Swedish~ Stereo~

Last time I was speaking about Bingolotto was one month ago when the show was celebrating 20 years anniversary. Since that it has got some old good MF-stars like Pernilla Wahlgren, Linda Bengtzing, Jenny Silver and also this year's artists (Afro-dite and Sonja Aldén) presenting their new hits. Here you can watch schlageristic collection of their performances.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's the greatest schlager-medley I've seen so far! Melodifestivalen-stars have joined forces on Gaygalan to perform for Christer Björkman and it has turned to 15 minutes of schlager-classics from Shirley Clamp, Love Generation, Andreas Johnson, Sarek, Sanna Nielsen, Linda Bengtzing, Afro-dite, Jenny Silver, Malena Ernman, Swingfly, Måns Zelmerlöw, Charlotte Perelli. Incredible summarizing of the latest Melodifestivalen decade!

I know, I know, I'm a bit late with it due to the date of video upload (in February) but am I the only person in the world who didn't know that Jenny Silver actually has the video for her MF-2010 entry "A Place To Stay"?
However here it is, video for "A Place To Stay" directed by Peter Elofsson, it's not a million dollar budget work but for everyone who likes this song it's a very nice meditative and atmospherical treat (as the song actually).

Probably the biggest schlagerfans-favorite of this season Jenny Silver has appeared in Bingolotto without lighting microphone, futuristic dress and gang of dancers but with her monster-schlager "Something In Your Eyes" in live band rockier arrangement and those legendary moves entering history of Melodifestivalen being on the place. I really love how in the end song has turned to a wild horse that Jenny hardly tried to control but she's done it and you can get this dose of schlager-adrenaline right now! Don't forget to check amazing interview of Schlagerfiasko with Jenny to know her thoughts about MF and further plans.

Le Kid who were left 5th in Melodifestivalen's first semifinal last Saturday celebrates victory today. Their newly released single "Oh My God" has reached #1 of Swedish iTunes-chart in the first day of sales! Impressive start and hopefully big hit of this year. Rasmus Viberg has also charted on iTunes with single "Social Butterfly" (currently #25), Dilba's single will be out very-very soon and Jonas Matsson's single also to come (thanx to Schlagerprofilerna for covers).

Talking about forthcoming singles - Sanna Nielsen who will perform this Saturday has also presented her stunning cover before and today we get another one and also pretty amazing cover of single "My Heart Is Refusing Me" from Sanna's Göteborg rival - Loreen. We already starts to fall for Loreen exploring this dark mysterious image and we're sure her entry is gonna be something very special! (stort tack for cover to Schlagerfiasko)

Melody Club today unleashed cover, tracklist and release date of their new album "Human Harbour". Besides MF-single "The Hunter" album will include previously released "I Don't Believe In Angels" and recently performed in XL-live "Sweet Disaster" and "Dreamers Wasteland". Album will be released in one day with Sanna's one - on March 2nd (few days after 4th semifinal).

Jenny Silver today revealed in chat with Aftonbladet readers that her album is planned for this Autumn and Swingfly's new album "Awesomeness" will include (among others) songs recorded with Kleerup and is planned to be out soon after Melodifestivalen final.

Actually I wanted to give you update later waiting for press' reviews of first Melodifestivalen semifinal but here 2 updates I'd like to share right now.
We've got another single cover this time from Jenny Silver, very lovely and sweet cover marking Jenny going from dark and authentic to softer and lighter side.

Linda Pritchard has written yesterday on twitter that her album will be ready today, something that many fans were waiting whole year since many Linda's songs were out last Spring and pretty stunning to expect a lot from her album. Today we've got another delicious piece of Linda from Schlagerprofilerna - her demo of "Hollow" that was sent to Melodifestivalen-2010 and finally given to Peter Jöback. I'll remind you that when Peter was announced there was a lot of buzz around winning song and it's not surprising as demo sounds very beautiful, massive and as Linda was then new artist without any expectations on her it really was taken as big favorite. New Linda's song is also written by Fredrik Kempe but this time co-written by Oscar Görres ("Hollow" was co-written by Anders Hansson).

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!

Every year Swedish QX-magazine publish stunning schlager-issue with some new theme and future melo-participant in special photoshooting devoting to it. Before last year it has even got tradition of future winner to appear at the cover but in 2010 neither Salem, nor Anna were there. However everyone who were on the cover have got to the final, this time QX marks new favorites with theme TV-classics and we have Eric Saade, Sara Varga, Simon Forsberg, Babsan, Linda Pritchard and Danny on the cover!
Besides completely brilliant photos QX also interviewed artists about their plans one week before start of the show.
Danny appeared this year as "True Blood" character, Jenny Silver, Linda Pritchard, Sara Varga and Sara Lumholdt have made "Sex & The City", Sebastian and Simon - "Prison Break", Le Kid - "Glee", Eric Saade - "21 Jump Street", Love Generation - "Desperate Housewives" and Babsan - "Dynasty". You can read whole issue here and watch series of really amazing photos below.

History of Swedish synth-band Lustans Lakejer has roots in 70ies and though the biggest commercial success of the band was back in 80s bringing some well charted hits, Lustans Lakejer still keeps respectable status falling into the spot of media with new releases. When Agnes was disqualified on Melodifestivalen-2007 Lustans Lakejer has entered instead with the song "Allt vi en gång trodde på" but has taken only 7th place.
However band has come back this year with new single "Det Verkade Så Viktigt Då" and new album "Elixir" to be released in a few days on January 26th. And still we can call it schlager-related stuff, not just because Lustans Lakejer music sounds a lot like synth-schlager to our ears but because of second single - duet with Jenny Silver "Eld & Vatten" who's going to take part in MF just in 2 weeks. Quite intimate song that turned to be smoking hot in live performance. This mini-gig even featured not less than Marina Schiptjenko (BWO, Vacuum, Page) as keyboard-player and backing singer (that made us realize how much we miss her after BWO's break-up!). Another new presented song was "Skönhet kräver ingen tolkning".

A little more than 2 weeks are left before Melodifestivalen fever when press will be listening and giving reviews to rehearsals, we'll be catching the most interesting pieces, news, photos, videos and giving you tips!
Schlagerzoot reports that since February 3rd every Thursday we'll be able to watch one minute clips from artists rehearsals on Melodifestivalen site. But already now we can catch pics and videos from started rehearsals.
Rickard Engfors this time works on show not only for Sebastian but as well for Jenny Silver and on his blog you can check pics from Jenny's rehearsal and video that you can see below. Also check video of casting for Danny's dancers team. And above you can see picture of Sara Lumholdt rehearsing with her team. Feels like after many static performances with nothing but microphone on a stage year ago we're gonna get a lot of complicated well-choreographed shows. And we love it! Don't we?

Jenny Silver who will perform in a month at Melodifestivalen with the song "Something In Your Eyes" written Erik Bernholm, Thomas G:son and Henrik Sethsson has recommended herself as an artist of wide genres range moving through years of her career from dansband to rock, from dark techno of Melodifestivalen-2010 to promised schlager-pop of Melodifestivalen-2011.
So before the contest she has decided to try new direction going clubby with RXM Project in new collaboration track "I Believe In You" produced by Paul & Marie Rein and co-written by them with Jenny.
"I Believe In You" is house Kylie-smelling track, atmosperically as meditative as "A Place To Stay" but much more dynamic and light with hypnotizing Jenny's vocal perfectly fitting this sort of music, check yourself.

Weekend has started so let's celebrate it with doze of dance-music! From today till Sunday night I'm gonna present you some recent nice mixes I haven't told about but undoubtfully should. So let's start with first three!
Participant of Melodifestivalen-2011 - Jenny Silver has released pack of mixes from Soundfactory for her single "A Place To Stay" right before Stockholm Pride this year. Jenny unfortunately didn't qualify to finals but turned to be one the highest non-qualifiing entries this year (#12). We wonder a lot if Jenny's solo-career will go further as this March she was presenting some other really good new songs in Stockholm and sure Soundfactory's works are always what gets to our spot.

Thanx to Planet Salem for mentioning new amazing mash-up of Axwell & Ingrosso feat. Salem al Fakir's "It's True" and smash hit of Kylie Minogue's "Get Outta My Way". Before this year collaboration of Salem with Swedish House Mafia was one of the brightest highlights of Salem's discography so talented variations of this great track are always welcome!

And finally here's video-tratment for Mikey's Dance Version Remix of the latest Ace Of Base single "All For You" - this is probably most close to original and radio-friendly mix so hope you'll like it as well.

Some latest news about what's going on with participants of Melodifestivalen-2010.

Timoteij will release new single "Högt över ängarna" from debut album "Längtan" on June 30th.

In the beginning of May Expressen reported about Neo who after all stresses he's got in the MF-period got serious case of vestibular neuritis and had to learn how to go, now Neo's back and as a proof he performed his MF-single "Human Frontier" and previous "Flower Power Supergirl" in acoustic.

NEO - Flower Power Supergirl (live at Nyhetsmorgon)

In days of Midsommar Peter Jöback got married with his boyfriend Oscar Nilsson. You could see Andreas Lundstedt, Pernilla Wahlgren and Sarah Dawn Finer among guests. Short interview from wedding is here.

Don't forget to visit blog of Jenny Silver as you can find some interesting demos that she's recording with her husband.

Song "Vilar Glad I Din Famn" written by Benny Andersson and Kristina Lung and performed with participance of Orsa Spelmän & Kalle Moraeus gets it's single-release apart from other songs from princess Victoria's wedding included in special compilation "Bröllopsmusiken från Storkyrkan". Benny Andersson commented that he wasn't interested in putting his name among merchandising of this event. By the way Kalle Moraeus along with Salem al Fakir, Anna Bergendahl, Timoteij and Eric Saade few weeks ago received golden status of his latest album "Underbart".

Anna Bergendahl's "This Is My Life" keeps conquering hearts of European audience and is currently at #13 in chart of one of the biggest Lithuanian radiostations M-1, week before the song also appeared in Hungarian chart. Anna along with many other artists performed in Kungsträdgården at Love Stockholm 2010 and looked very-very nice in her beautiful dress (thanx to Vitaliy for photos).

Lovestoned released their album "Rising Love" in Germany, sure band has tried to make this edition special for their German fans and included new song "Who's That Girl", that you can listen below.

Currently Jessica Andersson's "I Did It For Love" is #1 in the oldest Swedish radio-chart Svensktoppen (with following "Underbart" at #2, "Keep On Walking" at #3 and "Kom" at #9), Jessica plans new single but promise next album only next Spring.

Anders Ekborg prepares for release of his album "Painted Dreams" but before we'll get new single "I Do Believe" on July 7th. You can listen piece of new single and another duet with Helen Sjöholm "Always Here" below.

And finally I need to mention that currently we can find only winners of 4 semifinals of MF-2011 in Swedish single-chart.

13 - Timoteij - Kom
22 - Eric Saade - Manboy
28 - Anna Bergendahl - This Is My Life
60 - Salem Al Fakir - Keep On Walking

In the end of July Stockholm will host annual Pride festival with loads of different public events and open-air performances, as a rule it gathers most interesting and currently important schlager-names, so some of approved ones are Hera Björk, Hanna Lindblad, Jenny Silver, NEO, Safura, Anne-Lie Rydé, Rebound, Mariette Hansson, Caroline af Ugglas, sure this list's gonna be much longer in a few weeks.
Every year Stockholm's Pride gets it's official anthem and this year is no exception and it's Ankie Bagger & Peter Gustafsson who provide the anthem this time. It's not the first work of Ankie and Peter together, year before they recorded their first schlager-experiment "Du kan inte lura mig" (joke song about woman fallen in love with gay-guy) written by Thomas G:Son that reached #4 of chart.
"Secret Weapon" is as classic disco-schlager as it can be, like it or not, and sure it's gonna suit its aim very well, the song is written by Ulf Ekwall, Fredde "Francis" Jernberg and Charlie Mason. You can check enjoyable live performance of it below, it really lifts the song to a new level and changing this dead audience to open-air party people it could sound and look really great.

You can check the list of other Stockholm Pride's anthems of 00s. Best one to your opinion?

Jonas Hedqvist - I am What I am (2001)
Christer Björkman, Rickard Engfors och Shirley Clamp - La Vie (This is My Life) (2002)
Alcazar - Someday (2003)
Nina & Kim - Universe of Love (2004)
Leana - Dance With a Stranger (2005)
Christer Lindarw och Stockholms Gaykör - Kom ut! (Go West!) (2006)
6 am feat. Cissi Ramsby - I'm Gay (2007)
BWO - The Bells of Freedom (2008)
Marit Bergman - Casey, Hold On (2009)