Lopez Blogs

It was announced this week that next year’s MF format will be revamped following recent poor results at ESC.

So, in comes an international jury who will be responsible for selecting an extra song to the final, and they will be able to vote in the final along with the other juries from across Sweden. They could turn out to have the casting vote.

There will be 8 people allowed on stage instead of six, and no requirement for backing singers as pre-recorded backing vocals will be allowed. What next - miming to playback?

Most controversially, the ‘duels’ which were such a big hit at Andra Chansen will now be introduced in each semi final, as the top four songs from each week will then go head to head in two duels (1st vs 4th, 2nd vs 3rd) and the top two songs from the duels go forward to the final with the other two to Andra Chansen. This rule was attacked by E-Type in an Aftonbladet feature. E-type (with The Poodles) himself lost out to Sibel in one of 2008's Andra Chansen duels.

Ironically, the man responsible for implementing the new rules to ensure that Sweden does better at Eurovision is head honcho of MF Christer Bjorkman who himself had one of Sweden’s worst results ever back in 1992!!! Now who can give me a sentence with the words pot, kettle, and black....?

Above: Christer Bjorkman (photo courtesy of www.gylleneskor.se) : the new rules are his idea, so blame him if it all goes wrong next year! Still, "i morgon är en annan dag...."