During Melodifestivalen weekend, lots of fans from around the world, and especially Europe, travel to Stockholm to see the show. And as a result, there’s always lots of other things going on too, mainly involving performances and signings by Melodifestivalen artists. This year is no exception, and if you’re planning on travelling to Stockholm this week/weekend, here’s a list of what’s on offer;
Tonight, Eric Saade performs at Kista Galleria in Stockholm. The facebook page helpfully tells us that he’ll be there from 6pm until 9pm (?!?!?). Then later tonight, Timoteij are going to be performing at Golden Hits schlager bar.
Tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday during the day, there will be performances and signings at Hotorgcity shopping area in central Stockholm. Here is the line up for the three days;
Thursday 11/3
Kl 12.00 Nanne Grönvall
Kl 13.00 Getty Domain
Kl 13.30 Eric Saade
Kl 14.00 Ola
Kl 16.00 Linda Pritchard
Kl 16.30 Andreas Johnson
Kl 17.30 Timoteij
Saturday 13/3
Kl 11.00 Ola
Kl 12.00 Lovestoned
Kl 13.00 Nanne Grönvall
Kl 14.00 Getty Domain
Kl 14.30 Alice
Kl 15.00 Linda Pritchard
Kl 15.30 Noll Disciplin
Kl 16.00 Neo
On Friday night, in Paradise nightclub, Jenny Silver will be performing. And on Saturday night, as well as the schlager room in Zipper nightclub, there is also this ”world’s biggest schlager afterparty” to go to. At Patricia nightclub on the Sunday, there is usually an artist performing on the night after the Melodifestivalen final, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Also, on top of all this, Globen shopping centre has said that they will also be hosting artist performances and signings, and have given this brief overview of events.
Here are the ten songs that will compete in this weekend’s Melodifestivalen final, and the order that they’ll be performed in. Plus, our thoughts and predicitions!
This was one of the favourites to win before all of the songs were heard. But although it’s a really good ballad that we like a lot, we discounted it as a winner as soon as we heard it. It’s just not a Melodifestivalen winning song. However, Darin HAS a Melodifestivalen winning fanbase. And so we’d be very surprised if this didn’t finish top 5 at least, possibly top 3.
We’re so happy that Pernilla is here for the party, flying the schlager flag so proudly. Yes, it’s a much lesser version of the type of schlager we usually get at Melodifestivalen from the likes of Linda Bengtzing and Lena Philipsson, but this year’s contest has been starved of schlager, and so it stands out easily. And having danced to it in clubs during many nights out in Stockholm over the last couple of weeks, we really enjoy it now. It’s a grower that will stand the test of time. On a schlager par with say, ‘Om Natten’ by Jessica Folcker, or ‘Kalla Natter’ by Jessica Andersson. This qualified from the andra chansen round last weekend. And unfortunately, we think that it’s destined for a bottom three position on Saturday.
This is our favourite Andreas Johnson Melodifestivalen entry, but it seems to be Sweden’s least favourite. It’s not doing very well on sales, in opinion polls, or with youtube views. And nobody is considering it a serious contender. Like Pernilla’s song, we think this will finish in the bottom 3 on Saturday.
Our favourite of the night, and of the whole competition. We would love this to win. Not just because it’s the best song, not just because it would result in the best finish for Sweden at Eurovision, but also because it would give the two fingers up to SVT/Christer Bjorkman/the juries, or whoever it was that decided that Melodifestivalen 2010 should move away from the usual pop and schlager feel, and try to be a bit more contemporary. When people want contemporary music, they go out and buy it, or just listen to the whichever radio station they prefer. Nobody wants it in Melodifestivalen though, so leave it be. And nothing would hammer this point home more than a win by ‘Kom’!
See our write up of the Darin song earlier in this post. Our feelings about this are the exact same!
Poor Ola. He’s probably gonna come last with this. It’s not his fault, it’s just that ‘Unstoppable’ is nowhere near as strong as the material he’s released in the past. We like it, it’s nice to sing along to, but it’s going to look and sound like it’s totally out of its league on Saturday night as soon as Eric Saade performs ‘Manboy’. Both Eric’s song and performance put this to shame.
Jessica, Jessica, Jessica. We love you, but this song really isn’t good enough. We like it, but it just sums up the quality of this year’s Melodifestivalen songs when this ballad manages to make the final, when in 2008, two far superior ballads (by Shirley Clamp and Susanne Alfvengren) both had to settle for 8th place in their respective heats. Having said that, her voice is great, the performance in andra chansen was wonderful, and Jessica is so nice too. The song really is the weakest link in all of this. We’re predicting that it finishes mid table. If she can perform it like she did last weekend.
This one we like a lot. And we think it’s going to do very well indeed.
And it looks like we have a winner. Right since the song has gone on sale, and up to the moment of writing, it’s been number one on Swedish iTunes. It’s hard to see how this won’t win really, the juries will love it and the public already do love it. And it’s not exactly undeserved either, it’s a great song. Not our favourite by any stretch, but we do like it.
Ah Eric. Winner of the 2010 scandipop award for ‘Brightest New Hope’, and he hasn’t let us down! Brilliant song, amazing performance, and easily one of the standout tracks of this year’s contest (our second favourite after ‘Kom’). We’d love to see it win, but it’s unlikely, and it’ll probably finish mid table. We’re already looking beyond Saturday though and looking forward to his debut album, which will be released in May.
Darin has uploaded a video to youtube, of him singing an acoustic version of ‘You’re Out Of My Life’, the song he’ll be competing with in Melodifestivalen this weekend. As a nice touch, the guitarists in the video are the song’s composers, Tony Nilsson and Henrik Janson. And here it is;
Magnus has filmed a video to go along with his new single ‘A Little Respect’. And it’s quite a beautiful one at that. There’s really no way to describe what exactly is happening in it, but it’s one that you can’t help but watch until the end. And of course, the fact that it’s a great song helps too.
All 32 songs have now been performed, in some cases qualified for the final, in some cases been eliminated from the competition, and in the case of eight songs, have got one more chance to progress to the final. Tomorrow night those eight songs will compete against each other and then two of them will secure a place in the all important grand final next week. SVT have split them into two groups of four. And within each group of four, they’ll be split into pairs. Viewers will vote on which songs they like the most, and then the winner of each of the pair offs will have to compete against each other until there is ultimately one winner of each of the two groups. And then those two songs will make it to the final. Simple, right?!
Tomorrow night, we’ll be tweeting live from the show, so if you can’t watch it at home, or if you simply want to view our opinions whilst your watching it to see if you agree or disagree, then follow us on www.twitter.com/scandipop
Ok, and here are the duels of group one;
Pernilla Wahlgren will compete against Pain of Salvation
And Pauline will be competing against Crucified Barbara
We reckon that Duel 1 will be an easy win for Pernilla. Duel 2 is a bit trickier to predict, but we’d say that Crucified Barbara should clinch it over Pauline, even though she’s doing far better than them sales wise. And then when the winners of duels 1 and 2 are pitted against each other, we are hoping and predicting that Pernilla triumphs. It’s the best song by quite a margin, and the final will be a lot more fun with Pernilla in it!
In the second group, the first duel is between Neo and Kalle Moraeus & Orsa Spelmän.
And then Alcazar go up against Jessica Andersson.
This one is a bit more difficult to predict. Alcazar will easily beat Jessica Andersson in duel 1, but it’s duel 2 that’s difficult. Firstly, we can’t call who it’ll be between Neo and Kalle & Orsa. We much prefer Neo, but there’s nothing else in the competition like Kalle & Orsa, and they were very popular in their heat. If Kalle & Orsa do win, then we don’t think they’ll stand a chance against Alcazar. But if Neo wins, then we’re not entirely sure who’ll be the victor in a phone vote between him and Alcazar. That one is wide open. It’s a shame, because Alcazar and Neo are two of our absolute favourites in the whole competition, and we’d love to see both of them in the final. But unfortunately, because of the draws, only one of them can progress.
But it means that tomorrow night is going to be very exciting indeed!
The UK did it with ‘Everybody Hurts’. The US did it with ‘We Are The World’. And now Sweden has got some of its pop stars together to record a charity single for Haiti. Well, actually they’re more dansband stars than pop stars, but still! Many of the big names on the dansband scene, old and new, have recorded ‘Vi Kan Alla Göra Nåt’ and it was released this week - making number 12 on the Swedish singles chart today (having to suffer a much lower chart position than it normally would have had to, as the Melodifestivalen singles were also released this week!). It features amongst others, members of Scotts, Thorleifs, Barbados, and Face 84. It’s a nice, melodious, uplifiting ballad - perfect charity single fodder. And you can listen to a clip of it here.
The line up for the latest Dance Nation tour has been revealed. It’s a bit less scandipop-orientated than last time, but Basshunter is headlining again. Coming along for the ride is also Norwegian lass Aylar, the girl who featured in all of the Basshunter videos and who has just been signed to Dance Nation as a recording artist. And there’s also support from the curiously named Nordic Stars, who are about to unleash this number on the UK;
All the details on dates, tickets, and the full line up are here
We’re hoping that Andreas from Alcazar gets well very soon. The group had to cancel their appearance at Golden Hits schlager bar on Monday night due to Andreas falling ill. But of course they’re competing in this week’s andra chansen round of Melodifestivalen - so hopefully he’ll be better before then. At the moment, they are the hot favourites to qualify from that round to the final, along with Pernilla Wahlgren.
Today’s Aftonbladet newspaper in Sweden ran a story about Tess from Alcazar’s sideline money earner in poker! After competing in a TV4 poker competition a few years back, she started to play poker online very day, and participate in live poker games at least once a week. She eventually won in excess of 500,000 SEK, but stopped as she wanted to spend more time with her family, and as Alcazar started up again. Who’d have thought it?!
Gorgeous video, not the best mix of the song that we’ve heard, but not the worst either. Nothing beats the original version though. And we can’t really see the logic in messing with it. A lot of people in the UK fell in love with ‘Release Me’ last year because it was something a bit different - pure unashamed pop music from Europe. And they’d probably really like ‘On & On’ too if they were given the chance to. But instead, they’ll only be exposed to a version that’s had a lot of its magic taken out of it in a misjudged and overthought effort to tailor it to percieved UK tastes.
We hope that ‘On & On’ will be another big hit for Agnes in Britain. Regardless of which mix would have been used, the fact that it’s an amazing song still shines through.
The UK did it with ‘Everybody Hurts’. The US did it with ‘We Are The World’. And now Sweden has got some of its pop stars together to record a charity single for Haiti. Well, actually they’re more dansband stars than pop stars, but still! Many of the big names on the dansband scene, old and new, have recorded ‘Vi Kan Alla Göra Nåt’ and it was released this week - making number 12 on the Swedish singles chart today (having to suffer a much lower chart position than it normally would have had to, as the Melodifestivalen singles were also released this week!). It features amongst others, members of Scotts, Thorleifs, Barbados, and Face 84. It’s a nice, melodious, uplifiting ballad - perfect charity single fodder. And you can listen to a clip of it 
The line up for the latest Dance Nation tour has been revealed. It’s a bit less scandipop-orientated than last time, but Basshunter is headlining again. Coming along for the ride is also Norwegian lass Aylar, the girl who featured in all of the Basshunter videos and who has just been signed to Dance Nation as a recording artist. And there’s also support from the curiously named Nordic Stars, who are about to unleash this number on the UK;
Today’s Aftonbladet newspaper in Sweden ran a story about Tess from Alcazar’s sideline money earner in poker! After competing in a TV4 poker competition a few years back, she started to play poker online very day, and participate in live poker games at least once a week. She eventually won in excess of 500,000 SEK, but stopped as she wanted to spend more time with her family, and as Alcazar started up again. Who’d have thought it?!