Eurovision Song Contest: Basel 2025 (review)

Published by Mason Oldridge, 19 May 2025

We return to where it all began as we head to Basel in Switzerland, the host and winning country of the first ever Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956, following their win last year.

Held in the St Jakobshalle arena with just a 6,000 strong audience, there was a 36,000 person viewing party in the neighbouring St Jakob-Park stadium, which featured in the broadcast and was a nice touch.

Frontrunner Sweden was represented by KAJ, who performed their catchy sauna-based tune Bara bada bastu, making use of props. Despite being the hot favourite by bookmakers, the winner was Austria, represented by JJ with his song Wasted Love, an operatic ballad with a techno ending. The performance was emotionally vulnerable and featured impressive vocals and innovative nautical staging depicting JJ aboard a sailboat, with camera techniques emulating a tempest storm on the water. There were other ballads from the likes of France and Switzerland, dance pop offerings from Denmark and Malta, Germany and San Marino brought EDM club bangers to the final, whereas Lithuania provided a rare rock option, as did Italy but more in the glam rock style with Lucio Corsi performing in face paint reminiscent of David Bowie. The UK was represented by country pop trio Remember Monday with their harmonising single What The Hell Just Happened?, in which the girls gave an impressive performance in comparison to other past entrants. Novelty proved popular again too as Estonian musician Tommy Cash performed his electro-swing coffee-themed hit Espresso Macchiato, complete with an amusing dance.

Unfortunately, entries this year felt rather poor in comparison to those of the past two editions, with many fitting the Eurovision mould yet not a lot standing out as powerful or memorable.

Once again, the competition was tarred with controversy surrounding Israel’s inclusion. However, we were sure given a tense results sequence as Israel won the televote and almost the contest overall! The EBU were likely left breathing a huge sigh of relief as Israel narrowly missed out on success, which would have no doubt posed a logistical nightmare for producers, on top of an almighty backlash and locational limbo, and may leave them reconsidering Israel’s place in future… or at very least implementing plans for a hypothetical win.

The contest is expected to return to Austria in 2026, where we will see who is the next artist to rise like a phoenix.

8/10