JJ of Austria Wins Eurovision 2025 With ‘Wasted Love'
Classically trained countertenor JJ of Austria is the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest winner with 'Wasted Love,' a song that combines operatic, multi-octave vocals with a techno twist. JJ beat 25 other competitors during Saturday's (May 17) grand final in the Swiss city of Basel.
Israel's Yuval Raphael came second at an exuberant celebration of music and unity that was shadowed by the Gaza war and ruffled by discord over Israel's participation.
More from Billboard
Italy's Lucio Corsi Shares His Thoughts About Eurovision Song Contest 2025
Morgan Wallen's 'I'm the Problem' Breaks Streaming Records on Spotify & Amazon Music in First Day
Alex Warren Achieves Rare Chart Feat as 'Ordinary' Hits 9th Week as U.K. No. 1
JJ, whose full name is Johannes Pietsch, was Austria's first winner since bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst in 2014. JJ, who sings with the Vienna State Opera, has called Wurst a mentor. It was Austria's third victory overall in Eurovision.
'This is beyond my wildest dreams. It's crazy,' said the singer after being handed the microphone-shaped glass Eurovision trophy.
JJ won after a nail-biting final that saw Raphael scoop up a massive public vote from her many fans for her anthemic 'New Day Will Rise.' But she also faced protests from pro-Palestinian demonstrators calling for Israel to be kicked out of the contest over its conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Estonia's Tommy Cash came third with 'Espresso Macchiato,' and Swedish entry KAJ, who had been favorite to win with jaunty sauna ode 'Bara Bada Bastu,' came fourth.
The world's largest live music event reached its glitter-drenched conclusion with a grand final in Basel, Switzerland, that offered pounding electropop, quirky rock and outrageous divas.
Acts from 26 countries — trimmed from 37 entrants through two elimination semifinals — performed to some 160 million viewers for the continent's pop crown. No smoke machine, jet of flame or dizzying light display was spared by musicians who had three minutes to win over millions of viewers who, along with national juries of music professionals, pick the winner.
The show offered a celebration of Europe's eclectic, and sometimes baffling, musical tastes. Lithuanian band Katarsis delivered grunge rock, while Ukraine's Ziferblat channeled prog rock and the U.K.'s Remember Monday offered country pop.
Italy's Lucio Corsi evoked 1970s glam rock, while Icelandic duo VAEB rapped about rowing and Latvia's six-woman Tautumeitas offered gorgeous, intertwined harmonies.
There were divas aplenty, including Spain's Melody, Poland's Justyna Steczkowska — participating in Eurovision for a second time after a 30-year gap, with 'GAJA' — and Malta's outrageous Miriana Conte, who performed 'Serving,' a song whose previous suggestive title and lyrics were changed on the orders of contest organizers, on a set including a glitter ball and giant lips.
Dean Vuletic, an expert on the history of Eurovision, said the competition has become more diverse over the years, both musically and linguistically. There are songs in 20 languages this year, including Ukrainian, Icelandic, Albanian, Latvian and Maltese.
'In the past it was about having a catchy, innocuous pop song, usually in English,' he said. But 'in recent years the formulaic approach to a Eurovision entry hasn't succeeded.'
'An entry needs to be memorable and it needs to be authentic in order to succeed these days,' said Vuletic.
This year's contest was roiled for a second year by disputes over Israel's participation. Dozens of former participants, including Switzerland's Nemo, have called for Israel to be excluded, and several of the broadcasters that fund Eurovision sought a review of the country's participation.
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests both took place in Basel, though on a much smaller scale than at last year's event in Sweden, where tensions spilled over backstage and Dutch competitor Joost Klein was expelled over an alleged altercation with a crew member.
Hundreds of people marched through Basel just before the competition, waving Palestinian flags and chanting 'Boycott Israel.'
Earlier, a group of Israel supporters gathered in Basel's cathedral square to root for Raphael and to show that 'Jews belong in public spaces in Switzerland,' Zurich resident Rebecca Laes-Kushner said.
She said that 'it would be such a strong statement against antisemitism,' if Raphael won.
'This is supposed to be about music, not about hate,' she said.
The European Broadcasting Union, or EBU, which runs Eurovision, tightened the contest's code of conduct this year, calling on participants to respect Eurovision's values of 'universality, diversity, equality and inclusivity' and its political neutrality.
After a controversial ban in 2024 on flags, apart from national ones, being waved in the arena, this year audience members can bring Palestinian flags or any others, as long as they are legal under Swiss law. Performers, though, can only wave their own country's flag.
Eurovision director Martin Green told reporters that the organizers' goal was to 're-establish a sense of unity, calm and togetherness this year in a difficult world.'
'All 37 delegations, in difficult times, have behaved impeccably,' he said.
Best of Billboard
Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1
Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits
H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
35 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Dutch beach beasts find a final resting place in a new exhibition
DELFT, Netherlands (AP) — The famous wind-powered beach beasts have scuttled along the Dutch North Sea coast, into a swanky Miami art show and even onto 'The Simpsons.' Now. they have a final resting place in a Dutch city most famous for 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' painter Johannes Vermeer and blue-painted pottery. The 'bones' of Theo Jansen's 'strandbeesten' — beach animals in Dutch — have taken over a former cable factory in Delft, the small city in the western Netherlands that Jansen has called home for decades. 'During the years, there has been a sort of evolutionary history, you could say. And you could see these animals as sort of natural historical objects,' the 77-year old artist told The Associated Press before the installation's opening. The Strandbeesten Mortuary, as the exhibition is called, follows the various versions of the mobile sculptures since 1990 when Jansen created the first one from plastic pipes and tape. As the animals evolved, Jansen incorporated plastic bottles, wooden planks, cloth and cardboard. The life and death cycle of these famous animals — formed mostly out of PVC pipes — has left behind an impressive fossil record, which is on display at the exhibition. Marloes Koster, who organized the exhibition for Delft's Prinsenhof Museum, said that Jansen's ultimate goal is to create a beast that will live forever. 'He's not there yet, so these are the ones that didn't make it,' she added. The museum is undergoing major renovations, so Koster and her colleagues have been putting together arts and culture events at alternative venues around the city while the building is shut. Born near the North Sea, Jansen grew up captivated by the wind that often hits the Dutch coastline. He harnessed it to allow his animals to 'walk' along the beach. Every year, he creates a new strandbeest and, at the end of the summer, declares the animal dead. 'All summer I do experiments, and in the fall I'm a little bit wiser (about) how these animals should survive in the future,' Jansen said. Many of the visitors to the opening of the exhibition had followed Jansen's work for years and were keen to understand how the strandbeesten had changed over time. 'You see a kind of development in the way he does things. So they start out very simple, and then it gets increasingly complicated. So they evolve,' said Cor Nonhof, a Delft local who had come to see the exhibition with his wife. Even at the opening, Jansen was already keen to return to the beach to work on the latest evolution of his strandbeesten. 'I cannot do anything else,' Jansen said. 'And I am very happy with that.'
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
In Small-Town Germany, a Reporter Sees the Bigger Picture
Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. As a reporter on the Obituaries desk at The New York Times, I write about the lives of famous — and not so famous — people who have left their mark on history. I also speak German, which is why I found myself spending the month of May in Berlin, filling in for a colleague. Before I left, I worked with a tutor to polish my conversational skills. I asked her if she had any fun ideas for articles I could pursue. 'Well, you know,' she said, 'the city of Bielefeld? Everyone says it doesn't exist.' About 300,000 people live in Bielefeld, but I'll admit that I was only vaguely aware it existed. To Germans, Bielefeld is the equivalent of, say, Scranton or Cedar Rapids — cities where the best you can say about them may be that you can't think of anything bad to say. For much the same reason that Scranton was the setting for 'The Office,' Bielefeld had become the butt of a joke. Like many jokes these days, it started online, though this one began back in 1993. It came in the form of a goofy conspiracy theory: that the existence of Bielefeld is a sham, and anyone who says otherwise is in on the plot. Over time, the town became a byword for boring. Songs were written about its utter blandness, including one performed by a talking slice of bread named Bernd — this is Germany, after all. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Vogue
4 hours ago
- Vogue
Balmain Resort 2026 Menswear Collection
Olivier Rousteing is still under 40. Yet he is also the third longest-standing non-founder creative director in ready-to-wear luxury fashion (after evergreen Véronique Nichanian at Hermès menswear and the mighty Ian Griffiths of Max Mara). So even as fashion cycles through its latest red wedding moment, Rousteing's combination of veteran experience and youthful potential allows him to take a pragmatic and sanguine view. Speaking in his office, he said: 'A designer needs to change: to develop through reinvention. So it's not just only a house becoming bored of a designer and looking to change—the designer him or herself should become bored if they do not change how and what they do. You keep your DNA, but you make very different albums.' At Balmain, Rousteing remains both signed to the label and committed to perpetual reinvention. The photography of these resort lookbooks reflected his intention to approach the collection from a fresh angle while deploying his deep expertise in the business to maximize its performance. In womenswear, a focus on bouclé pieces in pastel checks (a little Clueless), black, and some racier color-combos kept aside in the showroom reflected the fact that around over 20% of Balmain's ready-to-wear pieces are in tweed. A seasonal floral reworked from a Pierre Balmain original was present in some of the multiple new fabrications of a growing core line of Balmain handbags; the Anthem (belt buckle), the Sync (chain), the Ébène (par-baked croissant), and the tightly-waisted Shuffle. Knit bandage dresses and a split skirt floral aside, there was a notable step away from bodycon towards a focus on innovatively detailed oversized tailoring in wools including prince of wales check that often came cropped and placed in silhouette-skewing adjacency to matching microskirts and shorts. A coat so roomy you could put it on Airbnb came patterned with a felted Monet-esque print that reflected Pierre Balmain's artistic passions, Rousteing reported. His column-pediment wedge boots were delivered this season in a shearling fabrication as well as leathers and worn against lingerie dresses. Cocoon-like capes in peach or lemon cashmere were standout wardrobe pieces. Menswear played a radical-conservative gambit of contrasting extreme tailoring—either angular and fitted, or oversized and softer—against denim, leather, or jacquard sportswear. Formal shoes were elevated from banaility by raised soles and extruded metal welting. You could see both bourgeois French paradigms and street silhouettes transposed to tailored fabrications. Lurking in the showroom were many non-shot but still highly photogenic pieces, including labyrinth pattern shirt-and-short sets, leather and wool stadium jacket blouson hybrids, and bouclé overshirts. Said Rousteing: 'The real question is always what do you want to propose? And while my answer changes through the seasons, it also always relates to going back to the past and bringing it to the present in order to build the future. This is why I am always having this conversation with the original work of Pierre Balmain, and looking to express that dialogue in new ways.'
