Lopez Blogs

Idol-2010 has finished few weeks ago but right now gang packs their bags for a new tour around Sweden with favorite songs and best performances but without jury and voting, not like competitors but friends and we hope that it means audience will fall for more of them and will give them their hearts and artisitic future.
Speculations flow about next Idol season to be the last because of catastrophically low viewing numbers of Idol-2010 and as well possibility of showing Swedish version of X-Factor instead. Peter Jihde has announced that he's not going to be host of the show next year, it's unclear yet who will be next jury but I pray this amazing show that gave so many amazing artists to Sweden won't be closed and will get a new breathe next Autumn.
In the last week of December Idol runner-up Minnah Karlsson has entered with her debut album at #5 of Swedish chart, the winner Jay Smith has stayed at #1 and what about the rest of talented participants? Many of them were invited to some tv- and radio-shows to demonstrate their talents one more time. For example Linnea, Olle, Geir and Andreas Weise have become guests of morning show on tv to sing acoustic cover of Bob Sinclar's "World, Hold On" putting loads of personality in every vocal part. Also third place of Idol - Olle Hedberg has come to Förkväll to perform his version of "Talking about a revolution" covered by him on Idol and also "Christmas in Washington" in acoustic.

Idol-2010 runner-up Minnah Karlsson has released her self-titled compilation "Minnah Karlsson" with covers from Idol. The winner Jay Smith's album was sold platinum for less than week debuting at #1 of album chart (when his "Dreaming People" was first Swedish Idol winning song not debuting at #1 ever - it has debuted at #3) so let's see how high Minnah's album will be able to climb.
Minnah as Jay had qute a lot of highlights on the show and compilation contains maximum of them. I'll be missing "Paparazzi", "Ambitions" and especially "What you waiting for?". Though, no, Pixie Lott's "Here We Go Again" and "Dreaming People" more but they weren't meant to be on the album from the beginning. Minnah's album includes both fresh hits like "Whataya want from me", "Just the way you are" and "When love takes over" (their arrangements are almost untouched comparing with originals so only Minnah's voice is tasty decoration of these works) and classic stuff like "Always on my mind", "Total eclipse of the heart", "Everything I do I do it for you" and "Alone" and here you can hear some surprising changes, for example "Everything I do I do it for you" was wrapped in more actual beat making it sound like modern ballad and ballad-part was completely deleted from "Alone" but the song hasn't lost at all becoming strong radio-pop-rock-track (one of the strongest album tracks that would be great to get as separate single). Sure the biggest Minnah's moment of Idol with "Twist and Shout" is on compilation as well and though visually crazy retro-style Minnah is much more interesting but still she's completely in this record - twisting, shouting and making smile you wide. "Piece of my heart" from auditions and "Not ready to make nice" released earlier on Idol-compilations were also included in tracklist.
Today Minnah came to Aftonbladet studio to perform her Idol-hit "Not ready to make nice" and "Mama Do" of Pixie Lott - how great was to hear cover of Pixie that provided "Here We Go Again" presenting Minnah on auditions like that charming and funny girl with rock-voice that audience has fallen in love with and girl that hopefuly will make long music career after this very first but memorable step.

Jay Smith and Minnah Karlsson have met this year in the final battle of Swedish Idol, battle to get a new winner in 7-years history of the show and though due to different polls and odds Jay was huge favorite Minnah still was a dark horse of the show who was expected to leave the contest almost every of the last 6-7 weeks but she managed to surprise again and again constantly growing and here we got Minnah in the final!
Firstly contestants performed songs they've chosen themselves and when Jay performed Creed's "Higher" that looked more like static rock-performance in a way and sound Jay performed before Idol, Minnah has decided to bring more dynamic show with Gwen Steffani's "What You Waiting For?" - moves, lights, glitter and massive choreography that impressed jury much more. Second part of the show was performing songs chosen by audience and it was quite obvious choise of Minnah's "Twist and Shout" and Jay's "Like a Prayer" - both performances unfortunately looked weaker being presented not in especially hard times for Minnah and Jay they used to initially (Jay's problems with drugs and Minnah's comeback after elimination) but it wa time for Jay to get huge audience response. But finally it came to singing winning ballad "Dreaming People" written this year by Svante Halldin, Jakob Hazell, Sharon Vaughn and Christian Walz and though Minnah sang it like a real Idol-ballad, like it had to sound from touching start to huge culmination when Jay turned it more to rock-ballad nothing could stop him already and Jay became new winner of the Idol getting chance to release album with his Idol-covers already this Friday but Minnah has got this chance as well and her album will be released two days later on Sunday. Both artist has got their new sites (site of Jay, site of Minnah) and Jay's version of "Dreaming People" has already got #1 on Swedish iTunes.

It's just a day before Sweden will get a new Idol winner and finalists Jay Smith and Minnah Karlsson are extremely loaded and completely prepared for the show tomorrow but let's see how come we've got this couple in final.
Semifinal as usual was jury's choise meaning that it was only jury who gave songs to participants without options contestants got previous weeks. Though it happened before that jury used this right giving one of participants some completely inappropriate songs making favorites leave before the final it didn't seem to happen this time as chosen songs looked comfortable area for Idols. Olle Hedberg has got Keane's "Everybody's changing" (as song suiting artist due to jury) that sounded in chorus a lot like Martin Stenmark's version and verses in original Olle's manner, dancing girls with waving cloths looked a bit out of place but it was fine vocal performance. Another song that due jury was challenge for Olle was Bruce Springsteen's "Born to run" and though Olle was perfect vocally and tried to drag song hard whole performance felt boring. Minnah has got Bonnie Tyler's "Total eclipse of the heart" as song suiting her and she delivered it with full Idol-final song feeling, it wasn't such breathtakingly touching as some of her previous ballad-covers but very powerful. Song-challenge for Minnah was David Guetta's "When love takes over" and it turned to be a great show with full choreography gang and Minnah looking totally comfortable and pushing it with ease. Jay Smith has got Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and with fire show and powerful growling Jay's vocal it felt like real rock-gig of some huge international rock-band.
Second song for Jay was Elvis Presley's "In the ghetto" and again vocally perfect performance with low and calm manner with audience madly supporting Jay. All Minnah, Jay and Olle also performed together U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name", amazing goosebumps giving rock-performance showing great vocal level of this year contest.
Another performer of semifinal was jury member Andreas Carlsson singing "If You Can Dream" - huge musical song with massive choreography, glitter and glamour.
Minnah and Olle expectedly got to the final duel and Minnah (contestant who was eliminated before and taken back just because Alice Hagenbrant refused to participate further) made it to the final!
What do we say about it? Brilliant! For both - Olle and Minnah (Jay in Final was out of the question). Olle as participant who sounds much better making his stuff without Idol get a time to record original album (that undoubtfully will be great). And Minnah gets Idol-finalist spot that will give her real chance to break-through, I'm afraid she wouldn't get such a chance if she hasn't reached the final as she's amazing young schlager-diva but Sweden has loads of already established ones and though Jay is the biggest favorite since I-don't-remember-when due to reports Minnah's winning ballad sounds better so we'll see tomorrow if Minnah will be able to surprise Sweden so much to steal this victory.

Next week final of Idol-2010 will be held in Stockholm's Globen and who will take part in final duel will be decided already this week. It was revealed today that winning song is written by Christian Walz who will participate in Melodifestivalen-2011 and three left Idol-contestants have already recorded their studio-versions of this song.
Unfortunately we haven't got neither full video nor superb quality performances on youtube like we used to but thankfully we've got some to judge what happened on the show. Quite weird that second show there are no performances of Linnea on youtube. Does it mean anything? I guess it doesn't mean no one is interested in her but why don't we have performances of the most spectacular artist of Idol-2010 on youtube?!
However I should reveal from the beginning this week we've lost Linnea who has got to duel with Minnah and hasn't stood the fight. Big loss for the contest but there were no weak contestants left. But Minnah, let's check what she was about. First she performed new hit from Bruno Mars' "Just the way you are" that could't be called weak but wasn't any close to some Minnah's previous highlights. Next song Heart's "Alone" supposed to be more proper for Minnah's voice and this time she did everything as strong as it had to be with great rock-manner in choruses and amazing schlager-attitude. Olle seemed to be another lucky with song choise. U2's "Beautiful Day" sounded not less explosive than in Eddie Razzaz's performance year ago, though sometimes it felt like Olle fought with his voice and moving from weak place to perfect one. Another Olle's cover was for Coldplay's "Fix you" - already his second on the show and again it has got a huge audience reaction. Contest's favorite Jay Smith performed Simple Minds' ballad "Don't you forget about me" that suited his massive rock-voice perfectly and has shown what we should expect from winning performance in Globen next week. Gaga's "Bad Romance" unexpectedly sounded not so interesting, probably we've heard too many covers of this song so it sounded not more than stable.
Second compilation of Idol was already released and here you can check whole tracklist, most interesting tracks in my opinion are Minnah's "Piece Of My Heart", Linnea's "Hope There's Someone", Alice's "Breakaway", Elin's "Hang With Me", Jay's "Heart-Shaped Box", Daniel's "High and Dry" and Linda Varg's "Iris". Have I listed too much? Because tracklist is truly great!

I've missed two of the latest Idol episodes so here's the compressed introduction to what happened on the show last two weeks.
Rock-theme on Idol was rolling from some old monster-hits to relatively fresh ones. Olle Hedberg performed The Rasmus' "In the Shadows" that was more proper to his comfortable zone but not enough to be stable. Elin Blom with Raibnbow's "I Surrender" sounded much more prettier making it more poppy though. No need to say Jay Smith was completely in this theme rocking with Primal Scream's "Rocks". Linnea Henriksson has made completely crazy performance with Mando Diao's "Dance with Somebody" with tonnes of expression she's able for. Minnah Karlsson's was a bit more cold trying to lift Van Halen's "Jump" but it was incredibly hard to lift this complicated song up. Andreas Weise also had difficult song "Start Me Up" by The Rolling Stones but he also couldn't be blamed for boringness of performance.
As a next stage participants should've sung in duets. Jay was singing U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with Linnea and it felt a bit like year before when two faves Tove and Erik sang "Kids" together, it was quite lovely performance. Elin and Minnah provided schlager-version of The Ark's "Calleth you, cometh I" being compared afterwards with ABBA. Andreas and Olle has delievered less successful version of The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme some lovin´" falling for bad song choise but looking tough in suits and sunglasses though.
However it was Elin together with (shock!) one of contest's faves Linnea who were left to the final duel and as it was expected Elin has left the competition.
Tove Styrke has become guest of the show presenting her new single "White Light Moment" with minimalistic but very beautiful performance.

Week later Idols have got theme of classic hits and some unexpected songs like Jay singing Madonna and Linnea covering ABBA. Andreas was back to his musical+disco field making colourful performance of Tom Jones' "She's a lady" and less alive but still bright Kool and the Gang "Celebration". Olle has started with David Bowie's "Let's dance" looking not so comfortable in terms of performance choreography but then has provided completely fantastic Elton John's "Your song" becoming 100% his own. Linnea has started with more dynamic "I can't help myself (Sugar pie honey bunch)" from The Four Tops that turned to be more usual/crazy Linnea's performance but than blown arena away with ABBA's "The winner takes it all". I've heard some really touching ballads from Linnea but this song touched me almost to tears. This is weird some performances hasn't appeared on youtube or were taken away but as soon as this one will appear, I'll let you know. I was more convinced that Minnah is good in ballads as in nothing else - "Always on my mind" from Willie Nelson sounded completely magic and incredibly beautiful with her voice. "I'm so excited" from The Pointer Sisters sounded more expectedly and suited Minnah's voice very well also. And another biggest surprise of the night was Jay who firstly fought with his rock-voice singing Frank Sinatra's "Fly me to the moon" and later provided epic performance of Madona's "Like a Prayer" appearing in kilt in the darkness with a smoke around. Jay grows as public favorite. Last week it was discovered that he smoked hashish few weeks ago but TV4 has decided not to disqualify him and seems like interest of audience has even grown so much that the question who will win has obvious answer. The only intriguing question is who will participate (to compete is not right word here) with Jay in final.
This time final duel happened between expected Andreas and again unexpected another fave Olle, and result wasn't shocking - Andreas has left Idol.

Last episode was devoted to love and all contestants had to sing their covers for someone very special in their life. First one was Andreas Weise who was singing Jackie Wilson's "Higher & higher" for his mom, this time performance was a bit too anonymous mostly because the song didn't suppose any aсcent on personality. Geir Rönning nominated to leave contest already twice performed Marvin Gaye's "I heard it throught the grapevine" for his wife - another complicated song-choise for Geir and though he was vocally perfect as always performance looked also a bit boring. Otherwise Minnah Karlsson got gorgeous Adam Lambert's "Whataya want from me" devoting it to her brother and though maybe it wasn't as brilliant performance as two previous ones but it was emotional, properly dark and beautiful. Jay Smith was singing 3 Doors Down's "Here without you" for his wife who helped him to fight with his drug-addiction so whole story was touching and as expected the song fit Jay's voice perfectly though I still find his performances lacking energy for rock performance. Linnea Henriksson devoted her cover of Nina Simone's "My baby just cares for me" to her boyfriend and made it in the most comfortable for her jazzy style another time showing what a great entertainer Linnea is, it doesn't matter if you love jazz or not it's just tonnes of Linnea in every move and look. Elin Blom was singing Alphaville's "Forever young" for her father and it turned to be her strongest performance in my opinion, she's made this song 100% her own, vocal sounded great and very touching. Finally Olle Hedberg devoted Tom Petty's "Free fallin'" to his brother and it easily can be called another Olle's highlight in his history of the show as it sounded very comfortable for his vocal and Olle looked charismatic as always.
Geir and Andreas collected the least number of votes and Geir has left competition right in his birthday. Due to odds Andreas has the biggest chance to leave this week with Elin and Minnah having equal odds right after.

As obvious we keep our hands on pulse of Swedish Idol show and very-very soon you'll get my review of the latest episode but right now I'd like to present new hit-release from Idol.
Not so long ago we've got unplugged compilation of the most successful covers of Idol-participants "Det bästa från Idol 2010 Audition" out and there's possibility that we're gonna get another one soon. I haven't put my hands on this disk yet but due to samples it's gonna be one of the best Idol-compilations so far and it feels like Idol-selection this year contained 100% ready artists (at least sounding perfect in studio). You can see tracklist below.
This week all finalists of Idol (except Alice) performed brand new song "All I Need Is You" written by Andreas Carlsson, Kristian Lundin, Enrique Iglesias and Kalle Engström. It's a charity song in collaboration with UNICEF and it hasn't take more than 1-2 hours to rocket to #1 of Swedish iTunes chart. It's not standard Idol ballad but warm half-acoustic pop-song that people can sing along in a close company next to fireplace and watching whole Idol-family together again undoubtfully was very pleasant. You can check studio version of the song here and also demo with Andreas Carlsson's vocal here.

Last Idol show was devoted to 90s and contained some warm nostalgic memories reborn by left 8 contestants.
Daniel Norberg performed "Stone me into the groove" by Atomic Swing that turned be nice but quite forgettable performance not letting Daniel show whole brilliance of his vocal. On the other hand Olle Hedberg was finally in his music niche with guitar in hands and "Wonderwall" from Oasis that felt much better to show his talent. Elin Blom keeps shining with her open and light charisma, this time she performed Britney's "Born to make you happy", probably not her best performance but all her covers are like collected pieces of puzzle from very promising future pop-artist and though Elin doesn't pretend for Top-3 she looks like contestant with big commercial pop-future. Geir Rönning provided very atmospherical performance of Pearl Jam's "Alive". Linnea Henriksson turned back to ballad-way and Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing compares to you" has become not less touching than her "Hope There Is Someone". Andreas Weise performed again in a bit musical style "Baby I love your way" from Big Mountain - vocally perfect again but still feels like artist that should stay somewhere between bottom and top-3. Jay Smith has arranged experiment this time performing hit of Backstreet Boys "I want it that way", i can't say it sat as good as I expected but still choruses with hardrock vocal sounded very strong. And the last but not the least was Minnah who's made triumphal comeback last week and this time she was not less brilliant with "Everything I do I do it for you" from Bryan Adams, it was full of feelings, vocally strong and really fresh with female vocal so this performance again turned to be one of most viewed videos on site of TV4 during whole week.
Daniel and Geir collected the least count of votes and after duel Daniel has left competition. Theme of next show is Love.

The Beatles was theme of the last week Idol show - difficult but more difficult theme sometimes gives opportunity to see better who's the more skilful performer.
Geir Rönning performed one of the biggest hits of The Beatles "Love Me Do", it was very active performance - expressive and full of life but it felt like Geir who is undoubtfully high professional showed all sides of his talent during previous performances so this time it was already a bit boring. Jay Smith's rock voice surprisingly well worked in "A Hard Day's Night", Jay tries to be more open and free on the stage, not that he manages quite enough to prove his status of the biggest favorite of this season but still he has a lot of space to grow. Elin Blom's "Can't Buy Me Love" was very gentle and feminine and it was the song right for her perfectly fitting her voice. On the other hand "Helter Skelter" wasn't perfect choise for Olle Hedberg but he showed public different side of his vocal that he used before singing "Sex On Fire". And time has come for coming back Minnah Karlsson who left Idol previous week but as Alice Hagenbrant has left the show it was decided to bring Minnah back and what a grand comeback it was! She performed "Twist and Shout" and it was probably the best performance of the night (as it turned to be the most viewed among Idol-performances afterwards I'm not far from the truth) - she was twisting, shouting and be a real torn on the stage. Linda Varg seemed very comfortable with rock-ballad cover of "Ticket to Ride" that's probably lack energy a bit so wasn't received well by jury but still it was beautiful. Andreas Weise has made another musical performance of "All You Need Is Love", again it was hard to say something bad about vocal as vocally Andreas is growing constantly. Daniel Norberg was singing "The Long and Winding Road" - lovely and romantic performance, maybe a bit boring as there wasn't space to show Daniel's voice. And finally Linnea Henriksson performed "Help!" looking a lot in a style of 60s, probably it was too complicated vocally for her voice but still it's Linnea so performance was really entertaining. Finally Geir and Linda took the least of votes and Linda has left this time. Very sad fact but still I don't believe that such a talented charismatic artist will be lost for long. Next week theme will be 90s so come back if you want to see Jay covering Backstreet Boys and Elin making Britney.

Last week on Idol was again full of successfull songs choises - modern and fitting contestants excellent. Level was equally high (even/especially for those who weren't my personal favorites) so it was hard to guess who will leave the show this time.
Minnah Karlsson was singing Donkeyboy's "Ambitions" that was just made for her voice but needed a bit more of Minnah's unlimited energy. Otherwise Daniel Norberg's performance turned to bee weaker than his previous ones as Andreas Johnson's "Glorious" is too complicated song that not anyone can fight with. Alice Hagenbrant chose Kelly Clarkson "Breakaway" and it was her completely best performance on Idol since audition. Andreas Weise presented Robbie Williams's "Feel" very strong vocally but a bit too tragic and static. Can anyone imagine The Knife on Idol? Can actually someone properly perform The Knife's song like "Heartbeats" live? Now I know that Linnea Henriksson can anything and this was her another performance that you enjoy from the first till the last second. Amazing voice and artistic craziness is unbelievable combination that Linnea manages to show by different side in every show. Linda Varg this time stopped experiments and performed in format that she came to on Idol with. Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" could easily be her own song. Olle Hedberg performed Oskar Linnros' "Från och med Du" and it was another performance not worse than original version. Elin Blom cover of Pink's "I Don’t Believe You" was a bit too calm and a bit too happy. Jay Smith performed Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box", vocally perfectly but I need more expression and life from Jay on the stage. Last performance was from Geir Rönning his version of Toto's "Rosanna" was as professionally high as always.
Finally two who collected the least amount of voices were Minnah and Alice, after duel Minnah left competition but in a few days Alice announced that she can't stay anymore on Idol and can't get joy of it so she wanted to go away, Minnah was taken back and will perform again in next show with theme The Beatles.

Last week 11 participants of Idol were finally selected. 8 of them were chosen through daily public selections from bunch of 6 artists, 4 were chosen as jury's wildcards and 1 were added by public voting from those who haven't made the final.
So let's see who's went through. I've already told you about guy with powerfull rock-voice Jay Smith, charm-guy Andreas Weise, rock-chick Linda Varg, Scandinavian Eurovision-star Geir Rönning, early favorite Alice Hagenbrant and (I should mark it!) one of my own biggest faves - Minnah Karlsson. But the last of four pre-selections has also given us very special artist Linnea Henriksson - charming girl with unique manner of singing that makes me think about her as about new Amanda Jenssen or Tove Styrke. One of the biggest favorites Olle Hedberg haven't qualified though but he did it later when public could choose one of unqualified artists and seems like currently he together with Linnea and Jay is included in the list of favorites by polls and odds, last Friday Olle performed amazing version of Coldplay's The Scientist that easily can be now Idol's classic. Talking about jury's wildcards - other places in final were given to Daniel Norberg - guy with very beautiful voice that he perfectly controls skilfully switching from falsetto to rock-growl, Elin Blom - Finnish girl with charming accent and amazing star-attitude on the stage, Sassa Bodensjö - girl with loud growl voice and ultra-sweet Madeleine Finck-Björgen who unfortunately wasn't chosen by viewers together with country-guy Chris Andersen. Already tomorrow we'll get first big Friday show that's gonna be undoubtfully hot as now I can say that final bunch of participants in common is very exciting!

Few days ago I told about first two Idol participants who were selected by audience and got their tickets to Friday shows stage. Here we have another 4 successful contestants.
This year contest from the first sight from audition looked in my opinion lacking unique commercial characters but on pre-final stage it turned so that vocal level of chosen artists was very stable and strong so many who deserved to go further couldn't do it. However they still have hope to get through as jury's wildcards and we'll know these lucky contestants already this Friday.
Huge favorites Alice Hagenbrant and Jay Smith haven't deceived expectations of public and got to the final together with Andreas Weise (son of popular tv-host Arne Weise) and Minnah Karlsson - girl with one of the best auditions this year in my opinion. However I should mention as well amazing performance of Daniel Norberg, loveliest Elin Blom and very nice performances of Simon Lingmerth, Sassa Bodensjö and Michaela Osberg who unfortunately haven't qualified but hope will be supported by jury.
Watch second evening-show here and third here.

Every day of this week we'll be watching performances of 24 finally selected Idol-candidates who were grouped and public will be voting for them choosing one girl and one guy who will get to the final stage (when every of 12 participants will be leaving every week). So every of four days public will choose 2 finalists and jury will select 4 wildcards. The most successful wildcard of previous season was Reza Ningtyas Lindh who reached 5th place so it's definitely good that jury has a chance to help audience to listen more of some artists. And another interesting fact is that year before Clara Hagman has left out right on this phase of contest and being noticed got her place in new Ace Of Base so even if someone's going out at this point it doesn't mean we'll never see these artists again.
Last week jury has left a chance to both Jamilla Idris and Madeleine Finck-Björgen to get through to the contest if audience will prefer one of them by voting through weekend and people chose Madeleine (though Madeleine is the sweetest person in the world I think it's a shame Jamilla has gone as artist with one of the biggest commercial potential) but later it went not so good for Madeleine and she was left out of qualification border along with Janine Nyman, Jonathan Garcés and Sebastian Krantz (finalist of Talang-2008).
Two who got their tickets were Chris Andersen - simple but charming country-guy working very well with cameras and providing quite stable vocals and happy performance with his version of "Somebody like you" by Keith Urban and tough rock-girl Linda Varg (who participated in 2002 in another popular TV4 talant-show Popstars and was taken to the band Supernatural afterwards - band has made hit #1 "Supernatural" and album "Dreamcatcher" #1 and split out (male part organized band NEXX later)). Linda performed completely breathtaking acoustic version of U2's "With or without you" that I guess hasn't left anyone doubts that she will win this evening and she did it!

Auditions of new Idol's season are on its way and seems like public has started to note their favorites from the first day as songs covered by some candidates are already climbing iTunes-chart more than successfully and quite rightfully in my opinion, let's check some of them.
First of example is Jamilla Idris who came with her friend dressed like siamese twins obviously just to have some fun and though Jamilla didn't get it serious at all she sounded pretty awesome, jury asked her to perform seriously alone and girl sounded and looked so good that finally jury was convinced, this girl should have another chance.

Another great discovery of audition is Janine Nyman who presented Skunk Anansie's "Weak" and I guess it has sounded even better than Marie Picasso's cover.

Charming Frida Östergren who unfortunately can't move without wheelchair impressed jury with her touching performance Ane Brun's cover of "Big In Japan" demonstrating beatiful voice and great contact with listeners.

Rock-guy Jimmy Claeson who has already tried audition before but having no success finally has broken through with Bon Jovi's cover of "Everyday".

Olle Hedberg who due to presentation was homeless baker living on his own boat (that turned to be channel's fake) presented Blackstreet's "No Diggity" and Modjo's "Lady" with very nice intonation, huge passion and artistic charm.

Two surprises came from Finland. First one was 47-years old Geir Rönning who presented at Eurovision-2005 for Finland and decided to try auditions, jury didn't have anything against and being impressed by Geir's voice gave him a gold ticket.

And another Finnish surprise was Elin Blom vocalist of Finnish rock-band Sister Twister who also tried to get to Eurovision from Finland year before. Girl conquered jury with her star appearance, beautiful voice and charming attitude.

Oh and can I not to mention Irina Bagley who participated with tribute to Michael Jackson in webbjoker contest year before? Unfortunately this song hasn't conquered hearts of MF lovers but it didn't happen with hearts of Idol jury too, however it was not less than fantastic!

But seems like the hugest success was reached by Alice Hagenbrandt who was found by Anders Bagge coming to her own gymnasium being impressed by received record with her. Alice has performed Regina Spektor's "Samson" and personally I've got a winner feeling watching this girl with Kelly Clarkson'n passion, I won't be surprised if it will be Top-3. Currently "Samson" is in Top-10 of Swedish iTunes.

Check first episode of auditions here and the second here.

Already few minutes are left till the start of new seventh Swedish Idol season on tv4.se - one of the greatest Swedish music-show that already gave birth to loads of young stars like Agnes, Måns, Ola, EMD, Darin, Rebound and many-many others so probably already today you'll see some new artists who will be lighting up your music skies many years from now. Probably you won't understand it from the first audition but sometimes you see audition of young artist and realize that this star have come and gonna stay on the stage at least for years. I've chosen first auditions of some Idol-participants who has become very popular in last years and this is realy funny to see how much some of them has grown (like Darin, Gathania, Erik Segerstedt), others like Danny, Måns and Marie Picasso don't seem to change too much (though they were adorable from the start and it's not criminal at all). My personal Top-3 of the most impressive and touching auditions I have seen is - Darin, Anna Bergendahl and Sibel (in random order). But every of auditions below is worthy to watch - to look funny previous hair style of Erik Segerstedt, to see how Gathania decides to come with dance song because she thinks that to sing ballad on audition is dull and to convince yourself that Danny was actually always quite outgoing guy.

I just can't decide what is more amazing about trailer of new Idol season - cosmic idea of trailer showing universal scale of the show, stylish look of public favorites Andreas Carlsson, Anders and Laila Bagge or new Darin's song "Microphone" being soundtrack. I think I buy it all! This short tv-trailer shows jury in a slow motion going out of the Idol-space home on the bridge leading to their spaceship that carries them right to the open space in a search of new-born stars.
Talking about "Microphone" finally it's not a ballad song, few weeks ago when Darin was asked about what is his sweetest memory about music of 90s, he answered that it's Cheiron with all of their brilliant pop-stuff and you definitely can hear Cheiron-influence here, it's a pure energetic pop song with a hard beat, modern arrangement and explosive chorus. The song is written and produced by Darin himself and it's devoted to start of his own way on Idol. Due to Darin's Facebook-page whole song will be released already tomorrow.

My second part of Idol-2010 wish-list is on the way. Best Idol-show in the world will get it's continuation very soon, so you're probably gonna be interested in some precious talents left outside the border of qualification to understand the level of the show.

Sweden has got its own Beyonce! Sadijeh Nuredini, girl with very original and complicated voice has entered previous casting with Beyonce's stuff and sure vocal was appreciated by jury quite far to give girl golden ticket to Stockholm. She didn't went further to audience voting evenings because of not complete readiness for a big stage and lack of experience but girl has so much potential to grow.

Isn't it lovely when little shy girl's coming to Idol-casting and demonstating schockingly strong loud vocal? That what made 2 years ago Anna Bergendahl and this is what I guess will always will be quite in demand. Antonia Szabo was one of many candidates who chose Christina Aguilera's "Hurt" to show full power of their voices and this time it was pretty successful choice, check this performance with a loud sound and I promise you'll get a loads of goosebumps.

Unfortunately I discovered Andreas Wijk only after casting, he had not best choice of songs shown on Idol casting but when I checked information about him recently I've found out that guy is a big youtube favorite, and it's well-deserved. His Robyn's cover of "Be Mine" is just amazing, I'd even say not any worse than original, what a beautiful soft vocal! You should also check some other videos with him on youtube and check his blog, I guess soon this guy will become a real star.