Swedish~ Stereo~

This year's Polar music prize ceremony has turned to a big tribute night of Paul Simon with different Swedish artists perfrming his hits. Ones we were interested the most were Laleh and Loreen and both were singing really nice and atmospheric covers of his songs with an orchestra that has surely made them even more beautiful.

Time for new heroes of Rockbjörnen awards have come. Aftonbladet's readers were nominating candidates and now you can vote for the one of top entries here.
Loreen logically have got three nominations (Best female, Best song and Best concert), Eric is still hotter than fire with Best male, Best song and Best concert. Dead By April, Panetoz, Moa Lignell, Alina Devercerski, Sabaton and Takida were included in two nominations. Really great to see Melodifestivalen finalists Molly Sandén and Ulrik Munther in Best male and Best female.
The concert will take a place on August 29th in Gröna Lund and you'll be able to watch it on Aftonbladet site.

Big start for another annual TV summer-event has happened today.
Måns Zelmerlöw opens new season of Allsång på Skansen with a bunch of popular artists - Agnes, Laleh, Markoolio, Sean Banan and Magnus Uggla were joined by E-Type and Edit Backlund to perform their own hits and folk's karaoke. The biggest performance of the concert for me personally was Agnes' "One Last Time". Girl has really given a lot of extra singing it live with a lot of heart and looking fierce. Banan was also on fire but he always is!

As it was expected after the latest Så mycket bättre season Laleh has become an absolute sweetheart of Sweden this year. During 12 weeks after its February release Laleh's album "Sjung" was leaving Top-5 only once and is back to #1.
The first single from the album "Some Die Young" hasn't just entered Top-10 but also has become a hit across Scandinavia (current #1 of Norwegian iTunes and you can find Loreen at #2 by the way). And here we have another single that can be not less hit. "Vårens Första Dag", light melodic indie-pop song that you're gonna like if you've fallen for Laleh's cover of "Ängeln i rummet", has got its wonderful video which was premiered today and you can watch it right now.

New season of Så Mycket Bättre has become another success, show has got a series of scandals around TV4 team exploiting artists too tough and forcing them to make revelations and to talk about memories they'd never open on ordinary shows. Sweden hasn't found new "Mikrofonkåt" but has re-discovered Laleh and every weeekend after a new episode when fresh bunch of studio-covers was out on iTunes, her tracks were reaching iTunes-top immediately. It's quite rightfully, Laleh is amazing artist and she has appeared right in that moment when demand for some fresh and original indie-pop artists in Sweden is really huge.
However our favorite cover of the season was made not by Laleh but Lena Philipsson who has turned Laleh's biggest hit "Live Tomorrow" to absolutely incredible schlager, something that she couldn't leave this show without. Original melody was almost not changed so in common track can be felt like remix but it's not as clubby. While verses have got heavy "Popular"-esque electro-treatment choruses open in euphoric schlager-explosion, something Lena would be very welcome and undoubtedly very successful with on Melodifestivalen stage.

Today participants of Så mycket bättre were singing Eva Dahlgren's hits and once again we were more interested in E-Type's and Lena Ph's covers. Martin in a contrast to previous show has made a step from 90s classic eurodance sound to a dark aggressive electronic rocky pop when Lena has gone to a bit lighter electro-schlager-pop. Another cover we were absolutely delighted with was Laleh's cover of probably the biggest Eva's hit - "Ängeln i rummet" which has become a bit Coldplayesque with warm Christmas-feeling. Laleh's "Just Nu" already goes big on the radio and stays #1 on iTunes and new cover can easily become another sensation of this season.
Check snippets of studio-versions here.

Timbuktu - Kom och håll om mig
Tomas Ledin - Vem tänder stjärnorna?
Laleh - Ängeln i rummet
Mikael Wiehe - För att du är här
E-Type - Jag är Gud
Lena Ph - Jag klär av mig naken

New season of incredibly successful tv-show Så mycket bättre has started tonight.
This time we've got another solid bunch of artists - E-Type, Timbuktu, Laleh, Tomas Ledin, Mikael Wiehe, Eva Dahlgren and Lena Philipsson. E-Type and Lena Ph are the artists we're interested the most but we hope we'll get few more faves.
Artists were singing Tomas Ledin's songs this time. Lena Ph's performance was undoubtedly the most entertaining with loads of sexy poses and Lena filling every empty corner of a room with her passion. Though I'm a huge fan of E-Type, Martin was just too far from what was expected from him vocally but it was interesting to listen to his version of "Sommaren är kort", you should also check other covers below. You can also listen to studio-versions of songs here.

E-Type - Sommaren är kort
Mikael Wiehe - Blå blå känslor
Timbuktu - Snart tystnar musiken
Eva Dahlgren - Never again
Lena Philipsson - Sensuella Isabella
Laleh - Just nu!