Swedish~ Stereo~

Don't forget that tomorrow you'll be able to watch last 4th semifinal of Melodifestivalen in 20:00 by Stockholm time here and maybe tomorrow we'll see the winner of this year. Snippets of rehearsals were presented yesterday and below you can find links and our thoughts about them.
Melody Club - The Hunter - very warm melodic pop-rock track with Spring positive feeling and cool guitar-part, much warmer and schlageristic than we could expect from Melody Club with stable professional performance.
Julia Alvgard - Better or Worse - beautiful ballad performed by sensual Julia's voice with dark blue background and Julia looking very charismatic and nice.
Lasse Stefanz - En blick och nånting händer - "Simply The Best" in dansband-arrangement, sorry, but it's SO not our style.
Linda Pritchard - Alive - song was written by Oscar Görres and Fredrik Kempe so on one hand it's what you could hear from previous presented Linda's songs and on the other hand it's a lot in a style of Linda's "Hollow". It's all about incredible Linda's voice that makes whole pack sounding amazing but remembering that even "Moving On" hasn't reached the final directly we're especially scared for Linda.
Anders Fernette - Run - Anders' dynamic guitar pop that we use to love and this song doesn't seem to be exception, but it's hard to judge by snippet of rehearsal where Anders obviously doesn't feel comfortable vocally, we'll love it in studio-version however.
Linda Bengtzing - E de fel på mig - probably biggest disappointment, it's s classic Linda's track sounding a lot like Värsta schlagern but weaker and without whole-packed performance of Hur svårt kan det vå, still Linda gives it all on the stage but I guess she won't qualify to the final directly.
Nicke Borg - Leaving Home - classic big rock-ballad with loud guitars and everything you can expect, I'm not sure that it's song for Nicke though, I'd imagine it better with some more screaming loud vocal, otherwise it doesn't go whole road for me.
Love Generation - Dance Alone - very effective performance with 90s eurodance song that screams to get into Globen and girls are gonna be on fire this year in Sweden but is the song will be as big favorite as press now claims? I'm not sure, it's still not what Gaga could release but wishing luck to girls, they do great job on the stage and I'm not gonna be against if they'll win whole contest.

After rehearsal due to public voting Melody Club has colected 47% (!!!) of votes today (that is not much less than after Eric's performance), so do we have new favorite that will be able to slip into first place of the final while Danny will be sharing votes with Eric and Sanna with one of schlager-ladies Jenny/Shirley/Linda having big chance to get there? We'll see tomorrow but due to svenskaspel Melody Club currently goes 2nd for the win.

Four new singles covers have come from Danny, Eric Saade, Melody Club and Sara Varga, you can check them above. Melody Club's EP will also contain b-side "Anyone Else" and Joniverse Remix for "The Hunter". Probably now you say - oh my! Is it gonna be the first or the only melomix this year? And I say - no. In a few days mix for Dilba's "Try Again" from Jacob Czitrom is gonna be released and we really like that Romanian-dance sound in verses with dark baseline decorating chorus so fine! And hope it's not the last mix for "Try Again", this song deserves maxi-single after charting so successfully on iTunes. By the way talking about not qualifying songs success in common chart - it's obviously not so well comparing with last year. Week ago Dilba debuted at #20 and Le Kid - at #31, this week chart has only Christian Walz at #30. Hope it'll go better when the rest of the songs will be released after 4th semifinal.

Tomorow Göteborg will get schlagerized in full-mode meeting Melodifestivalen's 2nd semifinal gang of artists - Brolle, Loreen, Babsan, Elisabeth Andreassen, Sanna Nielsen, The Moniker, Anniela, Christian Walz - not a weak selection at all! And how strong their songs will be we'll know already tomorrow from press-reviews. Due to odds and polls the biggest favorites are Sanna, Brolle and Christian but will they stay faves after tomorrow prelisten? We'll see!

For now we'll turn our face to other updates.
Dilba's single "Try Again" has made debut on iTunes today and going road of Le Kid single has reached #1 of iTunes chart with Le Kid on #2 and Rasmus Viberg at #45. It's gonna be really one of the strongest meloyears if even not qualifying songs are doing so well.

Talking about success of MF-2011 among viwers, show in Luleå has collected 3 014 000 viewers in front of TV-screens (that is neither record nor a fail) and on the other hand only 320 608 of votes that is the lowest first semifinal figure for the last 10 years (since semifinals system was introduced).

Recently Schlagerprofilerna revealed that no Melodifestivalen DVD is intended to be released this year again because of lalbel not satisfied with low sales due to sharing video in Internet and all videos in free access located on SVT site.

Linda Bengtzing has taken part in commercial action Schlagerfeber - talent contest held in Onoff stores net, Linda is gonna be coach for folk's talents and judge as well. Contest will be held through February, you can see trailer here (and our friends say that booklets with Linda are already all over). I just wonder how Melodifestivalen management will take it.

Linda Pritchard's dress is gonna be made not less than by Royal family designer Lars Wallin who had previous Eurovision-experience with Sweden-2006 and Azerbaijan-2009.

Daniel "The Moniker" Karlsson has appeared in XL-Live with very nice acoustic performance. Interesting fact is that both Daniel and Christoffer Hiding participated in the same season of Idol leaving on 4th and 6th place (EMD's Mattias was 5th) so it's gonna be interesting if both will meet in the final.

Tomorrow Dilba's new single "Try Again" will get release and its cover (from Linda Sonnvik's blog) looks completely OH MY GOD!!!
We really hope that Dilba's results on MF will be forgotten as soon as possible and it won't affect commercial success of "Try Again" as it's really brilliant dance-track with dreamy base provided by touching Dilba's vocals but massive production that can easily become huge export hit. For now I just hope that it will get its Top-10 in singles chart.

We get more and more new pics in different stars blogs and in media by which we can realize that next year Melodifestivalen comparing with last year full of static performances with nothing but artist standing next to mic and singing some ballad this year will be full of dancing numbers.
For example above you can already see Jonas Matsson working on his performance with Rennie Mirro showing which schlager-poses should artist learn to become melamazing.

Dilba gets 7 dancers team and her manager Linda Sonnvik promises some truly great show. We hope it'll be amazing opening performance!

Will Le Kid stand in front of cameras with dead eyes and sleepy show? Nope!!! Le Kid are gonna DANCE!!!

Rickard Engfors is making some terrific show for Sebastian this year! It's gonna have LEDs with Sebastian's video behind, dancing girls and it's gonna be technical complicated. Don't know what it means but smells like excitement!

Jenny Silver who goes schlager this year seems like has moved from dark melancholic image and gets loads of dancers too. Rickard also works on her show and thinks to dress dancers like futuristic soldiers with bondage elements. Sounds like something incredible. Check more on his blog.

What about Linda Sundblad? Have you ever seen her in dance shows? You're going to also this time! So let's dance!

Today we've got a whole bunch of schlager-related news I'm gonna share with you right now!
Everyone's and everything's updating styles closer to the biggest Swedish music tv-event of the year - Melodifestivalen and here are the brightest examples which we can't miss to mention - Dilba is looking gorgeous on new photos with big dark hair and red stylish jacket and Linda Bengtzing is coming back to her long hair with very fresh and young look like it wasn't 6 years since Linda has entered competition first time.

Site of Melodifestivalen also has change its look today and now you can watch there presentations of artists talking mostly about their families, favorite songs, dishes and what they are going to do when they'll win. Site has got its editor Elsa Billgren that you can look at here, page where you can ask Christer Björkman about everything here and you can even participate in contest to get tickets to the first semifinal of Melodifestivalen in Luleå sending answer to question what Danny, Dilba and Pernilla Andersson use to do in nature (not together dirty minds!) to melodifestivalen@svt.se
Also now we've finally got the title of Love Generation song and it's "Dance Alone" written by RedOne, Bilal "The Chef", Teddy Sky, AJ Junior, Jimmy Joker and BeatGeek. If these names (except RedOne) don't tell you anything it doesn't mean you didn'n hear songs written by them:

"Poison" Nicole Scherzinger
"Money Honey" Lady Gaga
"Bumpy Ride" Mohombi
"Straight Through My Heart" Backstreet Boys
"Breathing Your Love" Darin Featuring Kat DeLuna
"Step Up" Darin
"Oui Mais... Non" Mylene Farmer
"The Fall" Sibel feat. Lazee
"The Silence", "Broken Heels" Alexandra Burke

Impressive? No, it smells like world hit!!! And hopefully Sweden won't reject it.
You can also check running order in semifinals and I'll remind you that 1st, 6th and 8th places are considered as lucky ones. So Danny, Eric Saade and Love Generation look like biggest favorites to get their tickets to the final and by the way Carola, Charlotte Perrelli and Malena Ernman performed last in 4th semifinal so definitely SVT will make everything to provide Love Generation's victory and we don't mind at all!

LULEÅ 5 FEBRUARI
1) Dilba
2) Swingfly
3) Jenny Silver
4) Jonas Matsson
5) Le Kid
6) Rasmus Viberg
7) Pernilla Andersson
8) Danny

GÖTEBORG 12 FEBRUARI
1) Brolle
2) Loreen
3) Babsan
4) Elisabeth Andreassen
5) Sanna Nielsen
6) The Moniker
7) Anniela
8) Christian Walz

LINKÖPING 19 FEBRUARI
1) Linda Sundblad
2) Simon Forsberg
3) Sara Lumholdt
4) The Playtones
5) Shirley´s Angels
6) Sebastian
7) Sara Varga
8) Eric Saade

MALMÖ 26 FEBRUARI
1) Melody Club
2) Julia Alvgard
3) Lasse Stefanz
4) Linda Pritchard
5) Anders Fernette
6) Linda Bengtzing
7) Nicke Borg
8) Love Generation

And finally today we've known two artists who refused to participate this year, it's popular indie-artist Håkan Hellström who has released #1 album "2 steg från paradise" and 2 Top-10 hits in 2010. And another act is Treadstone - fresh rock-band that I told you about this Summer debuted with amazing single "Six Feet Under" and now before release of album "A New Day Sun" on January 19th they present single "S.O.S" that they were asked to participate with but refused. Here's new video for "S.O.S" - powerful Foo Fighters-smelling rock-song that we'll definitely be missing this year.

Our new massive Meloupdate is coming with some new releases from next season participants, some other melorelated interesting information and Swedish-related news from Eurovision.
Well, let's start from one of our most anticipated artists - Dilba. Success of this amazing artist has started 14 years ago with single "I'm Sorry" becoming real classic hit of Swedish pop (you can check covers by September and Sonja Alden as examples of how this song is beloved) and now before debut in completely new area for Dilba - Melodifestivalen where she will show her new dance side Dilba presents first sneak peak of how good she can sound in dance-music and it's remix of "I'm Sorry" - very stylish trance-track made by Deejay Jay. Few years ago Kaveh Azizi has made another mix of this song - not less interesting just good in its own way, so sure we don't mind now this great song finally gets its official release in the mix, check it below.

Babsan as well has recently presented her Christmas single "Alla dessa jular" and it's exacly what you could expect from drag-artist working with After-dark before - kitchy, schlageristic and happy.

SVT has shown its annual chronicle of Melodifestivalen reviewing one more time everything that happened at latest season so if you want - you can take your ticket to time machine and remember how it was - all those great triumphs and bitter falls. Check it here.

Popular bets site Svenska Spel has published its odds for the winner and surprisingly it names Melody Club as the biggest favorite. Both previous years #1 pre-favorites didn't win but was in the final so good luck to Melody Club. Sure it's just predictions without any real base before songs are heard but there are some interesting moments we can mention like Elisabeth Andreasson quite low that points that she's not in that favorite schlager-league and will need to work hard to compete with younger schlager-rivals. Le Kid has climbed to #4 even though newcomers are rarely estimated well so big hopes are on them. Linda Pritchard is much higher by odds than year before and Rasmus Viberg with Simon Forsberg are examples of how newcomers can be underestimated (in my opinion).

Preselections are starting in other countries as well and you can already find some announced Swedish composers there. Romania will show its preselection final at December 31st in New Year's Eve and one of competitors is Claudia Pavel with the song "I Want You to Want Me" co-written with Örebro team Johan Fransson, Pontus Assarsson, Tim Larsson and Tobias Lundgren responsible for such a classic melohits like "Alcastar", "Om Natten", "Kalla Nätter", etc. And Norway that has chosen song of Fredrik Kempe and Hanne Sørvaag (Norwegian songwriter living in Sweden) year ago this time gets songwriting team Simone Larsen, Moh Denebi, Bjørn Djupström and Jennifer Brown (who participated in Melodifestivalen-2009 with the song "Never Been Here Before") performed by Noora Noor, by the way Hanne Sørvaag will participate in Norwegian MGP this time as artist with her own song "You’re Like a Melody".

And the last interesting news. Remember before I told you that Malena Ernman's "La Voix" being covered by Philipp Kirkorov and Anna Netrebko was awarded as Best Song and Best Duo of this year by the biggest Russian radio? Now cover has got video-treatment and it looks really not bad!!!

I've got 3 important news regarding Melodifestivalen-2011 which I'm gonna share with you right now!
First one and the most important that we oficially have got new 8 announced artists and the most exciting word here is new! Just like Linda Bengtzing from the first bunch only Sanna Nielsen can be called here schlager-veteran and just like Linda she's coming with support of Thomas G:Son (I guess we're gona have a lot of G:Son's songs this year after his Top-5 on Eurovision this year). But not alone - Peter Boström, Bobby Ljunggren and Irini Michas are hard team behind the song "I'm In Love" so it's gonna be schlager of higher calibre.
Another one participant who already participated in Melodifestivalen but not solo is international sensation Danny and again song is co-written with Peter Boström (yesss!!!), Figge Boström and Danny, song is called "In The Club" so everything's pointing to the saddest heartbreaking ballad in the world, nah, this team is made for dancefloor killer-hit and the final in Globen without any "if" and "but"!
But the name I'm completely blown away is Dilba! One of the most inspiring artists of Sweden with music that's completely out of time is finally back after a long break and I'm so happy she's coming to Melodifestivalen. What makes it more interesting is that she's coming with Niklas Pettersson (responsible for some Velvet's and Daisy's hits) and Linda Sonnvik (who worked with Belle before) who wrote the song "Try Again".
Second ex-A*Teens part Sara Lumholdt is coming to Melodifestivalen with the song "Enemy" by Niclas Lundin (this year's song of Erik Linder) and Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad (Le Kid). Unfortunately Sara hasn't managed to properly establish solo-career so hopefully she'll make it this time.
Among loud names of this bunch you can also find Melody Club - popular pop/synth rock band that rotates in speculation lists not the first year and can easily be this year The Ark with the song "The Hunter".
More fresh names are Loreen (first Idol participant who completely disappeared for years after the show) with the song "My Heart Is Refusing Me" co-written with Moh Denebi and Björn Djupström and even newer for big audience Simon Forsberg with Fredrik Kempe's song "Tid att andas" and Rasmus Viberg with "Social Butterfly" written by another schlager-veterans - Amir Aly and Henrik Wikström. I'm gonna tell you about them a bit later.

Another exciting news are for all who's gonna visit Sweden to see Melodifestivalen next year. Tickets sales will be open this Thursday on October 21st so you'll be able to buy them from outside of Sweden on http://ticnet.se Prices and dates of concerts and general rehearsals are mentioned here.

And the last news. This week has shortened amount of webbjokers participants to 100 so you can check the chart and take a look at which songs are still in competition and which are going to leave it next week here. We have 25 favorites left so keep hoping that someone of them will reach the final!

Рор-solo
Nadina - Change of heart (127)
Engla - Don't stop (142)
Jonas Matsson - On my own (240)
Mona Ersare - Over the Rooftops (245)
Ghena - Stand here (269)
Maliq - Believe in me (115)
Anna Palmér - Echo (147)

Eurovision pop
OneVoice - Varje steg (299)

Schlager/Dansband
Emil Johannisson - En sekund (153)
Göran Frödin - Kan du inte välja mig (#206)
Trison - Lovar & svär (211)

Pop-group
Fredrik och Magnus - Get out (162)
Adam Sandahl - Att vakna vid din sida (112)
Marcus & Fredrik - She's making my day (261)
Predicament - A fist full of maybe (104)
MLVNS - Denight (139)

Jazz/Visa
Natalie - Just a dream (204)
Conny Andersson - Kura Skymning (208)
Lise Edman - Ta mig som jag är (329)

Rock
Ann-Christine Johansson - Sanningen ska segra (255)

Ballad pop
Julia Alvgard - Better or worse (118)
Niklas Dahlquist - Här står jag för dig (180)
Fabian - Simple life (262)

House/techno
Keylas - Crying in my dreams (131)

Various
Anton & Dejo - I wanna be with you (185)

By the way you can already mention logo of Melodifestivalen with silver gradient background in sales shops so seems like we've got new color of Melodifestivalen-2011!

Just to remind you guys:
1) You can already vote for finalists of Rockbjörnen-2010 here. Will Ola be storming Rockbjörnen again? Which one of Melodifestivalen-2010 final top-3 will win more nominations? Anna? Salem? Eric? Will Oskar Linnros become king of Rockbjörnen winning 3 nominations? Have Justin Bieber and Tokio Hotel any chance against Gaga? It's you who decides so come and vote!
2) Tonight (less than in hour) you have ability to watch acoustic concert of Robyn at Live-löpet interactive event. I'll better cite Rockbjörnen Crew about it:

"Tonight, August the 24th, Robyn will perform a unique interactive concert for fans all over the world. The concert is acoustic, a bit shorter than usual, and provides a way for international fans to get a glimpse of the Swedish superstar. The concert is streamed through a never-before-seen digital setting where the audience can interact with Robyn by using different tools, such as chatting with the artist and other people in the audience using Facebook connect, request a song, clap their hands etc. What makes this concert so unique is that the artists can follow the interaction live from the stage and respond directly to the audience. This is made possible by using real-time messaging cloud which connects thousands of people simultaneously and presents live figures of the interactions taking place.
The concert starts at 8:55 PM CET (2:55 PM east coast time). Tickets are free of coast and available here"

Should I place here some of my favorite Rockbjörnen performances? Here is Dilba with her "Every little thing", it's not as much about performance as about the song, it's beautiful, Dilba is beautiful! Oh how much I'd like to write update article about her, but she doesn't give us a reason. Unfortunately :(