Swedish~ Stereo~

It's less and less competitors at Dansbandskampen-2010 with every week and at last show we've got whole bunch of beloved Melodifestivalen hits.
Pure Devine performed quite powerfull version of Barbados' "Kom Hem" in Sanna style vocal, I'd say it was too good for retro dance-party. Elisa's performed Charlotte Perrelli's winning song "Tusen och en natt" and as original version is quite dansbandish and vocalist has strong voice it all worked quite well (but how great would it be to be performed by Wizex where Charlotte sang before her Melodifestivalen breakthrough in 1999). CC & Lee performed Ola's hit "Natalie", not the best vocal performance of our faves but still it's quite difficult song in verses so we forgive it. Patrik's Combo has made cover for season's hit "Manboy" and though it hasn't impressed me maybe you'll find it funny. How do you think? Also we've got some covers of Timbuktu, Shirley Clamp, Caroline af Ugglas and Sandi Thom - less interesting but still you can check them below. Jeppez and the Cowboys left competition, I've finally got three favorites (Pure Devine, Elisa's and CC & Lee) and dansband-race keeps moving.

Dansbandskampen keeps sorting out participants and we've got already Rigo & The Topaz Sound and Sweetshots out, new episode again had great songs choises - a lot of modern international hits and Melodifestivalen covers but this time I can say there were more of successful covers. CC & LEE performed beautiful version of Håkan Hellström's "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg", stomach of pregnant band's part - Lena Ström already looks big but I really hope nothing will interrupt such a grand series of their performances. Wizex performed very nice cover of Salem Al Fakir's "Keep On Walking" with a slight touch of French music. Jeppez and the Cowboys has made loveable danband-country cover of Katy Perry's "Hot'n'cold". Elisa's covered in more traditional way Kent's "Utan dina andetag" - song that sounds good in all possible versions. And another Melodifestivalen-song was performed by Pure Divine "The Worrying Kind" - nice anthemic baseline and synths along with proper vocal performance has made it another worthy highlight of the show.

Dansbandskampen new season has finally started so yesterday you could already watch the first show and I should say songs choise was as good as never before! Biggest Swedish and international hits performed in dansband wrap. But as this genre doesn't suppose modernity or diversity any song can easily be murdered with dansband cover so most of them actually was but still you can find some really enjoyable things. Though this season turns to be quite week in my opinion but still Divine's version of "I'm Yours" was really enjoyable and as expected CC & Lee's hardrock version of "I Kissed A Girl" was the most powerful highlight of the show.

Since October 16th you'll get ability to watch new season of SVT show Dansbandskampen (hosted by Christine Meltzer, Thomas Deutgen and Gunhild Carling) - contest where dansband groups will fight every week to get into the final. Many contestants of two previous seasons Larz-Kristerz, The Playtones, Scotts, Zekes have become really succesful afterwards and public has got tons of lovely dansband-covers for some favorite hits. That's what we're looking from new Dansbandskampen season. It wasn't difficult to mention some familiar names among new contestants like Rigo & the Topaz Sound (after Melodifestivalen-2009 Rigo participated this year almost in every show so but see him in dansband-competioт was really big surprise!) and Wizex (band where Kikki Danielsson and Charlotte Perrelli has started their music career). But mostly I'm excited about participance of amazing CC & Lee who already participated in the first season but haven't won! Before start of the show Lionheart releases singles of their artists CC & Lee, Patrik's Combo and Elisa's, all are nice, but CC & Lee's single "Better Best Forgotten" sounds completely loveable due to only chorus. I'd say it's more old-school Abbaesque disco-schlager than dansband, beautiful, catchy and done in best traditions of classic Swedish pop.

Anders Lundin presented second episode of tv-show Allsång på Skansen and the biggest highlight for all pop-fan audience undoubtfully was performance of Eric Saade who presented two last singles - as always very well choreographed performance of "Manboy" and "Break Of Dawn" with funny moment of leading out on the stage happy crazy fan in the end. Winners of Dansbandskampen The Playtones performed Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" and their own song "Excuse Me". Also audience could enjoy performance of Mikael Wiehe, Marie Küler, Marie Bergman, Wille Craaford & Marika Willstedt (you could see Marika on Melodifestivalen-2010 performing with Jessica Andersson on cello), foreign guests invited to Skansen were Australian Ten Tenors. Check whole episode here.

ABBA and dansband-music. Can there be some more Swedish music combination? I guess no. And I'm gonna prove it's a great combination right now.
Sisters Cecillia Furlong and Lena Ström has started their music career in 2003 becoming popular in Denmark very fast and starting their own ABBA-show "ABBA Experience" having success with their live performances and strong vocals. But their first album "Gåva Till Dig" ("Gift to you") was released only in 6 years right after the show Dansbandskampen where girls finally has made a big breakthrough to Swedish hearts and the album produced by Amir Aly became very gentle mix of dansband, schlager and pop-music with catchy tunes and beautiful vocal performance. Due to rumours debut-single "Himlen Kan Vänta" ("Heaven Can Wait") was written by Thomas G:son and Calle Kindbom initially for Melodifestivalen but finally it was given to CC & Lee and just in a year girls decided to enter Melodifestivalen-2010 themselves with the song "Honey" written by schlager-veterans Bobby Ljunggren and Mårten & Lina Ericsson that almost qualified but unfortunately was left near qualification borderline but the song is alive and gets its release these days.
"Honey" is very nice positive pop-track inspired by ABBA and actually containing all those amazing melody tricks that made millions of people fall in love with ABBA. CC & Lee come back to their ABBA-roots and we're happily going along with them!