A comedy song about saunas. A tear-jerking ballad about motherhood. A high-camp rock stomper, whose singer rides a giant flying microphone.
All three of those tracks are among the favorites to win the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday in Basel, Switzerland, according to betting firms.
Who do you think deserves to triumph? Read about eight key acts below, then tell us your favorite in the comments.
Sweden
‘Bara Bada Bastu’ by Kaj
Kaj — the favorite of most online betting sites on Friday — is a musical comedy act from a small town in western Finland, though, confusingly, it is representing Sweden. And its entry, a catchy, silly song called “Bara Bada Bastu,” is about how Finnish people love sweating their worries away in the sauna.
Axel Ahman, one of Kaj’s singers, said he had no qualms representing the land of Abba and Ikea, because the bandmates are all members of Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, a group that makes up about 5 percent of Finland’s population.
“We are Finnish, but Sweden’s a country that we feel really connected to,” Ahman said. “It’s the country who speaks our language and we’re culturally so close, so it’s a great honor to represent them.”
Still, Ahman said, it felt strange waving a Swedish flag. When he did it for the first time after the band won a television competition to become Sweden’s Eurovision act, he felt “a bit confused,” he said.
Austria
‘Wasted Love’ by JJ
Operatic voices don’t usually feature at Eurovision, but JJ, Austria’s representative, is an exception.
In “Wasted Love,” JJ, 24, gently coos about a recent heartbreak until he hits the chorus, when his voice soars in volume and pitch, making full use of his classical training.
JJ, whose real name is Johannes Pietsch, is a countertenor, meaning his vocal range most closely matches a female mezzo-soprano. He is in the choir at the Opera School of the Vienna State Opera, and recently appeared onstage in Vienna in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”
JJ said he hoped his Eurovision song would “awaken interest in classical music” among Eurovision’s viewers, and some key figures in Vienna’s opera scene have wished JJ luck, including Bogdan Roscic, the general director of the Vienna State Opera. “He’s excited and happy for me,” JJ said, “but he said he will not watch.” Eurovision is still too much of a silly spectacle for some, even with JJ in it.
Finland
‘Ich Komme,’ by Erika Vikman
Eurovision songs often feature winking sexual innuendo, but Erika Vikman, representing Finland, doesn’t rely on hidden meanings in “Ich Komme,” a bombastic track mixing U2-style rock with pounding beats. During the chorus, Vikman repeatedly sings the German words for “I’m coming,” sometimes while straddling a microphone stand.
During a recent interview, Vikman, 32, said that the song was, quite clearly, about having orgasms. With the track, Vikman said, she wanted to “express myself as a female, and show my sexual power.” Women should be free to be open about their sex lives, she added.
Vikman is a star in Finland, yet not all of her compatriots think she should be representing the country in Basel. In February, a youth arm of Finland’s governing National Coalition Party said in a news release that “Ich Komme” turned women into sex objects.
The song has been debated in the letters pages of Finland’s major newspapers, with some writers comparing Vikman’s lascivious performance to pornography and others calling Vikman an inspiration to women.
Vikman said she had found the debate unsurprising. “People always find it very scary when a woman appears who’s strong, knows what’s she’s doing, and does it in a sexual and flirty way,” Vikman said, adding, “The world needs women like me.”
The Netherlands
‘C’est la Vie,’ by Claude
Claude Kiambe has had some journey to the Eurovision stage.
At age 9, he moved with his family to Alkmaar, the Netherlands, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Living in a center for asylum seekers, Kiambe was watching television — something his family could not do in Congo — when he stumbled upon the Eurovision Song Contest while flipping channels.
Kiambe was enraptured.
“I immediately thought, ‘What is this?’” he recalled. Enamored by the flags and the outlandish acts — including Conchita Wurst, the Austrian drag queen who won that night in 2014 when Kiambe first tuned in — he went on to watch the competition every year. Although, Kiambe said, he did not dare dream that he’d ever compete himself.
Then, in 2022, Kiambe shot to the top of the Dutch charts with his debut single “Ladada (Mon Dernier Mot),” an upbeat track sung in both French (Kiambe’s first language) and Dutch. The song “just exploded,” Kiambe said, and many people noted that “Ladada,” had a very Eurovision feel to it.
So Kiambe decided he should give Eurovision a try and crafted “C’est La Vie,” an upbeat pop track that Kiambe said he hoped would remind people to be grateful for what they have in life.
France
‘Maman’ by Louane
When Louane was offered the chance to represent France at Eurovision, she immediately knew what she wanted to sing about: her mother.
As a child growing up in a small town, Louane, whose real name is Anne Peichert, watched Eurovision with her parents and five siblings while gathered around the TV eating pizza. Even when it wasn’t Eurovision season, Louane recalled, her mother would put on videos of Celine Dion’s winning performance from 1988, and they would watch together.
Those happy Eurovision sessions ended abruptly in 2014 when Louane’s mother died of cancer.
A star in France with five hit albums, Louane, now 28, said that, over the past decade, she had written many songs expressing grief and anger at her mother’s death. Her Eurovision track, a powerful ballad called “Maman,” has an altogether different message, however. “It’s a letter to my mother saying: ‘I’m finally fine. I’m finally good in my life. I am, myself, a mother,’” Louane said. “It’s a super special song to me.”
Israel
‘New Day Will Rise,’ by Yuval Raphael
When Hamas attacked the Nova music festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Yuval Raphael went from dancing with friends to hiding in a bomb shelter.
After attackers broke into the shelter and started shooting partygoers, Raphael played dead, then lay beneath bodies for eight hours until she was rescued.
That experience, Raphael told the Israel Hayom newspaper earlier this year, changed her outlook on life. “When I was there, I realized that everything could be over in a moment, and you don’t want your life to end without experiencing it,” she said. Not long after the attacks, Raphael said, she resolved to follow her long-held dream to become a professional singer.
Now, Raphael, 24, will perform “New Day Will Rise,” at Eurovision, a ballad in which she sings, over twinkling piano, “New day will rise / Life will go on / Everyone cries / Don’t cry alone.”
As Israel’s retaliation to the Oct. 7 attacks grinds on, some Eurovision fans have called on the competition organizers to expel Israel from the contest over the country’s conduct in the war.
At last year’s final, some audience members booed Israel’s singer as she performed, though others cheered her. Raphael told the BBC this week that she was expecting a hostile reception during her performance and that she had been rehearsing with distracting sounds playing in the background. Indeed, on Thursday in Basel, a small group of protesters blew whistles and waved flags to disrupt one of Raphael’s public rehearsals.
Estonia
“Espresso Macchiato,” by Tommy Cash
When Tommy Cash, a rapper and singer from Estonia, won his country’s Eurovision selection contest with “Espresso Macchiato,” he barely had time to celebrate before a backlash began.
In the song, Cash sings in a cheesy Italian accent that he is “sweating like a Mafioso” from working so hard, and just wants a coffee. “Me like mi coffee,” he says: “Very importante.”
Cash’s riff on Italian clichés did not go down well in some parts of Italy. Gian Marco Centinaio, a lawmaker with Italy’s far-right League Party, posted on Instagram that Eurovision should ban the song. “Is this the idea of European brotherhood that the organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have in mind?” he wrote.
Cash said that he hadn’t meant to insult Italians: “I love Italy. I love the people. I’m drawn to them because they’re so passionate.”
In earlier songs, he had rapped in English with his own heavy Eastern European accent, he said, and he also made a track with a German-accented chorus. His comedic Italian voice in “Espresso Macchiato” was no different than those, he said.
Cash — who has made several tracks with Charli XCX — said the flap had turned him into a star in Italy. On a recent trip to in Milan, he said, fans chased him down the street. For anyone who still felt insulted, he said he had a simple message: “Drink a coffee! Chill!”
Malta
‘Serving,’ by Miriana Conte
Eurovision’s organizer sometimes asks acts to change lyrics to remove political content. But Miriana Conte was asked to change her song for a different reason: phonetic rudeness.
Conte’s propulsive track was originally called “Serving Kant.” “Kant” means “singing” in Maltese, Conte, 24, said in a recent interview, but, she added, her song’s title was also a deliberate play on a vulgar phrase meaning to act in a fierce and feminine manner.
Eurovision officials weren’t happy with the possibility of viewers getting upset by that phonetic similarly and ordered Conte to change her title and chorus.
Now, her entry is simply called “Serving,” and Conte has replaced mentions of “kant” with breathy “ahhhhs.”
“To be honest, I like the second version more,” Conte said: “There’s space for people to sing whatever they want.” Although, Conte added, whenever she performs it live, fans sing the “kant” anyway.
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
The post Who Are the Favorites to Win Eurovision? appeared first on New York Times.
