Swedish~ Stereo~

Yesterday annual tv-event "Allsång På Skansen" has started new season on SVT and audience from the very first show got the biggest names on the stage - three winners of Melodifestivalen - Carola, The Ark and Anna Bergendahl performed with some old hits singing karaoke with public and performed their own stuff. Carola was promoting her new programme devoted to Elvis Presley and Barbara Streisand with their songs (performance of "Woman In Love" deserves special attention!), The Ark performed their new songs "Take A Shine To Me" and "Stay With Me" and Anna was singing "This Is My Life" and "Have A Heart". But don't forget to check some old hits covers, for example Anna's "Båtlåt" turned to be very sweet one showing uniqueness of Miss Bergendahl's voice. Among other guests of the show you could see MozART Group, Thomas Järvheden and Hanna Hedlund. Watch whole show here.

Anna Bergendahl - This Is My Life
Anna Bergendahl - Båtlåt
Anna Bergendahl - Have A Heart
Carola - Woman In Love
Carola - You've lost that loving feeling
Carola - Idas Sommarvisa
The Ark - Stay With Me
The Ark - Take A Shine To Me
The Ark & Carola - Calleth You Cometh I
Ola Salo - Sjuttonde Balladen
Thomas Järvheden - Sekundär Ångest
MozART Group - How To Impress A Woman Being A Musician
MozART Group - Amadeus Jackson
Robban Broberg Potpurri
Allsång - Upp och pröva dina vingar

Some news for all who missed Veronica Maggio and sure for all who likes Petter. Petter's releasing his collaboration with Veronica as a single.
In a few words about Petter he came to music in 90s with hip-hop band Sherlock but going solo little later he showed himself like a really successful artist selling platinum albums and making a lot of hits. This year he's back with the album "En räddare i nöden" and after the first single "Gör min dag" we got follow-up.

"Längesen" is a calm melodic piano-based hip-hop song with pitchy-filtered Akon-like vocal in refrain turning to a beutiful intimate vocal of Veronica. Kaveh Azizi recently has made very nice mix for this song.

As you can remember year before after giving birth to first child Linda Bengtzing has made her comeback on the stage of Liseberg with big schlager-medley of her songs "Alla flickor", "Jag Ljuger Så Bra", "Hur svårt kan det va?" participated in Melodifestivalen. Yesterday audience could get deja-vu watching Linda with this schlager-medley again but this time in a full power and expression she usually provides on the stage of MF, also together with Velvet they performed "Victorious" and it feels like every new performance of this song is stronger and stronger. Velvet as another representive of schlager-royalty couldn't leave audience without her Melodifestivalen-hit and performed "The Queeen" (around 40:00) in all her brilliance. Also you can check performances of another guest-artists Robert Wells and Joel Alme and karaoke with public of Arja Saijonmaa's "Högt över havet" and Ted Gärdestad's "Satellit", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and others here.

Linda Bengtzing - Alla flickor
Velvet och Linda - Victorious
Robert Wells, Velvet & Linda Bengtzing - Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Robert Wells - Satellit
Robert Wells - Nocturne
Joel Alme - No Class
Joel Alme - The Queens corner

Today new Ola's video for his last single "Overdrive" was premiered by Aftonbladet. Very summerish nice and simple video showing day of Ola - waking up in his bedroom (yep, we watched it recently in videos of Eric Saade and Erik Grönwall), walking on the street and running-running-running - around the city, somewhere outside at meadow, on the beach finally being stopped by the wall (that seemed to be really hurtful for both Ola and wall). Enjoy!

Some latest news about what's going on with participants of Melodifestivalen-2010.

Timoteij will release new single "Högt över ängarna" from debut album "Längtan" on June 30th.

In the beginning of May Expressen reported about Neo who after all stresses he's got in the MF-period got serious case of vestibular neuritis and had to learn how to go, now Neo's back and as a proof he performed his MF-single "Human Frontier" and previous "Flower Power Supergirl" in acoustic.

NEO - Flower Power Supergirl (live at Nyhetsmorgon)

In days of Midsommar Peter Jöback got married with his boyfriend Oscar Nilsson. You could see Andreas Lundstedt, Pernilla Wahlgren and Sarah Dawn Finer among guests. Short interview from wedding is here.

Don't forget to visit blog of Jenny Silver as you can find some interesting demos that she's recording with her husband.

Song "Vilar Glad I Din Famn" written by Benny Andersson and Kristina Lung and performed with participance of Orsa Spelmän & Kalle Moraeus gets it's single-release apart from other songs from princess Victoria's wedding included in special compilation "Bröllopsmusiken från Storkyrkan". Benny Andersson commented that he wasn't interested in putting his name among merchandising of this event. By the way Kalle Moraeus along with Salem al Fakir, Anna Bergendahl, Timoteij and Eric Saade few weeks ago received golden status of his latest album "Underbart".

Anna Bergendahl's "This Is My Life" keeps conquering hearts of European audience and is currently at #13 in chart of one of the biggest Lithuanian radiostations M-1, week before the song also appeared in Hungarian chart. Anna along with many other artists performed in Kungsträdgården at Love Stockholm 2010 and looked very-very nice in her beautiful dress (thanx to Vitaliy for photos).

Lovestoned released their album "Rising Love" in Germany, sure band has tried to make this edition special for their German fans and included new song "Who's That Girl", that you can listen below.

Currently Jessica Andersson's "I Did It For Love" is #1 in the oldest Swedish radio-chart Svensktoppen (with following "Underbart" at #2, "Keep On Walking" at #3 and "Kom" at #9), Jessica plans new single but promise next album only next Spring.

Anders Ekborg prepares for release of his album "Painted Dreams" but before we'll get new single "I Do Believe" on July 7th. You can listen piece of new single and another duet with Helen Sjöholm "Always Here" below.

And finally I need to mention that currently we can find only winners of 4 semifinals of MF-2011 in Swedish single-chart.

13 - Timoteij - Kom
22 - Eric Saade - Manboy
28 - Anna Bergendahl - This Is My Life
60 - Salem Al Fakir - Keep On Walking

Swedish pop- and soul-queen Sarah Dawn Finer has released her devotional single "Kärleksvisan" for princess Victoria's wedding that she performed previous week on a big concert right before the wedding. This is incredibly touching acoustic ballad that appeared first time on the last golden Sarah's album "Moving On" in English version as "For A Friend" and later as soundtrack of Swedish film "Så Olika" in new Swedish version. Right after release this single reached 2th place of iTunes (special Agnes' and Björn Skifs' wedding song still holds #1 hard). Currently Sarah's preparing her next album that will be out on the first week of November and will be mostly acoustic due to her own words. I'll remind you that star of Sarah Dawn Finer has risen up in 2007 after ultra-successful debut with beautiful soul-ballad "I Remember Love" that came fourth in the final of Melodifestivalen (that is realy huge success for artist not well-known for wide audience who released only one EP "Sarah Dawn Finer" before), the song sold gold, became a massive radio-hit and debut Sarah's album "A Finer Dawn" peaked at #2 of Swedish chart. Sarah came back to Melodifestivalen in 2 years this time with heart-breaking pop-rock song "Moving On" written together with Fredrik Kempe and amazing show causing loads of tears of touched audience. The song came 6th in the final but again became one of the biggest radio-hits of the year and new album "Moving On" has reached #1 and sold gold. Recently Sarah finished her sold-out tour and ready for a new stage of her music life with a new album.

One of the biggest brightests hopes of Swedish pop-music Linda Pritchard is releasing new single "Miracle" and I extremely need to tell you about her as surprisingly I haven't yet. Being gifted child Linda didn't waste her time and prepared herself for a big career attending Adolf Fredriks Music School and SWAY (dance programme). Soon she was hired by Tess Merkel to Wallmans Salonger and started to work there as singer and dancer. Demand for her talent increased quite fast and Linda was getting offers to work from such well-established artists as Celine Dion, Ace of Base, Andreas Lundstedt and Velvet. In 2006 when Velvet made her debut on Melodifestivalen stage with "Mi Amore" Linda was singing back-vocals behind her. In 2 years Linda appeared on Melodifestivalen again making show for the openning of the final. Later in 2008 she also took participation in casting of Idol and without any doubts she passed it succefully but unfortunately left the show quite fast (Stop, All the man that I need). Though this little unluck was followed by big luck - contract with Warner/Chappell Music and recording her debut album. Already in 2009 she released her first single "Fast Car" (cover of Tracy Chapman's song) and finally was invited to perform on Melodifestivalen-2010 with the song "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot" (demo of this song was performed initially by Sibel, Linda has sent other songs - "Glorious" and "Not Even Halo" which almost reached the contest but was left near qualification border) and Linda took this mission really seriously showing all amazingness of her talent, vocals and choreographic skills with fantastic show and great song from schlager-veterans Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson and Tim Larsson. Though the song didn't reach the final it reached the highest chart-position (#8) from all songs not qualified to the final and not less than 4 of 10 finalists.
Now after a lot of Spring touring around country Linda is ready for a new amazing single "Miracle" and she already performed it at Sommarkrysset few weeks ago with all her drive, power and perfectness, now it's officially out!

We've got another video-premiere today and this time from Anneli Magnusson aka Pandora.
Pandora became well-known dance-brand of 90s when Anneli was chosen to be a vocalist of club-project headed by producing team Hit Vision (Martin Ankelius, Peter Johansson and Henrik Andersson), her debut single "Trust Me" was a huge hit giving Pandora's career a great push for loads of further singles and albums which successfully reached public around the world - Australia, Japan and sure Scandinavia were conquered by this Swedish dance-bomb. Anneli's music movement never stopped, in 00s she tried herself in schlagerland at Melodifestivalen (in 2003 with "You" and in 2004 with "Runaway") and though both times she was left in semifinals it also couldn't destroy her. In 2007 Pandora released compilation of her biggest hits "Celebration" giving mix-refreshment to their sound (one of refreshed pieces of that era of Pandora "Call Me" entered Top-5 of Swedish chart) and turned to a new music stage of her career. In 2009 together with Bloom 06 they released new single "Kitchy Kitchy" (becoming another hit in Sweden - #7) and by rumours Pandora tried to return to Melodifestivalen with another new song "You Believed" but didn't qualify and released it later in 2010, single reached Top-3 and now has got video treatment, check it right here right now.

7 months have passed since Emilia De Poret released her amazing last video "Now Or Never" (thanx to scandipop for tips about this amazing video) and though currently there's no sign of any promotion-activity of her music in Sweden her biggest hit "Pick Me Up" has recently entered Billboard dance chart in USA (together with Robyn's "Dancing On My Own", BWO's "Right Here Right Now" and Stonebridge's "The Morning After"). Today Expressen premieres new Emilia's video for another single "This Ain't a Love Song" from her album "Pick Me Up". It's very stylish half-animated video that was shot in Tokyo with Japanese hip-hop star Verbal directed by Marcus Lundin who was also responsible for "Now Or Never".

New video for the last Top-10 Lazee's single "Do It" is out.
Lazee has not long yet but quite succesful career in Sweden. He debuted 2 years ago with single "Rock Away" becoming big hit during Spring 2008 and later released another also noticed by audience single "Hold On" featuring popular rock-band Neverstore and the album "Setting Standards" same year. Together with Danny they also released single "Just Like That" in Poland. After a short pause Lazee came back this year with another hit "Calling Out" with rock-vocals in a style of "Hold On" but this time featuring Apollo Drive, that one and new song "Do It" both also became Top-10 hits and right now another successfuly promoted single "Can I Be The One" with his participation is released by Norlie & KKV.
About Mohombi - first highlight of his career was qualifying to Melodifestivalen-2005 as part of Group Avalon with the song "Big up" and after that he was working with many songwriting teams - Bloodshy & Avant, Twin, Jonas Jeberg, RedOne and others.
"Do It" is very nice catchy summer hit working well with proper music video rolling around parties, pools, cars and girls in bikini so relax and have some summer fun with Lazee and Mohambi.

Tove Östman Styrke was one of undoubtfully brightest spots of Idol-2009 starting from her first appearance on casting. Already after her first performances in the last season of TV-show girl quite fast became one of main Idol's contenders for the victory. Artistical uniqueness, surprisingly strong vocal for 16-years old girl, light craziness (in a good sense) and incredible sweetness, this combination should've made this girl winner of the season but unforunately one step before the final Tove got the biggest unluck and two songs totally not corresponding what this hurricane rock-girl was about and though Tove has made her best she expectedly missed the final. What went wrong and why jury decided not to let Tove to the final will stay a mistery but sometimes what artist achieves after Idol matters much more than his place in the contest and Tove's talent couldn't be unnoticed by record companies.

Sony generously adopted the girl and since the beginning of the year worked hard on new Tove's stuff and was preparing the girl for a big career, by some sources Tove's music had to be mix of Knife, Robyn, The Sounds and Blondie. Finally recently two intriguing bits of this music has leaked - "Young Heart" and "Million Pieces" confirming that Tove goes really speacial and her own direction mixing stadium rock spirit that she widely provided on Idol and electro-pop with Robyn-The Knife-Salem al Fakir-Björk vibes, something that can really make Tove next Amanda Jenssen who didn't manage to win Idol but reached so much through these 2,5 years totally breaking ex-pop-Idol status and developing her own image, music style and audience. Today Tove's official site is finally open and you can listen full-length first single "Million Pieces" - beautiful original soft synth-pop song written by Adam Olenius (Shout Out Louds) and produced by Lotus & 2 Freckles.

In August Tove will perform also at Allsång på Skansen and the album release is planned for this Autumn. If you didn't watch last season of Swedish Idol I'll give you a guide of Miss Styrke's way in this show.

Listen (Beyonce)
All These Things I've Done (The Killers)
Life on Mars (David Bowie)
Hot 'n' Cold (Katy Perry)
Will You Be There (Michael Jackson)
We're Not Living In America (The Sounds)
Mack the Knife (Bobby Darin)
In the Ghetto (Elvis Presley)
I Wish I Was A Punkrocker (Sandi Thom)
Kids (with Erik Grönwall) (Kylie Minogue & Robbie Williams)
Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics)
Himlen är oskyldigt blå (Ted Gärdestad)
Pride (In the Name of Love) (U2)
Since You Been Gone (Russ Ballard, Head East, Rainbow)
Can't Get You out of My Head (Kylie Minogue)
The greatest love of all (Whitney Houston)

New season of popular summer TV-show "Lotta på Liseberg" has just started and yesterday public could enjoy first set of this programme with loads of old favorite Swedish hits and some own songs of three brilliant artists invited as guests - Charlotte Perrelli, Lisa Nilsson and Markoolio. In common about the show - it started 6 years ago by popular singer Lotta Engberg and during the show guest-artists make sing-a-long performance coming down to the audience to sing some beloved classics with them (this is what conquering SVT's show "Allsång på Skansen" is also about). Apart from all these stars-karaoke performances schlager-queen Charlotte Perrelli sang her pop-anthem "Hero" and "Summer Nights" (from Grease musical), beautiful Lisa Nilsson performed her old hit "Varje gång jag ser dig" and new song "I samma andetag" (that was released on her recent compilation "20 - En jubileumssamling") and Markoolio provided few of his pretty big hits - "Ingen sommar utan reggae" and "Sommar och sol". Another amazing performance was Schlagerkavalkad when all three artists were singing part of their Melodifestivalen entries - Charlotte - "Tusen och en natt", Lisa - "Du (öppnar min värld)" and Markoolio - "Värsta schlagern" (though it didn't qualify to MF but became very popular however). Next week we'll see Robert Wells, Linda Bengtzing, Joel Alme and Velvet on the stage of Liseberg.

Charlotte Perrelli - Hero
Charlotte Perrelli - Summer nights
Lisa Nilsson - I samma andetag
Lisa Nilsson - Varje gång jag ser dig
Markoolio - Ingen sommar utan reggae
Markoolio - Sommar och sol
Schlagerkavalkad
Sommarmedley med alla artister
Allsång - Låt hjärtat va med
Allsång - Jag tror på sommaren
Allsång - sommaren är kort
Allsång - Hon kommer med solsken till mig
Allsång - Gröna, granna, sköna, sanna sommar
Allsång - Här är den sköna sommaren
Allsång - Sommar och sol
Allsång - Äntligen sommar

Fantastic celebration of live Swedish music called LOVE Stockholm 2010 is unfortunately over leaving to us loads of impressions and memories of some amazing performances and great gigs but yesterday audience in Kungsträdgården still could enjoy the rest of them.
You could see Ola Svensson performing his huge Spring hit "Unstoppable", Caroline af Ugglas with her choir, Linda Sundblad with new single "Making Out" (one of undoubtfully best pieces of her last album), Eagle-Eye Cherry with his biggest international hit "Save Tonight" recently covered by E.M.D., Thomas di Leva with his old song "Vi har bara varandra", Anna Maria Espinosa performing her own song "A Little Moonlight" and duet together with Niklas Strömstedt - his "En Kvinna Och En Man" (most amazing part of this performance was King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf dancing near the stage) and some foreign guests like Jasmine Kara and Carpark North.

Caroline Af Ugglas - Vi Bär Upp Varandra
Anna Maria Espinosa - A Little Moonlight
Carpark North - Just Human
Jasmine Kara framför - In the basement
Di Leva - Vi har Bara Varandra

You should also check another recent concert in Kungsträdgården with Style performing their last single "LoveKiller" and classic hit "Vill Ha Dej", Broken Door with both their songs "Angel" and "Sunday Morning", Orup and the most interesting performance of Gravitonas. It was the first live performance of this utterly exciting new project of Alexander Bard with debut single "Kites" currently climbing dance charts of Sweden and new song "Shameless" that showed new side of the project. Initially Alexander announced the project as electro-rock band, however "Kites" turned to be more in synth-pop direction and "Shameless" definitely shows better what he meant, it's a catchy and full of drive pop-rock song with nicely developed rhythmic verses containing light synth-keys on background reminding some beautiful moments in music of BWO and guitar-driven catchy chorus that gets stuck in your head immediately. This is the level of quality that made previous Alexander's projects icons in Swedish music and that's gonna make Gravitonas continue this trend in a very close future.

One of the highlights of Friday concert in Kulturhuset was performance of one of Kent's hits "Utan Dina Andetag" ("Without Your Breath") by Lisa Nilsson as very beautiful and emotional ballad that turned to be my personal discovery as before I heard this song only in its initial version. This song has never been released as a single, it wasn't even included in album, just appeared as b-side of single "Om du var här" (1996) and later on compilation "B-sidor 95–00" but became very popular wedding soundtrack around country in it's ballad performance and you can find it on Swedish part of 3CD compilation "Absolute Bröllop" (released this May) being sung by Erik Linder. By the way you can find some other songs that you probably know and like long time like Cecilia Vennersten's "Det Vackraste", Sonja Alden's "För Att Du Finns", Per Gessle's "Tycker Om När Du Tar På Mig", Carola's "När Löven Faller", Suzzie Tapper's "Visst Finns Mirakel", Sara Löfgren's "För Alltid", (classic compillation without classic band???) Abba's "Dancing Queen" and some other beautiful songs.


Back to "Utan Dina Andetag" last week right before the Royal Wedding the song got it's re-birth by Carolina Wallin Pérez singer well-known by her covers of Kent. Cover was initialy released on Carolina's album "Pärlor och Svin" in October 2009, album is actually half-acoustic, half-jazz cover-collection of best Kent's song, very nice relaxing work that you can taste here.

No surprises Sweden always had some fantastic rock-bands not less calibre than their more heavily promoted American colleagues and though it's more difficult to break through internationally some great bands have a chance to become popular inside of Sweden. Plan Three are already not newcomers on Swedish rock-stage playing alternative rock on field and level of bands like Cold, Three Days Grace and Daughtry. Powerful sound, great tunes and utterly tasty vocal of Jake Lovén, this is what Plan Three about. Band released their first single "Achilles Heel" back in 2007, experimenting and developing their direction later in 2009 they released next song "Triggers" that entered compillation of Bandit Rock radio and later their first official single "Still Broken" from forthcoming album, both singles "Achilles Heel" and "Still Broken" entered Swedish chart and band finally released their debut album "Screaming Our Sins" full of really enjoyable and different stuff (by the way David Clewett works in LaCarr company and you can find collaborations with such artists like Bananarama, A-Teens, Dannii Minogue and No Angels in his portfolio). Currently band promotes their single "Brush It Off" beautiful and powerful rock-ballad that recently entered Bandit Rock radio air and hopefully will be a hit of this Summer.

Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to present you new face in Swedish club music - Alex Sayz. Alex is relatively not so long in a spot though, he was working on some mixes for Hani and Camilla Brinck and released few very nice original tracks - Fascination and Shame On Me. First one started rotating in some local dance charts and has got a good international responce, the second one was released in USA and even entered Billboard Dance Chart! But it was just a beginning and recently together with Evi (vocalist of Belgian band Lasgo) he recorded absolutely brilliant track "Hate To Love" that was noticed not only in Sweden but entered Top 10 Billboard Dance Airplay as well. So the hot question is do we have a deal with a new biggest dance export act of Sweden?

As a next step Alex is gonna release new trance-single "United As One" with vocals of our beloved Sibel Redzep already in July in USA and Scandinavia. Another great track from Mr. Sayz and all hopes and best wishes for the future of this collaboration.

Recently I told you about duet Agnes recorded with Björn Skifs as devotional song for Victoria's marriage and finally today during wedding the song was presented. It's written by Jörgen Elofsson and John Lundvik, Jörgen was responsible for some Idol-winning songs (and the song Agnes won with) and you can hear it well, as the song is beautiful classic Idol-Disney ballad not modern Beyoncish thing like it was rumoured but however fine wedding soundtrack. So we say finally grattis to Victoria and Daniel and you can enjoy the song in their honour.

Swedish music lovers keep enjoying by all the music stuff and events currently being held in Stockholm and yesterday everyone could've got a pleasure to watch a great concert in Konserthuset with some top-artists and surprisingly alive responsing audience, Victoria herself was incredibly charming and beautiful, but don't worry if you've missed it, you still can enjoy it here. You can find some really brilliant performances there. For example Sarah Dawn Finer performing her beautiful new single "Kärleksvisan" (Swedish version of song "For A Friend" from her last album), Salem al Fakir with his new devotional song "All Day Love" (that you can download for free on this site if you'll manage to be one of the first 5000) and magical charming performance, Lisa Nilsson with her version of Kent's song "Utan Dina Andetag" (that really loked like my personnal discovery of this artist who seems like a real classics of Swedish music), Peter Jöback with his cover Charles Aznavour's "She", Malena Ernman with some absolutely brilliant performances proving her like a real Goddess of the stage, Roxette with their comeback to a big stage, performance of "The Look" and standing ovations and other performances of Helen Sjöholm, The Real Group, Jazz Divas of Scandinavia (Cæcilie Norby, Silje Nergaard, Rigmor Gustafsson), Lars Cleveman, Magnus Uggla and others. You can check some of these performances below.

Sarah Dawn Finer & Lisa Nilsson - At Last
Peter Jöback - She
Helen Sjöholm - Hymne à l'amour
Magnus Uggla - Värsta grymma tjejen
Lars Cleveman - Nessum Dorma
Malena Ernman & Roland Pöntinen - Jeg Elsker Dig
Various artists - Can't help falling in love

Darin's releasing another devotional single "Can't Stop Love" for Victoria's marriage written by Tony Nilsson, very beautiful modern huge ballad that you can listen here, if you like Darin's ballads you should be totally satisfied with this song!

And don't forget to check some performances from Bröllopsstudio, you can enjoy by some amazing covers from EMD, Carola and Fibes, Oh Fibes!

Martin Stenmarck keeps working with Scandic Hotels and presents release of new promo-single "Everybody's changing" (cover of popular Keane's song produced by Peter "Bassflow" Boström) that you can listen and download on Scandic's site. First such single-collaboration with Scandic "A Million Candles Burning" (original song written by David Stenmarck, Peer Åström, Nick Jarl and Martin Stenmarck) was released in the end of 2008 and became #1 hit in Sweden.
"Everybody's changing" has no big differences from original version of the song but Martin's vocal can never spoil the song and can be only bonus so it's a very welcome cover.
For those who eager to get some new Martin Stenmarck's stuff probably you've missed his recent amazing rock-song "All The Way" that wasn't included in Martin's album "Septemberland" but I'd say it's better than at least half of the album, I highly recommend it!

TV4 keeps making us happy with new live gigs of Swedish music royalty and now you can watch performances of Magnus Carlsson with his latest singles "A Little Respect" and "Feel You" and some old hits like "Kom Hem", "Live Forever" (ballad version), Charlotte Perrelli with her classics "Take Me To Your Heaven", "Gröna Små Äpplen", "I Will Survive", "Hero", performance finished with Magnus and Charlotte last duo single "Mitt Livs Gemål". Nanne also gave very energetic gig with some old hits like "Jag måste kyssa dig", One More Time's "Den Vilda", "Det vackraste", "Avundsjuk", "Håll Om Mig" and sure her last single "Inatt är jag din". And Erik Grönwall presented his songs from new album "Stay", "Take Me On", "Somewhere Between A Rock And A Hard Place", "Crash and Burn", some stuff from his debut album like "18 and life" and "Higher" and even got Calle Kristiansson (runner-up of last Idol) to the stage.

In the end of July Stockholm will host annual Pride festival with loads of different public events and open-air performances, as a rule it gathers most interesting and currently important schlager-names, so some of approved ones are Hera Björk, Hanna Lindblad, Jenny Silver, NEO, Safura, Anne-Lie Rydé, Rebound, Mariette Hansson, Caroline af Ugglas, sure this list's gonna be much longer in a few weeks.
Every year Stockholm's Pride gets it's official anthem and this year is no exception and it's Ankie Bagger & Peter Gustafsson who provide the anthem this time. It's not the first work of Ankie and Peter together, year before they recorded their first schlager-experiment "Du kan inte lura mig" (joke song about woman fallen in love with gay-guy) written by Thomas G:Son that reached #4 of chart.
"Secret Weapon" is as classic disco-schlager as it can be, like it or not, and sure it's gonna suit its aim very well, the song is written by Ulf Ekwall, Fredde "Francis" Jernberg and Charlie Mason. You can check enjoyable live performance of it below, it really lifts the song to a new level and changing this dead audience to open-air party people it could sound and look really great.

You can check the list of other Stockholm Pride's anthems of 00s. Best one to your opinion?

Jonas Hedqvist - I am What I am (2001)
Christer Björkman, Rickard Engfors och Shirley Clamp - La Vie (This is My Life) (2002)
Alcazar - Someday (2003)
Nina & Kim - Universe of Love (2004)
Leana - Dance With a Stranger (2005)
Christer Lindarw och Stockholms Gaykör - Kom ut! (Go West!) (2006)
6 am feat. Cissi Ramsby - I'm Gay (2007)
BWO - The Bells of Freedom (2008)
Marit Bergman - Casey, Hold On (2009)

Young Eric Saade has got so much success for last 6 months - debut solo-single, debut music video, Top-3 of Melodifestivalen final, golden debut album, thousands of fans, honour of announcing Swedish votes on Eurovision-2010, so now it's left only to fix results with showing a little different side of Saade's music and Eric remembers about it releasing new single - another song co-written by Fredrik Kempe but this time it's a ballad following "Moving On"-"Hollow" line of Fredrik music direction. Video is shot by famous video director Mikeadelica and is very pleasant and qualitative video that's undoubtfully gonna give a new push to Eric's album "Masquerade".

Marie Picasso revealed her new look on her blog and she seems to be a big hot woman right now! As long as we can't get enough of Marie the bigger she goes the more we get. They can make a great company with Sandra Dahlberg and Rickard Engfors who recently have put on weight a little as well. But look how sweet they are!

For those who didn't understand the joke guys just were playing with new popular iPhone application FatBooth :)

Without waste of time on preliminary annoucements and promos one of the most beloved by Swedish people rock-bands Kent is releasing new single today. And when you'll give it a listen you'll understand that any promotion around this stuff is unnecessary as this EP turned to be just brilliant! I would say the best thing I've heard from Kent since "Du & Jag Döden" album was released 5 years ago. For 15 years of existance Kent received the status of the biggest Swedish favorites releasing 6 #1 albums (out of 7), loads of top-singles and masses of fans not only inside of Sweden. Three years ago band switched from indie-rock to more electronic direction on album "Tillbaka till samtiden" and on following album "Röd" released not earlier than last November. And sure such a fast next release was the biggest surprise for all fans and sure pleasant surprise. "Gamla Ullevi" turned to be a bridge between new synth-sound of Kent and more driveous and positive power of Kent from the end of 90s-beginning of 00s. B-side "Skisser för Sommaren" also differs from deppresive synth-atmosphere of last albums and being summerish, warm and maybe having some parallels with The Ark-mood.
The album "En plats i solen" will be released very soon on June 30th.
And now guess the song that is new #1 on Swedish iTunes right now.

God bless TV4! These people make amazing present to everyone who can't come to LOVE Stockholm 2010 and upload full-length gigs of some artists like Sanna Nielsen (Strong, Impatiently Waiting For You, Devotion, Sound Of Spring (new song!!!), I Can Catch The Moon, Hela Världen För Mig, Vågar Du Vågar Jag, But I Know What I Want, Empty Room), Carola (Evighet and duet with Samuel Ljungblahd), Takida, Samuel Ljungblad and Timo Räisinen. The most amazing part of it for me personally is Sanna's gig, sure it can't pass even half of emotions that gives her performance when you're right in front of the stage but the quality of concert record is fantastic so you can enjoy it on maximum.