Swedish~ Stereo~

Yesterday Sweden celebrated 33th Birthday of Princess Victoria.
Every year Royal family and a lot of most respectable artists are invited to a big concert devoted to this day. This year was a little exception as Princess after her recent marriage was in her Honeymoon trip but all the rest of the family attended concert in Öland.
Concert was opened by Swedish pop-queen Charlotte Perrelli looking and sounding real fierce with Tina Turner's cover "River Deep Mountain High" and Sofia Karlsson's "Nu är det gott att leva". Another big schlager-name and newlywed Peter Jöback performed his own songs "I Allt Jag Ser", "En sång om oss" and The Divine Comedy's "Absent Friends". Gorgeous pop-diva Lisa Nilsson (who just like Peter was performed this year on the concert devoted to royal wedding) performed songs "I Samma Andetag" and "Himlen Runt Hörnet" which were included in her newly released compilation. Melodifestivalen-winner Martin Stenmarck performed his new single "Everybody's Changing" and "Som En Vän" from the album "I Septemberland". One of the most popular Idol-graduates Amanda Jenssen performed "I Choose You" from her last album. Schlager-veterans were diluted with young schlager-blood of Eric Saade who presented his biggest hit "Manboy". And I should also mention very nice performances of school cello-quartet from Lilla Akademin and fiddler Görgen Antonsson. Check whole concert here.

Swedish pop- and soul-queen Sarah Dawn Finer has released her devotional single "Kärleksvisan" for princess Victoria's wedding that she performed previous week on a big concert right before the wedding. This is incredibly touching acoustic ballad that appeared first time on the last golden Sarah's album "Moving On" in English version as "For A Friend" and later as soundtrack of Swedish film "Så Olika" in new Swedish version. Right after release this single reached 2th place of iTunes (special Agnes' and Björn Skifs' wedding song still holds #1 hard). Currently Sarah's preparing her next album that will be out on the first week of November and will be mostly acoustic due to her own words. I'll remind you that star of Sarah Dawn Finer has risen up in 2007 after ultra-successful debut with beautiful soul-ballad "I Remember Love" that came fourth in the final of Melodifestivalen (that is realy huge success for artist not well-known for wide audience who released only one EP "Sarah Dawn Finer" before), the song sold gold, became a massive radio-hit and debut Sarah's album "A Finer Dawn" peaked at #2 of Swedish chart. Sarah came back to Melodifestivalen in 2 years this time with heart-breaking pop-rock song "Moving On" written together with Fredrik Kempe and amazing show causing loads of tears of touched audience. The song came 6th in the final but again became one of the biggest radio-hits of the year and new album "Moving On" has reached #1 and sold gold. Recently Sarah finished her sold-out tour and ready for a new stage of her music life with a new album.

Swedish music lovers keep enjoying by all the music stuff and events currently being held in Stockholm and yesterday everyone could've got a pleasure to watch a great concert in Konserthuset with some top-artists and surprisingly alive responsing audience, Victoria herself was incredibly charming and beautiful, but don't worry if you've missed it, you still can enjoy it here. You can find some really brilliant performances there. For example Sarah Dawn Finer performing her beautiful new single "Kärleksvisan" (Swedish version of song "For A Friend" from her last album), Salem al Fakir with his new devotional song "All Day Love" (that you can download for free on this site if you'll manage to be one of the first 5000) and magical charming performance, Lisa Nilsson with her version of Kent's song "Utan Dina Andetag" (that really loked like my personnal discovery of this artist who seems like a real classics of Swedish music), Peter Jöback with his cover Charles Aznavour's "She", Malena Ernman with some absolutely brilliant performances proving her like a real Goddess of the stage, Roxette with their comeback to a big stage, performance of "The Look" and standing ovations and other performances of Helen Sjöholm, The Real Group, Jazz Divas of Scandinavia (Cæcilie Norby, Silje Nergaard, Rigmor Gustafsson), Lars Cleveman, Magnus Uggla and others. You can check some of these performances below.

Darin's releasing another devotional single "Can't Stop Love" for Victoria's marriage written by Tony Nilsson, very beautiful modern huge ballad that you can listen here, if you like Darin's ballads you should be totally satisfied with this song!

And don't forget to check some performances from Bröllopsstudio, you can enjoy by some amazing covers from EMD, Carola and Fibes, Oh Fibes!

Incredibly exciting news! Due to Aftonbladet famous songwriter and producer Jörgen Elofsson has written song for Agnes and Björn Skifs, it will be performed in church during wedding of Victoria and Daniel Westling on June 19th. Aftonbladet's source reports that the song is typical Eloffson's Beyoncé-style ballad in English and the single will be released right after wedding (by the way Agnes career has started back in 2005 with amazing Jörgen Elofsson's ballad "Right here Right Now" - song that Agnes won Idol with).

Charlotte Perrelli and Magnus Carlsson keeps promoting their devotional song "Mitt Livs Gemål" for Victoria and finally audience could watch them live on TV, very beautiful performance at it's supposed to be! You can also check interview with them here.

Recently Charlotte Perrelli and Magnus Carlsson announced about their plans to record the song devoted to princess Victoria's wedding and Monica & Carl-Axel Dominique were announced as songwriters behind the song. Finally this collaboration turned to be a new maxi-single "Mitt Livs Gemål" containing instrumental and english version ("My Heart's Desire") of the song. Also you can find another song "Tillägnan" (and its instrumental version) classic wedding march written by Monica Dominique and Lars Forsell before, you can listen to the song here. Regarding "Mitt Livs Gemål" as it was supposed it didn't turn to schlager but to classic Swedish big ballad that's gonna be very nice wedding soundtrack and not only for royal couples.

Just a few weeks left before one of the main cultural events of this year in Sweden - marriage of princess Victoria and Daniel Westling and Stockholm's already preparing for this royal celebration. This Sunday when Sweden will be celebrating National Day (as always with some exciting open-air concerts in Stockholm) 2-weeks festival LOVE Stockholm 2010 will start with different activities all over the city and will finish on 19th June in a day of Victoria's wedding. These days Stockholm will see performances of artists like Darin, Carola, Alexander Rybak, Anna Bergendahl, Timoteij, Salem Al Fakir, Erik Grönwall, Orup, Martin Stenmarck, Moto Boy, Ola, Cookies N Beans, Shirley Clamp, Anne-Lie Rydé, Sanna Nielsen, Fibes, Oh Fibes!, Alice Svensson, Rebound, Nanne, Rigo, Amy Diamond. Check information about festival here and watch trailer of festival with Linda Sundblad's "Making Out" as soundtrack.