Lopez Blogs

First season of series Så mycket bättre is over and in the last episode artists were singing versions of their own songs in versions close to original in duets with another artists. Di Leva performed his hit "Vad är frihet" with Lasse Berghagen who also performed his entry on Melodifestivalen-1973 "Ding Dong". Di Leva appeared another time in duet with Plura singing old Eldkvarn's (Plura's band) song "Alice". Plura helped to Petter with the song "Gör min dag" (originally performed by Petter with Magnus Carlson). Lill-Babs and Christer Sandelin united singing Lill-Babs' "Jag vill leva". September appeared twice on the stage - with Petter making mix of her version of "Satellites" and version performed earlier by Petter. As well with Christer she has made Style's "Luften darrar". Another warm and adorable evening finishing one of the most successful tv-shows of the year and hope next year we'll get not worse team of artists bringing this lovely atmosphere and many nice covers.

September enjoys first place of her hit-cover "Mikrofonkåt" third week in a row, that looks like incredible success being her first #1 in Sweden ever and the song has got English version "Me And My Microphone" and already tries to break through in UK. You can check stream from Record Of The Day site right below.

September already second week holds the first place of Swedish chart with her new hit "Mikrofonkåt", but this week her comeback single "Resuscitate Me" has also made debut in chart but only on #45 though.
Great way to keep public dragging more of September's previous hits to iTunes chart was to show September's evening in "Så mycket bättre" show last Saturday so that time all participants were making covers on her songs.
Thomas Di Leva has delievered indie-version of the biggest international September hit "Cry for you". Petter's gone raggae sampling Petra's voice from "Satellite" with nice summer-pop feeling. Lill-Babs' blues cover was one of the most unexpected performances "Looking for love" and afterwards Petra joined Lill-Babs making this cover even more amazing. Plura otherwise has made expected guitar-pop cover of Petra's first hit "La La La (Never Gonna Give It Up)" sounding a lot like his previous covers. Lasse Berghagen revealed that it was oficially first time he was singing in English and performed cover for "Because I love you" that will be included in compilation of Så mycket bättre. Another cover to be released on forthcoming compilation is Christer Sandelin's "Can't get over" that was as well real highlight of the evening in anthemic a bit ABBAesque cover with beautiful piano part and dynamic instrumental part in common.
This weekend Petra had to make cover herself as it was Plura's evening and Petra delievered pretty amazing electropop cover for "Kärlekens tunga" that together with "Mikrofonkåt" and "Vem ska jag tro på?" will be included in compilation. Lill-Babs went ballad with "Håll huvudet högt", Petter was rapping with "Fulla för kärlekens skull", Christer Sandelin was rocking with "Pojkar pojkar pojkar", Lasse Berghagen made pleasant retro-cover of "Somliga går i trasiga skor" and Thomas Di Leva presented melodic and expressive pop-rock cover of "Kungarna från Broadway".

September celebrates her first #1 hit in Sweden "Mikrofonkåt", before only "Satellites" managed to reach #4 but participation in popular tv-show Så mycket bättre has really pushed her hard (due to Aftonbladet's poll around 70% of readers from more than 7000 voters think that Petra's covers are even better than her own songs) and Petter's cover made by her debuted right on the 1st place of Swedish chart.
Great time for starting promoting new solo-stuff and September is finally presenting new single "Resuscitate me" to the world and makes it with a whole bag of goodies with video and mixes for this song.
"Resuscitate Me" video was directed by Patric Ullaeus, Petra appears in it with new short hairdo dancing with cables attached to her hands and saving her soul when body needs some resuscitation with warm love memories. September who likes to play with dark lyrics in dance music ("Until I Die", "R.I.P.", "Flowers on The Grave" etc.) keeps dancing on a broken glass bringing together dramatical keys with life-asserting club beats and does it in her own recognizable way constantly attracting attention of pop-fans around the world.

Along with video full packed single with extended mix and also mixes from Buzz Junkies and Moto Blanco finally has seen the light. Moto Blanco provided slightly trancey light radio-track when Buzz Junkies has made club delight but still very poppy track with loud layers and heavy dance beat.

Going back to Så mycket bättre - theme of the latest show was dedicated to Christer Sandelin's covers (Style's vocalist) and as we guessed right Petra was singing "Vill Ha Dig" but in pretty original version as dark pulsating and hypnotizing electro-track with a beautiful strings section, we really hope it will be released on forthcoming compilation of Så mycket bättre. Petter has made another beautiful electronic version of "Hjärtats ensamma slag". Thomas Di Leva presented cover for one of the latest Style hits "Vill ha dig igen" in very close to original synth sound. Lill-Babs with "Fantasi", Lasse Berghagen with "Dover Calais" and Plura with "Den hon vill ha" kept it on more retro-field.

Last week many of "Så mycket bättre" participants released digitally their covers (actually everyone but Plura) that turned to be quite logical promo-decision and though Petter took whole 3 singles to iTunes Top-10, chart was waiting for Petra "September" Marklund, her cover of Petter's song "Mikrofonkåt" has become real hit among tv-audience and when finally it was released on iTunes it's taken just few hours to reach #1 and right now it's still there!
If the highest September's entry in basic Swedish chart was "Satelites" (#4) can "Mikrofonkåt" beat it? I think yes and it's even more amazing start of new September's career stage in Sweden than we could imagine.
Already this Friday September will release her brand new single (along with music video) "Resuscitate Me" that we exclusively presented to you in its full version few weeks ago, so here's the time for another exclusive thing - new monster hit of September in Sweden "Mikrofonkåt" - great club track with infectious tune and heavy dancefloor base. Everything in best traditions of September so you're gonna enjoy it!

Next episode of Så mycket bättre show turned participants to another artist's tribute and this time it was schlager-veteran Lill-Babs. Ex-husband Lasse Berghagen has made calm retro soul-smelling version of "Är Du Kär I Mig Ännu Klas-Göran?". Christer Sandelin also decided not to go too far from original 50s version with cover of "April april". Thomas Di Leva from happy covers turned to slow half-acoustic "När vi älskar". Plura had as usual calm guitar-pop cover of "Snurra Min Jord". Petter who released already 2 singles from the show and both are currently in Top-10 on iTunes presented probably his most enjoyable cover of "Tuff brud i en lyxförpackning". September who's also going to realese successful cover of Petter's "Mikrofonkåt" performed again dance-version of "Leva Livet" but in a colder electro-sound with different tune in chorus-line. There are three cross tribute-shows left (not sure about theme of the 8th one) - for Plura, Christer Sandelin and September, I wonder if September's going to sing cover for Christer's biggest hit "Vill ha dig" in Style that Petra did in the beginning of her career? Hope so as it was brilliant!

This week on "Så mycket bättre" artists prepared their covers for Petter's songs and it's actually not so easy task for pop-artists to make interesting covers for rap-artist (actually many participants has complicated format and completely different music).
Christer Sandelin has made interesting cover of "Vinden har vänt" with light raggae touch. Di Leva provided very atmospherical charming indie-version of "Min egen kärleksaffär". Lill-Babs "Så klart" has gone a bit latino chill-out. Lasse Berghagen has made ballad-version of "Längesen" (featuring Veronica Maggio in original version). Plura's cover of "Logiskt" has ended up in pop-rock version. Finally the most interesting for us performance again was provided by Petra Marklund and this time she has made dance-version of "Mikrofonkåt", Petra already has shown her ballad and indie side but there's no need to say that Petra's genre is dance so she not only sounded but looked completely perfect and comfortable in this cover!

This Saturday we've got new episode of "Så mycket bättre" and this time artists made covers for Di Leva's biggest hits. Thomas Di Leva is one of the most special artists of Sweden, popular but performing not so accessible music for most of non-Swedish listeners, so to be honestly there weren't songs I've fallen for but still we had amazing Petra Marklund that automatically made whole thing interesting for me. This time Petra as expected showed her new side with indie-smelling track "Vem ska jag tro på" with emotional rise in the end, you should check this performance. And as I can't recommend you any other covers I'm attaching another old Petra's cover for Dilba's classic hit "I'm Sorry" that she performed in the beginning of her career.

TV4 starts new show "Så mycket bättre" (So much better) that I told you about before. During 8 series you'll be able to see Lasse Berghagen, Lill-Babs, Petter, Thomas Di Leva, Petra "September" Marklund, Christer Sandelin and Plura Jonsson who had to spend a week living in one house and singing covers for each other hits. First day that was shown today was devoted to Lasse Berghagen's songs. Biggest highlight of the show was to finally see and listen Petra Marklund with beautiful cover of Lasse's classic hit "Teddybjörnen Fredriksson". Another nice covers were done by Lill-Babs, Thomas Di Leva and Christer Sandelin (from Style), it's a bit hard to judge such a retro-stuff but still it looks like a nice idea to collect such a different but popular artists and make them to arrange tribute-nights for each other (sure I can't wait for September's night!). Watch whole show here.