to go. More variety in the music and languages will also do LSC a lot of good, regardless of what ends up getting picked. As Daniel says, the entries all felt a bit generic and, for lack of a better term, Melfesty. I largely blame some of the involved songwriters for that, and hope we see big differences in that respect for 2025. Some form of language encouragement, like setting a quota of having one song in each of the country’s three administrative tongues, would also make for a very cool addition.
Kittens
Absolutely no risks taken this year. And that’s fair, you want a solid qualifier on your first year back, I get it. But I feel this might end up being just a high budget MESC if they’re not careful. I will definitely add to the ‘there is never any need for a superfinal’ argument here but the show itself otherwise was fine. I’ll bring it back to selection, selection, selection. The fundamental point is to bring better songs, with more variety. If you want to be on that higher level, you need just so much more impact.
Do we think any reforms are likely to happen to this NF?
Daniel
There has been one edition of the show, ever. Things are almost certainly going to change if Luxembourg stick around.
Angus
Yeah, there are bound to be changes big and small for 2025. Will any of them be the changes Daniel or I would like to see? Except for (deliberately or not) toning down the interval acts, probably not.
Kittens
I agree that change is inevitable. And it’s not like they did a Bad Job this year, it’s just middle of the road (and middle of the scoreboard). Unfortunately that’s where they’ll stay without changes, so we’ll just have to see what they do to get out of that place.
Luxembourg’s Eurovision Journey
Luxembourg first made its debut in the first edition of the Contest in 1956, with their first entries being “Ne crois pas” and “Les Amants de minuit”, both performed by Michèle Arnaud. Since the first Contest, Luxembourg has competed a total of 38 times. Their best result was finishing in 1st place five times – in 1961, 1965, 1972, 1973 and 1983 respectively.
Luxembourg returned to the contest for the first time in 31 years in 2024. Tali, represented Luxembourg in Malmö, with the song “Fighter”. At the close of voting in the first semi-final, it was announced Tali had qualified for the Grand Final. In the Grand Final, “Fighter” received 103 points. 83 points were from the national juries, while 20 points were from the televoters.
What do you think about our reforms? As always, let us know what you think by commenting down below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Bluesky for all the latest Eurovision news!
News Source: That Eurovision Site
Photo Credit: Marc Wilwert
Tim J