Swedish~ Stereo~

Long awaited opening ceremony of Stoclkholm's Friends Arena has attracted a lot of truly big names of Swedish pop presenting mostly their fresh stuff. Loreen, Danny, Icona Pop, Roxette, Tommy Körberg, First Aid Kit and Agnes were among the first artists trying the scale of stadium. And surely it has turned quite impressive + 1) exciting as next year's Melodifestivalen final will be having these epic scales 2) sad as next year's Eurovision will not.
The whole show is blocked abroad but here are the most interesting separate performances leaked on Youtube.

New Danny Saucedo's single hasn't taken too long to be released after "All In My Head" and this time it's a long-awaited collaboration of Danny and his colleague by True Talent Tommy Körberg "I Can See Myself In You" that was written by not less than ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus and Tobias Gustavsson ("Jennie Let Me Love You", "Radio").
Young dance-pop singer joining old schlager-icon to perform anthemic classic ballad from legendary Swedish songwriter, where did we see it already? Ah, right, Agnes and Björn Skifs doing Jörgen Elofsson's "When You Tell the World You're Mine". But "I Can See Myself In You" has even bigger orchestral arrangement moving from dramatic piano intro to even more dramatic epic heights with a Nordic folk-touch. Song will be performed at Friends Arena opening on October 27th, the event whish should be broadcasted by SVT at 20.00 by local time. Among other guests you'll be able to see Loreen, Roxette, Agnes, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Icona Pop and many others.
You can check "I Can See Myself In You" below skipping at 13.20.

Seems like this year all Christmas releases will be out spontaneously and unexpectedly and here we get another example - new Jill Johnson's "Välkommen jul" released in collaboration with Childhood charity organization (last year it was Måns Zelmerlöw who has released his "Christmas With Friends" in the same collaboration). So you'll be able to find "Välkommen jul" only in ICA shops.
Album was recorded with Gävle symphony orchestra and due to presented sampler it's gonna be classic Christmas album with huge orchestral sound and Tommy Körberg with Stefan Sundström as featuring guests.

Few weeks before TV4's classic autumn Idol show TV3 starts its own chase for fresh artists in new programme True Talent. The concept is pretty different comparing with Idol but pretty similar to a new The Voice show becoming popular worldwide. It's all about a vocal, first of all members of jury (Danny, Pernilla Andersson and Tommy Körberg) have chosen candidates by sent demos and yesterday it was a turn of public separated by three sectors (of different age categories - 9-19, 20-49, 50-100) and voting for every of performer to decide how true these talents are.
Personally we were positively shocked to see Anna Nordell (Engh) among performers, we're completely in love with this artist and though yesterday Anna was crying from happiness more than singing, we forgive these emotions and wish loads of luck to her!
Among other candidates we also liked Gonzalo Yanez, Sofia Olsson and Sara Kreft a lot. You can check whole show here.

Allsång På Skansen starts new era with new host Måns Zelmerlöw and first episode has got two Swedish international stars - Danny and September, Benny Andersson's Orchestra with Helen Sjöholm, Tommy Körberg and Kalle Moraeus and Lunds studentsångare ensemble as lovely bonus.
Fantastic September performed probably the biggest hit in Sweden of this and last year "Mikrofonkåt" with new "Party In My Head" and Evert Taube's "Så Skimrande Var Aldrig Havet". Danny was singing two of his latest singles - "In The Club" and "Tonight" and making two fantastic covers of "Vart ska vi sova i natt" and "Sverige" with Måns. BAO team has performed three songs from the newest album - "O klang och jubeltid", "Allt Syns När Man Är Naken" and "Kära syster" (all three songs are written by Benny and Björn by the way). Sure Måns hasn't missed expectations, showing the best of his vocal and charisma and there's no doubt that he'll lift this year's show with the help of many amazing artists. You can watch whole show here.

Fourth year in a row TV4 has shown Humorgalan as common project with UNICEF to collect money for kids in need around the world and as it happens every year some popular artists visit the show to attract attention of the bigger audience.
This year among guests you could see Tommy Körberg, Ison & Fille with Aleks, Simone Moreno and Jennifer Brown, Divine and Melodifestivalen Pernilla Andersson with cover of "Nothing Else Matters" but what has caught us for real was Stephen Simmonds' performance with MGMT cover of "Kids" - song that we shamelessly completely have missed in its original version but with Stephen's voice it has become so warm and touching. Stephen definitely should appear more often on TV, we can't get enough of this amazing artist.

Dear followers of Swedish Stereo, warmest congratulations to you in the first day of new year! This year was really happy for our blog, we've just started in May but already have got thousands of visitors, positive responses from our beloved artists and the main thing - we've got you, our friends who share interest and passion about everything regarding Swedish music and that's what keep Swedish Stereo going and coming into New Year with bright hopes and huge excitement. I wish New Music Year already have something interesting for you - great news from amazing artists, those ones you love long time and some new ones - artists you don't know yet but you will know about them with us. So happy new year once again and here's something for you - our new page on Facebook - liking it you'll be able to get our updates and news right in your Facebook newsfeed so feel free to join!
Finally I'd like to share incredible song that celebrates 30 years - all this time people around the world have it as the biggest classic New Year celebration soundtrack and it just can't go out of fashion. Sure I'm speaking about ABBA's "Happy New Year" and here's fresh performance of Tommy Körberg and Sarah Dawn Finer with this song in Skansen (+ performance of Tommy and Sarah with cover of Kent's hit "Sverige").

When Allsång På Skansen was losing its viewers previous weeks Anders Lindin's biggest rival Lotta Engberg has lost something more important - voice, right before the final show - during programme, how catastrophic! It turned worse and worse every time she started to read her text and finally she ended up standing behind Jill Johnson who was asked to finish show instead of Lotta, you can watch full drama here. But thanx God she has recovered closer to the last show and closed season of Lotta På Liseberg-2010 with all usual expression and charm.
Let's see who was invited to last shows in Liseberg. Firstly it was Timoteij who performed both of their hits "Kom" and "Högt över ängarna", girls were sweet as always. Eric Gadd who recently released new album "Rise Up!" (peaking at #6 of Swedish chart) that I'd like to tell you about soon presented last single "Rise Up!" and his old hit "My Personality". Måns Zelmerlöw and Maria Haukaas Storeng as always perfectly performed their collaboration "Precious To Me" (how pity it hasn't become hit in Sweden yet). Lill-Babs have sung Carlene Carter's old song "Full orkan". One of the biggest public favorites Andreas Johnson performed his biggest international hit "Glorious" and single-2006 "Sing for me". Cookies n Beans have pleased people with their unique voices and songs "First we take Manhattan" and "Kings & Queens". Melodifestivalen-winner Anna Bergendahl presented her platinum single "This is my life", song "Got my heart in your pocket" from her debut album, Robert Broberg's cover "Båtlåt" and duet with Jill Johnson "Why do you come in here looking like that" - Dolly Parton's cover that Jill released 3 years ago with Nina Persson. Jill also was singing Eagles' cover "Desperado" and Ted Gärdestad's "Oh vilken härlig dag". And Rigo performed summer set of "La bamba", Claes-Göran Hederström's "Det börjar verka kärlek banne mig" and "Stockholm ström" in his own original style. Last show featured Eric Saade who was singing three of his singles "Manboy", "Break Of Dawn" and "Masquerade", Caroline af Ugglas presented new songs "Du får tycka om mig" and "Vill kunna säga förlåt" from her new album planned for release in September and Tommy Körberg has been singing Astrid Lindgren's "Fattig bonddräng" and Neil Diamond's "Red red wine".