Swedish~ Stereo~

Annual sport awards Idrottsgalan-2013 has gathered some actual artists as it happens every year and this time among event's guests you could see Eric Saade performing his newest single "Marching (In The Name Of Love)" with a big drummers band, Petra Marklund flying under the roof of Globen while performing her hit "Händerna mot himlen" and Sarah Dawn Finer doing very touching performance of "Med Dig Vid Min Sida" in a memory of passing sportsmen.

Let's keep on surfing Swedish Christmas TV and check what SVT has prepared for us.
Well, the most interesting I've found is the beginning of Så ska det låta season with Christmas theme and 4 popular artists - Malena Ernman, Sarah Dawn Finer, Kalle Moraeus and Peter Jöback. Opera, folk, soul and newly musical stars all had Christmas releases in the past and it was definitely interesting to check how they'll be sounding together. You can watch the whole show here and some performances below.

Youtube Christmas-gifts from Swedish artists keep coming and today we've got a wonderful music card from the woman who's absolutely the best Swedish female artist making Christmas stuff in my personal list - Sarah Dawn Finer (Måns is on the top among male Swedish Christmas singers if you'er interested).
Sarah has performed beautiful acoustic version of "Maybe This Christmas" (released on her album "Winterland") with a great bonus-surprise imitating a trumpet! Don't know how come we've missed this Sarah's talent but it's really worth-checking.

Annual charity radio-show Musikhjälpen has started working this week. Hosts Gina Dirawi, Timbuktu and Kodjo Akolor will be spending whole days in a glass cube meeting their music guests, talking and performing their music.
Yesterday we've got wonderful Sarah Dawn Finer visiting the show with few tracks from her newest album "Sanningen Kommer Om Natten" - "Lova mig ingenting" and "Med dig vid min sida" (and even doing Euphoria-dance with Gina). Nice to see Sarah not being attached to promotion of her singles and trying to present different songs from the album.

Sarah Dawn Finer's new album "Sanningen kommer om natten" has become her 4th Top-3 which says that Sarah is a rare case of the artist born at Melodifestivalen who can moving on without taking part in the contest quite long. She seems very comfortable with her new music image and today she visited Nyhetmorgon to perform some tracks from the album.
One of them "Den Andra Kvinnan" I'd recommend to check to those people who still have pop-Sarah in English as their favorite. The song (if we take it separately imagining this is the first sarah's Swedish track) is basically not that far from old Sarah's tracks like "Does She Know You" - right that sort of dramatic piano-based ballad beautifuly growing with Sarah's powerful voice. You can also check performances of other album tracks "Vasastan" and "Med dig vid min sida".

Annual event Världens Barn is back with a bunch of top pop-artists, fresh names and some new music pop-stuff premiered.
Today we've got Sarah Dawn Finer presenting song "Tårar blir till guld" from new album received pretty well by both critics and iTunes audience. Jill Johnson and Pernilla Andersson were also promoting singles from newest albums. Mando Diao has gone Swedish, Peter Jöback has gone musical. We've got a bit of dansband with Wizex, a bit of summer energy with Panetoz and Nova Delai with Andreas Moe as a fresh blood of Swedish pop. Very-very pleasant concert!

New Sarah Dawn Finer's video for another single "Balladen Om Ett Brustet Hjärta" arrives quite fast and keeps direction of previous one. It's black and white documentary showing Sarah recording in a studio with Mauro Scocco, Johan Röhr and the rest of the team and it's obviously supposed to be simple, intimate and warm presentation of the song. By the way tracklisting of the album is already published and along with singles fans of Sarah's "Kärleksvisan" will also find it there.

Highlights of Moraeus med mera today definitely were Sarah Dawn Finer and Linnea Henriksson and how actually cool that both performed some new stuff not played at summer open-air shows like Sommarkrysset and Allsång på Skansen. Sarah was performing "Balladen om ett brustet hjärta" from upcoming album "Sanningen Kommer Om Natten" (the song I wouldn't like to be a single but it is) and Linnea presented a song that I would like to be a single but it isn't (at least so far) - "Jag vet nåt som inte du vet".

Another open-air summer music tv-show Sommarkrysset has finished and was trying to make a line-up of the last concert really special.
So we've got Sarah Dawn Finer and Agnes with their newest singles (this is the first time Agnes was singing "All I Want Is You"!), Martin Stenmarck and Andreas Johnson with a great medley of their best hits (even though I'd prefer new songs!) and Takida's frontman Robert Petterson performing with his new band Stiftelsen making the stuff in Swedish. Marina (that one with the diamonds) was a foreign guest of the night.

Marina and the diamonds – Primadonna

Sarah Dawn Finer's new single "Nu Vet Du Hur Det Känns" has gone right to #1 on iTunes this week. Good sign for the artist born on Melodifestivalen that she can be successful without participation in the contest. Does it mean that Sarah will be trying to get host position at Eurovision-2013 rather than to represent Sweden? I guess we'll see after her album release on October 30th.
Right now Sarah promotes her fresh single and along with it she has performed another new song "Balladen Om Ett Brustet Hjärta" in acoustic that you can listen below.

Sarah Dawn Finer has prepared a brand new album (which, like in case with Måns, we didn't get from her since 2009, only Christmas-releases) "Sanningen Kommer Om Natten" which is planned to be out in October and right now we get the first sneak peek - single "Nu Vet Du Hur Det Känns" written by Mauro Scocco.
Fans of schlager-Sarah should be ready for a big change of singer's direction as the song is a pretty melancholic Swedish ballad which goes with a traditional amount of drama in Sarah's music but still it has quite little to do with soul, pop and r'n'b music of the first albums. Anyway Sarah still can deliver her music very touching and she has proven it yesterday at Allsång på Skansen.

Swedish TV-channels keep presenting some nice music surprises and we've got pretty...unusual combination of artists from TV4. Shirley Clamp and Thomas Di Leva. Seems like this company was missing Dead By April to make idea of this concert even more weird but as Di Leva has become a new schlager-star and undoubtedly on the way to deliver new "Min Kärlek" we can see a point. TV4 has blocked whole concert from foreigners again so we can't watch everything Shirley has performed but still here are some videos appearing on youtube.

Kalle Moraeus is responsible for Christmas mood on SVT and he has got three incredible guests in a series of small acoustic performances you can watch online as well - Malena Ernman, Sarah Dawn Finer and Måns Zelmerlöw. We already start loving TV-Sarah and now absolutely sure she can be amazing host.

It's all about charity in Sweden these days and we should mention another track created for noble purposes in collaboration with Musikhjälpen, Hoffmaestro have come up with idea of recording song with everyone who wanted to get to their site and bring some vocal or instrumental contribution. As a result loads of well-known artists like Adam Tensta, Niklas Strömstedt, Sarah Dawn Finer, Linnea Henriksson, Armand Mirpour and many others have taken part in recording the song "Your Ways".
Hoffmaestro have finally presented "Your Ways" live in Musikhjälpen and it's exactly that special mix of raggae and ska with poppy tune and festive mood you could expect from them, loads of fun is attached as always when Hoffmaestro is in da house. You can check studio-version here.

Two grand non-schlager ladies of schlager-land and just old good friends Malena Ernman and Sarah Dawn Finer have come up with a cover of classic "Sankta Lucia (Strålande Helgonfé)" on their new compilation "En Riktigt God Jul" where they've gathered their best previously released Christmas songs and logically have made a duo.
If you're wondering how opera-singer and soul-artist can fit each other - after listening to it you're gonna be wondering why it is the only duo of Malena and Sarah as the song sounds like two music worlds united by two powerful voices and magic, soulful atmosphere of Christmas.
You can listen to this track streaming online in wonderful Schlagerfiasko advent calendar (clicking at December 9th) where you're also gonna get some other Christmas goodies (like for example Swedish Stereo's song of this Christmas at December 3rd).

Sarah Dawn Finer takes part already in the second charity company this autumn providing her grand vocal for release of the single to attract attention to human problems.
Few months ago Sarah has recorded the track "Song for the Forgotten" together with artists like LaGaylia, Patrik Isaksson, Carola and Daniel Lindström. Main goal of the release was to help people in Horn of Africa. And now she gets to another company. With Anna Sahlene, Afro-Dite's Gladys del Pilar and other artists they've come up for another single "One In A Million" to bring up the attention to St Clara church and problems of homeless people, volunteers of this church were always involved in this activity. Really nice soul-ballad with 90s sound and some amazing voices.

I've already told you about the newest Sarah Dawn Finer duo "Is Anybody There" with Samuel Ljungblahd premiered live in Nyhetsmorgon and promoting loads of new Christmas stuff to be delivered by Sarah this year.
Now the single was added to P4 radio playlist and below you can enjoy its full studio version.

Oh, we're starting to notice Sarah Dawn Finer on Swedish TV a lot lately and it's not even Melodifestivalen time when she'll be one of the hosts so virtually schlager-fans will spend almost two months with this gorgeous lady.
Sarah currently promotes her upcoming Christmas tour and compilation with Malena Ernman so below you can check her performance in Go'kväll with two of her covers from Christmas album "Winterland".

Right when I've posted this I've found another fresh Sarah's performance with Prince's "Sometimes It Snows In April" from "Winterland" album as well that Sarah has brought to TV4's Efter Tio.

The wait is over for Sarah Dawn Finer's fans as her new single "Is Anybody There" is on the way and the artist has presented it yesterday in Nyhetsmorgon studio with Samuel Ljungblahd.
Though we expected it to become something heavily Christmas inspired it has turned to be soul track closer to the first Sarah's album, quite melodic, a bit dramatic and absolutely enjoyable.
Next Friday Christmas compilation of Sarah and Malena Ernman "En Riktigt God Jul" should be released with some songs from the latest Christmas albums of both. Also both singers have recorded "Strålande Helgonfé" in duo, Malena has made a new cover to "Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle" and "Is Anybody There" will also be included.
Sarah has also performed two Christmas songs from "Winterland" - "Wintersong" and "Angel" and I should say that the first one was one of the most touching music moments for the recent few months for me. What an incredible voice!

I have a good news, not very good news and stunning news!
First of all we've got hosts of Melodifestivalen-2012 and I should say fantastic hosts - Sarah Dawn Finer (I bet no one expected Sarah as a host but what an amazing interval acts she can deliver!), Gina Dirawi (or Ana Gina - popular blogger I told you about in connection with Rebound's comic video for "Hurricane") and famous actreess Helena Bergström (some foreign hardcore-schlager-fans may know her by movie "Livet är en Schlager"). Incredible line-up as personally I adore Sara and Gina and though I didn't see loads of Helena I'm sure she's gonna be very nice and entertaining person.
Not that good news are that Never Alone haven't won webjoker contest. Instead Maria BenHajji (backing vocalist on MF and Allsång På Skansen in the past) has won with the song "I mina drömmar" which is not bad but is just too "Med hjärtat fyllt av ljus" to except some big breakthrough on actual contest. But songwriters' and Maria's dream to get to MF has come true so congratulations to the team.
The greatest news are that we're gonna know full list of songs and songwriters of MF already tomorrow!!! Newspapers like Aftonbladet and Expressen use to discover who's the most possible to perform this song not longer than in a day and usually guess around 80% of artists right so since tomorrow we're gonna get probably the hottest few days of all preparations period.
I should finish with something schlager-related and it's gonna be some schlager-covers of current Idol season, we've got two really worthy ones.

Världens barn is annual SVT event that raises attention to problems of kids all over the world and lets people send their donations during shows broadcasted on TV.
You should remember Molly Sanden premiering her new single on the first show's concert, later SVT has broadcasted big gala with loads of popular artists.
Ulrik Munther was singing two songs from his debut album, our sweetheart Linnea Henriksson performed new single "Väldigt kär/Obegripligt ensam", Danny was singing "Cassandra" (track he composed with E.M.D. colleague Mattias Andréasson), Sarah Dawn Finer who's back on Christmas tour this year was singing "I'll Be Your Wish Tonight" from her latest album, Elisa's performed new single "Jag säger som det är" (from Thomas G:Son and Henrik Sethson - team behind "Something In Your Eyes" and "In A Moment Like This"), rocabilly Top Cats delivered their schlager-reject "Heartache", opera diva Elin Rombo sang classic "O Mio Babbino Caro", you can also catch Marie Serneholt and Rennie Miro below.