Musical fluff, hedonism, and downright silliness may provide a welcome bit of relief in 2025, and where better to look for that than Eurovision? A whole host of alumni from the contest will release new music, and perhaps lift spirits, in 2025.
Dutch rapper Joost Klein was regarded as a shoo-in for winner of Eurovision 2024 with his Europapa, a life-affirming, silly love letter to a borderless Europe that seemed tailor-made for the competition. The song launched him, and his signature blond bowl cut, to instant notoriety and at the time of writing the song has just ticked over 160 million Spotify streams.
When Joost got booted out of the contest after an alleged backstage altercation with a member of staff, the dream of lifting the trophy was over. But a new album, harking back to the heyday of Dutch happy hardcore and expected to be accordingly titled Gabberpop, promises more madcap fun, as does a tour which includes a March London date – after all, his latest single proclaims: “I am from the Netherlands/ Where the party never ends”.
Up until a few short months ago, Damiano David, who won the contest for Italy in 2021 as frontman of Måneskin, was all leather, eyeliner and filthy lyrics. But his relaunch as a solo artist has involved a make-under as a kind of Harry Styles in a vintage suit. His forthcoming album will feature the singles Silverlines and Born with a Broken Heart, which were far too overblown – the army of leading songwriters led to a case of “too many cooks”.
However underwhelming those offerings might have been, the fact remains that David, with his film-star looks and appealingly earnest vocals, is on the brink of becoming that rare thing: a genuinely international star from continental Europe who first found fame in a language other than English. Already a fascinating pop phenomenon, he will play London’s Roundhouse in September.
While David was cutting his teeth busking on the streets of Rome, 800 miles away in Warsaw his contemporary, electropop diva Luna, was pursuing a classical musical education on the violin. Her The Tower, the entry for Poland at last year’s Eurovision, was a euphoric manifesto for pulling yourself up by your bootstraps (“I’m the one who built the tower/ I’m the one who holds the power”), and recent singles have had a similar vibe. Her second album, No Rest, will be released in February and her Daenerys Targaryen-meets-Ziggy Stardust look will continue to intrigue.
Luna was one of the Eurovision entrants populating 2024 winner Nemo’s video for recent single Eurostar, which found the Swiss singer cavorting atop a red bus and singing the praises of London nightlife after taking the eponymous train from Paris.
Nemo’s impressively dynamic Eurovision performance standing on a 10-foot-wide spinning top was unforgettable, and the winning song, The Code, mixed drum and bass, rap and opera (again, classically trained). An album of similar eclecticism is expected in 2025, given an extensive tour, which includes UK dates in March.
Finally, taking a sharp turn away from all this youth and lightness,
2006 Eurovision winners, costumed Finnish shock rockers Lordi, will release their 19th album Limited Deadition in March (December’s Syntax Terror, a gloriously retro cross between a 1980s action movie score and Judas Priest, gave a sense of the sound of that album). A cultural phenomenon in Finland, where there is a square named after them and they have featured on postage stamps, Lordi are proof that there can be longevity in levity.
