Lopez Blogs

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!

It's a busy time for music lovers. Besides interesting concerts every week (tonight Friday I have missed Gotan Project) we can follow several competitions on TV and the web. Friday is the Swedish Idol and I have to admit that I haven't been too keen on following it until now. From innumerable artists the contest is down to seven with decent quality.

För mer information om IDOL på svenska - kolla in POPLIGHT

Same goes for the Melodifestivalen web wild card. From several hundreds of song down to five. The final will be held on Monday night at the show-restaurant Golden Hits.

As originating from Finland I'm happy that Elin Blom is still on for one more week in the Idols. After all - she is from my homevillage.




 
I'm sorry for Geir Rönning who was voted out from Idol. Despite his Norwegian backround he lives in Finland with his family and I met him for the first time at the Eurovision in Kiev 2005. Unfortunately he didn't make it "throuh the grapevine". He did a fab performance of the Marvin Gaye classic ("I heard it through the grapevine") but the sms-people didn't like it.









Back to Melodifestivalen - here are the five songs that qualified for the final on Monday (in starting order):

1. Tusen nätter                
Composer: Daniel Wollbratt
Artist: Billy         

2. Better or Worse             
Composers: Manne Hjelm, Ola Holstad, Joar Lenz
Artist: Julia Alvgard

3. I Wanna Be With You   
Composers: Dennis Andersson & Anton Dahlrot
Artist: Anton & Dejo

4. Don´t Stop                  
Composer: Sargon Jakob
Artist: Engla

5. On My Own                    
Composers: Peter Autio, Sari Autio Olsson
Artist: Jonas Matsson

Listen to them HERE.
PS: On Saturdays Swedes can continue to sms-vote in DANSBANSKAMPEN!

Source: SVT, TV4

It's less and less competitors at Dansbandskampen-2010 with every week and at last show we've got whole bunch of beloved Melodifestivalen hits.
Pure Devine performed quite powerfull version of Barbados' "Kom Hem" in Sanna style vocal, I'd say it was too good for retro dance-party. Elisa's performed Charlotte Perrelli's winning song "Tusen och en natt" and as original version is quite dansbandish and vocalist has strong voice it all worked quite well (but how great would it be to be performed by Wizex where Charlotte sang before her Melodifestivalen breakthrough in 1999). CC & Lee performed Ola's hit "Natalie", not the best vocal performance of our faves but still it's quite difficult song in verses so we forgive it. Patrik's Combo has made cover for season's hit "Manboy" and though it hasn't impressed me maybe you'll find it funny. How do you think? Also we've got some covers of Timbuktu, Shirley Clamp, Caroline af Ugglas and Sandi Thom - less interesting but still you can check them below. Jeppez and the Cowboys left competition, I've finally got three favorites (Pure Devine, Elisa's and CC & Lee) and dansband-race keeps moving.

Pure Divine - Kom hem
Donnez - Min kärlek
Patrik's Combo - Manboy
Jeppez and the Cowboys - I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker
Wizex - Alla vill till himmelen men ingen vill dö
Willez - Snälla, snälla
Elisa's - Tusen och en natt
CC & LEE - Natalie

Dansbandskampen keeps sorting out participants and we've got already Rigo & The Topaz Sound and Sweetshots out, new episode again had great songs choises - a lot of modern international hits and Melodifestivalen covers but this time I can say there were more of successful covers. CC & LEE performed beautiful version of Håkan Hellström's "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg", stomach of pregnant band's part - Lena Ström already looks big but I really hope nothing will interrupt such a grand series of their performances. Wizex performed very nice cover of Salem Al Fakir's "Keep On Walking" with a slight touch of French music. Jeppez and the Cowboys has made loveable danband-country cover of Katy Perry's "Hot'n'cold". Elisa's covered in more traditional way Kent's "Utan dina andetag" - song that sounds good in all possible versions. And another Melodifestivalen-song was performed by Pure Divine "The Worrying Kind" - nice anthemic baseline and synths along with proper vocal performance has made it another worthy highlight of the show.

CC & LEE - Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg
Sweetshots - Poker Face
Wizex - Keep On Walking
Jeppez and the Cowboys - Hot 'n' Cold
Elisa's - Utan dina andetag
Willez - Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)
Donnez - Kom ihåg mig
Patrik's Combo - Aj, aj, aj (det bultar och det bankar)
Pure Divine - The Worrying Kind

Dansbandskampen new season has finally started so yesterday you could already watch the first show and I should say songs choise was as good as never before! Biggest Swedish and international hits performed in dansband wrap. But as this genre doesn't suppose modernity or diversity any song can easily be murdered with dansband cover so most of them actually was but still you can find some really enjoyable things. Though this season turns to be quite week in my opinion but still Divine's version of "I'm Yours" was really enjoyable and as expected CC & Lee's hardrock version of "I Kissed A Girl" was the most powerful highlight of the show.

Elisa's - Human
Willez - Jag ljuger så bra
Wizex - Sjumilakliv
Jeppez and the Cowboys - Inget stoppar oss nu
Sweetshots - I Don't Feel Like Dancing
Patrik's Combo - Det gör ont
Divine - I'm Yours
Rigo & The Topaz Sound - Två mörka ögon
CC & Lee - I Kissed A Girl
Donnez - I Gotta Feeling

Since October 16th you'll get ability to watch new season of SVT show Dansbandskampen (hosted by Christine Meltzer, Thomas Deutgen and Gunhild Carling) - contest where dansband groups will fight every week to get into the final. Many contestants of two previous seasons Larz-Kristerz, The Playtones, Scotts, Zekes have become really succesful afterwards and public has got tons of lovely dansband-covers for some favorite hits. That's what we're looking from new Dansbandskampen season. It wasn't difficult to mention some familiar names among new contestants like Rigo & the Topaz Sound (after Melodifestivalen-2009 Rigo participated this year almost in every show so but see him in dansband-competioт was really big surprise!) and Wizex (band where Kikki Danielsson and Charlotte Perrelli has started their music career). But mostly I'm excited about participance of amazing CC & Lee who already participated in the first season but haven't won! Before start of the show Lionheart releases singles of their artists CC & Lee, Patrik's Combo and Elisa's, all are nice, but CC & Lee's single "Better Best Forgotten" sounds completely loveable due to only chorus. I'd say it's more old-school Abbaesque disco-schlager than dansband, beautiful, catchy and done in best traditions of classic Swedish pop.

Anders Lundin presented second episode of tv-show Allsång på Skansen and the biggest highlight for all pop-fan audience undoubtfully was performance of Eric Saade who presented two last singles - as always very well choreographed performance of "Manboy" and "Break Of Dawn" with funny moment of leading out on the stage happy crazy fan in the end. Winners of Dansbandskampen The Playtones performed Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" and their own song "Excuse Me". Also audience could enjoy performance of Mikael Wiehe, Marie Küler, Marie Bergman, Wille Craaford & Marika Willstedt (you could see Marika on Melodifestivalen-2010 performing with Jessica Andersson on cello), foreign guests invited to Skansen were Australian Ten Tenors. Check whole episode here.

Eric Saade - Manboy
Eric Saade - Break Of Dawn
Allsång - Jules Sulvain Potpurri
The Playtones - Fairytale
The Playtones - Execuse Me
The Playtones - Temperaturen
Wille Craaford & Marika Willstedt - Bara Vänner
Wille Craaford & Marika Willstedt - Mormors sista ord
Ten Tenors - Bohemian Rhapsody
Ten Tenors - Thunderstruck
Marie Bergman - Ingen kommer undan politiken
Marie Bergman - Sång om syrsor
Mikael Wiehe - Strö all min kärlek
Mikael Wiehe - Det hrä rä ditt land
Mikael Wiehe - Sång till frihet
Family Four-potpurri
Marie Küler imitating Mona Sahlin
Allsång - Sånt är livet

ABBA and dansband-music. Can there be some more Swedish music combination? I guess no. And I'm gonna prove it's a great combination right now.
Sisters Cecillia Furlong and Lena Ström has started their music career in 2003 becoming popular in Denmark very fast and starting their own ABBA-show "ABBA Experience" having success with their live performances and strong vocals. But their first album "Gåva Till Dig" ("Gift to you") was released only in 6 years right after the show Dansbandskampen where girls finally has made a big breakthrough to Swedish hearts and the album produced by Amir Aly became very gentle mix of dansband, schlager and pop-music with catchy tunes and beautiful vocal performance. Due to rumours debut-single "Himlen Kan Vänta" ("Heaven Can Wait") was written by Thomas G:son and Calle Kindbom initially for Melodifestivalen but finally it was given to CC & Lee and just in a year girls decided to enter Melodifestivalen-2010 themselves with the song "Honey" written by schlager-veterans Bobby Ljunggren and Mårten & Lina Ericsson that almost qualified but unfortunately was left near qualification borderline but the song is alive and gets its release these days.
"Honey" is very nice positive pop-track inspired by ABBA and actually containing all those amazing melody tricks that made millions of people fall in love with ABBA. CC & Lee come back to their ABBA-roots and we're happily going along with them!