Swedish~ Stereo~

Erik Linder's newest album has included really nice surprise - the song "Så Länge Hjärtat Slår" written by Måns Zelmerlöw and Hanne Sørvaag together with Dan Sundquist (producer of Anna Bergendahl's "This Is My Life" and Didrik Solli-Tangen's "My Heart Is Yours").
The song has turned to be a schlager-ballad slightly old-school but with a good classic growth from intimate piano-intro to a big cinematic culmination. Hanne has provided vocals for album version of the song but it was Erik's girlfriend - Timoteij's Elina who has performed it in Bingolotto few days ago.
I should remind you that Måns has also co-written track "Hello Goodbye" for another hot Swedish-Norwegian duo of Erik Segerstedt and Tone Damli and they'll be performing it in the second heat of Melodifestivalen-2013.

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.

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)