Last night, the band KAJ won the Swedish national selection with the song “Bara Bada Bastu,” and will represent Sweden in Eurovision 2025. Eurovision 2015 winner Måns Zelmerlöw, who was expected to win, reacted with disappointment to the loss, finishing second and reacted with visible disappointment and frustration to the loss. All the details are in the article.
Yesterday evening, history occurred – no less – in Sweden’s Eurovision empire. The country holding the record for the most victories, seven trophies, a title it has shared with Ireland since 2023, has become one of the strongest countries in the competition’s history. Over the years, Sweden has shaped its place in the European competition as a pop powerhouse, and the songs it has sent have followed this trend. This is one of the reasons why Swedish hasn’t been heard on the Eurovision stage since 1998. However, yesterday the die was cast, and the band KAJ won the Swedish national selection, consequently winning the ticket to represent Sweden in Eurovision 2025 with the song “Bara Bada Bastu.” The band competed head-to-head against Eurovision 2015 winner, Måns Zelmerlöw, with his song Revolution“. According to all estimates, predictions, and expectations, Måns was expected to win the selection and, consequently, Eurovision 2025 as a whole. Måns’s song aligns with his pop style, which we already recognized in his song “Heroes“, which secured Sweden’s sixth victory in Eurovision 2015.
After the defeat in the Eurovision selection, Måns was seen walking towards the backstage area in anger and emotional turmoil. Subsequently, he expressed himself to several sources in a way that leaves no room for doubt about his disappointment and dissatisfaction with the results. His reaction did not include congratulations to the band KAJ, which won the Eurovision selection – on the contrary.
Before the final of the Swedish Eurovision selection “Melodifestivalen 2025”, Måns expressed his concerns about the public vote: “In the public vote, I believe that the band KAJ will win by a significant margin. We’ll see. It will be very, very close,” he said in an interview with Aftonbladet newspaper, “All I can do is give my best, as I did in the performance in Malmö and even better than that. Of course, I would be happy to win. I’m just afraid that since the odds and expectations point to me as the winner, people might think they don’t need to vote for me. I really hope they will vote.”
Last night, Måns’s fears came true: KAJ won the public vote, granting them the right to represent Sweden at Eurovision 2025. Although the jury vote was in favor of Måns, with a tiny margin of 2 points between him and KAJ, the public vote changed the balance in favor of the band. Måns, who ultimately finished second in the Eurovision selection, missed the opportunity to return to Eurovision ten years after his victory in the 60th competition in Vienna in 2015. But the storm came afterward, when Måns was seen entering the backstage area of the Eurovision selection in turmoil, with visible emotional distress and restlessness on his face.
הצגת פוסט זה באינסטגרם
Despite this, it is possible to understand the difficulty and chaos Måns was experiencing at that moment. If it had ended there, he might have earned some sympathy. However, Måns then decided to address the media of Sweden’s national broadcaster, SVT, where he expressed his disappointment with the results without any sportsmanship or acknowledgment of the winners: “I am very disappointed. I had a feeling this would happen all day. I did everything I could, but I can’t compete against a comedy song.” In an interview with the newspaper Aftonbladet, Måns commented on his plans regarding future participation in the Eurovision selection: “I am not happy at all. I don’t know if I’ll do this again.”
If all of this is still somewhat understandable, given his evident disappointment, Måns went on in various interviews after the selection to discuss his frustration with both the jury vote and the band KAJ. It is worth noting that all predictions suggested that the juries would strongly favor Måns, as his song was considered a more “classic jury song.” Nevertheless, Måns won the jury vote by only a narrow margin of 2 points over KAJ. Reflecting on this, Måns stated: “I was shocked that the juries gave KAJ such high scores. I sound like a sore loser, but we’ll see in May whether the international juries made the right decision.”
John Lundvik, Sweden’s Eurovision 2019 representative who placed sixth in the 2025 Swedish Eurovision selection, also expressed his disappointment and disapproval of the competition results: “The competitive climate in Melodifestivalen has completely changed. It has become more like Eurovision, with more ‘crazy’ values. I have no connection to such a competition.” John explained that he had expected a higher placement and stated that he is not currently interested in returning to compete in the Swedish Eurovision selection.
Beyond the understandable disappointment of artists competing in the Swedish Eurovision selection, there lies a deeper and more fundamental issue. For decades, Sweden has sent songs that, in many ways, followed the same formula: radio-friendly tracks, pop ballads, or upbeat pop songs, all performed in English, with almost no ethnic or Nordic-Swedish cultural elements. The humorous Finnish-rooted band KAJ, chosen to represent Sweden in Eurovision 2025, symbolizes the audience’s fatigue with Sweden’s familiar Eurovision genre and their desire for something different—more unique, foreign, yet intriguing and fresh. Perhaps, just perhaps, this approach might also succeed at Eurovision.
The more personal issue regarding Måns lies in his persona and his Eurovision history, which may have contributed to his loss and subsequent disappointment. Over the ten years since his Eurovision victory, Måns has appeared almost every year as a guest at the competition. It seemed impossible to forget him, which likely led to audience fatigue toward him. Despite his charm and the excellent song that won him Eurovision 2015, Måns represents for many the Swedish complacency in Eurovision—sending anything ordinary and achieving results other countries could only dream of. Unlike Loreen, who won Eurovision for Sweden in 2012 and 2023, Loreen did not return to every edition of Eurovision. Additionally, when she attempted to represent Sweden again in the 2017 selection with her song “Statements” and failed, she accepted the loss gracefully and waited for the right moment to return—a decision that ultimately proved to be a success story.
Here’s a brief reminder of Måns’s repeated appearances at Eurovision: Starting with his victory in 2015, he went on to host Eurovision 2016, perform in an interval act at Eurovision 2017, host the British Eurovision national final in 2019, perform in an interval act at Eurovision 2019, and appear in interval videos at Eurovision 2023. This doesn’t even include dozens of interviews, appearances at national selections, Eurovision events, and various broadcasts related to Eurovision.
In summary, the issue goes beyond Måns’s complacency or his unsportsmanlike way of losing without even praising KAJ for their impressive victory. Sweden had become accustomed to a certain style from which it hardly deviated for a long time at Eurovision, while other countries managed to diversify and even achieve high results in the competition with different musical and artistic styles. Sweden has made a very bold choice for Eurovision 2025, and there’s no doubt it won’t be forgotten – along with Måns’s controversial reaction to the loss.
Listen to Måns’s Melodifestivalen 2025 song that came 2nd:
Sweden at Eurovision 2025:
“Bara bada bastu” (in English: “Just take a sauna”) is the title of the song that will be performed by band KAJ, who will represent Sweden in the first semi-final of Eurovision 2025, taking place on May 13 in Basel, Switzerland. The song was written by the band members – Kevin Holmström, Axel Åhman, and Jakob Norrgård – along with Anderz Wrethov, Kristoffer Strandberg, and Robert Skowronski. Wrethov is no stranger to the Eurovision world, having written numerous Eurovision songs, including “We Will Rave” by Kaleen, who represented Austria in Eurovision 2024, “Fuego” by Eleni Foureira, who represented Cyprus in Eurovision 2018 and finished in second place, and “Voices” by Tusse, Sweden’s representative in Eurovision 2021. The song is performed in Finnish and Swedish.
KAJ – Who Are You?
KAJ is a Swedish-Finnish music and comedy group from Vörå, Ostrobothnia, Finland, consisting of Kevin Holmström, Axel Åhman, and Jakob Norrgård. The group’s name is derived from the initials of its members’ first names. They are known for their humorous performances and songs primarily in Swedish, particularly in the Vörå dialect.
The group has released several albums, including “Professionella Pjasalappar” (2012), “Lokalproducerat Pjas” (2014), “Kom ti byin” (2016), “Gambämark” (2018), “Botnia Paradise” (2021), and “Karar i arbeit” (2024).
Sources: Eurovisionfun, Aftonbladet.
Eurovision 2025: This will be Sweden’s 63rd participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Sweden joined the competition in 1958 and has won it seven times over the years. Sweden’s most recent victory was at Eurovision 2023 with the song “Tattoo,” performed by the singer Loreen.
