Swedish~ Stereo~

Yesterday main favorite of Melodifestivalen-2013 Ulrik Munther has qualified to the final expectedly becoming one of the top selling MF artists today. Anyway the final turns difficult for Ulrik and sharing audience will be quite unexpected bu Ulrik has two weeks to promote his song and he starts today premiering video that you can see below and also you can listen to the new track from his upcoming album "Rooftop" - "Glad I Found You".

David Lindren whose album has become #1 last year after his participation in Melodifestivalen is back this year to conquer Swedish audience again with his new EP "Skyline". Except "Skyline" and "Shout It Out" it contains 4 more tracks which sound like natural and quite good of David's sound created by company of well-known melosongwriters - Tony Nilsson, Fernando Fuentes, Sharon Vaughn, Dimitri Stassos.
I'd particularly mention "Back 2 Life" which feels like David v 2.0 and "Ignite" which is a bridge between Guetta and Tony Nilsson's production. Modern r'n'b ballad "Armageddon" is also what this EP needed. Though "Amnesia" feels quite weird and unnecessary but otherwise is a good contrast to show how good other tracks are.
You can listen to snippets of tracks here and watch David's performance in Nyhetsmorgon below.

After a months of waiting for "My Heart Is Refusing Me" video Loreen's fans has got a surprise - video for completely different album track "Heal". And no, it's not web-promo (that could be expected after "In My Head" was released as actual new single few days ago), it's a real postapocaleptically tragic lovestory video which is quite beter than "Euphoria" and the song works so much better with it.

Ulrik Munther has gathered some serious forces on his upcoming album "Rooftop" which is going to be released on March 6th - Erik Hassle, Christian Waltz and Andreas Mattsson helped him with songs and we can already get a sneak peek of one track - "Requiem".
Just like in "San Francisco Says Hello" you definitely feel the growth of Ulrik's sound, it's still his special American radio-pop direction but more dramatic and epic (darker version of "Fool"?).
This Saturday Ulrik performs at Melodifestivalen stage with the song "Tell the world I’m here" and in a current moment along with Yohio he's the biggest favorite of the competition. Already tomorrow we'll be able to check the snippet of his rehearsal and see if Ulrik's gonna meet all expectations.

Not so long ago I was telling you about Jonas Myrin's wonderful breakthrough in Germany with his grand pop-single "Day of the Battle" and this Saturday Jonas makes debut in Sweden as Melodifestivalen songwriter, he has co-written the song "Must Be Love" for Lucia Piñera with Peter Kvint.
Jonas has already become Swedish hero of the last Grammy awards winning Best Contemporary Christian Music Song as a songwriter of Matt Redman's "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)". Let's see if he'll be as successful in Swedish music competitions and let's enjoy his acoustic performance in Nyhetsmorgon.

Schlager-circus is back in town, this time this town is Skellefteå!
Last week we've got Sean Banan and Louise Hoffsten going to the final, Anton Ewald and duo of Erik Segerstedt and Tone Damli to Andra Chansen while Swedish House Wives have gone out of the game. Very disappointing but still we have more songs to be performed at melostage and let's check what this meloweek has for us.
Eddie Razaz has delivered dance-song with RedOnesque verses and epic club-production of choruses from "Euphoria" songwriters, one of our favorites!
Webbjoker Elin Petersson's acoustic ballad was upgraded by Salem al Fakir though you don't directly feel Salem.
Ravaillacz perform Irish pub-schlager which feels unexpected for Tommy Körberg big ballads.
Amanda Fondell makes dark utterly dramatic ballad with a retro feeling.
Martin Roolinski's performs dance-pop which is quite Modern Talking's "Brother Louie" and "Cheri Cheri Lady" and "You're My Heart, You're My Soul" and... But it's very BWO at the same time so BWO fans shouldn't complain.
State Of Drama makes lighter version of Dead By April's "Crossroads" and Hoobastank "The Reason".
Caroline Af Ugglas grows up tempo after her last participation but still it's very classic Caroline's dramatic album track.
And finally Janet Leon's participates with Agnes-pop, modern disco with a heavy production.
I find Eddie and Janet having the strongest entries this week though Amanda and Martin's songs are quite pleasant too. I expected more from Caroline and State Of Drama but they're not bad at all. But do we still have melowinner hiding in the 4th semifinal?

One of the most exciting newcomers of 2012 - voodoo-pop diva Nadia Nair presents video for her debut single "Bon Voyage". It's right that dark and atmospheric as the track and Nadia feels as hot and mystic as her voice. So we put this wonderful artist to the list of the biggest hopes of this music year and bring back the song on replay once again.

New song from Loreen has arrived!!! Though not completely arrived, collaboration of Loreen and Kleerup for Kleerup's new album was revealed back last summer and lately the song was presented to media.
Today you can already check beautiful acoustic version of the song "Requiem Solution" and it's basically exactly that sort of utterly touching dramatic pop you can expect when Loreen does acoustic versions of her own stuff. Loreen brings back her magic and warm up excitement about this track to come out very soon.

Hurricane Love's latest single "Only Human" finaly gets a video-treatment and right as nice as the song which can be a quite proper spring soundtrack or is it just me trying to catch spring inspiration in music?
Anyway band keeps working on their stuff and I also recommend you to check their acoustic version of "Only Human" below.

Quite bright discovery of Swedish pop in 2013 Noonie Bao releases new single "The Game" from her debut album "I Am Noonie Bao" and I start feeling like I've missed one of actually best releases of the year sounding like a mix of Robyn, Tove Styrke and many other representatives of new Swedish electronic-pop generation in a more holistic and mature pack.
If you didn't hear Noonie Bao here you can have a beautiful start of knowing her. Charming electronic production with an atmospheric percussion and direct beautiful pop-tune sounds quite fresh and more than lovable.

The second bunch of Melodifestivalen-2013 artists is on the way to compete in today's semifila and what do we have this time?
Fredrik Kempe has unexpectedly prepared the song for Anton Ewald that we could expect from some modern Swedish club-act doing pop-single. Fredrik's best dance-song since... Andreas Wijk's "Like My Style"? Probably. And Anton looks like Andreas' brother, no?
Sean Banan makes follow-up of previous melo-single of the same direction.
Louise Hoffsten presents country-pop-rock that she could easily release back in 90s.
Rikard Wolff is in with minimalistic theatrical ballad.
Erik Segerstedt and Tone Damli join forces for a cute county-pop ballad.
Joacim Cans will surprise audience with completely non-hardrock folky indie.
Swedish House Wives sing Brittish girlsband track sounding like a big schlager-mix of "Judas" and "The Edge Of Glory".
Newcomer Felicia Olsson makes a beautiful soul-ballad breathing with both Alicia Keys and Maria Haukaas (the last one has actually written it).
My pop-heart in this line-up melts while listening to Anton and Swedish House Wives. But Erik and Tone have definitely turned quite pleasant in a full length studio record. Felicia sounds quite impressive too. But it's all about the first ones! So let's put entries on replay and wait for the semifinal.

While the pause in Rebecca & Fiona's releasing history has turned quite enough to miss girls' new stuff duo has presented their brand new track "Taken Over" recorded with Style Of Eye and the video that you can check below.
Both fans of Rebecca & Fiona going clubby and those who like Adrian Lux's atmosphere of their music won't be disappointed, project finds its sound and goes a bit more mature and heavier in it.

Yesterday we've got the first melofinalists of this year and it was unsurprisingly but rightfully David Lindgren and Yohio.
As I said David has delivered the most complete pack giving everything he was expected to give and growing enough this year but the biggest breakthrough was made by Yohio, he has delivered powerful performance, properly energetic and colourful. After I've heard the song it has become my semifinal's favorite and Yohio has made 200% out of it on the stage. Looking at Aftonbladet's poll we can almost don't have doubts he has won semifinal.
I'm also glad that my second favorites Cookies N Beans have qualified, their expressive, emotional performance with "Burning Flags" definitely was their new artisitic step. Eric Gadd also has got a pretty nice spring entry I'd like to put on repeat if I visited this year's schlager-Stockholm in March.
Unfortunately Michael Feiner and Caisa's song hasn't qualified becoming 6th (Mary N'diaye was 5th, Anna Järvinen - 7th and Jay-Jay Johanson - 8th) but it's still one of the best things coming from solo-members of The Attic and I hope this wonderful duo will keep working together.

Though I've put a blog to a slower tempo, you can always feel my presence on twitter and you know that I'm somewhere close when Melodifestivalen season is on.
The first bunch of Melodifestivalen is finally delivered ready to compete for the tickets to Friends Arena tonight.
This week David Lindgren is coming back with "Shout It Out" follow-up, sounding more mature and a bit smelling with SHM's "Save The World" (though probably with not as instantly sticking chorus but with a tougher production).
Michael Feiner and Caisa perform wonderful The Attic-sounding dance-anthem with saxophone.
Yohio surprisingly makes Cinema-Bizarre-goes-schlager-rock track.
Mary N'diaye is doing afro-dance track out of "Waka Waka" family.
Eric Gadd leaves his soul-past behind to explore Oscar Linnros-style.
Anna Järvinen though being compared to Caroline af Ugglas-2009 sounds quite Anna Maria Espinosa to me but looking at press hailing it seems like she has much bigger chances.
Jay-Jay Johanson performs the song which could be one of his non-MF singles though quite stronger and lighter than usual.
Cookies N Beans has Fredrik Kempe-penned song looking like a distant dramatic country-relative to Fredrik's Moving On/Alive/Hollow. Particularly production of bridge sounds very Hollow.
In this bunch my The Attic-loving heart falls instantly for Michael Feiner and Kempe-drama of Cookies N Beans. But David has prepared the most complete pack this week and I do like a spring Linnros-mood of Eric's song. But after listening to full versions I'm completely team Yohio. Really worthy piece of schlager-rock with amazing dramatic verses and pretty catchy choruses (and Yohio is already #3 by final winning odds by the way). So this is pleasant line-up, not as strong as it could be but some good stuff to stick into a player is there.
P.S. If you've missed the most awesome annual schlager-photoshooting, download fresh QX and enjoy this year's participants like you've never seen before!