Lopez Blogs

Anders Fernette who competed last Saturday at Melodifestivalen with the song "Run" but hasn't qualified further is open for some happier events and announces his new album's "Run" release on March 9th.
It doesn't mean he's over with Melodifestivalen as he's got that taste and eager to come back again due to his blog. But right now it's all about the album and we get two new tracks from Anders - "Echo" and "HeartBeep", both in that anthemic melodic pop-style we'd really like Backstreet Boys to move on (but they don't!) - with huge Swedish-pop schlager-energy and power. We don't know which of tracks we like the most, both tracks are dynamic pop-songs but "HeartBeep" is more romantic with beautiful strings arrangement when "Echo" is more uplifting and fresh by atmosphere. However both are brilliant and you can check them below with current single "Run" and 3 previous singles.

One of our biggest favorites of Melodifestivalen-2011 Loreen has visited studio of XL Live to perform her Melodifestivalen-hit "My Heart Is Refusing Me" with one of her songwriters Moh Denebi in acoustic and to prove one more time what a brilliant singer she is! Tones of broken feelings in every sound and every key especially touching with nothing but guitar and beautiful Loreen's voice. Another performed song was forthcoming single "Sober". Loreen will compete this Saturday in Second Chance round of Melodifestivalen and currently she's the most successful participant of Second Chance on iTunes staying #5 so we really hope she has a big chance to break through to the final.

I love a bit of new music I do. It's always exciting to follow new acts, all ready to take their place on the pop stage and be as magnificent as they can be. or something. Increasingly, I find that there are better singers on youtube and la twitter than there are in the actual charts, but what do I know... Any"hoo", here are 3 lovely new (to me) acts that you should spend some time with this week getting to know a whole lot better...

Craig Powell ~ Remember Uniting Nations? Well Craig used to sing for them, but now he's uniting music lovers everywhere (and getting them to hug!) with his enticing blend of dance, pop and trance. It's a heady mix that JLS have tried to perfect (on One Shot and Eyes Wide Shut) and The Wanted are giving a good bash (on their brillo new single Gold Forever), but Craig gets it right straight out the gate with his delectable single Can't Let You Go. It's powered by a throbbing, vibrant beat that pulses with energy and is more than enough to get you doing your "thang" on the dancefloor on a saturday night. I also need a nice pop melody there are singable verses and catchy refrains such as "don't stop moving baby/i can't let you go" reverberating throughout. Tremendulent. And then there's the video - it may be done on a budget, but it's charmingly effective and has several things to like about it: Craig's jacket is lovely, I'd quite like one like that I think; the cute as a button couple being all coy and flirtatious with each other; and the ingenious flashmob literal take on the title as a g-rated All The Lovers takes place in a busy shopping centre with lots of people hugging each other during the chorus. Quite lovely as it happens. Buy it here!


Oliver Wimmer ~ Let's get the obvious out the way immediately. Oliver has excellent pop star hair. While this may have no baring on whether his music is bonza or not, it's certainly a step in the right direction. Oliver hails from Austria, where i have spent many a lovely summer exploring the foothills of the Tyrol region (though he might actually be German. I'm confused). His music isn't like any of the tradtional folk music I heard there however. It's more of Maroon 5, given a euro-pop remix. His single (put forth for this year's Eurovision) is the rather funky Let Love Kick In. It's riddled with down and dirty guitar licks and drum riffs that drive the track forward, yet it's all held ably together by Oliver's quite sexy vocal style that absolutely shines as he ranges between his lower register and a sparkling falsetto. The chorus is initially unassuming but ultimately quite insidious as it worms it's way into your head. I'd like to hear more please (and I did - he had me at The Story Of How I Lost Christmas. Amazes).


Austin Jennings ~ It would be lazy and poor penmanship to say that Sirius XM Search for LGBT Popstar winner Austin Jennings is like a male Adele. But it would be a good start and get you on the right sort of page (or at least within the right chapter) for what to expect. What is instantly clear with Austin is two things - firstly, he has an incredibly distinctive voice that draws you inextricably into whatever emotional tale he is spinning with his music. Secondly, you can absolutely and wholly tell that Austin grew up listening to classic pop, rich in melody and story telling. His astonishingly good single Damages casts a musical spell by weaving a shuffling beat together with strumming guitar, gutwrenching lyrics and the warm addition of resonant strings that provide added layer and depth to the tune. The middle 8 is a truly melodic feast as Austin firmly knits the tune together with the skill of a veteran that belies his young age. Definitely a worthy winner of the aforementioned contest, and like Adele an impressive talent for such a young age. Music that makes you want to give him a hug...

As probably every week 4th semifinal's has brought us some controversial results, positive for some and negative for some.
Linda Bengtzing completetely unexpectedly has won whole semifinal with her energizer-schlager, song has grown on us with performance that Linda just can't do wrong but we're still a bit sceptic about further Linda's chances remembering about rumours Björkman asked jury not to vote for her in 2008. Nicke Borg was second with rock-ballad and show with holograms which looked effective. Preliminary faves has fallen though. Melody Club winning 50% of public on rehearsal was just 7th leaving behind only Anders Fernette. Julia Alvgard has become the most successful of webjokers but still was left 6th (how I wish it wasn't the end of Julia's career, she was amazing). Dansband-veterans Lasse Stefanz were left 5th and other pre-favorite Love Generation has gone to Second Chance round with Linda Pritchard who was highlight of the night for us. Maybe the song is not Moving On but it was still great and Linda delievered it like world-class diva. By rumours RedOne being impressed by Linda Pritchard's performance is going to meet her in Stockholm for further collaboration. We keep our fingers crossed, Linda deserves it all!

All participants of final and Second Chance are released on iTunes (except "Popular") and Danny is already topping the chart! Nicke Borg is #3, Linda Bengtzing is #4, Loreen is #5, Love Generation is #6, Swingfly is #9 and Sara Varga - #10.

Record of vocal performance of Sara Lumholdt was unleashed by someone from SVT and you can check it here - sometimes perfect, sometimes not really but still we give to Sara's work good response.

You can watch already all performances on SVT channel and decide who will be your favorite on Second Chance round, I'll remind you who will be competing against whom next Saturday.

The final heat of this year's competition. There is always particular interest around the 4th semi-final, as many past winners have come from that week, most recently Carola (2006), Charlotte Perrelli (2008), Malena Ernman (2009) and Anna Bergendahl (2010). So all eyes were on Love Generation this week. It's been said that SVT always gives its favoured act the final spot in the final heat, and that honour went to LG, the girl band put together by RedOne, currently the hottest producer in the world right now, with a song co-written by him. So it looked as if all they had to do was turn up and they'd automatically qualify to Globen. Right? Wrong. Indeed it was a very surprising week and not for the first time, my pre-show predictions were way off target :)

I thought there had been a bit of inconsistency with the show openings this year - the first couple of weeks were interminable, last week was so much better thanks to Lena Philipsson, and I had hoped for The Ark to open the show but they didn't. Alluding to this week's host city as 'Sweden's version of Chicago' (maybe a Swedish reader would like to explain this to me - does Malmö have a tough reputation?), the hosts launched into a 'Chicago' song and dance routine with lyrics about Malmö. Anyway at least the opening didn't last too long, so on with the songs! (Interestingly enough, when the week's artists were announced, it was Linda Bengtzing who got the biggest cheer).

"This week's "Curse of Dilba" award - which I award every week to an established artist whose reputation means nothing at voting time - goes to Melody Club, a rather good and well established band. I liked "The Hunter" and it was a catchy and well-staged song, however it suffered from the lead vocalist's nervous vocal performance. I've always felt that this band were in the shadow of The Ark, so it didn't do them any favours when that band were this week's interval act. (More about that later). I really wanted it to qualify though.

One artist who didn't have any chance of qualifying this week was the previously unknown Julia Alvgard who made it to the final 32 as one of the webbjoker winners along with week 1's Jonas Matsson). On the plus side, she sang well and her song deserved to be there as it was very nice, although maybe lacking an 'edge' which would have made it even better. On a fashion note, I liked her hair but that dress with the padded shoulders was so wrong and it made her look like an old woman.

Tonight's food accompaniment was cheese and onion loaded potato skins, and I thought it would be a very good time to head off to the kitchen and pop them in the oven. Anything to avoid the offering by Lasse Stefanz. They may be one of Sweden's oldest and best loved dansbands, but aaaargh! What really shocked me was that this was written by Bard, Oson & Norell - all that songwriting talent and all they could come up with was Simply The Best? On the plus side, it had timpani and castanets. And that's about it really.

Who knew that Linda Pritchard would be so great? "Alive" was a big ballad, now you know I don't like ballads but was really impressed by her performance here. The chorus could have been stronger, but she really sold the song and it deserved to qualify. The styling was terrific - I love her hair, and that dress was amazing. Of course they wheeled out the good old SVT wind machine, and in 'Moving On' style I half expected that raised platform to make an appearance too.

I was really looking forward to seeing Anders Fernette singing "Run". I liked that moment when the backing vocalists ran out on stage, but my previous concern from my 'just a minute' post still stands: too many unnecessary distractions, all that Cirque du Soleil stuff going on overhead wasn't needed. His vocals were off in places, but at least he tried hard and I'd probably listen to this song after the contest is over.

And so to the long awaited comeback of Linda Bengtzing to Melodifestivalen. She seems to have taken over from Nanne and Carola as the fans' schlager-drottning of choice - why, she even looks like Carola now. On the plus side, I liked the song better tonight and she always looks as if she's really enjoying performing on the MF stage, and she packed this schlager-by-numbers with lots of sparkle and oomph. On the minus side, there is a fine line between competing in MF and being consumed with desperation to win it. On Saturday night I thought Linda maybe crossed that line or got very close to it. Oh and by the way I don't like yellow, and I hated those boots IMHO.

It took a while but I've finally warmed to the two hapless interrogators and I thought it was quite a funny moment when they mixed Nicke Borg up with Nick Borgen. (Funniest moment on Saturday for me was when they were talking to Love Generation who mentioned RedOne and the guy sang "Red Red One" which really made me chuckle, although no-one else here found it remotely amusing).

Anyway, Nicke Borg....bad styling, with trousers which looked far too big, and then that jacket-removal moment to reveal lots of tattoos. The song itself was an effective an anthemic hands-in-the-air swaying rock ballad, a real vote-winner. During the song I declared 'major dark horse alert'. Then they did the hologram guitarists thing and when that 'Anna Bergendahl' moment happened, with the audience waving lights around, I then declared: 'this is a finalist here'.

I thought Love Generation were pretty good, and delivered a slick and professional routine with their vocals working well for most of the time - which you can't always say for many girl bands. "Dance Alone" was like a cross between "It's Raining Men" and a 90s dance song, and I liked it a lot more than I'd expected to.

I missed the dull 'Hurricane' segment but was back in time to see The Ark take the stage after a "drill instructor" entrance with the band (surrounded by 'soldiers') dressed in military costume which was later stripped off to reveal some fab white outfits. A brilliant performance of "Breaking Up With God", and a very emotional one too as it would be their last major television appearance before splitting up.




Results: Linda Bengtzing won, with Nicke Borg getting the other Globen ticket after the second voting round.

Yesterday Jenny Berggren has made performance at Danish preselection to Eurovision with brand new song "Let Your Heart Be Mine" that we were excited even before we've heard it first time and the song has turned to be even bigger pop-delight than we expected. Performance was also very interesting with Jenny in gorgeous dress and nice trick of dancers rolling giant lattice behind Jenny that we already really liked! Unfortunately Jenny hasn't gone too far in competition and Denmark has chosen song that sounds like twin of Andreas Johnson's "Sing For Me" but it doesn't make Jenny's song any worse. Check performance below.

Good lord. Once again I'm going to abandon any semblence of doing melodifestivalen coverage again today and instead talk once again about my beloved The Feeling. Well in a minute anyway. As you well know by now, you can get all your melodifestivalen coverage over at AlienHits, PopPosterGirl, SwedishStereo and Scandipop. What I will say is that this week was a bit of a shocker (results wise) and I really enjoyed Love Generation, Melody Club & Linda B, quite liked Anders Fernette and found everyone else pleasant. Anyway, more swedish pop makes my chart this week and I suspect a big influx of MF songs will debut next week. Now does anyone else think the Glee "loser like me" song is quite good but not as spiffing as Brit High's "start of something"?!

THE FEELING ~ SEARCHED EVERY CORNER:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the forthcoming The Feeling single, Set My World On Fire, which you can now hear as part of the BBC's cricket coverage and debuts on my chart at #12 this week. At their tiny audience gigs, they've been selling a 1 track cd of a Freemasons produced song called Searched Every Corner. Allegedly this won't be on their forthcoming album, which is a bit of a shame as it deserves a much wider audience. It's basically is The Feeling Does Disco. They have done this before to an extent with the electro tinged second album comeback single "I Thought It Was Over". This is completely different to that - it's a warm shimmering affair, sort of what you would imagine The Feeling to sound like if they covered Kylie Minogue's The One. It keeps all the trademark The Feeling stuff you know and love such as the divine layered harmonies and delightfully 60s-esque sound they do so well and covers it in pulsating disco beats, swirling synth couplets & delicious female backing vocals. The chorus is a singalong treat with a perfect delivery from Dan and some great "back back back" ad-libs from the boys. This all bodes well for their duet with Sophie Ellis Bextor (Leave Me Out of It) and hopefully a nice summer tour from them too. I remain completely smitten.

Top 21 songs of the week:


21 ~ James Blunt, Too Far Gone
20 ~ Tove Styrke, High & Low (NE)
19 ~ Avril Lavigne, What The Hell
18 ~ Danny, In The Club
17 ~ Rochella Danishei, Michelle
16 ~ Shayne Ward, Obsession
15 ~ Britney, Hold It Against Me
14 ~ McFly, That's The Truth
13 ~ Same Difference, Karma Karma
12 ~ The Feeling, Set My World On Fire (NE)
11 ~ Kylie, Put Your Hands Up
10 ~ Sanna Nielsen, I'm In Love
09 ~ Westlife, Beautiful Tonight
08 ~ Maroon 5, Never Gonna Leave This Bed
07 ~ Neo, Underground
06 ~ Le Kid, Oh My God
05 ~ Deborah Gibson, Snake Charmer
04 ~ Lady Gaga, Born This Way
03 ~ Take That, Kidz (PIC)
02 ~ Andreas Johnson, One Man Army
01 ~ Eric Saade, Popular (NE/1 Week)

This is a Melodifestivalen semifinal to remember. It became as exciting as expected. The biggest surprise of all was Linda Bengtzing who got most of the televotes. The second surprise was that Love Generation only reached second chance. The third surprise was Melody Club who failed compleatly and ended second last.

 Linda Bengtzing with her Swedish schlager "E de fel på mig" charmed the viewers and so did Nicke Borg with his tattoos and his power rock ballad "Leaving Home". Linda Pritchard and Love Generation get a second chance next weekend in Sundsvall. That heat will be extremely exciting.


Here you find interviews with the finalists, made directly after the show.







Source: Lilian.
Behind the camera: Andreas Nilsson

Don't forget that tomorrow you'll be able to watch last 4th semifinal of Melodifestivalen in 20:00 by Stockholm time here and maybe tomorrow we'll see the winner of this year. Snippets of rehearsals were presented yesterday and below you can find links and our thoughts about them.
Melody Club - The Hunter - very warm melodic pop-rock track with Spring positive feeling and cool guitar-part, much warmer and schlageristic than we could expect from Melody Club with stable professional performance.
Julia Alvgard - Better or Worse - beautiful ballad performed by sensual Julia's voice with dark blue background and Julia looking very charismatic and nice.
Lasse Stefanz - En blick och nånting händer - "Simply The Best" in dansband-arrangement, sorry, but it's SO not our style.
Linda Pritchard - Alive - song was written by Oscar Görres and Fredrik Kempe so on one hand it's what you could hear from previous presented Linda's songs and on the other hand it's a lot in a style of Linda's "Hollow". It's all about incredible Linda's voice that makes whole pack sounding amazing but remembering that even "Moving On" hasn't reached the final directly we're especially scared for Linda.
Anders Fernette - Run - Anders' dynamic guitar pop that we use to love and this song doesn't seem to be exception, but it's hard to judge by snippet of rehearsal where Anders obviously doesn't feel comfortable vocally, we'll love it in studio-version however.
Linda Bengtzing - E de fel på mig - probably biggest disappointment, it's s classic Linda's track sounding a lot like Värsta schlagern but weaker and without whole-packed performance of Hur svårt kan det vå, still Linda gives it all on the stage but I guess she won't qualify to the final directly.
Nicke Borg - Leaving Home - classic big rock-ballad with loud guitars and everything you can expect, I'm not sure that it's song for Nicke though, I'd imagine it better with some more screaming loud vocal, otherwise it doesn't go whole road for me.
Love Generation - Dance Alone - very effective performance with 90s eurodance song that screams to get into Globen and girls are gonna be on fire this year in Sweden but is the song will be as big favorite as press now claims? I'm not sure, it's still not what Gaga could release but wishing luck to girls, they do great job on the stage and I'm not gonna be against if they'll win whole contest.

After rehearsal due to public voting Melody Club has colected 47% (!!!) of votes today (that is not much less than after Eric's performance), so do we have new favorite that will be able to slip into first place of the final while Danny will be sharing votes with Eric and Sanna with one of schlager-ladies Jenny/Shirley/Linda having big chance to get there? We'll see tomorrow but due to svenskaspel Melody Club currently goes 2nd for the win.

Four new singles covers have come from Danny, Eric Saade, Melody Club and Sara Varga, you can check them above. Melody Club's EP will also contain b-side "Anyone Else" and Joniverse Remix for "The Hunter". Probably now you say - oh my! Is it gonna be the first or the only melomix this year? And I say - no. In a few days mix for Dilba's "Try Again" from Jacob Czitrom is gonna be released and we really like that Romanian-dance sound in verses with dark baseline decorating chorus so fine! And hope it's not the last mix for "Try Again", this song deserves maxi-single after charting so successfully on iTunes. By the way talking about not qualifying songs success in common chart - it's obviously not so well comparing with last year. Week ago Dilba debuted at #20 and Le Kid - at #31, this week chart has only Christian Walz at #30. Hope it'll go better when the rest of the songs will be released after 4th semifinal.

Så har det första officiella genrepet klarats av under fredagskvällen. Utgången är mycket oviss och nästan alla är möjliga finalister eller andra chansare. Trist att det kommer att slås ut bidrag som är värdiga att gå vidare.

Förhandshypade Love Generation med låtskrivaren RedOne startar sist och maken till snyggare nummer får man leta efter. Kommer inte den här låten vidare så fattar jag absolut ingenting. Resten får fru-fortuna eller sms-rösterna avgöra. Om ambitionen är att Sverige åter igen ska hamna på Eurovision-kartan så kan man bara inte sumpa chansen som Lady Gaga producenten serverar oss. Till saken hör att tjej-gruppen kan sjunga och agera. Det är inte en taffligt ihopsatt kvartett som valts ut på grund av hårfärg eller annat.

Mer kommentarer är på kommande om alla låtar men fram tills dess kan ni höra min intervju med Linda Pritchard som ger mig och många andra östeuropeiska balladvibrationer. Vilken låt jag tänker på tänker jag inte avslöja just nu men jag kan t.o.m. se vissa likheter i utseendet. MEN Linda P är både snyggare och sjunger bättre och har en bättre låt.

Do you remeber last year's arrival of Viktorious as misterious figure with glam attitude singing about how scandalous he is? If you don't, you can check it in trailer below with snippet of the song "Scandalous" - new Viktorious' present to his fans as part of Viktorious weekends I told you about before.
"Scandalous" turned to be quite intriguing track not failing expectations afterwards and sounding probably like Nine Inch Nails deciding to make commercial pop with heavy synth-production and pretty catchy lyrics "...everybody wanna be Lady Gaga looking twenty in fifty like Madonna...". Really hope song will be next single as it has all hit-signs to me. You can download it here completely for free.

I met with Nicke Borg during the welcome reception in Malmö City Hall. Nicke is the singer in Backyard Babies which has a break right now. Nicke is focusing on his solo career och participates in the fourth semifinal of Melodifestivalen 2011.

Here is a video interview with the man with most tattoos in Melodifestivalen.

Ooo I've been as busy as a beaver this week (*insert raised eyebrow to camera & little smirk here*). Barely had time to sit back, relax and chill as I thrill (I love a bit of Leila K). So I'm way behind on lots of excellent pop music that is being embraced by my pop loving friends across the cold cold sea to the Scandinavian region. So it's time I take a pause from this farce that I like to call "my life" and get on with reminding you of some of the very excellent music indeed out there that may have flown somewhat under your radar...

• I Am Noxious ~ Flashback Tears: I don't think he's of the Scandinavian belt as it happens, but the enigmatic Mr. T is releasing his debut single, Flashback Tears, there as we speak. Once again, he doesn't give much away about himself in the video, although he does seem to have quite nice arms and there's even a sneaky peek of nipple at one point. Oo-er, etc. However, what you really need to know is that musically it's a gently simmering synth driven tune that crescendoes into an almost rave-esque pop anthem, the joyous melody being juxtaposed with the bittersweet lyrics (and all delivered in I.A.N's engaging, deep vocal style). It's not the type of pop tune that you hear everyday in our vocoder heavy charts, but it is definitely the type of pop tune that makes you sit up and pay attention and definitely SHOULD be nudging shoulders with the likes of JLS, Jessie J and Rihanna. Tremendulent.
• Sound of Arrows ~ Nova: I have adored them ever since they sprung like a spring onto the scene with the deliriously delicious tune M.A.G.I.C, even though I have no idea what the fuss they were going on about. Nova premiered on Popjustice this week and is one of the prettiest songs I have heard in a very long while. It's truly deserving of the description lush and is a warm, fuzzy track imbued with dreamy romantic intentions. Surely they are on the cusp of becoming massive, no? A full length album is finally coming in April and if it's anywhere near as good as this, I shall be jolly pleased indeed.
• Eva & The Heartmakers ~ Gone In A Flash: Eva should already be clogging up your top of the range mp3 player with the joyous single that is Signals. They are following that up with an absolute gem of a track called Gone In A Flash. Stop the Lazy Gaga, Bored This Way comparisons because this is not only like a lost Madonna demo, it also has the most bonkers but brilliant set up since Girls Aloud's Biology. Oh and the middle 8 descends into moments of air guitar madness that have to be heard to be believed. And yet it works wonderfully. Nothing at all about this brillopants single should have been done differently!
• Le Freak ~ 25 Hours A Day: There are a few good contestants in the running to represent Denmark in Eurovision (including Lee from Industry! Amaze!) None are as stupendously poptacular as Le Freak who not only obviously take their name from a classic disco anthem, but have put together a rather ingenious tune that tips the hat to Abba, Steps, S Club and all that have followed them, wrapped in a giddy chorus that you'll be singing for days. It's all very marvy pants in the extremities...

Melodifestivalens välkomstfest ska givetvis innehålla en tjusig buffé. Malmö har ju varit värdar för festivalen ett flertal gånger så man har rutin på detta.
A Melodifestivalen welcome party must include a delicious buffet. Malmö has been hosting the contest several times and knows have to satisfy the guests.


Bland vimlet passade jag på att intervju en av festivalens ’creddigaste’ deltagare, Nicke Borg från Backyard Babies. För fem år sedan var det ingen, inklusive Nicke själv, som trodde att denna tatuerade hårdrocksälskare skulle ställa upp i Melodifestivalen. Men han träffade sin stora kärlek Jojo och nu skriver de låtar ihop. Nicke har mognat och just nu är det solokarriären som är i fokus. En av hans favoriter från Eurovision är självklart Lordi.

Among the guests I met one of the contestants with the highest credibility, Nicke Borg from Backyard Babies. Five years ago nobody, including himself, expected this heavy-rock-lover to participated I Melodifestivalen. Then he met his big love Jojo and now the write music together. Nicke has become matured and for the moment focusing on his solo career. One of his Eurovision favorites is Lordi.
Thomas Deutgen, från P4 Dans och Dansbandskampen, var på sitt bästa humör. Fattas bara eftersom hans stora idoler, Lasse Stefanz tävlar i morgon med en klassisk dansdandsdänga. Man har t.o.m. bytt från engelsk till svensk text och låten heter nu ”En blick och nånting händer” istället för ”I Surrender”.
Thomas Deutgen, host of ‘P4 Dans’ and ‘Dansbandskampen’, was in a very good mood. One of his big idols, Lasse Stefanz, is competing tomorrow with a classic ‘dansband’ tune. To make it even more Swedish and traditional, the lyrics have been changed from English into Swedish.
En av låtskrivarna till Lasse Stefanz är Alexander Bard, som själv medverkat på scenen fyra gånger med BWO. Dessutom har han skrivit otaliga låtar till Melodifestivalen genom åren och det finns ingen genre han är främmande för berättade han för mig och såg riktigt glad ut.
Alexander Bard is one of the composers of Lasse Stefanz’ entry. He has participated on stage four times with BWO. In addition he is a frequent song writer for Melodifestivalen. He told me that there is no genre that he wouldn’t touch and looked really happy to be part of the dance band tradition this time.

Mirja från Poplight.se passade på att fira sin födelsedag i Rådhuset. En bra idé med tanke på utbudet av mat, vin och kändisar.
Mirja from Poplight.se celebrated her birthday in the City Hall. Good idea. No lack of food, beverages and celebrities.

Photos: Thanks to Göran Sagstuen and Andreas Nilsson for helping me!

So I guess it's a final 'smyglyssna' then...after that we'll have heard all this year's MF songs. So here's my first-listen thoughts for this week.

"The Hunter" - Melody Club. Not quite as flamboyant as The Ark - but then who is?? Anyway it's not too bad, quite a catchy song with the band surrounded by giant chess pieces and the guitarist playing his solo on top of an illuminated piano. I think I'll like this one on Saturday, but it could be this week's recipient of the "Curse of Dilba".

"Better or Worse" - Julia Alvgard. Another one of those webbjokers, which I can see being scrapped if this song doesn't progress beyond its heat. Powered by a cool electro-Robyn-style beat, I rather liked this but in a week of 'names' she could suffer from being an unknown. Maybe it would do better if it had been sung by a more famous name.

"En Blick och Någonting Händer" - Lasse Stefanz. This is basically Tina Turner's "Simply The Best", rehashed dansband-style, and on this performance I felt they couldn't care less. Which is sad really, particularly given the song's stellar songwriting pedigree. I expected better - at least The Playtones have a bit of life about them. But LS are pop-u-lar, so anything could happen.

"Alive" - Linda Pritchard. Her song last year didn't really show off her vocal abilities but she is a really powerful singer and vocally reminded me a little of Jennifer Rush (oops, really showing my age now!). This is a big ballad and there's always room for them at MF/ESC so this is going to sneak a qualifying place, but I'm not sure whether it's to the final or to Andra Chansen.


"Run" - Anders Fernette. One of the acts I was looking forward to seeing the most this week. It's an 80s-style pop song crossed with something from the Enrique "Escape" era. Fine so far but I thought everything going on around it was far too distracting: I could have done without all that acrobatic swinging on silks and backing singers throwing giant strips of toilet roll around :) Prediction: top 5 but missing out on that all important place at AC.

"E Det Fel på Mej" - Linda Bengtzing. Dare I say that she's just won back her title of 'ultimate schlager gueen' from Jenny Silver?. Firstly it's very good to have her back, and I say that as someone who wasn't a fan till "Hur Svart..." converted me. There's a mid-chorus key change and an energetic performance, but I'm sorry to say that I expected much better. The problem with this is that it sounds like about 300 former MF entries thrown into a blender to produce schlager-by-numbers. But it's a qualifier!

"Leaving Home" - Nicke Borg. Wow that man's got a lot of tattoo art going on! A great big old anthemic rock ballad here - it really feels like 80s night. But there's nothing wrong with that. Rock may be a dirty word over here but it's still very popular in many European countries including Sweden, therefore don't be surprised if this is a surprise qualifier.

Jag har anlänt till Malmö och i morgon börjar helgens aktiviteter med genrep inför deltävling 4 i Melodifestivalen. Det blir min första deltävling eftersom Göteborg fick stryka på foten till förmån för Finlands final. Det finns dock en nackdel med att vara i Malmö just nu - jag missar Danmarks final på söndag.

Jag hoppas och tror att detta kan bli det mest intressanta startfältet i år. Rock, webbjoker, dansband, stompschlager, pop och berömda Amerikanska låtskrivare. Det finns rutinerade Melodifestivalsdeltagare och flertalet debutanter. Därmed inte sagt att debutanterna är några noviser på scenen. Snarare tvärtom.

Bland låtskrivarna känns det inte lika nydanande. Fredrik Kempe, Thomas G:son, Alexander Bard, Ola Håkansson med flera.

Utan att ha hört låtarna så finns det stor chans att det även denna gång är bäddat för herrarnas afton medan damerna får nöja sig med andra chansen. Blir det så innebär det att vi efter Malmö kommer att ha en rejäl manlig övervikt i finalen. Sju manliga finalister och en kvinnlig, dvs. Sanna Nielsen.

Malmö startfältet:
Melody Club: "The Hunter"
Julia Alvgard: "Better Or Worse"
Lasse Stefanz: "En blick och nånting händer"
Linda Pritchard: "Alive"
Anders Fernette: "Run"
Linda Bengtzing: "E de fel på mej"
Nicke Borg: "Leaving Home"
Love Generation: "Dance Alone"

Source: SVT

For a long, long time - well, certainly over the last few summers anyway - there has been much debate and speculation, mainly in the Swedish tabloid press and of course here in blog-land, that the annual Swedish summer TV ritual, SVT1's Allsång på Skansen, is past its sell-by date. Or at least, in need of a new presenter anyway.

Well, finally, the time for change has come. At a press conference today it was announced that the new presenter of Allsång would be none other than Måns Zelmerlöw, taking over from Anders Lundin. Last summer it was suggested in the Swedish press that MZW would be the perfect choice to step into Anders' shoes. In a previous post on this blog http://europecrazy.blogspot.com/2010/07/mystery-of-allsang-lotta-and-missing.html I also agreed with that suggestion; I thought it would bring a freshness to the show, whilst keeping the traditional aspects alive. Måns may still be a young man, but in recent years he's gone from Idol contestant to all-round entertainer, and he has proved himself as a multi-talented singer, dancer, musical theatre performer and TV presenter, with a very likeable personality. In other words, the perfect choice to succeed Anders who has presented the show for the last 7 years.

At times last summer I felt really sorry for Anders, and at times you could see the stress which he must have been under with all the criticism. However there were times when he fought back, especially on 20th July, which was my favourite show of last year's run, for the usual very obvious reasons. Check out my previous post about that one: http://europecrazy.blogspot.com/2010/07/allsang-pa-skansen-week-4-tuesday-20th.html
which includes some particularly crowd-pleasing video footage of Salem Al Fakir and Oskar Linnros. Enjoy!

The new era begins on 28th June - make a note in your diaries!


Goodbye Anders, hello Måns: picture courtesy of Aftonbladet.

Press has just finished listening to fourth Melodifestivalen's semifinal songs and fourth time we're giving summarizing of what Schlagerprofilerna, Melodifestivalklubben and Tobbe Ek have written.

Melody Club - The Hunter - song sounds more like new Destiny Calling (between The Ark and Toto) with Mika-falcetto but not as strong, it's happy guitar-pop with choruses hard to remember like in Linda Sundblad's song, however fans of Melody Club are gonna like it but chances are absolutely unclear.

Julia Alvgard - Better or Worse - song has got much more proper electrosound-update (than in Jonas' case), chorus is stronger than in many songs this year and could break through in a weaker semifinal but still remembering what a big names compete in this semifinal it may have no chance.

Lasse Stefanz - En blick och nånting händer - as classic dansband-schlager as it can be imagined that sounds a bit in a style of The Boppers and Jerry Williams music in the end of 80s and as it's what Lasse Stefanz are about it can be met very well by their fans but it's not The Playtones and dansband didn't do well last years so it doesn't seem to be top on Saturday.

Linda Pritchard - Alive - classic musical ballad between Moving On and Hollow, it's a lot in Kempe's style with big potential to get a great remix for schlager-dancefloor, builds from the beginning till the end with growing tempo and goes a bit too screaming in the end, it lacks hit-potential of Molitva or Is it true, has not so strong choruses and that's what makes it not obvious contender for Globen.

Anders Fernette - Run - sounds a lot in Anders ealier guitar-pop style with long start in first verse and catchy chorus with "Run" repeated many times, it's like Magnus Bäcklund-2011 and gonna be played on commercial radio-stations very well but it's hard to be seen as the song with strong chances.

Linda Bengtzing - E de fel på mig - 100% schlager that sounds like all previous Linda's hits in one, weaker version of Värsta Schlagern or continuation of Hur svårt kan det va? with heavier production. Song about Linda's man who empties her dishwasher and will fix her car but in chorus she dreams about another guy. Probably the biggest schlager-moment of the year but not clear will public get it as good as previous Linda's attempts as it's too classic Linda even for Linda. Loads of pyro can be expected during performance.

Nicke Borg - Leaving Home - classic rock-ballad in style of Takida with gutars and drums passing Nicke's voice very well, reminding a bit Bon Jovi's "Bed of Roses" and it sounds like everything Road Salt wanted to be but hasn't managed and it smells like schlagerscandal-warning this week, very possible finalist.

Love Generation - Dance Alone - song in eurodance-sound of 90s with modern production (with Bubbles and Da Buzz vibes), hardly to be imagined performed by Gaga but Nicole and Alexandra Burke could easily sing it, song is very good but it's a big question if it's winner of the year and if girls will sing it better than Sara Lumholdt and Marie Serneholt not to fall with it.

Today we'll get new press-reviews of Malmö semifinal but it's already too much of news to hold them so I'll give it article. First of all we've got new covers of Brolle, Anders Fernette, The Moniker and Julia Alvgard, we love Anders' one especially and hope that this bad rock-guy style means we'll get some strong pop-rock entry from him.

The Playtones will release new album "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" on March 9th, it's produced by Jimmy Jansson and Karl-Ola Kjellholm (The Pusher) as their MF-song "The King" and you can already check its snippets below. Unfortunately we didn't find something better than "The King" but the key is that it's not our style, still maybe you'll find something for you.

Rehearsals of the fourth semifinal have already started on places and you can check some pics with Julia, Linda Pritchard, Anders and Love Generation.

Linda Bengtzing has new song "Män i Uniform" on her site and song sounds even better than we've found it before.

And finally exciting news that you could already read on Schlagerprofilerna, Poster Girl and Schlagerfiasko blogs but I should mention once again. Today in new QX-issue it was revealed by Christer Björkman and Edward af Sillén that next rare songs will be out on rarities CD in golden pack of MF:
Sarah Dawn Finer - Not a Sinner nor a Saint
Sonja Aldén - Night of Passion
Sonja Aldén - Invincible
Linda Bengtzing - Headlines
Agnetha Kjörsvik - Hero (Freebee, backing singer of Charlotte in Belgrade)
Brandsta City Släckers - En gång för alla
Timoteij - Run (initialy recorded in English)
Jessica Andersson - Jag ljuger så bra
Fredrik Kempe & Shirley Clamp - Du och jag mot världen

Sarah's "Not a Sinner nor a Saint" was presented few days ago on Poster Girl's blog, so here we show you another track that will appear on that compilation and we like it in this version not less than in final version!