Swedish~ Stereo~

It's always heart-melting when huge artists make some charity activity releasing new music to help those who really need it. This Autumn Idol-show has made successful shot when show participants released song "All I Need Is You" that reached #2 of Swedish chart and a bit later we've got another release from whole bunch of the loudest names of Swedish pop - Ola, Darin, Alcazar, Jessica Folcker, Sarah Dawn Finer, Plura, Velvet, Hanna Hedlund, Martin Stenmarck, Lasse Berghagen, Anna Maria Espinosa, Claes Janson, Dolly Dolores, Jasmine Kara, Anna Sahlin, Kim Fransson, Promoe and Jakob Hellman. Something incredible? Whole project was initiated by Tess Merkel from Alcazar in collaboration with SOS Barnbyar organization to help kids who lost parents or who live in financialy especially problematic terms. The song "Ta Min Hand", very kind hopeful a bit funky and a bit gospel-breathing track, was written by Christopher Dominique and Mårten Edh and released physically and digitally.
Company around "Ta Min Hand" was also supported by big concert in Kungsträdgården and performances on TV and radio, so below you can watch official video for this song and performance in Efter Tio.

Next episode of Så mycket bättre show turned participants to another artist's tribute and this time it was schlager-veteran Lill-Babs. Ex-husband Lasse Berghagen has made calm retro soul-smelling version of "Är Du Kär I Mig Ännu Klas-Göran?". Christer Sandelin also decided not to go too far from original 50s version with cover of "April april". Thomas Di Leva from happy covers turned to slow half-acoustic "När vi älskar". Plura had as usual calm guitar-pop cover of "Snurra Min Jord". Petter who released already 2 singles from the show and both are currently in Top-10 on iTunes presented probably his most enjoyable cover of "Tuff brud i en lyxförpackning". September who's also going to realese successful cover of Petter's "Mikrofonkåt" performed again dance-version of "Leva Livet" but in a colder electro-sound with different tune in chorus-line. There are three cross tribute-shows left (not sure about theme of the 8th one) - for Plura, Christer Sandelin and September, I wonder if September's going to sing cover for Christer's biggest hit "Vill ha dig" in Style that Petra did in the beginning of her career? Hope so as it was brilliant!

TV4 starts new show "Så mycket bättre" (So much better) that I told you about before. During 8 series you'll be able to see Lasse Berghagen, Lill-Babs, Petter, Thomas Di Leva, Petra "September" Marklund, Christer Sandelin and Plura Jonsson who had to spend a week living in one house and singing covers for each other hits. First day that was shown today was devoted to Lasse Berghagen's songs. Biggest highlight of the show was to finally see and listen Petra Marklund with beautiful cover of Lasse's classic hit "Teddybjörnen Fredriksson". Another nice covers were done by Lill-Babs, Thomas Di Leva and Christer Sandelin (from Style), it's a bit hard to judge such a retro-stuff but still it looks like a nice idea to collect such a different but popular artists and make them to arrange tribute-nights for each other (sure I can't wait for September's night!). Watch whole show here.

It's my first September post and I'd like to devote it one of the greatest artists of Sweden - September and I have a reason for it, I'd say whole bunch of reasons!
Very soon Swedish dancing queen Petra "September" Marklund is gonna break a pause that she took after completely crazy period starting from her international breakthrough with single "Satellites" in 2006. After this she has managed to release her third fantastic album "Dancing Shoes", to make her biggest world-wide blast with single "Cry For You", to release multiple compilations of her hits around the world and to bring loads of gigs and appearances almost everywhere.
This October Petra is back with brand new single! But besides it we're gonna get Petra on TV in new show on TV4 where she should live together with another musicians - Petter, Christer Sandelin, Barbro "Lill-Babs" Svensson, Tomas Di Leva, Per "Plura" Jonsson, Lasse Berghagen around week and make some covers for hits of each other, Petra has already chosen songs and promises to show completely new side of September. Season will include around 8 episodes, it will be shot in September and shown approximately in October. And this is not the last news. Petra has become model of cosmetics company FACE Stockholm and you can already see a banner with her above. What a gorgeous look, isn't it?
It's actually great that Petra's coming back to Sweden and we have a chance to see her in some local events and shows, if you didn't see her performance in last season of Så Ska Det Låta you can do it right now, it's really joyful!