By Neil Durham

WHEN?: Saturday 17 May 2025

WHERE?: St Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland

HOW DO I WATCH?: BBC1 at 8pm in the UK or eurovision.tv or SVT

Former child star Melody (above and below) threw everything including the kitchen sink at her victorious Benidorm Fest, Spain’s national selection, performance and below we predict how it and the other pre-qualified finalists will fare in the Eurovision Song Contest final.

• Read on for reasons including how we predict the directly qualified countries will do in 2025’s Eurovision Song Contest final

SPAIN Melody Esa Diva (That diva) (Alberto Fuentes Lorite) ESC PREDICTION: 16th to 20th

Producers Thomas G:son, Peter Boström and Joy Deb give us a click of castanets and a strum of Spanish guitar. Melody sports a sombrero as she is lowered from the ceiling on a swing. A costume reveal leaves her in a bejewelled flesh coloured body stocking. There are acrobatics and she hit the big note after fluffing it in the semi to win Benidorm Fest. Melody is a child star and had her 1st smash aged just 10 with El Baile Del Gorila (Gorilla dance) and has had hits from 6 albums in 15 countries. This is female-fronted pop in a similar vein to our initial favourites Sonia y Selena where Melody’s performance was knockout.

FRANCE Louane Maman (Mom) (Anne Peichert, Tristan Salvati) ESC PREDICTION: 1st to 5th

France were the 1st country to reveal their entry in 2024 and the last this year. Louane is a French singer and actress who was a semi finalist in the French edition of The Voice in 2013. She’s released 4 albums selling 3 million copies and 20 singles including Avenir (Future) which topped the French chart in 2014. The words rugby union and Eurovision are rarely found in the same sentence but such is the confidence of the French that this song was premiered at half time in the country’s Six Nations’ clash with Scotland. Big vocal of a dramatic song with a cute ending.

UK Remember Monday What The Hell Just Happened? (Charlotte Steele, Holly-Anne Hull, Julie Aagaard, Kes Kamara, Lauren Byrne, Sam Brennan, Thomas Stengaard, Tom Hollings) ESC PREDICTION: 6th to 10th

Trio Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele met while at Farnborough Sixth Form College in Hampshire and competed in The Voice UK in 2019. With them as 1 of the co-writers of their entry is Thomas Stengaard who had a credit on the 2013 Eurovision winner Only Teardrops for Denmark. We’re impressed they were selected for Eurovision before the entry had been written and this evokes The Beatles, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Girls Aloud’s Biology while the video gives it a Last Dinner Party feel. Plenty to work with here to make it memorable.

ITALY Lucio Corsi Volevo essere un duro (I wanted to be a tough guy) (Lucio Corsi, Tommaso Ottomano) ESC PREDICTION: 11th to 15th

The song that came 2nd in the San Remo Festival and winner Olly with Balorda nostalgia (Stupid nostalgia) would’ve been so much better than this panstick-faced pianist who dons guitar to attract interest in this midtempo plodder with Bowie aspirations that is likely to be a juries’ song.

GERMANY Abor & Tynna Baller (Shoot) (Alexander Hauer, Attila Bornemisza, Tünde Bornemisza) ESC PREDICTION: 16th to 20th

TV producer Stefan Raab has competed in Eurovision, written Germany’s entry and found the country’s last winner Lena who sang Satellite in 2010. Baller is from Abor and Tynna’s already-available album and offers credible, 90s dance-influenced pop which we appreciate rather than love. Perhaps it’s the instrument destruction at the close of the national final selection that puts us off. Enjoy it mostly being in its native tongue.

SWITZERLAND Zoë Më Voyage (Zoë Alina Kressler) ESC PREDICTION: 21st to 26th

Zoë Më was born in host city Basel and this is occasionally whimsical, ethereal and in French. About three-quarters of the way through it almost realises it’s got a lot of work to do and picks up a little.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Melody and TVE Tickets
• Have you seen a Eurovision final before and what do you think of this 1? Tickets
• Let us know what you thought in the comments below. Our predictions for the pre-qualified 2024 Eurovision Song Contest finalists. Semi 1 predictions. Semi 2 predictions Updated final predictions
• Enjoyed this review? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook