Swedish~ Stereo~

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!

David Lindgren - Skyline (rehearsal) (studio record)
Cookies 'N' Beans - Burning Flags (rehearsal) (studio record)
Jay-Jay Johanson - Paris (rehearsal) (studio record)
Mary N'diaye - Gosa (rehearsal) (studio record)
Eric Gadd - Vi kommer aldrig att förlora (rehearsal) (studio record)
Yohio - Heartbreak Hotel (rehearsal) (studio record)
Anna Järvinen - Porslin (rehearsal) (studio record)
Michael Feiner & Caisa - We're Still Kids (rehearsal) (studio record)

SVT has shown the latest show of this season's Moraeus med mera and except Agnes with Cookies'n'Beans (don't we have them a lot enough on SVT lately to speak about melocomeback?) with their own songs (have we heard Agnes doing orchestral version of "Release Me" before?) we've also got Freddie Wadling and Timo Räisänen which who have made a company for girls making Coldplay's cover of "Fix You" which was actually touching.

Yesterday's concert in Skansen wasn't the poppiest event in this season but still had some nice artists to watch. We've got Panetoz with their big hit of this summer "Dansa Pausa", Melodifestivalen finalist Thorsten Flinck and Cookies N Beans singing stuff from their latest album.

Cookies N Beans - Go Tell The World
Panetoz - Mama Africa

Country-past and country-present of Melodifestivalen - Cookies n Beans and Abalone Dots relelase new albums almost at the same time. Abalone Dots have already presented their "Chocolate & Cigarettes" last week but as we didn't check it yet let's talk about the first girls.
Though taking part in MF-2009 hasn't brought a big success to the band the album "Big, Borrow and Steal" released afterwards has entered Top-10. Swedish audience has praised these sweet ladies with original voices and they pay back with another album "Go Tell The World" to be out on May 2nd.
The first single from it that was already premiered on the radio is "The First Step", very calm and kind example of European melancholic acoustic pop with very touching vocal line, you can still feel country-influences but not as much as you'd expect.

When Allsång På Skansen was losing its viewers previous weeks Anders Lindin's biggest rival Lotta Engberg has lost something more important - voice, right before the final show - during programme, how catastrophic! It turned worse and worse every time she started to read her text and finally she ended up standing behind Jill Johnson who was asked to finish show instead of Lotta, you can watch full drama here. But thanx God she has recovered closer to the last show and closed season of Lotta På Liseberg-2010 with all usual expression and charm.
Let's see who was invited to last shows in Liseberg. Firstly it was Timoteij who performed both of their hits "Kom" and "Högt över ängarna", girls were sweet as always. Eric Gadd who recently released new album "Rise Up!" (peaking at #6 of Swedish chart) that I'd like to tell you about soon presented last single "Rise Up!" and his old hit "My Personality". Måns Zelmerlöw and Maria Haukaas Storeng as always perfectly performed their collaboration "Precious To Me" (how pity it hasn't become hit in Sweden yet). Lill-Babs have sung Carlene Carter's old song "Full orkan". One of the biggest public favorites Andreas Johnson performed his biggest international hit "Glorious" and single-2006 "Sing for me". Cookies n Beans have pleased people with their unique voices and songs "First we take Manhattan" and "Kings & Queens". Melodifestivalen-winner Anna Bergendahl presented her platinum single "This is my life", song "Got my heart in your pocket" from her debut album, Robert Broberg's cover "Båtlåt" and duet with Jill Johnson "Why do you come in here looking like that" - Dolly Parton's cover that Jill released 3 years ago with Nina Persson. Jill also was singing Eagles' cover "Desperado" and Ted Gärdestad's "Oh vilken härlig dag". And Rigo performed summer set of "La bamba", Claes-Göran Hederström's "Det börjar verka kärlek banne mig" and "Stockholm ström" in his own original style. Last show featured Eric Saade who was singing three of his singles "Manboy", "Break Of Dawn" and "Masquerade", Caroline af Ugglas presented new songs "Du får tycka om mig" and "Vill kunna säga förlåt" from her new album planned for release in September and Tommy Körberg has been singing Astrid Lindgren's "Fattig bonddräng" and Neil Diamond's "Red red wine".

Timoteij - Kom
Timoteij - Högt över ängarna
Eric Gadd - Rise Up!
Eric Gadd - My personality
Måns Zelmerlöw och Maria Storeng - Precious to me
Lill-Babs - Full orkan
Andreas Johnson - Glorious
Andreas Johnson - Sing for me
Cookies n Beans - First we take Manhattan
Cookies n Beans - Kings & Queens
Anna Bergendahl - This is my life
Anna Bergendahl - Got my heart in your pocket
Jill Johnson och Anna Bergendahl - Why do you come in here looking like that
Anna Bergendahl - Båtlåt
Rigo Pencheff - Stockholm ström
Rigo Pencheff - Det börjar verka kärlek banne mig
Rigo Pencheff - La bamba
Jill Johnson - Desperado
Jill Johnson och allsång - Oh vilken härlig dag
Gäster och allsång - Beatlesmedley
Eric Saade - Masquerade
Eric Saade - Break of dawn
Caroline af Ugglas - Du får tycka om mig
Caroline af Ugglas - Vill kunna säga förlåt
Tommy Körberg - Red red wine
Tommy Körberg - Fattig bonddräng

...You could see Ola Svensson singing Tomas Ledin's song "En Dag På Stranden" on the stage of Skansen on National Day...

...Carola performing her new single "Det är bara vi" devoted to wedding of princess Victoria...



...Eric Gadd with his last single "Rise Up!" and well-known back-vocalists (Thérèse Löf, Michael Blomqvist and Anna Andersson) behind him (MF-2011 warning???) on a beautiful stage on Skeppsbron...



...Sarah Dawn Finer covering the winner of Eurovision-2010...



... Kalle Moraeus just having sold his new album golden with the song that really helped him with it...



and also

...especially popular these days band Johnossi performing their hit-single "What's The Point?"...

...Cookies N Beans covering Bee Gees classics "Islands In The Stream"...

... Timo Räisänen performing his last single "Outcast"...

...Rigo performing on National Day Swedish song "Stockholms Ström" (no ideas about where it came from)...

and Miss Li with really nice performance of her "Bourgeois Shangri-La".

If you're still gonna be in Stockholm in close future, don't forget to check programme of LOVE Stockholm 2010 or take a look at this short programme from Aftonbladet.

Also two summer great tv-shows "Allsång på Skansen" and "Lotta på Liseberg" have announced this year line-ups.

"Allsång på Skansen" will start 29th June and we'll see among others The Ark, Anna Bergendahl, Carola, Eric Saade, Darin, Timoteij, Kikki Danielsson, Salem Al Fakir, Thomas Di Leva, Oskar Linnros, Mando Diao, Tove Styrke, Orup, Hanna Lindblad, Charlotte Perrelli, Magnus Carlsson, Måns Zelmerlöw and Sarah Dawn Finer.

http://svt.se/2.112060

"Lotta på Liseberg"'s (starting from 21th June) line-up is not less fantastic and has a lot of interesting artists like Charlotte Perrelli, Alexander Rybak, Markoolio, Linda Bengtzing, Velvet, Alcazar, Jessica Andersson, Erik Linder, Kalle Moraeus, Sanna Nielsen, Timo Räisinen, Måns Zelmerlöw, Timoteij, Maria Haukaas Storeng, Erik Gadd, Andreas Johnson, Cookies n’ beans, Anna Bergendahl, Jill Johnson, Rigo, Caroline af Ugglas and Eric Saade.

http://www.tv4.se/1.1668077

New Sommarkrysset provides new artists, songs and great performances.
Robyn performed her new single "Dancing On My Own", should I even mention that it was amazing? I guess no as Robyn can't do any other way and girl was awarded with #1 of Swedish iTunes today. Another new single "Crash And Burn" was performed by Idol-winner Erik Grönwall, quite energetic performance with powerful Erik's vocals and band Fashion behind him (I'll tell you about this amazing project later), weird that on the other hand it didn't help him a lot (#189 on iTunes). Cookies & Beans sang just released single "I Just Don't Have The Heart" from their last album "Beg, Borrow and Steal" with their special voices. Audience has also got a chance to hear already well-known hits like "Du Gör Min Dag" by Petter and "Famous" by Play who obviously made another great performance and was met very warm by folk in Gröna Lund. Finally Rigo premiered his new cover-single of Arrow "Hot Hot Hot" as Crossfire with choir he's gathered in recent season of show Körslaget.