Azerbaijan 2025: Mamagama with ‘Run With U’

Mamagama have been on the rumoured list for a couple of years and 2025 has proved to be their year with them attempting to turn around this former powerhouse's forutnes:

Azerbaijan's goal at the contest these days remains hard to define but seems to be “send something respectable: qualification optional”. Since there's little ambition it’s a surprise they are still here honestly and just ticking along: being as uncontroversial and unambitious as possible. I’m not complaining about that as we’ve lost enough countries from the contest, whilst the qualify through the lowest denominator approach has really kicked into gear.

This is a nice song from Mamagama and the structure of it makes the 3 minutes pass quickly; I am kind of wanting and waiting for more at the end which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This just isn't a contest song, there’s no real vote motivation here, no call to action, nothing stand-out about this, it is just a pallete cleanser and will be used in that way by producers. Semi 1 has some big hitters in there and despite the second half draw this may already be the least likeliest to make it through.

One saving grace is that Azerbaijan are still pretty solid at staging and put a bit of effort into their music video, if they can bring some of that fun and creativity they might make up some ground live.

Azerbaijan have few (practically no) friends in the contest and no source of guaranteed points which is a problem for this. Last year they received just 11 points in the semi (6 from the now absent Moldova) and no higher than 1 point from any other country. In 2023 they received 4 points and in 2022 0 points. That is an average of 5 points over the last three years in semi finals.

I do believe this is a step up all around over the last two entries (and on the televote side from ‘22) but that is one uphill struggle to fight against. Is it a 6 or 7x improvement, at minimum, on the last three years the stats suggest this has to be? Doubtful.

I feel for the guys here but this feels like an inevitable NQ.

Personal Rating: 15/20

Staging Potential: 13/20

Televote Potential: 6/20

Jury Potential: 11/20

Track Record: 2/20

Total Rating: 47/100

Early Prediction: Semi One 12th-15th.