Swedish~ Stereo~

More artists try to make a contribution before the start of European Football Championship this year. The first was E-Type with a remake of his old hit "Campione", now we have Pandora who releases her unofficial Euro anthem of Sweden ”Kom igen!” that she has written with Joakim Säreborn. The song was produced by not less than Niclas Kings and it's a big sport anthem powdered with traditional schlager-sound. Not what you could found on Pandora's latest album but it's cheerful, light and worthy.
By the way you can download it for free on Pandora's site.

For all of you who has started to think Carola is over with schlager and has completely moved to rock'n'roll-covers area we have brilliant proof she still can do schlager as good as she used to!
Another The Voice jury member Magnus Uggla has provided track "Jag Vill Ha Dig Baby" from his latest album "Innan filmen tagit slut..." produced by Peter Kvint for Niclas Kings to make remix and Carola to replace Edith Backlund's vocal part. Song has turned from pop-rock schlager in typical Magnus's manner to a light dance-schlager, Niclas can work with schlagers (Hera Björk "Je Ne Sais Quoi", Euroband "This Is My Life", Kate Ryan "Je T'Adore") and though musically it's not in style of his Eurovision works this mix pushes all the right buttons to bring up the tune to its dancey radio-friendly shelf where it belongs.
Below you can listen to both versions of this song as both are really worthy.

Alex Saidac makes her way out to European audience and without wasting time she's aimed to the biggest dream goal of many Swedish artists - success in UK.
Debut Alex's single "We Shine" is already has entered some club charts and was noticed in local music media and now team presents new EP with mixes from the biggest mixers of Swedish pop - SoundFactory and Niclas Kings. We already told about dubstep mix of Video Violence, here we get another one from L-Wiz. You can check snippets of mixes below.

Stunning Agnes comeback single "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" gets release of mixes pack from Niclas Kings (we've been missing Niclas's productions quite long but recently were glad to get him back with fantastic mix of Eurovision winning song "Running Scared" you should immediately check).
Back to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" - we'd better call Niclas Kings mix Niclas Kings version not changing track a lot but putting in on club-steroids bringing extra-dynamic dance-beat to verses and Kate Ryanesque trance layers in choruses. Great work!

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.

First successful results of Swedes on Eurovision-2010 were shown by Belorussian team with the help of Robert Wells (famous Swedish piano player and participant of Melodifestivalen-1987 and 2003) appearing in their performance as special guest. And the second proud result was achieved by Icelandic Hera Björk, her song was produced by Niclas Kings (man behind many hits of Kate Ryan and not only) who already updated Icelandic song in 2008 when Euroband also managed to qualify to the final and reached 14th place. Currently Hera's song along with Belgian and German ones can be found on high positions of different iTunes-charts across Europe.
You can see performances of Iceland and Belarus below and tomorrow we'll see another 4 songs (Azerbaijan, Ireland, Georgia, Denmark) written by Swedes and Sweden being represented by Anna Bergendahl in 2nd semifinal of contest. Don't forget to support your favorites!

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)