What to know as UK hosts Eurovision Song Contest for Ukraine

LONDON — Last week, Britain crowned a king. “ a way to measure the zeitgeist in Europe.” A MUSICAL MELANGE Eurovision was long associated with fluffy 3-minute pop songs — previous winners include the likes of “La, La, La” and “Boom Bang-a-Bang.” But Vuletic says it’s no longer “the contest with silly songs, innocuous lyrics that it perhaps used to be.” He says a third of this year’s entries deal lyrically with “toxic relationships, anxiety” and other mental-health issues. Musically, contestants range from pop ballads like “Power” by Iceland’s Diljá and relationship-breakup dance track “I Wrote a Song” by Britain’s Mae Muller to the electronica of “Heart of Steel” by Ukraine’s Tvorchi. Austrian duo Teya & Salena offer an offbeat tribute to Edgar Allen Poe, “Who the Hell is Edgar?” while Croatia’s Let 3 belts out antiwar rock opera “Mama ŠČ!” Eurovision’s complex voting system, which awards points from juries of music industry professionals as well as viewers across Europe, makes winners notoriously hard to predict. Ryder’s strong showing last year with “Spaceman” helped transform Eurovision’s image in the U.K. Long viewed as a guilty pleasure – amid perennial grumbling over the country’s poor results -- it now a source of pride and celebration.