Swedish~ Stereo~

Can brilliance be more brilliant? Well, if electropop-brilliance turns to club-brilliance it's the option. New truly amazing single from The Sound Of Arrows "Nova" gets remix-treatment from one of the biggest DJs of planet - Tiësto and the result sounds exactly as good as you can imagine if you heard original version of track and if you know what Tiësto is about. Best thing about it is that magic tune of "Nova" is all there wrapped in powerful club beats and tons of Summer open-air party atmosphere.
I'll remind you that the single is out on 25th April and contains also whole bunch of mixes from Almighty, due to ones I've heard they sound poppier than Tiësto's mix but still tune makes them pretty adorable.

Another Melodifestivalen background LED-video is unleashed and it's another result of creative activity of schlagerproffs Rickard Engfors for Sebastian Karlsson who's performed entry "No One Else Could" written by Seb with Andreas Alfredsson Grube.
It was Sebastian's comeback that after triumphal quialifying to the final of MF-2007 has gone wrong with leaving at 5th place but it doesn't deny the fact that the song was really good, maybe just to The Ark-ish? And we know that latest The Ark singles weren't too welcome. Or is it Hanna Lindblad's curse of 5th place? Seb definitely should've not taken 4 Hanna Lindblads on the stage, it wasn't right magic to use.

Roxette keeps spreading their new album "Charm School" across Europe and do it quite successfully, gathering #1 of album-charts in Germany and Switzerland and #2 in Austria and Sweden. Next stop is UK, the album was released there few days ago and "She’s Got Nothing On (but the Radio)" is the highest new entry at the UK Radio Airplay Chart so it gives a chance to band to get their performance at London's Wembley Arena on the 15th November sold out during Summer.
Band gets heavy support of all their huge fanbase and here we get video made by Tanya Rush for one of album tracks "No One Makes It On Her Own" that we can't miss, really beautiful and touching animation that makes us change our mind about the song that we liked but didn't feel like we do now.

Since last Autumn I told you about some really nice songs which pretended to become part of Melodifestivalen-2011 but now it feels like we've got the best schlager-reject of this year from an artist that we've discovered last Summer - Therése Neaimé.
In 2010 she has presented amazing Summer hit "All I Think About Is You" and now we finally get new single from Therése and it's "Lovers Lulluby" co-written with Lina and Mårten Eriksson (real MF-veterans who wrote Nordman's "I lågornas sken", Jessica Andersson's "Kom", Magnus Bäcklund "The Name of Love", etc.), this year they tried to breakthrough to MF again with Therése and though the song hasn't qualified (that we think is real shame as the song is fantastic!) it has become new official Therése' single and we can check it right now.
"Lovers Lulluby" is modern pop song with obvious influences of Eurovision pop from artists like Helena Paparizou and Timoteij where modern electronic sound meets loud folk-drums and epic key-change in a form of big schlager-song which usually become big fans-favorites and hopefully this track will also find international audience as it's really worth it and I hope you'll love it as well.

Not so long ago I told you about brand new single of Gravitonas and Roma Kenga "Everybody Dance" - result of international collaboration recorded both Moscow and Stockholm studios this winter via Skype communication! As it was announced first country to get release of new single will be Russia and the rest of the world later. Single includes three versions of the song - produced by Roma (we've heard this one before), by Gravitonas and by Adam Rickfors (radio, club and dub version). Now we can check Gravitonas' and Adam Rickfors' (radio and club) versions right here.
Comparing with Kenga's Gravitonas' version is more calm, poppier and disco-version with dramatic tune wrapped in dance-sound reminding BWO-stuff a bit, still very radio-friendly and pack of goodies for Swedish pop-fans. Adam Rickfors' version is massive club-mix with incredibly anthemic start turning to complete club-massacre that we undoubtfully love!
Alexander has also revealed that initially colaboration was planned with Morandi, it hasn't happened but obviously what have come out of their work with Roma really deserves to be proud of and shooting of video of forthcoming hit will be done in Moscow in late April.

New wave of world's demand for dance music has finally reached Sweden and happily we can find new promising dance-artists those we deliver right to you and one of them is new project Swedish Angels consisting of Denise "DeDe" Lopez and Jennifer Lopez (yep, we also like this name).
Probably you already know DeDe very well, she has started her music career in early 90s as backing singer and dancer with artists like Dr. Alban and Culture Beat. With the help of Cheiron team provided her with hits of that sound they were giving to stars like Britney Spears and N'Sync DeDe has become well-known outside of Sweden and 90s have turned to her one big highlight. In 2003 she has taken part in Melodifestivalen with the song "Someone, Somewhere, Someday" and later it was pretty silent around her before she has come back with new single "Turn You On" bringing her back to the top of chart and finally last year she has released new album "Black Lace & Leather" but solo-career wasn't enough for DeDe to make all her creative ideas come true and recently she has presented new project Swedish Angels - members of project should be hot Swedish female DJs presenting best of Swedish club music to the world, seems like DeDe has found another hot half of the project and you can already listen to new single "Swedish Angel" recorded with Charlie King's vocals.
DeDe has written the song with Niklas Pettersson who worked before with Velvet, Agnes and also has co-written newest Dilba's song "Try Again". "Swedish Angel" is right that sort of club-anthem you could expect from Swedish House Mafia but less aggressive, more melodic and poppier with really charming soft male vocal, very welcome pack for everyone who was waiting so long for new rush of Swedish dance-music!

Last week Stockholm celebrated new Britney Spears' album with release-fest and performance of main Swedish star-fan of Britney, there are actually two as I know - Sibel and Eddie Razaz (you could even watch Eddie on Idol auditions singing Britney's "Oops!...I Did It Again") so amazing Eddie was there to make really nice acoustic cover-performance with some big Britney's hits. As I wrote in my melotrip report I was lucky enough to meet Eddie and Rabih and to convince myself what a pleasant guys they are in life. Rebound have revealed that now their next aim is release of debut album and have performed their last single "Psycho", you can watch piece of it recorded by me below. As well don't forget to check beautiful new Rabih's cover of "The way you are".

Earlier this year we've got our beloved eurodance-star E-Type back 2 life with brand new single and bunch of enthusiastic plans regarding new stage of music career. Single was quite well commercially received and now video for the single "Back 2 Life" is out. Just like video for "Rain" released specially for UK it's a party video with loads of dancing girls, naked bodies and not so much of Martin, though maybe it's idea to hide Martin's age behind young girls we'd like to get more of Mr. E-Type's charisma and energy that (we know for sure) he has not less than 10 and 20 years ago. Still it's a good colourful party, quite qualitative to sneak into rotations of many European music channels and you're gonna enjoy it without any doubts.

New Sara Varga's album "Spring För Livet" is out on Wednesday. Just like Nicke I've mentioned in previous article, she was one of artists who has made breakthrough in Melodifestivalen-2011 with ballad "Spring För Livet" co-written with Figge Boström and sharp social theme of family violence. Not to miss right moment album is ready to be released and due to tracklist it's 100% Swedish 11-tracks album including (except main track "Spring För Livet") the song "Du gick" Sara has presented in the end of last year on her Myspace page and another one - "Vår stund" - also calm acoustic ballad sounding like sister of "Spring För Livet" so seems like everyone who liked Sara's contest song are not gonna be disappointed with this album. Check Sara's recent performance in Nyhetsmorgon with schlager-choir veterans Lisa Nilsson and Lars Hägglund.

New post-Melodifestivalen video is unleashed and now it's turn of Nicke Borg to present his work. This year Nicke was one of melo-sensations qualifying to the final and making Top-10 hit with the song "Leaving Home" co-written by him with Jojo Borg Larsson, Fredrik Thomander and Anders "Gary" Wikström. Just like the song video is dark and minimalistic with hologram Nicke used on the stage during his performance. Also recently Nicke has visited XL-Live to perform "Leaving Home" in acoustic and you can check this performance below as well.

Second season in a row musician wins Let's Dance season, after Måns Zelmerlöw winning first season of Let's Dance back in 2006 last year it was EMD's Mattias and now Jessica Andersson with her dance partner has taken this victory.
We're truly proud for Jessica, send our congratulations to her and share with you tonight's performances which helped her to win. Our favorite is showdance "I Will Survive/Hush Hush" with Jessica in stunning silver dress singing beginning of the song (yes, she's almost fallen but it's just a small detail), though bugg "Honey Honey" and slowfox "Pack Up" had so much charm as well!

Swedish House Mafia creative activity doesn't know limits, it's like they never disappear, don't they?
Axwell's releasing brand new single "Heart Is King" on April 4th and comparing with his previous works it feels like a bit new direction, I'm even not sure I could easily guess it's Axwell who stands behind this track.
"Heart Is King" is still club track basing on epic hymn-like tune bringing reasonable bunch of royalistic pathos in heavy club production, starting as electro-intro pulsing in crazy rhythm growing and growing to massive euphoric dancefloor filler.
I should mention as well that I LOVE cover-style and way visualization is done.

I hope no one's against starting morning with rush of schlager-energy with Charlotte Perrelli becoming guest of Den Flygande Mattan.
Charlotte has performed her main (no, due to us it's not "Tusen Och En Natt" though we love it as well) hit "Hero" and as it usually goes in this show piece of classic Swedish retro-music - Siw Malmkvist's song "Flickor Bak I Bilen".

It's always pleasant to find new names in Swedish melodic electro-pop music as lately we've got sort of lack of new exciting names but feels like we've got one who's gonna get our attention this season as new album of fresh project Vanbot is ready to be released on April 19th when we just get pretty tasty first peak from it - debut single "Make Me Break Me".
Vanbot is project of Ester Ideskog with the help of Sebastian Forslund's production. Ester's alter-ego Vanessa is tougher and fearless Stockholm girl with do-it-yourself attitude. And citing Vanbot's official biography "Vanbot are the songs that loves the synthesizer, lives for the nerv and longs to dance. Plenty of ideas recorded on the cell while biking fast through Stockholm, some finalized in the tiny room with the oversized worldmap where dreams can fly."
"Make Me Break Me" is delicate electropop-song that is more Isabel Guzman than Robyn to our ears with proper uplifting Spring energy flowing with multiple synths and high, a bit Aquaish vocal of Ester. Truly promising debut!
Thanx for the tip to Oswalds Popcorn.

Vanessa Falk has arrived to studio of Vakna! to perform her debut single "Private Party" today. Hope you haven't missed premiere of her single and video a bit earlier this year as hopefully it's gonna become hit this year. Vanessa has got to the spot and among her closer plans she makes performance at Saturday Earth Hour Show in Stockholm's Kulturhuset with J-Son, Love Generation and other artists, we won't be able to get there to hear Vanessa in acoustic but we'll be able to listen to her lovely performance in Vakna! studio right now.

Debut album of world's best Le Kid "Oh Alright" is planned to be released for the 1st of June and if this information is not enough excited for you to mark this post as interesting we already have tracklist of the album and we've got a bad and good news about it. Let's start from bad ones - following this band not first year it's just 2 new tracks we haven't heard before "Seventeen" and "Bigger Than Jesus". But there are really good ones as well - looking at tracklist we realize what a great pop-album it's gonna be and we're sure that for many who've discovered this band just after their participance in Melodifestivalen "Oh Alright" is going to become real pop-heaven.

New day and new rare demo of Melodifestivalen classic hit but the same Shirley Clamp again. I guess you remember that Shirley was working in choir of Melodifestivalen and you could see her involved in Eurovision circus already in 2001 when she performed with Antique who received their bronze for "Die for You". Though I've just realized that the song I'm gonna give you a tip about sounds just like a sister of "Die for You", doesn't it? I mean "Efharisto" written by Ingela Forsman, Bobby Ljunggren and Henrik Wikström and performed by Bosson at Melodifestivalen-2004. Shirley was on demo of the song but I guess she wouldn't complain this song has gone to Bosson. Both Shirley and Bosson have got to Second Chance but when Bosson was left there, Shirley has reached final with "Min kärlek", has taken silver and has got eternal hit.

Mohombi's album "MoveMeant" is out to the world and to the moment of the release we've heard already half of tracks which were pretty amazing. Arrived part of new tracks hasn't spoiled impression at all. Warm Carrebean happines of "Love In America", Summerish clubby europop of "Say Jambo", melodic poppy mix of r'n'b and raggaetone of "Lovin", recognizable trumpets of RedOne pop in rhythmic pop of "Do Me Right" and even huge romantic ballad "Match Made In Heaven" in a vein of Avril/Leona "I Will Be". Whole album was produced by RedOne and it clearly feels that album was treated like beloved child, polished and filtered to make fantastic international debut for Mohombi. Recently Mohombi has become opening act for Enrique Iglesias in Montreal and also (a little bit personal) when I was few weeks ago in Paris I was really proud to hear French version of "Dirty Situation" on the radio in one of souvenirs shops, you can enjoy it below with album's tracklist.

Few weeks ago disc with rare demos of Melodifestivalen was released in deluxe-pack celebrating 10 years of new schlager-era and as we expected it turned to be full of goodies which has started to leak already few years ago though and I think some of them worth separate article like for example demo Fredrik Kempe recording his hit of Melodifestivalen-2005 "Du och jag mot världen" (co-written by Fredrik with Bobby Ljunggren and Henrik Wikström) with Shirley Clamp, finally song was performed with another schlager-diva Sanna Nielsen and has reached the final (Sanna always does) but here we can check how it sounded initially (+ how it did later). Not that it's too different from what we've heard before but definitely Shirley brings her own personality into this track and itäs really interesting to listen.

Alcazar, how much this band means for Swedish pop fans and what a huge pauses with new stuff their fans should meet. Or maybe they're just too good to be expected too long? However amazing disco-trio has appeared again in first episode of new Så Ska Det Låta season, Tess and Lina already participated in last season but this time girls have arrived to the show with Andreas to fight with another grand band Style. Sure Alcazar are not musicians you should listen about, you must watch and listen to them yourself and you can do it right now checking this link with Så Ska Det Låta show and check few of their performances right below.

One of massive pop-discoveries of last year Gravitonas is ready to hit new markets and keep conquering hearts of new listeners, now trying to break through to East European audience guys have recorded brand new song with Russian popular artist Roma Kenga working as DJ befre and making big career of pop-artist in Russia last few years.
Future hit that they've recorded is called "Everybody Dance", it's dark electro-pop song with strong party spirit sounding on one hand quite recognizable with electro-filtered vocals and melancholic manner of singing but on the other hand it's something completely new, more commercial and melodically different leaving feeling of renewed project's sound and atmosphere. You can check the song yourself coming here and clicking over player's widget.

New Erik Hassle's 6-tracks album "Mariefred Sessions" is out on March 23rd, time to give it heavy promotion and Erik presents new video for the single "Are You Leaving" - pretty dark and thoughtful work (though the song doesn't suppose especially happy video) that you can already check below.

Earlier last week Erik has perfomed "Are You Leaving" and another album track "Stains" in Nyhetsmorgon, it's a bit hard to judge "Stains" as it mostly was performed in acoustic and I have doubts it will sound the same on album but if the song in common has such a tasty electronic and...hmmm... lazy in Kent's way sound as it goes from second chorus it's gonna be another really worthy track to look forward.

Next week long-awaited Carola's tribute album "Elvis Barbra & Jag" will see the light and today singer has visited Efter Tio studio to support release performing two of album tracks, both beautiful acoustic ballads with calm and spiritual performance.

Later yesterday Carola performed another album track "Enough Is Enough" at Let's Dance show giving on the other hand stunning disco-performance with loads of active choreography, charisma and perfect vocal.

This year we give victory in nomination Best Melodifestivalen remixes pack to... Loreen with mixes to her single "My Heart Is Refusing Me"! It's fine that it was delivered with a small delay, result has become worthy waiting. Three brilliant mixes - dark house-mix from Ali Payami, beautiful trance-mix from Michael Feiner & Eric Amarillo (The Attic) and club stomper from PJ Harmony. Our fave here is The Attic's mix with dreamy piano-keys switching to powerful dancefloor killer track that we've completely fallen for last weeekend in Stockholm.
I also recommend you to check very interesting Loreen's interview taken during Schlagerfiasko's melotrip, in this interview Loreen revealed that "Sober" that was earlier announced as next single can be replaced by another track "If She's The One". We don't care about choise actually because any new step of Loreen's career is gonna be exciting, inspiring and not less than amazing!

Melodifestivalen fever is getting calm, artists are going on tour to sell new released albums trying to stick into folk's memory not to waste such incredible opportunity.
Silver place of Melodifestivalen-2011 Danny Saucedo is back to his band EMD for upcoming tour and says he's not disappointed about not winning contest as it would mean real incredible hardworking closest months. Also he says EMD are going to send entry for next year MF so who knows - maybe it will be the winning song of next Melodifestivalen.
Right now promotion of Danny's new album "In The Club" in a full mode and one of songs that probably will make you interested if you haven't listened to this album yet is "Tonight" - drive-dance-pop track, pretty classic for Danny's previous albums but more mature sounding and featuring The Provider.

Big news for all fans of Alexander Bard. Alexander is going to be involved in next season of Swedish Idol as jury-member replacing Andreas Carlsson who decided to leave but still Anders and Laila Bagge together with Alexander and Pelle Lidell are on board. Does it mean that Alexander is aimed to hunt for some young talents for creating some new exciting music project? However it's gonna be really interesting to follow this Idol-track. Three seasons in a row we had jury giving standing ovations to winners with strong rock-voices but without proper commercial uniqueness to successfully move further after Idol so now we have a chance this situation will change.
Talking about current Alexander's project - Gravitonas, we've got fresh remix video for Video Violence Remix for single "Religious" and though this mix wasn't our fave in a pack, now we like it much more.

Could you refuse spending day with September? Though just for 30 minutes? No? I knew you couldn't! Me too.
SVT offers possibillity to go with Petra to ELLE awards, check music archive and make a small acapella performance on a street of Stockholm's Gamla Stan collecting money for Nacka music school in recent episode of Dom Kallar Oss Artister. The latest you can check right below but I recommend you to watch whole episode here.
Another my tip is Petra's performance with Martin Björk singing Oasis' Wonderwall. In the very beginning of September's career they did performance for tv-show together but we could check only very short episode, now you can enjoy it in full version.

If you thought there was too much of Robyn in 2010, it doesn't mean Robyn will get rest next year. No, we don't have news about her own material for now but we constantly keep getting results of her collaboration with other artists and freshest example is single "Cardiac Arrest" released by Teddybears. Band constantly worked on Robyn's music before, also performing with her live so you're not gonna be surprised by sound of this single, it's pretty recognizable track you could find on one of previous Robyn's albums, so come and get that "Cardiac Arrest", not literally sure!

Not sure if it's good idea to promote single so long like it's going on with Arash' "Broken Angel" but the song is quite good to get such a hard promotion all possible ways and remix that turned to be pretty worthy track with lovely dreamy piano keys mixed with aggressive delicious club-bass was truly welcome. Now when it gets video including pieces not only of "Broken Angel" but as well "Pure Love" video more people can discover it and that's definitely good.

Globen finalists Brolle and The Moniker unleash videos for their melosongs, to be more exact Brolle releases music video and The Moniker - LED-video shown during his live-performance, very nice and funny work with dancing mushrooms and Christer Björkman made by Rickard Engfors. Brolle's video is simple but pretty enjoyable, this is the song that really has grown on us after watching live performance so we give it a new chance, hope you too.
By the way new Brolle's album "Burned by the fire" will be released on April 20th, you can check cover above.

Hej everyone! I've got some happy news for those who thought that this blog has gone after complete silence whole week but it's back! Probably not in a full mode (because I'm still on vacation) but after my trip to Stockholm (and Paris) where I completely hadn't time for posting now I'll be giving you some news that I've missed last days or something that happens right now.
Highlights of last 2 days of my melotrip were meetings with:
- Linda Pritchard who was as sweet as last year and even sweeter (my pic with her wins award as my best pic with melostar second year in a row)
- Kristian Lagerström (songwriter behind MF-winning song-2010 "This Is My Life") who turned to be incredibly interesting, kind and just wonderful person, really hope we'll get a lot of releases from him in future to talk about!
- Linda Sundblad, and if you think you know how charming and sweet Linda is you don't have idea how much she is for real!!! I was lucky enough to get a visit to heart of schlager-universe Lionheart studio, do you imagine?! But to meet Linda I'm big fan of since Lambretta was completely mind-blowing, more mind-blowing was to meet her as good old friend next day on her very nice acoustic performance in Telia boutique with Karl-Ola from The Pusher - very talented guy who produced The Playtones' "The King" by the way.
- Rebound guys who performed their latest single "Psycho" in Globen Shopping mall making crowd of their fans around really wild and revealing to me their album is seriously on the way. Guys were as cool as I always expected, that's actually quite amazing that year before I've met my biggest female fave of Idol-2009 Erika Selin in that trade center and this year it was my two biggest male faves. Can I die happily now? I wouldn't...
Also was really happy to meet my beloved bloggers - legendary Schlagerprofilerna and Poplight, amazing Popdrömmen and new but very informative Schlagerbubblan.
Unfortunately Mf-winning song hasn't become one of my faves and otherwise I've fallen for "In The Club" even more so was sad about result but after visiting rehearsal for me it was obvious Eric will win the contest so it went like it went. I've tried to dance all sadness away few hours later on amazing club-gig where Dilba, Le Kid, Jenny Silver and Anniela have performed their MF and not only songs and I've managed to do it so my trip has got a happy end and I'm back to a regular life with loads of great Swedish music to come to my life for passing right to your ears and eyes!
This story end actually needs some lyrical attachment and I'll make it with acoustic version of Eric Saade's "Popular" and Anders Fernette's "Run". Hope you'll enjoy it!

Release that was awaited by many Linda Pritchard's fans quite long - her debut album "Alive" will be out on March 9th and due to tracklist and what we've heard already it's gonna be brilliant album containing mix of power ballads, r'n'b and rock-vibes and sure loads of pop-tunes from Oscar Görres and other loud names. Weird that single "Fast Car" wasn't included into it but we don't complain as we expect a lot more.
Today Linda has premiered acoustic-version of her latest single "Alive" for readers of Expressen and as you can expect with Linda's beautiful and strong vocal it sounds all sorts of amazing!

Melody Club presents first postmelovideo of this year for their single "The Hunter".
Last Saturday wasn't pretty successfull for the band when they haven't managed to qualify from MF-semifinal but this week band releases new album "Human Harbor", that we didn't listen to but are very intrigued by that as "The Hunter" has become truly stunning (and underestimated) comeback of this great band, video is pretty colourful, atmospheric and cosmic, we buy it all and hope you will too.

Samples of new album "In The Club" from melofavorite Danny are out on amazon so here you can get a first taste of it right below.
Album obviously gets much more international sound than previous albums, it's still Swedish pop but Swedish pop of new generation. Danny has made breaktrough internationally few years ago and it feels like exactly that growth on the album that's gonna turn heads of DJs playing previous Danny's hits to his new stuff. I already presented 4 songs of the album before and not once so let's take a look at the rest and it's a killer dance track "Tonight" featuring The Provider on a heavy drive and high tempo in recognizable Danny's style, powerful r'n'b ballad "In Love With A Lover" in "What Come Around Goes Around" style, "Never Gonna Take Us Down" featuring Swingfly - modern pop-song with anthemic chorus and slight taste of "Written in the Stars" and another ballad "Cassandra" - big emotional with slight Disney taste but still it's closer to r'n'b sound. Gorgeous pop-stuff, check yourself!

New day, new Melodifestivalen Andra Chansen participant to make acoustic performance in XL Live. This time it was Pernilla Andersson who visited studio today with her single "Desperados" that she'll try to get her ticket to Globen with already this Saturday. A lot of Pernilla's music is acoustic-based so no surprises it was very comfortable and nice performance. After "Desperados" Pernilla has also performed previous single "Som En Ö". You can check this mini-gig right below.

Do you remember week ago I told you about comeback of Sofia with brand new single "Vacancy" from Dimitri Stassos and Gerard James Borg? If not I'll remind you that she planned to participate with this song in Greek preselection to Eurovision but her entry unfortunately wasn't chosen and it's really pity as the song turned to be quite nice euro-schlager starting with big dramatic strings and massive etnhic drums and growing to loud Swedish disco-schlager with loads of passion and pain in voice at the same time. It's all sorts of goodies for Eurovision fans so I think it's pretty shame it hasn't got life as part of any perselection, we're waiting for Sofia in next Eurovision period and enjoying "Vacancy" in full length right now.

I really have nothing to say except OH MY GOD guys but this performance is far beyond amazingness to speak about! Le Kid today have presented title of their debut album "Oh Alright!" on their twitter but this oh-my-god-dance is currently washes down all the great news around the world by its fabulousness. Oh My God for real!