Swedish~ Stereo~

Lotta and Måns have finished seasons of their summer TV-shows this week, anyway we still have three Sommarkryssets more and a bunch of great performances from Skansen and Liseberg to re-watch.
Except Sarah Dawn Finer's, David Lindgren's and Hagsätra Sport's performances I already told about I should mention wonderful Lena Philipsson's TV-comeback after her husband's betrayal that she has accepted very hard. Linnea Henrikson has got a green light from Christer Björkman to take part in next year's Melodifestivalen. Måns has shaven his beard right during the show. Gina Derawi with Justin Bieber's cover was already a big highlight of the concert in Skansen (she's curent favorite to host Allsång next year by odds if Måns will refuse).

Linnea Henriksson - Alice
Linnea Henriksson - Härligt härligt men farligt farligt
Christer Björkman och Lotta Engberg - Sånt é livet
Linnea Henriksson - Alice
Lena Philipsson - Stjärnorna
Petra Mede & Anna Granath - Peace 3007
Anders Lundin och Måns Zelmerlöw - Gå upp och pröva dina vingar
Måns Zelmerlöw - Änglahund

I've lost a path of latest few weeks of Allsång på Skansen and Lotta På Liseberg shows so I've decided to summarize them in one post if you've missed.
Andreas Weise has presented his solo-stuff on both shows - "Another Saturday Night" and his own song "Shine".
Really was nice to see Christer Björkman doing "I morgon är en annan dag" that he was singing back in 1992 at Eurovision in Malmö. Hopefully next year's Melodifestivalen winner will be much more lucky than Christer was.
Icona Pop definitely was on fire and after their Allsång performance were praised by iTunes #1.
Tomas Ledin had a tribute at Allsång and not just Sarah Dawn Finer has come out on stage with him but David Lindgren, Niklas Strömstedt, E-Type and Måns have joined to sing Tomas' Melodifestivalen history here at 47.16. Later you can also watch Tomas singing with Eva Dahlgren.
Sonja Alden has come back on TV to perform lovely summer schlager "Våga" from her latest album in Liseberg, Björn Ranelid has brought sweet Sara Li to Skansen and Caroline af Ugglas doesn't miss summer TV-season since her Melodifestivalen breakthrough.

Hagsätra Sport - Hagsätra IP
Andreas Weise - Another Saturday Night
Christer Björkman - I morgon är en annan dag
Fibes, Oh Fibes! - Goodbye To Love
Tomas Ledin - Lika hopplöst förälskad
Tomas Ledin - Sensuella Isabella
Tomas Ledin - Hitmedley
Tomas Ledin - I natt är jag din
Tomas Ledin och Timbuktu - En del av mitt hjärta
Markus Krunegård - Askan är den bästa jorden
Miss Li - It It Ain't Over
Miss Li - My Heart Goes Boom
Herreys - Hitmedley
The Original Band - Mamma Mia
The Original Band - Dancing Queen
Ann-Louise Hanson - Satellit
Herreys - Diggi-Loo-Diggi-Ley
Markus Krunegård - Sthlm Skyline
The Original Band - Voulez Vous
Tooji - Stay
Tooji - If it wasn't for you
Elisabeth Andreassen - Kärleken och livet
Elisabeth Andreassen - La de swinge
Elisabeth Andreassen - Rör vid min själ
Kikki Danielsson - Bra vibrationer
Sonja Aldén - Våga
Sonja Aldén - Närmre
Andreas Weise - Shine
Andreas Weise - Another saturday night
Caroline af Ugglas - Mitt mentala gevär
Caroline af Ugglas - När orden tagit slut

Hope you haven't missed first episode of "Inför Eurovision Song Contest 2011" - preview-show where Swedish music experts discuss songs of upcoming Eurovision - probably you have analogues in your countries if you live in Europe but however the show is really worth watching because of quite interesting participants - Lotta Engberg, Andreas Johnson, Sarah Dawn Finer, Christine Meltzer, Thomas Lundin, Christer Björkman.
It's hard to follow if you don't know Swedish but you have ability to switch subtitles, maybe it'll help you!
So if you want to know which entry sounds like Magnus Carlsson with "Dansar I Månens Sken", who reminds mix of Anastacia, Pink and bat, what common "One More Day" and One More Time have, if it's good to send Le Kid from Serbia and who tried to steal Gaga's "Born This Way", come here and watch.
Switzerland, Norway, Serbia and Finland have got highest marks, watch full table here.

Remember I warned you about Swedish representative at Junior Eurovision-2010 Josefine Ridell? The song has appeared online much faster than we could imagine!
Josefine is 13-year-old girl from Oxie (Malmö), she wasn't noticed in any big tv-events yet but being talented girl she's fallen to the spot of big proffesionals who decided to choose her as representative this year. This year Swedish delegation is headed by not less than Christer Björkman and just like year ago Sweden has got support of huge stars Arash, Thomas G:Son, Robert Uhlmann and Johan Bejerholm in writing the song who were responsible for many Swedish international hits and both - Arash and G:Son have written most successful Swedish-related entries on Eurovision last two years.
"Allt Jag Vill Ha" is beautiful touching ballad in Ryan Tedder's style, Beyonce is huge idol for Josefine so being co-writer of the song girl wanted to put this passion in it. So don't forget to switch on your TV on November 20th and vote for Josefine! If you will forget - I'll remind you, don't worry!

The biggest shock of 2nd semifinal of Eurovision-2010 for everyone was that Sweden won't participate in the final of Eurovision since 1977. Sweden didn't miss the final every year since semifinals-system was introduced in 2004 and this year it's the first time. By my personal observations Swedish media didn't blame Anna a lot, many star bloggers and newspapers showed compassion to her though sure there were a lot of evil remarks. Cruel irony is that we'll see all five songs written by Swedes for another countries qualified to the final + Iceland produced by Swede and Belarus with Swedish Robert Wells on the stage.
I need to say that I was as much shocked as I felt proud for Anna's performance, it was the first time for a long time when Melodifestivalen winner has made her best 100% and it looked incredibly powerful and magical. Unfortunately this year Melodifestivalen didn't have artist with a full pack (song+stable performance+interesting show) so Swedes have chosen talent and sincerity and I don't have any doubt it was the rightest choice. But as every year few brilliant songs are left not qualifying to the final here's no drama at all. Anna is the artist out of schlager-bubble and just like Martin Stenmarck who released his #1 album already in a year after his fiasko on Eurovision or Malena with her sold-out concerts last autumn Anna will be able to walk her own road to the top of charts so I don't worry about her.
We need to see advantages and the biggest one here can be that next year SVT will really try to make selection much better than this year and we'll have a lot of big names with amazing songs and fantastic show. And you know what? Doors of Melodifestivalen-2011 are already open!!! Songwriters can already send their song since tomorrow and rules of next year contest are already publiched. Some interesting moments that I've mentioned:
1) entries must be sent from 29 May through 21 September both to webjoker contest and main contest;
2) songs must be no longer than 3 minutes but no shorter than 2 minutes;
3) and the most interesting is that finally song can be written by foreign songwriters but at least one of authors must be Swede.
So heja Sverige! And let's prepare for a new season of Melodifestivalen that will start to give us some exciting news and actions already in September. And sure loads of luck to sweetest Anna Bergendahl and all Swedish songs in the final of Eurovision-2010.

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)

Annual tv-show "Inför ESC 2010" currently takes place on SVT-channel. Every week you can see experts panel discussing songs of different participants of upcoming Eurovision. This year you can see among experts Marie Serneholt, Kayo Shekoni (ex-Afro-dite), Lena Philipsson, Thomas Lundin (Finnish artist and tv-host), Rennie Mirro (musical artist and brother of Sarah Dawn Finer), Christer Björkman is host of the show as always. In a third part of the show experts were amazed the most by Israeli singer Harel Skaat and on the other hand left Slovenian representatives - Ansambel Roka Žlindre & Kalamari without any points at all. In the end of the show experts revealed their favorite Melodifestivalen-songs who didn't manage to win the contest. Marie and Mirro chose "Moving On" by Sarah Dawn Finer, Thomas - Shirley Clamp's "Min Kärlek", Kayo - Alcazar's "Not a sinner nor a saint" and Lena - Nanne's "Håll Om Mig". You can see this episode here and see results below. Next week we'll see the last of 4 episodes.

By the way for all Eurovision followers now you can read official blog (in Swedish) of Swedish delegation where you'll find posts by both Christer Björkman (head of delegation) and Edward af Sillén (scriptwriter and director of Melodifestivalen) about everything regarding Anna Bergendahl's and her team's trip to Eurovision in Oslo.