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.