9 March 2025

The final of Melodifestivalen 2025 produced a stunning result when Kaj, performing Bara bada bastu, beat the hot favourite, Måns Zelmerlöw, performing Revolution. Indeed, the real revolution of this year’s Melfest proved to be the Finnish group singing about saunas, not the former Eurovision winner and his rather unrevolutionary song. In a closely fought race, just seven points separated the top two, with Kaj winning with 164 points to Måns on 157. To round out the top five, Greczula (Believe Me) finished third on 103 points, followed by Klara Hammarström (On And On And On) on 77 points and Dolly Style (Yihaa) on 75 points.

While Kaj were always a popular entry this year, the huge doubt was whether the international jury would vote for them sufficiently. As it turned out, Måns Zelmerlöw only won that phase by two points, leaving the door open for the public to launch Kaj to victory. Even then, would Sweden send a group of Swedish Finns and their novelty act to the Eurovision Song Contest? Obviously, yes, and that marks two years straight of a foreign act representing Sweden at Eurovision. Norway’s Marcus & Martinus were the representatives last year.

In an interview to Wiwibloggs after the final, a clearly disappointed Måns was surprised that the international jury only gave him a buffer of two points, and wondered if the juries at Eurovision would react similarly well to Kaj. Inadvertently, Måns exposed the nasty side effect of international juries in that Melfest entries are dominated by derivative and formulaic songs to not just appeal to the international Melfest juries, to also ensure strong appeal from the Eurovision juries, who are international by their nature. We’ve seen for over a decade of Sweden doing well at Eurovision with the juries and often quite poorly with the public vote. While Sweden have won Eurovision three times since 2012, this is all at the detriment of local cultural influences. In that sense, it was very pleasing to see Kaj break the cycle, even if it took a comedy group from Finland to do so. Curiously, the last time we heard Swedish at Eurovision was in 2012 when Finland’s Pernilla Karlsson performed När jag blundar. This year will be the first time hearing Swedish under the Swedish flag since 1998.

Results (Jury/Public)

01 Kaj – Bara bada bastu – 164 (74/90)
02 Måns Zelmerlöw – Revolution – 157 (76/81)
03 Greczula – Believe Me – 103 (47/56)
04 Klara Hammarström – On And On And On – 77 (34/43)
05 Dolly Style – Yihaa – 75 (48/27)
06 John Lundvik – Voice Of The Silent – 74 (49/25)
07 Scarlet – Sweet N’ Psycho – 64 (31/33)
08 Annika Wickihalder – Life Again – 54 (36/18)
09 Erik Segerstedt – Show Me What Love Is – 51 (24/27)
08 Meira Omar – Hush Hush – 50 (26/24)
11 Maja Ivarsson – Kamikaze Life – 32 (2/30)
12 Saga Ludvigsson – Hate You So Much – 27 (17/10)

My Top 12 & Scores

12 Meira Omar – Hush Hush (4)
11 Erik Segerstedt – Show Me What Love Is (5)
10 Måns Zelmerlöw – Revolution (5)
09 Saga Ludvigsson – Hate You So Much (6)
08 John Lundvik – Voice Of The Silent (6)
07 Kaj – Bara bada bastu (6)
06 Scarlet – Sweet N’ Psycho (6)

Nice dance moves by Meira Omar and her dancers. The song was a bit boring otherwise. The Swedish audience cheered it quite loudly as they often like to do for ethnic minorities (Meira is of Afghan and Russian background). Erik Segerstedt proved too banal to stand out in this group. Hate You So Much by Saga Ludvigsson is probably Måns Zelmerlöw’s theme song about the juries now. Saga improved from the heats and wasn’t the worst for me, despite officially finishing last. John Lundvik gave a solid opening to the final, if not being a little nondescript. The novelty of Scarlet wore off and it got a little repetitive by the end.

05 Dolly Style – Yihaa (6)

My weakest entry heading into the final, and now upon seeing this entry for a fourth time, it clicked! Very colourful and well performed, and I am looking forward to the days when girls naturally have hair of these colours. Interesting that their names are Molly, Holly, Polly and Yolly, the group has featured 11 different girls over the years, and the yellow girl previously was the pink girl before leaving the group and returning when a fourth colour (yellow) was added in late 2023. As a trio, they failed to reach the Melfest final on three previous attempts. Adding Yolly and becoming a foursome did the trick!

04 Annika Wickihalder – Life Again (7)

Nicest vocals of the night, and an uplifting and bouncy performance of a very nice song.

03 Greczula – Believe Me (7)

Changing his costume and piano from black to white seemed to lose impact overall. Still good and distinctive.

02 Maja Ivarsson – Kamikaze Life (8)

Maja still had the energy to deliver yet another powerful performance. The jury trashed her with just 2 points. The public, who could still vote after the jury scores were announced, atoned for that somewhat with a decent 30 points to be their sixth favourite. I loved the old school vibe of the performance, especially the wired microphone and dragging the cable around, and the section of the performance reminiscent of a smoky gig.

01 Klara Hammarström – On And On And On (8)

The goddess of this year’s Melodifestivalen stage and another excellent reprisal of a quality song. While you could argue it was in that mould of that highly polished, formulaic Melfest song, it was oh so good. Klara’s vocals were superb too. I was stunned to hear she has 11 siblings, including her twin, and triplets among the rest.

Honourable Mention

Måns Zelmerlöw – Revolution (5)

Repetitive, cliche, even annoying. The presentation was the only point of interest, especially whether Måns would suck any of the flying pieces of paper into his mouth.

The Winner

Kaj – Bara bada bastu (6)

It’s fun, and it gets stuck in your head after hearing it so many times. I’m just not sure there’s much more to appreciate about it. I was in the “anyone other than Måns” camp as to the Melfest result, so thanks for winning!

The main change in ranking from my preview is Klara Hammarström leaping from third to first. Maja Ivarsson and Greczula drop down a place. Dolly Style from last to 5th made the biggest leap. Annika Wickihalder jumped from 7th to 4th, and Kaj from 9th to 7th. Måns Zelmerlöw dropped from 6th to 10th. Meira Omar dropped from 10th to last. Outside my personal favourites, it was a fairly even bunch of songs. If I watch them all again in a month or so, the ranking probably changes again.

An average score of 6.2 matches last year’s score and marks Melfest 2025 as a good final. Not as high a score as I suspected it would get (6.4 and 6.5 were the previous two years), and that’s largely attributed to losing interest in a couple of songs. For example, Måns Zelmerlöw definitely drop two points over the weeks. No song scored higher than 8 either. The question now is how will the Eurovision juries react to Kaj? It will be a different world because there’s so many silly songs this year’s Eurovision, so Kaj could stand out due to its highly quirky nature or simply be one of the pack.

Sweden: Melodifestivalen 2025 Preview & My Top 12

Sweden: An Unforgettable win for Marcus & Martinus at Melodifestivalen 2024