Lopez Blogs

Over the last couple of days I've had a bit of a throat infection-type-thing which always threatened to turn into flu, but thankfully it hasn't, only as the night goes on, it's now threatening to turn into a cold :(

Anyway now catching up tonight. No Retro Saturday this week, got too much else to write about, it should be back next week though with some more 80s and 90s obscure gems.

I’ve just been watching the P3 Guldgalan on SVT Play. Comparing it to British award ceremonies for a moment, it's the Q Awards to the Grammisgalan's Brit Awards, more cheeky and daring and different. Feel free to watch it at http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=1027880

Anyway I read the results before I watched the show, but I'm glad I watched it because it was actually quite good fun.

Results:

Best Female Artist - Säkert! Good selection of nominees in this category, but it really was her year. (Other nominees: Laleh, Miss Li, Maia Hirasawa, September)
Best Newcomer - Maia Hirasawa. Ditto! (Other nominees: Adam Tensta, Million Stylez, Neverstore, Those Dancing Days)
Best Male Artist - Lars Winnerbäck. Er, I don’t think so. Poor man’s Ulf Lundell if you ask me. (Other nominees: Danny, Jens Lekman, Mange Schmidt and of course Salem Al Fakir who deserved this more than anyone!)
Best Group - Kent. Are they getting complacent? They weren’t there to collect their award, which isn’t a good thing. (Other nominees: Sahara Hotnights, Shout Out Louds, The Ark, Mando Diao)
Best Hip Hop - Petter. He's still popular. (Other nominees: Ken, Million Stylez, Basutbudet, Adam Tensta)
Best Rock/Metal - Arch Enemy. Yeah whatever. They don’t really do it for me though. (Other nominees: Kongh, Marduk, Dark Tranquility, Mustasch)
Best Dance Act - Minilogue. No! It should have been Axwell, the king of Swedish house! (Other nominees: Aril Brikha, Tiger Stripes, The Field and the wonderful Axwell)
Best Pop Act - Jens Lekman. Interesting that they classify the winner and his fellow nominees as pop, when I’d be thinking of the likes of Danny, Måns & September. Or indeed, Salem for that matter. (Other nominees: Anna Järvinen, Sambassadeur, Taken by Trees, Friday Bridge)
Best Song - "Release Me" - Oh Laura. Is it just me, or is this overrated dirge sooooo tedious? (Other nominees: Giftig - Mange Schmidt feat. Petter, Cheek to Cheek - Sahara Hotnights, With Every Heartbeat - Robyn with Kleerup, Vi kommer att dö samtidigt - Säkert!)
Guldmicken (Live Act): Timo Räisänen. The main, and final, award of the night. Hmph. I remember hearing him whilst sitting in a Stockholm cafe last year, thinking 'who's the strangled cat?' only to find said Mr Räisänen playing a live set in Bengans record shop across the road. Admittedly his music did grow on me, (I eventually grew to like "Sweet Marie") but again the fact that Salem Al Fakir was denied this award did not please me. AT ALL. (Other nominees: Salem Al Fakir, Säkert!, Laakso, Mustasch)

An interesting mix of live acts in-between the prizegiving....
Live, Robyn & Kleerup’s "With Every Heartbeat" is more musically muscular than its recorded version and was quite outstanding.
Female choir The Sweptaways’ acapella medley of the ‘Best Song’ nominees was bizarre yet inspired.
Björn Dixgård from Mando Diao then did an energetic acoustic "Never Seen The Light Of Day", but there were no awards for his band at this year’s Guldgalan.
Mange Schmidt leading into September singing an extraordinary medley of Umbrella, Daydreaming & Can’t Get Over. She could (and probably will) be the next Cascada, if they get it right.
Timo Räisänen closed the show, in a silver jacket, singing something which wouldn’t have been out of place on "Allsang pa Skansen", when they do that community singalong thing, before he launched into one of his more usual numbers.