Swedish~ Stereo~

Sonja Aldén is one of the biggest and the most long-awaited names coming back to Melodifestivalen this year. After she has taken part in 2007 with ballad "För att du finns" singer has become a huge Sweden's sweetheart making some big hits on local radio and releasing two successful albums (4 top-10 albums if we count her Christmas compilations with Sanna Nielsen and Shirley Clamp).
After giving birth to her first child and letting her friends Sanna and Shirley take previous season of Melodifestivalen with schlager-storm Sonja has started working on her new album and has got an entry in the next season, on February 11th she'll perform "I Din Himmel" written by Bobby Ljunggren and Peter Boström in the second semifinal.
Right now artist presents brand new single "Närmre" co-written with Bobby Ljunggren and Henrik Wikström which already has got premiere on the radio and it's not calm thoughtful ballad if you expected it by her latest singles, surprisingly it's very summerish (rather than directly Christmas-smelling) light song with all Sonja's vocal sensuality and fragility and life-asserting tempo of half-acoustic arrangement being constant part of artist's common concept.
You can listen to "Närmre" below skipping at 3.21.

Can I not to mention release that includes credits of Fredrik Kempe, Bobby Ljunggren, Thomas G:Son, Kristian Lagerström, Oscar Holter, Henrik Wikström and other biggest names in Swedish music? Sure not!!! Especially when it's as good as new album "Mihalis" of Michalis Hatzigiannis.
In a short Michalis is 30-years old Greek-Cypriot who participated in Eurovision-1998 and since that has become incredibly popular artist selling tons of records in Greece and Cyprus and receiving multiple awards in these countries.
This year Michalis decided to record his first English album and he has got hard support of Lionheart team with it. The album turned to be amazing summer soundtrack, a little bit late for the end of August but always in time for all the lovers of classic Swedish pop-tunes wrapped in modern sound and flavored with Michalis special vocal. This is really one of the most worthy albums of this year - strong from the first track till the last and as one of the sickest MF-rejects detectives I couldn't not to suspect that Lionheart presented some great rejected song to Michalis and seems like I was right. Song titled "Do You Really Wanna Love" was rejected in 2008 and 2009 on Melodifestivalen and we have song with such title on this album, moreover it's written by Pontus Hagberg (Evan), Thomas G:Son and Bobby Ljunggren and it's less than 3 minutes, so now try to convince me there's any ability it's not MF-reject.

You're More Than Beautiful (Oscar Holter, Bobby Ljunggren, Kristian Lagerström)
I Raise My Hands (Fredrik Kempe, Bobby Ljunggren)
Favourite Mistake (Rob Davis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Adrian Zagoritis)
Do You Really Wanna Love (Pontus Hagberg, T. G:Son, Bobby Ljunggren)
Everyone Dance (Nikos Moraitis, Rea Garvey, Michalis Hatzigiannis)
Suddenly (Adrian Zagoritis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Nikos Moraitis)
One In A Million (Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali, Adrian Zagoritis)
In The Middle Of The Night (Bobby Ljunggren, Henrik Wikström, Kristian Lagerström)
Heart Surrender (Nikos Moraitis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Adrian Zagoritis)
Eyes Of A Sinner (Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali, Adrian Zagoritis)
Let’s Call It Love (Henrik Wikström, Niklas Edberger, Kristian Lagerström, Bobby Ljunggren)
Now That You’re Gone (Adrian Zagoritis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali)
Kiss On the Breeze (Mihalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali)

Check this impressive list and remember that most of the songs without Swedish songwriters were produced by Jörgen Ingeström ("Favourite Mistake", "Everyone Dance", "One In A Million", "Eyes Of A Sinner", don't have information about the rest) who worked before with Martin Stenmarck, Sonja Alden, Sanna Nielsen and Charlotte Perrelli. Also you can hear backing vocals of Lars Säfsund (voice of Star Pilots in "I'm Alive") and schlager-veteran Britta Bergström in some tracks (here is credits-list for part of this album).

Anna Bergendahl's releasing video for the second single "The Army" from her debut album "Yours Sincerly". Song is written by the same team of Bobby Ljunggren and Kristian Lagerström standing behind her biggest hit "This Is My Life" and the song was album's favorite of many. Quite rightfully I should say. The song goes in the same style as previous single, it's very tender pop-song with magic, fragile atmosphere starting to grow from part of acoustic gutar, march-like drums and Anna's voice lifting energy with beautiful strings and touching, powerful melody in chorus. Video for the song is very summerish, Anna looking gorgeous in a beautiful dress that she presented recently at Sommarkrysset and new hairstyle is sailing in a boat, falling asleep in a grass and walking on a riverside along with her white army of young people with waving flags. Very high-standard work that you could expect from the winner of Melodifestivalen.

ABBA and dansband-music. Can there be some more Swedish music combination? I guess no. And I'm gonna prove it's a great combination right now.
Sisters Cecillia Furlong and Lena Ström has started their music career in 2003 becoming popular in Denmark very fast and starting their own ABBA-show "ABBA Experience" having success with their live performances and strong vocals. But their first album "Gåva Till Dig" ("Gift to you") was released only in 6 years right after the show Dansbandskampen where girls finally has made a big breakthrough to Swedish hearts and the album produced by Amir Aly became very gentle mix of dansband, schlager and pop-music with catchy tunes and beautiful vocal performance. Due to rumours debut-single "Himlen Kan Vänta" ("Heaven Can Wait") was written by Thomas G:son and Calle Kindbom initially for Melodifestivalen but finally it was given to CC & Lee and just in a year girls decided to enter Melodifestivalen-2010 themselves with the song "Honey" written by schlager-veterans Bobby Ljunggren and Mårten & Lina Ericsson that almost qualified but unfortunately was left near qualification borderline but the song is alive and gets its release these days.
"Honey" is very nice positive pop-track inspired by ABBA and actually containing all those amazing melody tricks that made millions of people fall in love with ABBA. CC & Lee come back to their ABBA-roots and we're happily going along with them!