Swedish~ Stereo~

After all post-Amazing singles of Danny Saucedo who seemed to try pretty every possible direction from hip-hop to almost schlager-ballad last year the artist has finally chosen his path. New Danny's album is going to get a Spanish flavour and today Danny premieres his brand new single "Todo El Mundo (Dancing In The Streets)" which showing what he actually means.
The song was co-written by J-Son, Jakke Erixson and Oscar Holter and it's a big summer track with Mediterranean rhytms not sounding directly like anything Danny did before and it's a pretty good thing that he has mannaged to make this step aside still staying pop all the way.

Brand new David Lindgren's album "Ignite The Beat" is out next week! Though we've already heard 5 songs on previously digitally released EP the album will give us 4 more tracks (+ intro). New songs have some amazing teams behind - it's Thomas G:son/Peter Boström's collaboration "Breakaway", Robin Stjernberg's "You" songwriters meeting Fernando Fuentes and Anton Malmberg Hård Af Segerstad and also two songs co-written by Darin.
Today we can check one of Darin's tracks - "Move That Thing", the song was co-written by Tony Nilsson and basically you can feel Tony very well - the track is quite Nilsson's modern disco-pop with a big beat, high energy and tasty production. You can already hear Darin doing backing vocals which is always a good bonus.

Zara Larsson has become a latest pop-sensation of Sweden, 4 of 5 songs from her debut EP has charted and the first single "Uncover" has gone platinum (official video on youtube has also gathered 3 million views). New EP is going to be released soon and here's the first sneak peek of it - new track "She´s Not Me (Pt.1)" which is in the way of "Uncover" is quite minimalistic not overproduced ballad where Zara's voice and beautiful tune are main things supposed to work and they actually work!

Linda Pritchard who has released her debut album 2 years ago was constantly in the spot but basically her "Wicked Game" cover and "Little Christmas Tree" were the only treatments we got from her.
Today Linda has presented a piece of the new song which is gonna be release on her upcoming album and what a nice surprise it has turned to be! "Be Like You" is a grand electronic reincarnation of Linda we knew before, wonderfully produced track grows from an epic ballad intro to a big dubstep-inspired (but not directly dubstep, it's more original and poptastic step aside) chorus with a high energy and loud vocals.
Skip at 18.50 and enjoy!

This year's Melodifestivalen final has turned to complete male and mostly rock dominance. All female schlager-(or ok, pop)power was left in semifinals and Carola has become the only saviour to fix it. She has definitely become a queen of the night with a dance-version of "Främling", the hit her grand career has started with 30 years ago at Melodifestivalen. Surely the pack wasn't intended to smash world dancefloors, just to schlageristicaly bomb the event and it has become a big highlight with an epic sing-along final part with arena. The track is also released as a single, let's enjoy it once again.

Nine years have passed since Agnetha Fältskog's latest album "My Colouring Book" and now legendary lady comes back with a new album recorded with support of Jörgen Elofsson. The first single "When You Really Loved Someone" has got video premiere today and what should we say about it?
It's a modern ballad with a bit tired country mood but properly contemporary sound, at least comparing with Agnetha's previous music. It's very Jörgen and quite beautiful, proper comeback for new Agnetha.

The biggest comeback of Melodifestivalen-2013 - Army Of Lovers reunion hasn't ended up with a proper success, the band hasn't qualified to the final with their new single "Rockin' The Ride" but expectedly has made a lot of buzz in media finally replacing La Camilla with Dominika and announcing release of new compillation "The Big Battle of Egos".
Except old hits and "Rockin' The Ride" compillation will include covers of Malena Ernman's "Tragedy", BWO's "Love Came Crashing Down" (as "Crashing Down") and the next single "Signed On My Tattoo" featuring Gravitonas.
Right now band is still active with promoting the first single and Alexander Bard expectedly supports new release with a bunch of mixes from Soundfactory, NORD and Madax that you can check here.

Though Loreen has cancelled her long-awaited "My Heart Is Refusing Me" we get already the second new video and this time it's for her beautiful collaboration with Kleerup "Requiem Solution". It's another dark and amospheric video breathing a bit with Kleerup's previous work with Titiyo but still the song feels so naturally Loreen and would definitely be a nice bonus on singer's own debut album.

Though winning Melodifestivalen from the first semifinal looked possible only for such a monster hit like "Euphoria" unexpected flops of the most of possible favorites have made Yohio the biggest favorite of the final - by odds, polls and he also does very well on iTunes.
The final has become a very tight competition of pop-guys and even with glam-rock song Yohio is going to play on the same field and results will be hardly predictible. But today the main favorite of Melodifestivalen makes a new promo-step presenting video for his melloentry "Heartbreak Hotel".

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!

While waiting for the new album Da Buzz keeps presenting some exciting fresh stuff and here's the another song premiered today "Touch My Soul" and no, it's not a dance track. At least in a way we can expect from Da Buzz. It's much more electropop with a big beat and anthemic dance tune, you know this band can do some glorious ones.

When have we seen Carola on TV last time? Singer has temporarily slowed down working tempo giving more time to her adopted daughter Zoe. But due to rumours we're gonna have Carola back to pop-career next year and SVT wants to have her involved in Melodifestivalen and/or Eurovision somehow. But while it's unclear Carola has visited today's cinematographic Guldbaggen awards to amaze the audience with her decollete while handing over awards and to perform Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" (in another dress) in a memory of famous Swedish people working in cinematographic industry and gone in 2012.

Zara Larsson finally releases her debut EP "Introducing" and since release of the first single "Uncover" interest to Zara has gone from zero to some highest heights not only in Sweden but she's got a pretty huge attention across Scandinavia. While both "Uncover" (which since December has got around 1,5 million youtube views) and EP have become #1 on iTunes in Sweden, the single and EP have entered Top-100 of Finland and Norway.
My comparison of Zara with Rihanna wasn't in vain. Mostly it's connected with Zara's strong, hard but at the same time emotional voice which is difficult to associate with anyone else. But as well "Introducing" mostly explores successful formulas of Rihanna's trends. And it's still the songs Rihanna could release today! But as it's getting harder in modern Sweden to succeed working in mainstream pop-genres breaking through cases deserve attention especially.
Except big dance Guettaesque "When Worlds Collide" EP has also included nice hip-hop experiment "Under My Shades", gorgeous dance-killer "It's A Wrap" and heavy electropop "In Love With Myself". EP sounds like a half of what could be Sweden's top-album of 2013 and I do hope soon we'll have another half!
You can listen to radio-premiere of "In Love With Myself" skipping at 10.10.

Though Darin's new album "Exit" expectation of which is getting warmed up by new presented snippets is gonna be released just in a week here we can check his brand new single for Germany "So Yours" which surprisingly wasn't included in announced album tracklisting but anyway is a very nice turn of Darin's music direction.
"So Yours" moves in a vein of Disney's boyband-soundtrack, Jedward, One Direction... there are many who could adopt this track but it was Darin and we'll see how good it will go for him in this genre.
Also don't miss snippets of few other tracks from "Exit" - "Check You Out" and "Same Old Song".

One of the biggest Swedish music radio-awards P3 Guld 2013 was held yesterday constantly including some original performances of popular artists.
This year Linnea Henriksson has become the artist of the year and Icona Pop have made a song of the year "I Love It", Norlie & KKV have become newcomers of the year (you can check full list here) and all of them presented their hits live (Norlie & KKV were in with the new single). Loreen and Alina Devecerski as big breakthroughs of 2012 have already given quite atmospheric nice performance so you shouldn't miss them!

In the pack of the second single "Sannignen" from Petra Marklund's platinum album "Inferno" we've got not only the video presented few days ago but EP with remixes from Alaa and Punchy.
While Alaa has delivered clubbier dance-sound, Punchy remix has got a juicy electronic production. You can check both of them below.

Recently I told you about Miriam Bryant's new single brilliant single "Push Play" and today Miriam has visited Nyhetsmorgon to perform it along with previous single "Finders Keepers". Miriam's live performances are not any less enjoyable than studio records so it's really worth checking!

Andreas Moe holds the path of beautiful acoustic pop releasing new EP "This Year" today and premiering video for the title track.
Just like three other tracks (you can get a sneak peek of them on Andreas' soundcloud) this is calm, intimate track based mostly on vocal and acoustic guitar which is quite enough for listener to get into a magic atmosphere of Andreas' music.

Today Darin presents new single "Playing With Fire" and it's definitely gonna be a center of attention after a buzz the artist has made in the latest season of Så mycket bättre.
The song is a nice surprise for all fans of "Flashback" album as it sounds like that RedOne stuff properly updated and moving to its own dance-area with a growing heavy electronice dance-verse turning to repetitive catchy chorus. Very radio-friendly track and nice sneak peek of the album "Exit" which is out already on January 30th.

Not only Erik Segerstedt makes promotion of solo-stuff few weeks before Melodifestivalen, his partner in crime Tone Damli who have recently released fresh single "Smash" tries to push it in Sweden.
Lately she was in VAKNA! radio-show doing a very nice acoustic version of the song and it sounded quite beautiful and touching. You can enjoy this performance below.

Quite expectedly "Sanningen" has become the next Petra Marklund's single succeeding very well after "Händerna mot himlen".
Big dramatic electro-ballad has got a video premiered today on Aftonbladet's site and this is probably Petra's darkest video ever. Song was written by Jocke Berg and in a pack with this video you can feel Kent's atmosphere even better.

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.

Today Erik Segerstedt presents video for his new single "Meaning" which has turned to be Gavin DeGraw's cover anyway sounding too different from original. As the song the video is quite dark and minimalistic but has a nice atmosphere.

State of Drama are this year's newcomers who have appeared in schlager-land out of nowhere but I have a feeling this band can go pretty far even being in a semifinal of death (with Eddie Razaz, Amanda Fondell, Janet Leon and many other utterly dangerous competitors).
Today I've got something for this feeling to get a bit stronger. Track "Go" was published this summer on Soundcloud-channel of the band and it's an epic pop-rock song with a massive boyband-smelling chorus almost blowing you away by its expression. You should also check another band's track "Are We Still Ok" I was writing about before and this cut of band's songs (including "Can't Find You Anywhere") which I believe will be released on the album "Fighter" to be out soon.

Dada Life's album has become a bright and long-awaited release in Swedish club music last year including some more tracks screaming to become new singles and the one screaming louder was "So Young So High" that I was writing about before.
The single has now got the video of not so young but definitely high energy wild party that you can enjoy right here right now!

Three years have passed since Jessica Andersson's debut album "Wake Up" release which hasn't turned schlager-disco as many MF-fans hoped and it seems like the second album which is planned to be out this Spring is going to surprise as well.
Recently Jessica have presented brand new song "Ge Inte Upp" which is going to be on the album live in Bingolotto and it has become a nice schlager pop-rock, something suiting old Linda Bengtzing's albums but this pack is milder, more dramatic and quite promising.

Oh my God! Da Buzz has premiered the first video for eternity, it's made for band's latest grand single "Tomorrow", quite dark and minimilastic but Annika is looking great, sounding great and the song is one of the most poptastic singles of 2012 so enjoy it below!

Completely unexpected but truly wonderful surprise from Erik Segerstedt. As you know in a few weeks Erik participates in Melodifestivalen with Tone Damli but already now he starts promotion with a new song and no - it's not another duo with Tone.
New Erik's single "Meaning" sounds basically like nothing he released before. It's dark piano-based minimalistic ballad with a heavily filtered vocals making the whole concept close to Imogen Heap's one. Definitely one of the most beautiful tracks recorded by Erik!

Miriam Bryant releases her brand new single "Push Play" which is already premiered on the radio and you can listen to it below skipping at 5.25.
Before listening to the song you should forget all Miriam's stuff you heard before. While intro brings you slight Adelesque vibes of "Finders, Keepers" track grows with small keys and marching drums to a magnificent electronic pop-anthem with loads of strings and powerful beat. Truly brilliant follow-up that shows completely different side of Miriam but makes her another big hope of new music year.

Anton Ewald is busy rehearsing his Melodifestivalen performance that's gonna happen very soon. Anton will present his debut single "Begging" written by Fredrik Kempe and Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad on February 9th and if you follow him on Twitter you should already know that he brings two old schlager-colleagues Daniel Koivunen and Robin Haghi on the stage. But while waiting for performance you can enjoy his new acoustic cover of Childish Gambino's song "Break (All Of The Lights)" and this another quite worthy one!

Zara Larsson's upcoming "Introducing" EP is getting a bit more exciting when she delivers another sneak peek from it - teaser of another track "When Worlds Collide" and unlike the ballad "Uncover" this is a grand dance track starting from guitar riffs growing with a heavy beat to a massive electronic bass stomper. EP to be on January 21 will include 3 more tracks and I'm sure young Swedish Rihanna is packed with some very special stuff to look forward!