By Aline Mahrud

WHEN?: Saturday 22 February 2025 7pm UK time

WHERE?: Malmö Arena, Malmö

The big news this week is the return of 2015 Eurovision winner Mans Zelmerlow and, on the evidence of the 60-second clip, he might not be the runaway 2025 MF victor he appeared to be at the start of the series.

• Read on for reasons including Tennessee Tears and Andreas Lundstedt

1. Andreas Lundstedt Vicious (Andreas Lundstedt, Dino Medanhodzic, Laurell Barker, Liamoo) PREDICTION: 4th

Co-written with Liamoo (5th last year with Dragon), Lundstedt has competed in MF 4 times as a solo artist and 5 times as a member of disco act Alcazar. He represented Switzerland at Eurovision in Athens, Greece we were in the audience for in 2006 when his group Six4one finished 16th with the anaemic If We All Give A Little.

Lundstedt’s most successful solo entry was as runner-up in 1996 with Driver dagg faller regn (Driving dew, falling rain).

Alcazar twice finished 3rd in MF with 2 of Eurovision’s best songs that never made it to the final, or second cherries if you will. Not A Sinner Nor A Saint topped the Swedish singles charts in 2003 as did Alcastar in 2005. Not A Sinner is number 1 in our 5 greatest Andra Chansen songs list and is arguably our most favourite MF moment ever.

Vicious is uptempo dancefloor-based pop slightly less camp than the joyous Alcazar.

2. Ella Tiritello Bara du är där (Only you are there) (Adam “Rymdpojken” Englund, David Björk, Loreen Talhaoui) PREDICTION: 5th

Starts as a delicate ballad with plucked guitar co-written by twice Eurovision and MF winner Loreen, Tiritello is known for portraying Roxette lead singer Marie Fredriksson in the movie Sommartider (Summer times). Songs in Swedish have struggled to progress this year and we think the same might be true of this.

3. Tennessee Tears Yours (Gavin Jones, Jonas Hermansson, Pär Westerlund, Tilda Feuk) PREDICTION: Finalen

Tennessee Tears are a Swedish country music duo consisting of Tilda Feuk and Jonas Hermansson who co-wrote this return after debuting in MF in 2023 with the catchy Now I Know which went out in andra chansen. Given the success of country-infused acts like Sabrina Carpenter currently, we see this as sailing through to the final.

LISTEN to the 60-second clips at SVT Play

4. Kaj Bara bada bastu (Just take a sauna) (Anderz Wrethov, Axel Åhman, Jakob Norrgård, Kevin Holmström, Kristoffer Strandberg, Robert Skowronski) PREDICTION: 6th

A comedy entry in Swedish. Always going to be difficult to judge for a non-Swedish speaker to predict how this might land. No songs have yet made it to the finalen in the country’s native tongue despite the 60s-inspired joy that was Linnea Henriksson in Heat 1.

5. AmenA Do Good Be Better (AmenA, Sandra Bjurman, Stefan Örn) PREDICTION: 3rd

Bjurman and Örn co-wrote unlikely Eurovision winner for Azerbaijan Running Scared in the 2011 contest we attended in Dusseldorf, Germany. This has the anthemic feel of a song from around that time.

6. Måns Zelmerlöw Revolution (David Lindgren Zacharias, Måns Zelmerlöw, Ola Svensson, Sebastian Atas) PREDICTION: Finalen

Zelmerlöw won Eurovision convincingly in 2015 with Heroes and went on to co-host it in Stockholm the following year performing comedy interval song Love, Love, Peace, Peace with Petra Mede.

His MF debut was in 2007 when Cara Mia finished 3rd and the album it was from Stand By For … went on to top the Swedish charts.

Zelmerlöw returned again in 2009 when Hope and Glory won the jury vote but could only finish 4th overall.

On 1st listen the clip has a piano build into the uptempo chorus and his ability to perform the socks off it is never in doubt but, on this evidence, Melodifestivalen 2025 could be a lot more open than many people were predicting.

• Keep an eye on monstagigz.com during January as we’ll be previewing 2025’s 30 entries.
• During February this site will predict how each heat will go on the Friday after we’ve heard the songs before the Saturday events. Heat 1 preview Heat 2 preview Heat 3 preview Heat 4 preview Heat 5 preview Heat 1 predictions Heat 2 predictions Heat 3 predictions Heat 4 predictions Heat 5 predictions Finalen predictions
• In March we’ll forecast how the finalen will go and how each of the 12 qualifiers would do in May in Basle at Eurovision.
• Picture via Facebook courtesy Mans Zelmerlow, Melodifestivalen and SVT
• Have you heard any of these songs or seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this review? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook