Swedish~ Stereo~

Previews of third Melodifestivalen semifinal are out and what do we think about them? Actually I think it feels like the weakest semifinal this year, no big breakthroughs or candidates for the win in my opinion.

Linda Sundblad - "Lucky You" - guitar-pop sounding a bit like sweetness of "Oh Father" (that actually was the biggest Linda's hit in Sweden) with more expression of Pink's "Raise Your Glass", song needs more wild energy otherwise Linda makes it very kind that can be not advantage on Saturday but chorus-tune is very catchy and hope Linda will qualify.

Simon Forsberg - "Tid att andas" - schlager-ballad sounding like male version of "För Att Du Finns", it's big epic and Simon sings it good but without that goosebumps factor of Sonja that puts Simon's chances under the question.

Sara Lumholdt - "Enemy" - when songwriters of this song (who also wrote Eric's "Still Loving It") were published I wished Sara's song would sound in the same style and it does! It's not as dramatical, but modern and with nice show I really wish luck to Sara but it feels like a case when modern commercial songs are left 5th (though chorus in "Battlefield" style is quite catchy).

The Playtones - "The King" - song for rockabilly and dansband fans with hardly memorable verses but strong chorus that sounds like Manboy with high temo and rockabilly arrangement, I'm sure it will qualify to the final or AC, it's stable, atmospheric and catchy.

Shirley's Angels - "I Thought It Was Forever" - classic Shirley-shlager, absolutely what you expect when you hear words "Shirley" and "schlager", chorus really contains power of Shirley schlagers and I love it, but performance lacks something extra to convince me that public will vote for new "Min Kärlek" again. They voted for Sanna but she had more effective performance and more modern arrangement. Don't know what to say about chances.

Sebastian - "No One Else Could" - it's more complicated and more stylish song comparing with last brit-pop try, Sebastian performance with rolling camera around him remains his last perfomance a lot. I found song not so catchy from the first listen though and if it doesn't grow quite good all 3 minutes it can fall.

Sara Varga - "Spring för livet" - very jazzy and atmospheric song, as I'm not so good in Swedish to catch lyrics directly I think strength of the song is there. But Sara looks quite nervous on the stage and I feel like it's not gonna be so easily bought by audience like in Pernilla's case.

Eric Saade - "Popular" - starts with Boney M's "Rasputin" claps and verse breathing "It's Gonna Rain" ended up with chorus that you can sing along with lyrics of Lili & Susie's "Oh Mama" (I wonder if it will cause the same reaction of audience that story of Danny's song sounding like that Nicaraguan band's song). For me it's clearly far from "Manboy" and not entry to win in the final. As I think on Saturday "Popular" will be taken out online you'll still be able to enjoy his song in Lili and Susie's performance here :)