Swedish~ Stereo~

We do love when schlager-artists make covers of each others songs and when beautiful voices meet beautiful songs it makes the whole thing even more precious.
Webjoker Julia Alvgard that we still really like (and have started to like even more after listening to her lovely chill-out album "Strong Enough" of 2006) recently has performed cover of Salem Al Fakir's "Keep On Walking" in the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and it has turned to be so goosebumps-giving with her emotional vocal. There's no video but sound quality is very well, enjoy!

Today we'll get new press-reviews of Malmö semifinal but it's already too much of news to hold them so I'll give it article. First of all we've got new covers of Brolle, Anders Fernette, The Moniker and Julia Alvgard, we love Anders' one especially and hope that this bad rock-guy style means we'll get some strong pop-rock entry from him.

The Playtones will release new album "Rock 'n' Roll Is King" on March 9th, it's produced by Jimmy Jansson and Karl-Ola Kjellholm (The Pusher) as their MF-song "The King" and you can already check its snippets below. Unfortunately we didn't find something better than "The King" but the key is that it's not our style, still maybe you'll find something for you.

Rehearsals of the fourth semifinal have already started on places and you can check some pics with Julia, Linda Pritchard, Anders and Love Generation.

Linda Bengtzing has new song "Män i Uniform" on her site and song sounds even better than we've found it before.

And finally exciting news that you could already read on Schlagerprofilerna, Poster Girl and Schlagerfiasko blogs but I should mention once again. Today in new QX-issue it was revealed by Christer Björkman and Edward af Sillén that next rare songs will be out on rarities CD in golden pack of MF:
Sarah Dawn Finer - Not a Sinner nor a Saint
Sonja Aldén - Night of Passion
Sonja Aldén - Invincible
Linda Bengtzing - Headlines
Agnetha Kjörsvik - Hero (Freebee, backing singer of Charlotte in Belgrade)
Brandsta City Släckers - En gång för alla
Timoteij - Run (initialy recorded in English)
Jessica Andersson - Jag ljuger så bra
Fredrik Kempe & Shirley Clamp - Du och jag mot världen

Sarah's "Not a Sinner nor a Saint" was presented few days ago on Poster Girl's blog, so here we show you another track that will appear on that compilation and we like it in this version not less than in final version!

Few months left since two luckies we followed last Autumn have reached the final of webjoker-contest for Melodifestivalen-2011 and have taken victory that we were really glad tipping them as one of our favorites but will Julia Alvgard with her ballad "Better Or Worse" and Jonas Matsson with guitar pop track "On My Own" be more successful than MiSt (webjokers of MF-2010)? Will they reach final of Melodifestivalen and get a long career in Sweden? We'll know very soon! But now artists in a hottest stage of preparing to contest and both promise that their songs are upgraded and they are on the way to fight.
Both Julia and Jonas have got support of the biggest record-labels, Julia - Universal and Jonas - EMI. You can already check Jonas' site to find his with new style and a lot of another interesting stuff. Julia has only Facebook page for now but you can already find her new song there! For now it's just a demo of song "I Was" - track that you're gonna like if you like "Better Or Worse", it sounds more like Rihanna-style r'n'b-ballad, less for schlager-competition but really enjoyable with amazing Julia's voice and in more ready studio-quality. Check it below along with Jonas singing cover "Wonderchild" of his schlager-rival Christian Walz.

World has heard first two participants of Melodifestivalen-2011 today and it's Julia Alvgard with the song "Better Or Worse" and Jonas Matsson with the song "On My Own" who have just won Webbjoker-contest for Melodifestivalen-2011 and we happily announce that both of songs were from the beginning in the list of our favorites and we're really glad that they will be performed at Melodifestivalen next year. Julia and Jonas turned to be very charming artists and great performers so no fears everything's gonna look and sound great on the stage of Melodifestivalen. We feel sorry that Engla haven't made it to MF but we're sure it's just a beginning for such amazing artist and send her our love, hugs and best wishes!

From another Melodifestivalen news, SVT has announced Elisabeth Andreassen as another official participant with the song "Vaken i en dröm" written by schlager-veterans Lars "Dille" Diedricson, Calle Kindbom and Kristian Wejshag. Lars and Kristian have written "I Did It For Love" for Jessica Andersson so we can expect ballad again but as Calle Kindblom is responsible for some schlager-stuff like "Give me your love", "Långt bortom tid och rum" and "Show me heaven" it can be schlager as well.

Webbjoker-contest has just begun and we've got 231 participants this year.
I'll remind you that SVT's making annual contest among unsigned, unprofessional artists second year and two winners of competition will participate in Melodifestivalen-2011.
Later today I'm gonna start writing about some nice discoveries of the contest as there you can find some definitely very interesting stuff but for now I can happily announce that Swedish Stereo's project Horoscope's participating in contest this year with the song "Drama". It's a huge anthemic pop-song combining some best moments of BWO and Lady Gaga that's going to be a great treat for next year MF. For now this demo is a bit rough and made just for few hours and doesn't show all the brilliance of the song but we're gonna remake it in nearest time and show you everything you love so much in the show - we're gonna get at least 50 windmachines, dance naked in the rain on the stage, set Globen on fire of our fireworks, fly under the roof of stadium and lead herds of elephants. Oh are animals forbidden at Eurovision? Come on! Who cares? We're gonna break all the rules! Gaga keeps calling since morning and begs for this song, but we have to refuse as we want it to be performed at Melodifestivalen first!
So if you live in Sweden send sms with number 143 at 72211 (it costs 3,60 kr), click at Facebook like button under this post, spread the word about "Drama" and you will get the most amazing performance at Melodifestivalen-2011 and our eternal love!!!