Lopez Blogs

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!

Have I promised not to finish with Christmas updates?
Sanna Nielsen, Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén were one of artists in special demand this Christmas. Their album "Vår Jul" has reached #6 of Swedish album chart and it's still at #12 after 2 month of sales. Not #1 like year before with their "Our Christmas" but still good sign for Sanna and Shirley as public faves pretending to get folk's love through their votes during Melodifestivalen. I guess I shouldn't describe again how enjoyable this trio singing Christmas songs, they really are, watch below. But I'd like to give you a tip about another new band Gentlemen appearing this year and performing at Christmas Bingolotto as well.
Gentlemen is a band consisting of three respectable artists in respectable age who have left their marks in Swedish music in the past but have left their bigger achievements for the later.
Fredrik Willstrand participated in Melodifestivalen-1986 and released 3 albums in 80ies. Micke Grahn was involved in leading Fame Factory, played in many huge musicals like "ABBA the True Story", "Sol vid och vatten", "Fame" and since 80ies worked with many popular Swedish artists. Stefan Nykvist also played in many big musicals like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Sol, Vind och Vatten", worked with some world artists like Liza Minnelli and loads of Swedish ones (Sarah Dawn Finer, Jill Johnson, Patrik Isaksson, Sanna Nielsen, Eric Gadd). You could see Stefan as backing singer at Melodifestivalen and in live band of popular Rix FM festival. Being on one of those concerts I can say that I was really impressed how Stefan warmed up public singing some world hits with tonnes of energy and charm of Cheshire cat.
Year before Gentlemen have released album "Awaken Me" - very Josh Groban mostly musical-ballad adult album that you're gonna like if you listen to Josh, Canadian tenors and by the way producer of "Awaken Me" worked as well with Garou so you can get whole picture and watch their performance of "Silent Night" right below.

If there were few candidates for position of this year Christmas pop-queen there's only one guy pretending to be Christmas schlager-king. Alright, alright, if we'll take a look at sales we'll see someone else who sold more copies of Christmas album but at least title of this Christmas schlager-prince belongs to Måns Zelmerlöw and no one else can't pretend!
Few days before Christmas Måns was invited to Bingolotto to perform his two singles "December" and "Vit Som En Snö", second song was performed with Sonja Aldén - it wasn't the first time when audience could see them in duo as they use to perform this song in their Christmas tour and can you even suppose Sonja could sound bad in romantic ballad-duo? No! This woman is made to sing goosebumps ballads and this time she has also become perfect couple for Måns.
Another Christmas appearance was delievered by Måns at Christmas concert on TV3 where he was singing "Tomten Jag Vill Ha En Riktig Jul" with child choir - very lovely performance that I also recommend to you.
P.S. Picture above is taken from musical "Romeo och Julia". Funny? Hot? Weird? Whatcha think?

Sonja Aldén has visited SVT's Special Christmas show from series "En Sång Om Glädje" where different artists come to perform with gospel-choir. Interesting idea that can't be any more proper than in Christmas time. Sonja has performed popular Christmas song "Koppången" written by Py Bäckman and Pererik Moraeus, traditional "Bereden väg för Herran" and together with Frank Ådahl and host Nils Börge Gårdh they have sung another classic anthem "O Helga Natt". You can watch whole episode here.
But here's another piece of diva-gospel from Charlotte Perrelli singing Dottie Rambo's "I Go to the Rock" and Kirk Franklin's "Joy to the World" in another episode of "En Sång Om Glädje", gospel always fit Charlotte as perfect as one of her gorgeous dresses so it was definitely pleasant performances.

Schlager-trio Sanna Nielsen, Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén are preparing for release of theit new album "Vår Jul" that's coming out very soon (and you can already check snippets of the album here!) but girls don't give up with their solo-careers and recently we've got new single from Sanna. Right now another piece of this union is coming out in the light with new release and performances on TV.
Sonja Aldén along with Sarah Dawn Finer, Peter Jöback, Caroline af Ugglas, Andreas Johnson and many other famous artists has recorded cover-cd in a help of association Demensförbundet helping people suffering with dementia. Compilation is called "Ljusa ögonblick" and it's the title of Sonja's track that recently was premiered on the radio. It turned to be completely in a style of previous Sonja's singles - gentle, light, acoustic and very Swedish radio-friendly so undoubtfully it's gonna be another hit of this lovely singer.
Around week ago Sonja performed her previous single "Du får inte" on SVT in the show "Här är ditt liv". She performed the song for Lena Marie Klingvall (amazing person who was born without hands but turned to be successful swimmer, singer, painter and speaker). You can check both new song and this beautiful performance below.

Probably I could not to write about amazing trio of Martin Stenmarck, Linda Pritchard and Jessica Marberger performing at "A Grand Evening" Christmas show...


...though I guess you remember I commpensated it with news about Sanna Nielsen, Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén Swedish Christmas album "Vår Jul"...


...and Måns Zelmerlöw who will release his first Christmas album and (I haven't told about it) will join girs in Christmas tour second year in a row, this time with help of Brandur and Björn Kjellman...


But these great news have arrived just now!!!


New Malena Ernman's Christmas album "Santa Lucia" will be released on November 17th and officially it's the most exciting Christmas release I've ever heard about!!! In Christmas period Malena will be touring a lot and to understand how heavenly can Malena sound with this sort of song check her performance at Nordiske Julkoncert year ago.

Autumn has just started and we've already got whole bunch of planned exciting album-releases, I should collect all of them in one post.
- Magnus Carlsson's new album "Pop Galaxy" will be released already on September 22th but before we'll get another single "The Best In Me".
- It's just few days till new Ola's album "Ola" (September 15th).
- Erik Hassle's EP with 4 new songs is planned for the end of September.
- Nanne Grönvall's album "En Rastlös Själ" is ready to hit shops on October 6th.
- After 6 years Stephen Simmonds releases new album "Anomie" in October.
- Jennie Berggren's album "My Story" release was moved to October 13th.
- A little bit earlier Ace Of Base will release album "The Golden Ratio" on September 24th with first single "All For You" planned to be released already today.
- Caroline af Ugglas after huge success of previous year is back with new album planned for September 22th publishing as well book "Hjälp, vem är jag?" (Help, who am I?)
- EMD's album "Rewind" release was firstly carried from August 25th to the end of October but now you can find its release in some shops marked with December 31th.
- Albums from Linda Pritchard, Titiyo, Tove Styrke, Lisa Miskovsky, Love Generation, second EP from Gravitonas and Christmas album from Måns Zelmerlöw are to be expected.
- Sanna Nielsen's just released her last single "Part Of Me" and ready for new release of Christmas album with Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén, this time due to title "Vår Jul" (translation of English title of previous album "Our Christmas" that obviously says tracklist won't be different in common) it's gonna be in Swedish.
- Amy Diamond after 5 studio-albums is ready for compilation "Greatest Hits" that will be out on November 3rd.
Not enough to be excited? It's alright, it's just the first days of Autumn ;)