Swedish~ Stereo~

Anders Bagge's club-project Supermarkets presents brand new single "Crash & Survive" and it's not less than Danny who's on duty for the vocal.
Supermarkets have started few months ago with debut single "Du säger du älskar mig" featuring vocals of Danish singer Medina and vocal of Anders Bagge. Single hasn't charted in official Swedish chart but still floats around in iTunes Top-200 and probably Danny is the key to Supermarkets' big success.
Last Danny's album was definitely to out taste but something was missing (not just in our opinion) and this something was track who could beat "In The Club" or at least fight on the same level. If "Crash & Survive" was included into Danny's album it could become worthy "In The Club" sequel with its agressive slightly Swedish House Mafia-inspired sound. Chorus is absolutely anthemic and whole track gives impression of a monster club-hit!

New season of popular "Let's Dance" show has collected mass of famous faces again and as we've got a lot of musicians I should undoubtfully give you a tip about this show if some of your faves participates there.
To be more exact we've got Jessica Andersson, Hannah Graaf, Idol-jury Anders Bagge, Idol-participant Andreas Weise, not really Swedish Alexander Rybak and loads of live music (Taio Cruz, Robyn, Donkeyboy, Salem al Fakir, Cee Lo Green, etc.) with bright-coloured dance-show. Sure this sort of shows isn't beloved by anyone but it's still stays popular in many countries and it's quite enjoyable to watch some well-known charecters trying to do their best in dance. Jessica Andersson looked gorgeous in her long purple dress and Andreas Weise's funny facial expressions haven't left anyone cold, check it yourself below.
By the way Da Buzz's new re-released version of latest single "U Gotta Dance" has become soundtrack for "Let's Dance" trailer but it's another story that I'll tell you as soon as we'll get this new version online.

Music theme "Famous" of TV-show "Made in Sweden" has got a chance to become a real hit in USA as it was borrowed by new Nickelodeon's American series "Big Time Rush" and will be promoted as a single and included in album planned to be released this August.

Sweden can enjoy this song already year since the first season of "Made In Sweden". Swedish Idol juries Anders Bagge, Andreas Carlsson and Laila Bagge being really creative producing team decided to make this new show demonstrating all required work made by producers with some new stars and main faces of the first season were Janet Leon (ex-member of girls band Play) and Kim Fransson. Results of both were quite impressive, Kim's single "3 Floors Down" has reached #1 and the album - #14, Janet's single "Let Go" entered Top-3 and the album surprisingly peaked at the same 14th place. Later Kim has left team of "Made in Sweden" being unsatisfied with management and Janet is currently has some plans to release her album in USA. However first season left this brilliant rock-soundtrack written by Andreas Carlsson and Desmond Child (charted only one week at #56) that was later changed to a more pop-sound for the next season devoted to comeback of band Play with old members Faye Hamlin, Anaïs Lameche and newcomer (but not new person for Swedish audience) Sanne Karlsson who was main vocalist of last E-Type's album replacing Nana Hedin. This time single "Famous" reached #1 and girls' comeback-album "Under My Skin" has entered Top-10 (#7), Play announced "Not The One" as another single but recently performed another song "Trash" from their album at LOVE Stockholm 2010 festival.

Last Saturday Thomas G:son and Anders Bagge were really on fire competing for Denmark and Azerbaijan in the final of Eurovision-2010 and reaching Top-5, Harry Sommerdahl also helped Georgia to finally reach Top-10 and I hope it will serve as the guarantee of success for Swedish songs next season of contest in pre-selections of other countries. Though not all Swedish songs were lucky enough, Eriksson family for Ireland (23), Fredrik Kempe for Norway (20), Robert Wells for Belarus (24) and Niclas Kings for Iceland (19) unforunately didn't achieve such success in the final but however these songs reached the final and it's already good result for Ireland, Belarus and Iceland which are often followed by bad luck on contest when it comes to qualifying from semifinal so our dear songwriters should be proud of their work. As Swedish songs didn't win pre-selections any time this year I decided to give you a guide to all Swedish songs competing in national finals this year, probably you'll find something interesting that should get its ticket to Oslo but didn't.

Today I'd like to present you new rock-band that showed just a few pieces of their music and it turned to be really promising stuff. This band is Apollo Drive and it was formed in 2008 originally by guitar player Stefan Örn and singer Fredrik Lönngren joined later by the rest of members. Band has started writing songs and touring in Sweden, their demo-stuff has reached famous producer Anders Bagge who was really impressed by Fredrik's vocal and decided that he has to work with this band. In January of 2009 band released their first single "Time" really nice alternative track that wasn't met with as great enthusiasm in charts though. Year later band features Lazee's single "Calling Out" that's turning to a really big hit in Sweden and little later releases their new single "Papercut" on US iTunes and later in March in Sweden. You can also check another new song "If You Only Let Me" on band's myspace, guys prepare another new stuff and this year Stefan Örn together with Anders Bagge have written the song "Drip Drop" for Azerbaijanian representative on Eurovision-2010 Safura, this song is the biggest favorite of the contest that's starting today and final will be shown on Saturday.

Yesterday SVT showed the last part of "Inför ESC 2010" that you can watch here. Jury discussed the rest of 2nd semifinal and finalists of this year. Germany, Norway and Croatia has become today's favorites.



Common results of the 2nd semi:
Israel 24
Sweden 21
Croatia 19
Armenia 16
Denmark 16
Turkey 16
Bulgaria 15
Lithuania 15
Romania 15
Georgia 13
Ireland 13
Switzerland 13
Azerbaijan 12
Cyprus 12
Ukraine 9
Netherlands 2
Slovenia 0

Rehearsals in Oslo are already in a full mode and yesterday was the first day of Swedish rehearsals, Anna Bergendahl received positive feedback from press in common and jumped up to #6 by odds.



Also check press-conference with Anna (part 1, part 2).

This year contribution of Swedes in Eurovision is especially massive, we have five Swedish songwriters playing for other countries, two songs produced by Swedes and even one Melodifestivalen participant at the stage.

NORWAY

Didrik Solli-Tangen - My Heart is Yours
[Hanne Sørvaag, Fredrik Kempe]
(MF-veteran Mr. Kempe and Norwegian-Swedish Hanne Sørvaag who already composed German song in 2008)

DENMARK

Chanée & N'Evergreen - In a Moment Like This
[Thomas G:son, Henrik Sethsson, Erik Bernholm]
(Thomas G:Son is another legendary name, Henrik composed Eurovision song for Friends)

IRELAND

Niamh Kavanagh - It's For You
[Niall Mooney, Mårten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff, Lina Eriksson]
(Jonas participated before in pre-selections of Malta, Ireland and Denmark and you could hear loads of great stuff from Eriksson family on MF before)

GEORGIA

Sopho Nizharadze - Shine
[Hanne Sørvaag , Harry Sommerdahl, Chistian Leuzzi]
(Hanne was lucky twice to fight for 2 countries this year and Harry is also Swedish songwriter who worked before with Robyn and BoA)

AZERBAIJAN

Safura - Drip Drop
[Stefan Örn, Anders Bagge, Sandra Bjurman]
(Anders has written and produced songs for Madonna, Janet Jackson, Santana, J.Lo, Nick Lachey, Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion and Enrique Iglesias)

ICELAND

Hera Björk - Je Ne Sais Quoi
[Örlygur Smári, Hera Björk Þórhallsdóttir]
(Producer of the final version is Niclas Kings who gave tons of hits to Kate Ryan and participated before as songwriter of Belgium-2006 and producer of Iceland-2008)

MALTA

Thea Garrett - My Dream
[Jason Cassar, Sunny Aquilina]
(Producer of this song is Johan Bejerholm who produced Azerbaijan-2009)

BELARUS

3+2 - Butterflies
[Max Fadeev, Malka Chaplin]
(Famous Swedish pianist Robert Wells will perform on the stage with Belorussian band)