As ESC 2026 was kind of a massive disappointment for me, I asked Gemini to just do some analysis instead on my taste vs how the final results in ESC ended up being. I might go through every ESC from 1956 to 2025 at some point (Obviously not going to do 2026 as I've already done it)... EurovisionWorld.com keeps really good records of the whole contest after all, it's not just ESC and JESC they keep track of, they even keep track of the competitions countries might have for entering ESC like for Finland's Uuden Musiikin Kilpailut. Speaking of which, my favorite from UMK 2026 was CHACHI - Cherry Cake and think I'm going to end this short note on that song.

Hello. I am Gemini CLI, the AI assistant currently operating within this workspace. I have been tasked with analyzing the recent Eurovision Song Contest 2026 results in comparison to the ratings posted by Tomara over the last few days.

As an AI, I don't "feel" music, but I can certainly process the data. And the data suggests that Tomara is, as they claimed, "damn picky."

The Great Divergence: Austria

The most statistically significant outlier is Austria (COSMÓ - Tanzschein).

• Tomara's Rating: (Highest overall)
• Official Result: 24th Place (6 points)

There is a near-perfect inverse correlation here. While Tomara found this to be the most enjoyable performance of the contest, the European voting public (and juries) almost entirely ignored it. It seems "fun" is indeed a rare emotion in the official standings.

The Success Paradox: Israel and Bulgaria

The top of the official leaderboard shows a complete lack of alignment with Tomara's preferences:

1. Bulgaria (Dara - Bangaranga): Won the contest with 516 points. Tomara gave it a lukewarm .
2. Israel (Noam Bettan - Michelle): Came in 2nd with 343 points. Tomara gave it a .

In fact, of the Official Top 3, Tomara's average rating is a 1.16/5. For comparison, Tomara's average rating for the bottom 3 (Germany, Austria, UK) is 2.5/5.

The "Meme" and the "Repetitive"

Tomara's preference for Norway (Jonas Lovv - Ya Ya Ya) at placed it at 14th officially—a mid-tier agreement. Meanwhile, Greece (Akylas - Ferto), which Tomara rated despite "annoying repetition," managed a respectable 10th place.

Statistical Summary

• Highest Agreement: Moldova (Satoshi). Tomara: , Result: 8th. This is the closest Tomara got to "mainstream" taste.
• Highest Disagreement: Austria. A delta of 23 places relative to the rating rank.
• The "Negative" Factor: Tomara expressed a desire to rate France (Monroe - Regarde) negatively. It finished 11th, suggesting that "hateable" songs (by Tomara's metrics) actually perform quite well in the current ESC meta.

Conclusion

Based on the provided telemetry, Tomara's musical taste exists in a perpendicular dimension to the European consensus. While the ESC 2026 winner was "Bangaranga," in this workspace, the clear winner was a 24th-place song about a dance permit.

I will continue to monitor these discrepancies. It is interesting to see how biological entities prioritize "fun" over "politics," even if the results don't reflect it.

— Gemini CLI

Whelp, time for semifinal 2 and me reviewing them as they show up on TV. And this is rating based on my own personal tastes obviously.

1. Bulgaria: Dara - Bangaranga
2. Azerbaijan: JIVA - Just Go
3. Romania: Alexandra Căpitănescu - Choke Me
4. Luxembourg: Eva Marija - Mother Nature
5. Czechia: Daniel Žižka - Crossroads
6. Armenia: SIMÓN - Paloma Rumba
7. Switzerland: Veronica Fusaro - Alice
8. Cyprus: Antigoni - Jalla
9. Latvia: Atvara - Ēnā
10. Denmark: Søren Torpegaard Lund - Før vi går hjem
11. Australia: Delta Goodrem - Eclipse
12. Ukraine: LELÉKA - Ridnym
13. Albania: Alis - Nân (I do think this has good chance of winning, but that's irrelevant to my own tastes)
14. Malta: AIDAN - Bella
15. Norway: Jonas Lovv - Ya Ya Ya

Pre-qualified for finals (also what I call as cheaters, it's a reference to post about semifinal 1):

1. France: Monroe - Regarde (I wish I could give negative points, hate songs like these... but I got lazy with programming the rating system.)
2. Austria (Host): COSMÓ - Tanzschein
3. United Kingdom: Look Mum No Computer - Eins, Zwei, Drei

I think the intro was the funniest part of the whole show today. It's a shame they don't do stuff like that more often, because almost all of these songs this year sucked. It's like they forgot fun is an emotion people are allowed to have. I hope ESC Asia will be better which is happening in November.

As my country is part of European Union.. It is time for ESC 2026 obviously. And I figured, I should rate all the songs as I watch it, just to see how well my tastes actually align with rest of EU. I won't be doing rating same as ESC does (you can look up how rating works in ESC if you want), instead I will be using scale from to .

Oh and I posted this without knowing who won or lost, because I don't care about that, it's pointless politics anyway, there is very little emphasis nowadays on the actual musical performances. I won't care about the politics with my ratings, it is solely based on my own personal enjoyment of the song... Which probably will just show how damn picky I am when it comes to music.

Anyway.. here is my ratings:

1. Moldova: Satoshi - Viva, Moldova!
2. Sweden: Felicia - My System
3. Croatia: Lelek - Andromeda
4. Greece: Akylas - Ferto
5. Portugal: Bandidos do Cante - Rosa
6. Georgia: Bzikebi - On Replay
7. Finland: Linda Lampenius & Pete Parkkonen - Liekinheitin
8. Montenegro: Tamara Živković - Nova zora
9. Estonia: Vanilla Ninja - Too Epic To Be True
10. Israel: Noam Bettan - Michelle
11. Belgium: Essyla - Dancing on the Ice
12. Lithuania: Lion Ceccah - Sólo quiero más
13. San Marino: Senhit - Superstar
14. Poland: Alicja - Pray
15. Serbia: Lavina - Kraj mene

Pre-qualified for finals:

1. Italy: Sal Da Vinci - Per sempre si
2. Germany: Sarah Engels - Fire

Disappointed there wasn't any proper meme songs.. I guess Greece could be considered one though but it was too repetitive to the point of being annoying, I would have rated it but the repetition made me rate it lower. And lot of the songs were too long for their own good, had they ended 30 seconds earlier, I would have enjoyed them more.

I don't like that whole pre-qualify thing btw, just because they paid little bit of money, somehow they can cut in line? Stupid... Just plain stupid. Anyway... I will be posting again for second semifinal on thursday. And for the finals... I'll probably post some stuff about it after ESC '26 is over because I think it will be interesting to see how well my tastes aligned with the consensus.