Sixteen songs entered the finals of Pesma za Evroviziju seeking the chance to represent Serbia at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest. The show was the typical well-produced affair, running quickly and featuring performances by Luke Black and a fantastic artistic medley by Konstrakta.
I had skipped the Semis, so all of these were fresh reads. By the time all 16 finished, the following songs got my attention:
Vukayla’s “Mas’k” was the best-staged song of the night. Her dancers started as silhouettes in foggy cubes before joining her on the stage and returning at the end.
Princs “Milla” is old-school ballad excellence. His descent on a crescent moon, an acrobat spinning through the bridge, and thrilling vocals made for a great overall package.
Tam gave us the ethnic beat of Durum durum; that got the energy up later in the show. The singer seemed to find the proper level of performance for the choreography, fitting in with her dancers while not sacrificing the vocals.
Iskaz performed the rock song “Trendsetter,” which surprised me in how much I liked it. It was entertaining, had a very assured performance, and was a song I would have considered were I in the jury.
Overall, the song variety was solid with many songs that just missed the cut for this report.
Vukayla was in first place after the Juries, followed by Princ, and once the scores were normalized, she led 12 points to 10. Then things got unpredictable with the televote:
Vukayla was 7th , gaining four more points to go to 16.
Princ was 3rd , upping his score to 18 and taking the lead.
The Harem Girls, one of the crowd favorites, got 2nd and scored 17… just below Princ.
Sedlar, who was third in the Jury with his song Oči boje zemlje, could win if he won the televote… anyone else would give the win to Princ…
12 points went to Bojana x David’s pop song, which placed 11th on the jury.
And with that, Princ is their entry for Eurovision. The song stands a chance at qualifying, although it needs some additional staging to make it pop. The song type isn’t well represented this year, so it may gain some fans even though it’s in the “Semi of Doom” for Basel. I’m not skipping it when it comes up on my playlist.
Another item to note: The pre-song videos appeared to use AI technology to make famous paintings react to the performers. While it’s possible that it’s not AI, and I’m not against it in principle for informational tasks vs. artistic tasks, I hope those effects are human-generated instead of fighting with computer prompts. After Junior Eurovision, we need to try to push back on this when we can.