The Netherlands NETHERLANDS 2025 - Claude - C'est la vie

[ESC United Mod Team]

 

[soulm8]

Eastern Europe hasn't voted for it much...

That’s crazy cause we love this so called cheap pop songs ala Inna….all my friends loved it too….

 

[shameless]

Another head-shaking injustice of last evening. I'm calling out the elephant in the room as in whenever there was a BPOC having a shot with the jury it was after destroyed by the televote.

Aminata
Cesar Sampson
John Lundvik
Destiny
Eden Alene
Senhit
Jerémie Makiese
Miriana Conte
Claude

All underperformed big time in the televote. The only exceptions here are Tusse and Tvorchi. But the latter one was also under the ukrainian flag and not a solo artist.

 

[soulm8]

42 points. Okay.

 

[b4ld3r]

In a vacuum I have zero issues about people arguing that the Eurovision televote is racially biased against Afro-European performers. However I think people argue this point poorly by bringing up so many examples that I'd argue in large part can be explained by other reasons. Are we pretending that Cesar Sampson doesn't have the stage presence of wet cardboard? Are we pretending that Jeremie Makiese had a song that wasn't horribly dated? That the Maltese examples aren't classic cases of fandom bubble songs?

The case of Claude is yet another example where there are many plausible explanations and I'm not sure what to think. On one hand it was expected, he received such negative reactions for his staging that he had to delete Instagram from his phone, and people have been complaining all season that his song is bland. I happen to agree with all the criticism and think the song got the placement it deserved. But the intensity of the backlash he received may have been amplified due to his race.

 

[Myrel]

Bland is exactly what I thought when I first heard it. I had it as one of my bottom 5 and was surprised at how many people inside the bubble actually liked it, even more so by the amount of points the jury gave this.

 

[ayzelto]

In my prediction I put this outside of the top 10, and I wasn’t wrong. The song itself is very bland, so imo it got what it deserved.

 

[soulm8]

Bland is exactly what I thought when I first heard it. I had it as one of my bottom 5 and was surprised at how many people inside the bubble actually liked it, even more so by the amount of points the jury gave this.

Bland was exactly what I thought first for Portuguese song. But then the boring feeling came into my mind.

 

[Myrel]

Bland was exactly what I thought first for Portuguese song. But then the boring feeling came into my mind.

My dear, you'll have to find someone a lot more patriotic than me if you're going to attack someone's country's song as a response to a simple opinion.

 

[soulm8]

My dear, you'll have to find someone a lot more patriotic than me if you're going to attack someone's country's song as a response to a simple opinion.

Darling I’m not attacking you, I’m just pointing that it is funny how someone from the country with the most sleepy songs in the contest is finding other songs bland. And let’s be honest, Eurovision is not a contest with sophisticated songs. We already heard those melodies, even if the idea is new it can be unserious and even offensive. And then people are going around calling songs bland. This is not a typical ballad with bad English accent, this is a typical pop song performed from a guy with a lot of charisma. Sweden won the contest using this formula many times. He is popular and he will do well post Eurovision, which is the important thing at the end of the day.

 

[Myrel]

Darling I’m not attacking you, I’m just pointing that it is funny how someone from the country with the most sleepy songs in the contest is finding other songs bland. And let’s be honest, Eurovision is not a contest with sophisticated songs. We already heard those melodies, even if the idea is new it can be unserious and even offensive. And then people are going around calling songs bland. This is not a typical ballad with bad English accent, this is a typical pop song performed from a guy with a lot of charisma. Sweden won the contest using this formula many times. He is popular and he will do well post Eurovision, which is the important thing at the end of the day.

But that's your assumption that I don't treat Portugal's entries the same as others. Either that or you assume I'm the one choosing which songs we're sending to Eurovision. In each case, you'd be wrong.

To me, a good song is a good song, a shit one is a shit one, regardless of which country it represents. Therefore, I agree... 'Deslocado' was particularly boring, as was 'C'est la vie'. That's according to my taste. And I'm sure you'll find someone who liked both, or disliked Claude and liked NAPA, because we all have our own ideas of what makes an entry interesting or not and we're allowed to voice them. That's the beauty of it.

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

In a vacuum I have zero issues about people arguing that the Eurovision televote is racially biased against Afro-European performers. However I think people argue this point poorly by bringing up so many examples that I'd argue in large part can be explained by other reasons. Are we pretending that Cesar Sampson doesn't have the stage presence of wet cardboard? Are we pretending that Jeremie Makiese had a song that wasn't horribly dated? That the Maltese examples aren't classic cases of fandom bubble songs?

The case of Claude is yet another example where there are many plausible explanations and I'm not sure what to think. On one hand it was expected, he received such negative reactions for his staging that he had to delete Instagram from his phone, and people have been complaining all season that his song is bland. I happen to agree with all the criticism and think the song got the placement it deserved. But the intensity of the backlash he received may have been amplified due to his race.

My opinion, CLV is bland and wasn't going to be a smash hit with the televote. I do wonder however if the televote would have been slightly better had a white artist sung it, but I don't have evidence.

Agree no recent black act felt like a 'winner'. Cesar Sampson was bland and overmarked by the juries. Destiny was overhyped. I still suspect racism is an issue as black entries tend to do worse with televote than juries

Worth noting we have our 3rd (i think?) biracial winner this year with JJ. Racism is much worse in Europe against people of African heritage than Filipino, however.

 

[jatojo]

I do wonder however if the televote would have been slightly better had a white artist sung it, but I don't have evidence.

I felt the opposite. I felt this song did well for the same reasons why France did so well last year.

 

[jatojo]

'Deslocado' was particularly boring, as was 'C'est la vie'.

As I see it, the problem with Deslocado was that the melody was weak (it's as if there hardly is one). There is a clear melody in C'est La Vie, but the problem is that it's so insanely generic.

In both cases, this comes out as boring. But I believe many found the Dutch artist more charismatic than the Portuguese.

 

[shameless]

In a vacuum I have zero issues about people arguing that the Eurovision televote is racially biased against Afro-European performers. However I think people argue this point poorly by bringing up so many examples that I'd argue in large part can be explained by other reasons. Are we pretending that Cesar Sampson doesn't have the stage presence of wet cardboard? Are we pretending that Jeremie Makiese had a song that wasn't horribly dated? That the Maltese examples aren't classic cases of fandom bubble songs?

I was simply bringing quantitive facts nothing more. Just as you assuming your own opinions about the stage presence of the performers and the quality of their songs reflect the general opinion on why people don't vote for them. That to me is more of a lazy excuse to easily discard this topic and leave it off the table. As SpiritofKeino pointed out, we cannot say if these entries would've feared better if they were sung by white people. We can just see it as a matter of fact that the general audience judged them much worse than the juries in almost every single case a BPOC competed.

 

[Realest]

 

[ESC94]

Wow, Claude was really the most unlucky person of the ESC 2025 with all these places from 11-13.

 

[SpiritofKeiino]

I do feel the juries overrated this. The televote didn't shock me as I felt it was mediocre all along. Racism might have played a role but hard to tell as I never felt this was winning material anyway

 

[Realest]

I do feel the juries overrated this. The televote didn't shock me as I felt it was mediocre all along. Racism might have played a role but hard to tell as I never felt this was winning material anyway

Racism didnt play a role. 15th is exactly where this song belongs.

 

[deletingpoint]

I liked the performance. Always thought it was too boring of a song, but it is also very pleasant for the ears and the eyes. Just nice, my 9th place.