Swedish~ Stereo~

Last two weeks I wasn't excited enough about Moraeus med mera performances though the list of guests wasn't bad - at least you'll probably will be interested in Europe or Laleh, then you'll be able to check them here.
Anyway it was all about Malena Ernman and partly jazzy, partly bossa nova version of her Melodifestivalen-winning entry "La Voix" for me. You can enjoy it below along with Giacomo Puccini's aria "O Mio Babbino Caro".

Fredrik Kempe is one of the most popular and successful Melodifestivalen songwriters, every single year his songs participate in the contest and at least one of them becomes hot public favorite.
It all has started back in 2004 when Fredrik has entered the contest performing his own song "Finally" that reached Second Chance round and has ended up with three winning songs ("Hero" (2008), "La Voix" (2009) and "Popular" (2011)). 17 entries during 7 years (he has missed 2006) but we don't have a doubt that after "Popular" success this number will get bigger in the next season.
This week Fredrik has performed potpurri of his most successful hits with Stockholms Musikkår Tre Kronor at Allsång på Skansen, I bet many melofans was wondering how these songs will sound in songwriter's version so here they are - "Manboy", "Hero", "Hope & Glory", "Moving On", "La Voix" and "Popular".
One week ago Eric Saade was at Allsång på Skansen and you can check his own version of "Popular" below.

Our new massive Meloupdate is coming with some new releases from next season participants, some other melorelated interesting information and Swedish-related news from Eurovision.
Well, let's start from one of our most anticipated artists - Dilba. Success of this amazing artist has started 14 years ago with single "I'm Sorry" becoming real classic hit of Swedish pop (you can check covers by September and Sonja Alden as examples of how this song is beloved) and now before debut in completely new area for Dilba - Melodifestivalen where she will show her new dance side Dilba presents first sneak peak of how good she can sound in dance-music and it's remix of "I'm Sorry" - very stylish trance-track made by Deejay Jay. Few years ago Kaveh Azizi has made another mix of this song - not less interesting just good in its own way, so sure we don't mind now this great song finally gets its official release in the mix, check it below.

Babsan as well has recently presented her Christmas single "Alla dessa jular" and it's exacly what you could expect from drag-artist working with After-dark before - kitchy, schlageristic and happy.

SVT has shown its annual chronicle of Melodifestivalen reviewing one more time everything that happened at latest season so if you want - you can take your ticket to time machine and remember how it was - all those great triumphs and bitter falls. Check it here.

Popular bets site Svenska Spel has published its odds for the winner and surprisingly it names Melody Club as the biggest favorite. Both previous years #1 pre-favorites didn't win but was in the final so good luck to Melody Club. Sure it's just predictions without any real base before songs are heard but there are some interesting moments we can mention like Elisabeth Andreasson quite low that points that she's not in that favorite schlager-league and will need to work hard to compete with younger schlager-rivals. Le Kid has climbed to #4 even though newcomers are rarely estimated well so big hopes are on them. Linda Pritchard is much higher by odds than year before and Rasmus Viberg with Simon Forsberg are examples of how newcomers can be underestimated (in my opinion).

Preselections are starting in other countries as well and you can already find some announced Swedish composers there. Romania will show its preselection final at December 31st in New Year's Eve and one of competitors is Claudia Pavel with the song "I Want You to Want Me" co-written with Örebro team Johan Fransson, Pontus Assarsson, Tim Larsson and Tobias Lundgren responsible for such a classic melohits like "Alcastar", "Om Natten", "Kalla Nätter", etc. And Norway that has chosen song of Fredrik Kempe and Hanne Sørvaag (Norwegian songwriter living in Sweden) year ago this time gets songwriting team Simone Larsen, Moh Denebi, Bjørn Djupström and Jennifer Brown (who participated in Melodifestivalen-2009 with the song "Never Been Here Before") performed by Noora Noor, by the way Hanne Sørvaag will participate in Norwegian MGP this time as artist with her own song "You’re Like a Melody".

And the last interesting news. Remember before I told you that Malena Ernman's "La Voix" being covered by Philipp Kirkorov and Anna Netrebko was awarded as Best Song and Best Duo of this year by the biggest Russian radio? Now cover has got video-treatment and it looks really not bad!!!