Swedish~ Stereo~

The biggest highlight of today's Sommarkrysset was dancing Molly Sandén!
Yes, she has proved on Let's Dance that she can dance but Molly making dance pop-performance? You should check it.
Caligola, common project of Mando Diao and Salazar Brothers, that has made a well international shot lately has presented their hit-single "Forgive Forget". And we've also got Brolle rock'n'rolling and Uno Sveningsson with foreign guests Stooche.

Uno Sveningsson - Vågorna
Frispråkarn och Uno Sveningsson - Lillebror
Stooshe - Black heart

Melodifestivalen-2011 finalist Brolle has become one of Sommarkrysset guests this week, Swedish reincarnation of Elvis was going long road to schlager and schlager has accepted Brolle and his song "7 Days And 7 Nights".
Like all schlager-finalists Brolle hasn't missed a chance to release new stuff after the contest and his album "Burned By Fire" has become his best charted one (#4). After Elvis-overdose in "7 Days And 7 Nights" I was afraid I won't be able to be unbiased to this album quite long (though I really like some of previous Brolle's pop-rock songs). However today I've made me sit and listen to this disc in its full length. And you know "Burned By Fire" has become quite strong compillation of The Cure's melodic rock ("Shotgun"), Andreas Johnson's catchy guitar pop ("Sweet Josephine"), summerish acoustic-based tracks ("Lover's Battlefield", "Since You've Been Gone") and 60s inspired rock'n'roll ("Inch Of You", "Anything She Wants"). One of album's highlights is track "Burned By Fire" that sounds so much like Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" that you can't smile listening to but along with another ballad "Johnny Cash" they made some especially precious and aesthetically beautiful part of the album.
You can check Brolle's performance below together with Kikki getting schlager-veterans Jessica Marberger and Caroline Jönsson behind and foreign guests Jedward.

Brolle - Shotgun
Jedward - Under pressure (ice ice baby)
Jedward - Lipstick
Kikki Danielsson - Wagon wheels
Kikki Danielsson - Varför är kärleken röd

Globen finalists Brolle and The Moniker unleash videos for their melosongs, to be more exact Brolle releases music video and The Moniker - LED-video shown during his live-performance, very nice and funny work with dancing mushrooms and Christer Björkman made by Rickard Engfors. Brolle's video is simple but pretty enjoyable, this is the song that really has grown on us after watching live performance so we give it a new chance, hope you too.
By the way new Brolle's album "Burned by the fire" will be released on April 20th, you can check cover above.

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!

Both biggest bookmakers and polls favorites Sanna Nielsen and Brolle have proved expectations and have taken victories moving to final of Melodifestivalen-2011 with the only difference - Sanna has become winner though Brolle was considered as bigger favorite.
Our thoughts? Not managing to like Brolle's song we're happy it's Sanna who have done it - she did everything right, performing it aseptically clean with confidence of artist who was on Melodifestivalen 5 times before. Unfortunately song (though it's good) sounds like younger sister of "Hero" (stopping Sanna from going to Eurovision 3 years ago) - fresh, more modern but not as massive so we don't see it as serious contender for a victory but still Sanna deserved victory in semifinal.
Really breathtaking thing for us was Loreen's performance, what a voice! We've drown in this voice and stopped to breathe for whole three minutes, incredible artist and we hope Loreen has a chance to qualify to final from AC. The Moniker has delievered bright-coloured show but the song still wasn't our cup of tea. Big losses for us were Christian Walz with amazing ballad "Like Suicide" that will make this meloseason for us (among few others) and Anniela's "Elektrisk" - great pop-song that can be on top of iTunes chart already tomorrow. Babsan gets our kudos for interesting show and Elisabeth Andreassen - for very high-professional vocals.
Another highlight of the show for us was Marie Serneholt performing "Babie Girl", what a great self-irony! We definitely respect it.

Last week we've got not only officially presented brand new hosts of next year Melodifestivalen - Marie Serneholt and Rickard Olsson but also 6 new participating names who'll be competing in first 2 semifinals, some information about their songs and plans and some bonus rumours about final artists who can be announced next Monday.

Talking about hosts Marie Serneholt is well-known artist - ex-participant of famous pop-band A-Teen who started solo-career 4 years ago and tried Melodifestivalen-2009 but hasn't succeeded and since that was more involved in TV-shows, musical and everything except her own music. As Marie is naturally funny, charming and alive person it's a great news that she was chosen as I hardly imagine her getting stuck or confused in case of not funny joke or forgotten text. Rickard Olsson is another familiar face on Swedish TV being involved for many years in some popular tv-projects like Bingolotto and Nyhetsmorgon. He's like less sarcastic but more energetic version of Kristian Luuk (host of MF-2007, 2008) so undoubtfully it's not bad news as well!

Moving to new official artists and songs of Melodifestivalen... YES!!! ANNIELA WILL PARTICIPATE IN MELODIFESTIVALEN-2011! One of the most promising pop-artists we've discovered this year, very sweet person, beautiful and talented girl that gave Swedish music lovers delightful pop-gem "My Confession" this year was chosen with the song "Elektrisk" written by Johan Alkenäs, Tim Larsson, Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson - team behind "Kalla nätter", "Alcastar" and "Om natten" . So we send our warmest congratulations to Anniela and happily announce that "Elektrisk" is due singer's words is a lot in a vein of "My Confession" (read it as it's gonna be brilliant).
Another great expected name was Le Kid who wrote the song "Oh My God" themselves (should band with hit-stuff for BWO, Alcazar and Agnes ask someone's help?) and they describe it as their typical song not written especially for Melodifestivalen with touch of Motown. However we trust their taste!
Some unexpected but rumoured name Jenny Silver who was left last in semifinal this year with the song "A Place To Stay" is coming back with "Something In Your Eyes" written by Erik Bernholm, Thomas G:son and Henrik Sethsson - team behind Danish song "In A Moment Like This" at Eurovision-2010. Jenny describes the song as big disco-schlager with key-change, loads of ABBA-influences sounding like modern version of "Tusen och en natt". Before it was offered to Charlotte Perrelli but she refused it and Jenny has got a chance to make a great revanche.
Daniel Karlsson under new name The Moniker enters the contest with *oh my God!* another "Oh My God!" song (with exclamation mark, should we expect more emotional song than Le Kid will perform?). Daniel was 4th on Idol-2007 beaten by Amanda Jenssen and Marie Picasso but more successful than EMD's Mattias and Gathania.
Artist who was rumoured to enter MF every year and by unofficial information was rejected in 2008 Brolle was presented with self-written song "Seven Days And Seven Nights" that was initially written as a ballad but ended up as uptempo mix of rock and rockabilly.
And finally really surprising name of Christian Walz with the song "Like Suicide" from Fernando Fuentes, Henrik Janson and Tony Nilsson. Christian has apeared on a stage more than 10 years ago releasing three albums and some notable hits like Wonderchild and What's Your Name?. His sound is something between Salem al Fakir and Vincent but a bit more raggae and guitar-pop - mix that sounds exciting with Tony Nilsson's song ("You're Out Of My Life", "Headlines", "Love In Stereo"). Christian descibes his song as his own sound with spaceship atmosphere.

As well some previously presented artists talked about their songs.
- Sanna Nielsen describes her entry "I'm In Love" as uptempo with huge refrain and says she never did anything like this on MF.
- Elisabeth Andreassen says her balad "Vaken i en dröm" sounds a lot like her previous Eurovision entry "I Evighet".
- Danny describes his "In the Club" as club-track with the touch of urban sound. r'n'b and hip-hop that he was into before starting his dance-pop career.
- Swingfly also describes his "Me And My Drum" as strong party-song.
- Rasmus Viberg's "Social Butterfly" is pop-song with folk-sound that was initially recorded in a different version.
- Måns Zelmerlöw's protégé Loreen will perform "My Heart Is Refusing Me" that by her own words has grown from ballad to original electronic mix inspired by Björk with loads of strings.
- Dilba's song "Try Again" is a strong dance-track.
- Pernilla Andersson calls her song "Desperados" style "spagetti-western" - country-song with loads of guitars, strings and atmosphere of Clint Eastwood films.

Participants of 3rd and 4th semifinal will be presented next Monday and 9 artists are not announced yet. By media rumours Eric Saade, Sebastian Karlsson, Sara Varga, Jimmy Jansson and Malena Laszlo are top-candidates for these places and Rebound is also waiting for approval of their entry so they still stay candidate and we keep our fingers crossed for them.

Below you can see list of participants of 1st and 2nd semifinals:

1st semifinal (Luleå)

Pernilla Andersson - Desperados (Pernilla Andersson)
Danny - In the Club (Figge Boström, Peter Boström, Danny Saucedo)
Swingfly - Me And My Drum (Johan Ramström, Patrik Magnusson, Teron Beal, Swingfly)
Le Kid - Oh My God (Märta Grauers, Anton Malmborg Hård af Segerstad, Felix Persson)
Jonas Matsson - On My Own (Sari Autio Olsson, Peter Autio)
Rasmus Viberg - Social Butterfly (Amir Aly, Henrik Wikström)
Jenny Silver - Something In Your Eyes (Erik Bernholm, Thomas G:son, Henrik Sethsson)
Dilba - Try Again (Niklas Pettersson, Linda Sonnvik)

2nd semifinal (Göteborg)

Anniela - Elektrisk (Johan Alkenäs, Tim Larsson, Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson)
Babsan - Ge mig en spanjor (Larry Forsberg, Sven-Inge Sjöberg, Lennart Wastesson)
Sanna Nielsen - I'm In Love (Irini Michas, Peter Boström, Thomas G:son, Bobby Ljunggren)
Christian Walz - Like Suicide (Fernando Fuentes, Henrik Janson, Tony Nilsson)
Loreen - My Heart Is Refusing Me (Moh Denebi, Björn Djupström, Loreen)
The Moniker - Oh My God! (Daniel Karlsson)
Brolle - Seven Days And Seven Nights (Brolle)
Elisabeth Andreassen - Vaken i en dröm (Lars ”Dille” Diedricson, Calle Kindbom, Kristian Wejshag)

Information is taken from interviews of Scandipop, Poplight, Schlagerprofilerna, Schlagerzoot so if you need to know more don't hesitate to check these great sites!

Brolle is the artist that I hardly try to fall for and and this is my new try. Finally artist who makes crowds of Swedish audience wild and constantly makes Top-10 singles and not less successful albums deserves some attention.
Well, one of the most popular Popstars show artists - Brolle presents new single - "Lovers' Battlefield". As the whole music concept of Brolle it's a guitar pop song with a bit screaming vocal and epic half-acoustic instrumental. Earlier this year Brolle released another single "Anything She Wants" from his "Best Of" compillation so fans should have not wait too long and here is brand new single that Brolle performed today at Nyhetsmorgon.
By the way recently I've discovered song "Solo i Stlm" in the list of MF-2008 rejects - right in a month after MF-2008 final Brolle released single "Solo i Stockholm" so with a big confidence we can suppose Brolle was one of rejected schlager-candidates two years ago.

Last show of Sommarkrysset-2010 is unforunately over and this time we've got few fresh debutants, few schlager-comebacks and few modern rock-stars.
Amazing Tove Styrke performed her debut single "Million Pieces" and obviously was very welcome by public, girl is still need a bit more confidence working with public but we don't leave any doubts that she's new real diamond of Swedish music. Mohombi currently topping Dutch iTunes chart performed his Summer hit "Bumpy Ride" with a huge charm and brilliant choreography unforunately lypsynching choruses but receiving great public response. Simone Moreno (participant of Melodifestivalen-2006 with the song "Aiayeh (the music of the samba") has blasted Gröna Lund with brazilian rhytms and carnaval spirit spreading tons of energy around. Another ex-participant of Melodifestivalen (talking about 1978 we probably need to write EX in capitals) Pugh Rogefeldt performed retro-schlager "Stockholm". Danish Eurovision duo Chanée & N'evergreen performed their famous hit "In a moment like this" written by Thomas G:Son, Brolle presented his last single "Anything she wants" as popular rock-band Takida with their currently promoted "Never alone always alone" (from the last album "The Darker Instinct") that they recently released in new version.