Swedish~ Stereo~

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!

It was pretty quiet around Linda Pritchard this year after release of her brilliant dance-cover of "Wicked Game", Linda has premiered the video for the song in March and now can listen to a piece of another awesome cover of Nause's "Hungry Hearts" (platinum hit in Sweden) that she has made with Oscar Görres.
The singer will take part in No Limits 2012 - dance-festival held in Stockholm's Maximteatern in a few weeks. Recording commercial she has turned the club-sound of the song down to fill with acoustic guitars and her expressive vocals instead. Still leaving it a proper dance-hit! I do hope we'll be able to get it in a full length someday.

Last autumn Linda Pritchard has presented her truly gorgeous dance-cover of "Wicked Game", Linda didn't explore this club-pop area properly before but she's got ability to show all her diva-quality with those fab vocals and awesome production in this genre.
First we've got a pack of mixes and now here's a brand new video, enjoy!

Annual Idrottsgalan is back with a bunch of some top-artist who were with us during last year and seems like are going to be next year too.
We've got big voice trio of Sonja Aldén, Linda Pritchard and Anna Sahlene with "Higher & Higher", Lisa Miskovsky who sounded...hm, pretty unusual in Sting's "Fields of Gold" (but it was pretty emotional performance in memory of some Swedish sportsmen who died in 2011), Markoolio with his own song "In med bollen" and company of Lili and Susie, Hammerfall with Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" (they're doing pretty loads of TV lately, are we gonna get them on MF soon?), Louise Hoffsten with her own old song "Let the best man win" and The Clash's "London Calling" performed by Nicke Borg who has become much more actively interacting with audience since last spring. Thanks for the tip about event to Schlagerfiasko that you absolutely must follow when ESC-season is at full speed.

Linda Pritchard is back with cover of Chris Isaak's classic hit "Wicked Game" - song performed by many artists but seems like no one dared to make such an amazing dance-version.
Linda's long-awaited debut album was released this spring and has become the best post-Melodifestivalen album of the year in our list (and if nobody will surprise us till close months - best Swedish pop-album 2011) mixing loud pop-rock anthems and massive r'n'b-smelling ballads perfectly showing fantastic range of Linda's voice. So we didn't expect new stuff to come so soon.
"Wicked Game" starts with piano-based intro and tempo growing and turning touching ballad to chorus which explodes with big club-sound in a vein of Swedish House Mafia reminding Loreen's trend a bit though girls definitely gets different points to concentrate on. When Loreen is all about undressing broken feelings Linda is all about giving all the power of her vocal and she makes it 200%.
Below you can also check pretty amazing mix from Rico Bernasconi and due to Linda's twitter video for the song is in plans.

Season of summer open-air tv-shows is over and as we've missed some really nice performances we're gonna summarize them all before Swedish tv will offer some new music autumn goodies.
Linda Pritchard's performance at Lotta på Liseberg was a real highlight of this season, girl could easily blow stage's roof away by her incredible voice singing her Melodifestivalen song "Alive", Christina Aguilera's "Show me how you burlesque" and classic hit "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Broadway musical Dreamgirls.
As newcomer Linda has hard times proving she deserves love of Sweden but coming out on the stage she gives 200% of her own and it can't be left unnoticed by the audience.

Well, dear readers, if one day Linda Pritchard will decide to give daily performances visiting every Swedish tv-show one by one, you'll read about it on this blog every single day. If I had some annual pop-awards here undoubtfully Linda and Loreen would be the biggest contenders to get title of Best vocal of the year.
Today Linda has visited Nyhetsmorgon to perform her epic ballad "Alive" in fantastic piano version, we heard it already before but this time it was totally breathtaking.
Other two performed tracks from new Linda's album were "Dance Your Tears Away" and "Glorious" with live band behind. Not less amazing!

Yesterday I've presented new Bingolotto performance of Ace of Base for your attention but AOB weren't the only interesting guests of the show.
Svante Thuresson who has just released new album "Regionala Nyheter: Stockholmsdelen" presented new Mauro Scocco written song "Sommar I Stockholm" and "Ta Det Kallt, Det Är Allt" with Lotta Engberg and another schlager-veteran Kikki Danielsson who also ready for her new album "Första Dagen På Resten Av Mitt Liv" has presented song "Wagon Wheels" from it. But our most expected guest was Linda Pritchard who performed best ballad of Melodifestivalen-2011 in our opinion, it's "Alive", it's here and it's fantastic Linda Pritchard (video is a bit defective in the first verse but fine after that).
UPD: Full video of concert was removed so links to Kikki and Svante don't work but thanks for the tip to our dear reader Peter we have separate Linda's performance here.

Release that was awaited by many Linda Pritchard's fans quite long - her debut album "Alive" will be out on March 9th and due to tracklist and what we've heard already it's gonna be brilliant album containing mix of power ballads, r'n'b and rock-vibes and sure loads of pop-tunes from Oscar Görres and other loud names. Weird that single "Fast Car" wasn't included into it but we don't complain as we expect a lot more.
Today Linda has premiered acoustic-version of her latest single "Alive" for readers of Expressen and as you can expect with Linda's beautiful and strong vocal it sounds all sorts of amazing!

Tomorow Göteborg will get schlagerized in full-mode meeting Melodifestivalen's 2nd semifinal gang of artists - Brolle, Loreen, Babsan, Elisabeth Andreassen, Sanna Nielsen, The Moniker, Anniela, Christian Walz - not a weak selection at all! And how strong their songs will be we'll know already tomorrow from press-reviews. Due to odds and polls the biggest favorites are Sanna, Brolle and Christian but will they stay faves after tomorrow prelisten? We'll see!

For now we'll turn our face to other updates.
Dilba's single "Try Again" has made debut on iTunes today and going road of Le Kid single has reached #1 of iTunes chart with Le Kid on #2 and Rasmus Viberg at #45. It's gonna be really one of the strongest meloyears if even not qualifying songs are doing so well.

Talking about success of MF-2011 among viwers, show in Luleå has collected 3 014 000 viewers in front of TV-screens (that is neither record nor a fail) and on the other hand only 320 608 of votes that is the lowest first semifinal figure for the last 10 years (since semifinals system was introduced).

Recently Schlagerprofilerna revealed that no Melodifestivalen DVD is intended to be released this year again because of lalbel not satisfied with low sales due to sharing video in Internet and all videos in free access located on SVT site.

Linda Bengtzing has taken part in commercial action Schlagerfeber - talent contest held in Onoff stores net, Linda is gonna be coach for folk's talents and judge as well. Contest will be held through February, you can see trailer here (and our friends say that booklets with Linda are already all over). I just wonder how Melodifestivalen management will take it.

Linda Pritchard's dress is gonna be made not less than by Royal family designer Lars Wallin who had previous Eurovision-experience with Sweden-2006 and Azerbaijan-2009.

Daniel "The Moniker" Karlsson has appeared in XL-Live with very nice acoustic performance. Interesting fact is that both Daniel and Christoffer Hiding participated in the same season of Idol leaving on 4th and 6th place (EMD's Mattias was 5th) so it's gonna be interesting if both will meet in the final.

Actually I wanted to give you update later waiting for press' reviews of first Melodifestivalen semifinal but here 2 updates I'd like to share right now.
We've got another single cover this time from Jenny Silver, very lovely and sweet cover marking Jenny going from dark and authentic to softer and lighter side.

Linda Pritchard has written yesterday on twitter that her album will be ready today, something that many fans were waiting whole year since many Linda's songs were out last Spring and pretty stunning to expect a lot from her album. Today we've got another delicious piece of Linda from Schlagerprofilerna - her demo of "Hollow" that was sent to Melodifestivalen-2010 and finally given to Peter Jöback. I'll remind you that when Peter was announced there was a lot of buzz around winning song and it's not surprising as demo sounds very beautiful, massive and as Linda was then new artist without any expectations on her it really was taken as big favorite. New Linda's song is also written by Fredrik Kempe but this time co-written by Oscar Görres ("Hollow" was co-written by Anders Hansson).

Every year Swedish QX-magazine publish stunning schlager-issue with some new theme and future melo-participant in special photoshooting devoting to it. Before last year it has even got tradition of future winner to appear at the cover but in 2010 neither Salem, nor Anna were there. However everyone who were on the cover have got to the final, this time QX marks new favorites with theme TV-classics and we have Eric Saade, Sara Varga, Simon Forsberg, Babsan, Linda Pritchard and Danny on the cover!
Besides completely brilliant photos QX also interviewed artists about their plans one week before start of the show.
Danny appeared this year as "True Blood" character, Jenny Silver, Linda Pritchard, Sara Varga and Sara Lumholdt have made "Sex & The City", Sebastian and Simon - "Prison Break", Le Kid - "Glee", Eric Saade - "21 Jump Street", Love Generation - "Desperate Housewives" and Babsan - "Dynasty". You can read whole issue here and watch series of really amazing photos below.

Probably I could not to write about amazing trio of Martin Stenmarck, Linda Pritchard and Jessica Marberger performing at "A Grand Evening" Christmas show...


...though I guess you remember I commpensated it with news about Sanna Nielsen, Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén Swedish Christmas album "Vår Jul"...


...and Måns Zelmerlöw who will release his first Christmas album and (I haven't told about it) will join girs in Christmas tour second year in a row, this time with help of Brandur and Björn Kjellman...


But these great news have arrived just now!!!


New Malena Ernman's Christmas album "Santa Lucia" will be released on November 17th and officially it's the most exciting Christmas release I've ever heard about!!! In Christmas period Malena will be touring a lot and to understand how heavenly can Malena sound with this sort of song check her performance at Nordiske Julkoncert year ago.

Autumn has just started and we've already got whole bunch of planned exciting album-releases, I should collect all of them in one post.
- Magnus Carlsson's new album "Pop Galaxy" will be released already on September 22th but before we'll get another single "The Best In Me".
- It's just few days till new Ola's album "Ola" (September 15th).
- Erik Hassle's EP with 4 new songs is planned for the end of September.
- Nanne Grönvall's album "En Rastlös Själ" is ready to hit shops on October 6th.
- After 6 years Stephen Simmonds releases new album "Anomie" in October.
- Jennie Berggren's album "My Story" release was moved to October 13th.
- A little bit earlier Ace Of Base will release album "The Golden Ratio" on September 24th with first single "All For You" planned to be released already today.
- Caroline af Ugglas after huge success of previous year is back with new album planned for September 22th publishing as well book "Hjälp, vem är jag?" (Help, who am I?)
- EMD's album "Rewind" release was firstly carried from August 25th to the end of October but now you can find its release in some shops marked with December 31th.
- Albums from Linda Pritchard, Titiyo, Tove Styrke, Lisa Miskovsky, Love Generation, second EP from Gravitonas and Christmas album from Måns Zelmerlöw are to be expected.
- Sanna Nielsen's just released her last single "Part Of Me" and ready for new release of Christmas album with Shirley Clamp and Sonja Aldén, this time due to title "Vår Jul" (translation of English title of previous album "Our Christmas" that obviously says tracklist won't be different in common) it's gonna be in Swedish.
- Amy Diamond after 5 studio-albums is ready for compilation "Greatest Hits" that will be out on November 3rd.
Not enough to be excited? It's alright, it's just the first days of Autumn ;)

I'm staying quite nasty blogger these days. It's such a weird thing though - every last day on some of my favorite blogs I see bloggers writing about how much they are currently loaded with work, what is it? Maybe just this heat slowing us down?
Well, however not to leave you too bored and to turn you on a bit I'd like to share with you some nice mixes you'd spend this hot Summer along with.
First of all I should mention Soundfactory's best work for last 2-3 years at least. It's made for Linda Pritchard's last single "Miracle" and it's just brilliant with fantastic beat that we could expect from Von Der Burg's team, great scandi-dance bass line, play with Linda's amazing vocal, anthemic choir in the middle eight, totally ecstatic, check it!

Another worth listening mix that I would recommend to you is for Jenny Berggren's last single "Here I Am" made by Sthlm Sound Facility (songwriting team behind the song), very nice trance-work.

Pandora released Euroversion of her currently promoted "You Believed" and this time exactly what you could expect from eurodance-queen - powerful, energetic and very danceable.

Nexx has released in Sweden "Paralyzed" one of songs from their album "Synchronize Lips" in remixed version from DJ Andi. Sounds quite Romanian dance-pop that's sure a good thing (oh, is DJ Andi Romanian? Then I've guessed right!).

Basshunter's new hit "Saturday" has got Almighty treatment as great as Almighty can make. Hope it'll finally convince the world that this song deserves to become hugest hit of Basshunter though it's already widely played across Europe and #21 of UK chart isn't bad at all.

Also you should taste Therese' Alesso remix for "Drop It Like It's Hot" and check fragment of this gorgeous lady's recent performance, isn't she lovely?

And finally don't forget to listen Mohombi's new Chuckie mix for "Bumpy Ride", it's very-very nice as well.

This week Stockholm is full of different music events connected with Stockholm Pride. So everyone who will visit Swedish capital these days will be able to see Sarah Dawn Finer, Linda Bengtzing, Christer Sjögren, Pauline, Rebound, Le Kid, Titiyo, Marit Bergman, Sibel, Jenny Silver, NEO, Hanna Lindblad, Safura, Hera Björk, Lena Meyer-Landrut (not announced officially yet but quite obviously), Therese Grankvist, Anna Maria Espinosa, CC & Lee, Love Generation, Jonathan Fagerlund, Sandra Dahlberg, Ankie Bagger and many-many others. So we're waiting for some live performances leaking soon on youtube.
Cheers friends! Swedish Stereo's turning to a normal working mode very soon.

One of the biggest brightests hopes of Swedish pop-music Linda Pritchard is releasing new single "Miracle" and I extremely need to tell you about her as surprisingly I haven't yet. Being gifted child Linda didn't waste her time and prepared herself for a big career attending Adolf Fredriks Music School and SWAY (dance programme). Soon she was hired by Tess Merkel to Wallmans Salonger and started to work there as singer and dancer. Demand for her talent increased quite fast and Linda was getting offers to work from such well-established artists as Celine Dion, Ace of Base, Andreas Lundstedt and Velvet. In 2006 when Velvet made her debut on Melodifestivalen stage with "Mi Amore" Linda was singing back-vocals behind her. In 2 years Linda appeared on Melodifestivalen again making show for the openning of the final. Later in 2008 she also took participation in casting of Idol and without any doubts she passed it succefully but unfortunately left the show quite fast (Stop, All the man that I need). Though this little unluck was followed by big luck - contract with Warner/Chappell Music and recording her debut album. Already in 2009 she released her first single "Fast Car" (cover of Tracy Chapman's song) and finally was invited to perform on Melodifestivalen-2010 with the song "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot" (demo of this song was performed initially by Sibel, Linda has sent other songs - "Glorious" and "Not Even Halo" which almost reached the contest but was left near qualification border) and Linda took this mission really seriously showing all amazingness of her talent, vocals and choreographic skills with fantastic show and great song from schlager-veterans Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson and Tim Larsson. Though the song didn't reach the final it reached the highest chart-position (#8) from all songs not qualified to the final and not less than 4 of 10 finalists.
Now after a lot of Spring touring around country Linda is ready for a new amazing single "Miracle" and she already performed it at Sommarkrysset few weeks ago with all her drive, power and perfectness, now it's officially out!

New set of brilliant performances was shown this weekend on Sommarkrysset. Linda Pritchard performed her new single "Miracle" and it was in my opinion the greatest Sommarkrysset performance that I've seen since Lady Gaga appeared on the stage of Gröna Lund in 2008! E.M.D. has also presented their new single "Save Tonight" that was released a week ago. Another highlight of the show was Stephen Simmonds (very interesting artist that I feel like I need to tell you about later) with his latest single "Adiyeah" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". We've got also some classics of 90s from Dr. Alban performing medley of his hits. And finally Lazee performed big hit of this spring "Calling Out" with Apollo Drive.