The 25 songs in this year’s Eurovision final nearly all follow the template of recent years, being in a minor key, having a strict 4/4 beat and avoiding key changes – though there is a little musical experimentation to be found.
Only one of the artists taking to the stage in Vienna on Saturday night will perform a song in a major key: the solo female singer Essyla, representing Belgium.
While this means the contest has avoided a repeat of 2024, when every song in the final was in a minor key, it is line with the trend that began early this century and which has seen major-key entries fall out of fashion sharply.
It is also in stark contrast with the first few decades of the contest’s 70-year history.
Songs in minor keys were scarce in the early years of Eurovision.
There were none at all in the contests in 1957-59 or in 1964, though 1961 saw the first minor-key winner (Nous Les Amoureux by Jean-Claude Pascal for Luxembourg).
The proportion of songs in a minor key topped a quarter for the first time in 1965 but did not pass a third until 1979, and it took until 2002 to pass 50%, Press Association analysis shows.
Since 2005, more than half of the songs in the final have been in a minor key save for one year (2013), with the proportion passing three-quarters in 2023.
The UK’s entry this year – Eins, Zwei, Drei by Look Mum No Computer – follows all three prevailing Eurovision trends: it is in a minor key, is in 4/4 time, and has no key changes.
In the early history of the contest, countries frequently used a range of rhythms and structures in their entries, with songs in 3/4 (three beats per bar) or even 5/4 (five beats), before 4/4 became more popular from the 1970s onwards.
Recent years have seen time signatures become increasingly standardised.
Every song in the 2026 final has a strict four beats in a bar: the seventh time this had occurred since 2000.
The key change was a staple of Eurovision from the 1950s to the 1990s, before falling out of favour in the early 2000s and becoming steadily less common until it disappeared entirely – for the first time in the event’s history – in 2023.
A key change was deployed in only one of the songs in 2024’s final, but in 2025 it appeared in five and in 2026 it surfaces in three: Eclipse by Delta Goodrem, representing Australia; Andromeda by Lelek, for Croatia; and Ya Ya Ya by Jonas Lovv for Norway.
A handful of songs that didn’t follow current trends or which had unusual musical characteristics were eliminated in this year’s semi-finals.
They included a song that alternated between time signatures of 3/4 and 4/4 (from Portugal) and another in 6/8 time (Switzerland); three songs in a major key (from Estonia, Luxembourg and Portugal); and a song that revived a gimmick that was once common in many Eurovision entries: a chorus consisting entirely of “la la la” (Georgia).
This phrase was cemented in Eurovision folklore when Spain won the contest in 1968 with a song titled precisely that: La La La.
In both of the following years, 1969 and 1970, 25% of finalists included “la la la” in their lyrics.
The popularity of the phrase waned slightly in the 1970s, but “la la la” was still turning up in 17% of songs in the final as late as 1982.
Since then, the “la” has more or less vanished and has been absent in almost every final since 2000 – as will be the case again this year.
The 2026 contest is not entirely without some musical curiosities, however.
Two of this year’s entries have changes in tempo, something highly unusual in Eurovision history.
One is the UK’s song, which speeds up towards the end; the other is from Bulgaria, which manages both to slow down and speed up over the course of its three minutes.
Finland’s entry pairs a classical violinist with a rock singer, Croatia are represented by an all-female folk ensemble, while Serbia have gone to the other extreme and sent a heavy metal band.
