The duo Tony Grox & Lucycalys has won this Saturday, the first, with their I WILL LOVE and a total of 166 points. The song that fuses its flamenco roots with the electronic avant-garde has received a prize of 100,000 euros for its performers plus another 50,000 euros for its authors, in addition to a golden mermaid as a trophy. Additionally, Univision has offered them to travel to the United States to record a single with one of the most recognized producers in the Latin music industry. And Spotify has invited Asha, a young author of hits like the I don’t want anything anymore by Lola Índigo, to record a song in her flagship studio in Stockholm after competing with her song Tourist.
The La 1 musical contest may no longer give us a representative for Eurovision, but at least it has become the unofficial preselection for the Vuelta Ciclista a España tune. Judging by his views on YouTube, the I WILL LOVE by Tony Grox & Lucycalys has a good handful of people waiting since the beginning of the festival for its chorus to sound on the public channel in the September afternoons. That is the real prize of this edition. Its minimalist staging, with the DJ table integrated into the fountain of an Andalusian patio, has been one of the successes of Sergio Jaén, the event’s new artistic director, and his team.
The professional jury, whose weight is worth 50% of the points, has supported one of the artists who was not in the pools to win, Asha, with her Tourist (94 points). It is no coincidence that the yellow color of the tram has starred in the staging of the very correct Moroccan singer and songwriter. It refers to the Limón Exprés, which was the first tourist train in Spain, inaugurated in 1971. It departed precisely from Benidorm to Gata de Gorgos. Their wooden balcony cars dated back to the 1920s and were painted lemon yellow, like the ones in this final performance. Its choreography and aesthetics were reminiscent of the musical film La La Land. The second proposal most voted for by the jury has been I WILL LOVE de Tony Grox & Lucycalys, con 82 puntos.
The demoscopic vote, with a value of 25% of the total, has supported the pop close to Bruno Mars by Izan Llunas, with 48 points, and the electric copla by Rosalinda Galán with 44 points. And televoting, which was equivalent to the remaining 25%, has finally elevated the interpreters of I WILL LOVE. Rosalinda Galán has followed closely in the audience’s preferences. A complex but apparently simple play of colors and shadows has crowned the solid and very elaborate proposal of the Andalusian and her electric couplet made in patchworks, Excitementwhich every 30 seconds seems like a completely different song from the previous one and which until the last moment has been one of the favorites to win. But the fact that the jury awarded them 40 points less than the duo from Cádiz has ruined their chances of victory.
Reappropriate the insult and the cliché
Regardless of the interest that the musical proposals may arouse, there has been great added value in the television show of this Benidorm Fest. Both the presenters of the contest (Jesús Vázquez, Javier Ambrossi and Inés Hernand), as well as the followers and many of the aspiring artists have enjoyed a safe space. Throughout these three live galas, they have felt free to make jokes about themselves, about the topics around women and the LGTBI+ community (such as Álvaro Mayo’s twink aesthetic and his ambitious execution of touch methe zero interest of gays in football and even promiscuity), without needing to ask for forgiveness or permission. And that is what Vázquez, Ambrossi and Hernand have done, without fear of anyone censoring them and knowing that they are protected by their superiors at RTVE, who have been honest enough not to censor them in favor of their particular interests, nor rectify them, nor dictate how they should use a reappropriation that only corresponds to them.
As with the reappropriation of an insult or a symbol, applying irony to some (often futile) topics about a group is a form of resistance that only makes sense when it is carried out by the group to which it refers.
“In Benidorm I was a picture-perfect bitch, but now I’m a Blanca Paloma,” Vázquez confessed in the first half of the final. “Well, just the opposite,” Ambrossi responded. It has been a long time since we saw the Galician, fresh from Mediaset, so excited about presenting a program. In this he has supported, through laughter and irony, a Javier Ambrossi who has been exposing himself without filters for weeks and who has been so generous as the presenter of the Benidorm Fest.
In his dedication to this television show, the filmmaker has starred in a recurring joke during the semifinals, appearing at various times disguised as Jesús Vázquez himself. Ambrossi naturally admitted to the media a few hours ago that he had read some of the criticism he has received for this. A gay icon belonging to a generation marked by HIV receives the admiration of a man belonging to a generation marked by HSV and there are those who prefer to see this as a suspicion of sexual harassment. Together they have joked about the matter on stage these days. In recent weeks, Ambrossi has demonstrated what some of us suspected: that he is the soul and talent behind the Javis phenomenon, a brand whose enormous success, he himself admitted, was robbing him of his individuality.
Some of the musicians aspiring to the Golden Mermaid have also known how to use self-parody in their proposals as a precise scale of other people’s intelligence and (bad) intentions. Rosalinda Galán has embraced the absurd by sneaking “It’s Mataora, bitch” into the lyrics of her song, claiming to Inés Hernand that she “sings with the papo” after finishing her performance. Julia Medina and María León have winked at the networks by defining themselves as enjoying divorcees, a term that new generations have stripped of its negative connotation.
And Miranda! has fed your side kitsch with a balance aesthetic in the staging of its I wake up loving youwhile Juliana Gattas, the female half of the duo, has ironically claimed the term “whore” in some of the interviews prior to her performance. Turning the insult, the symbol or the cliché around is what is considered the best method to destroy its illocutionary force. Because nothing is insulting in itself, but it is we who make it insulting, he defends. And there has been a lot of that healthy reappropriation in this Benidorm Fest 2026.
