Swedish~ Stereo~

This year's Rosa Bandet (Pink Ribbon) show has grown to something bigger than one-night concert. TV3 has gathered nine Swedish pop-stars (Lill-Babs, Sonja Aldén, Linda Sundblad, Jill Johnson, Sanne Salomonsen, Alex Saidac, Arja Saijonmaa, Pauline and Molly Sandén) to make three shows dividing them by three with a talk-part and live-concert part. And has made a big gala with them afterwards (you can check it here). Good idea but how nice it has become for real you can realize watching some performances below.

Seems like since last year's "Ta Min Hand" we didn't have any bunch of Swedish artists gathering to perform some charity song so we've got such case now.
Tove Styrke, Amanda Jenssen, Daniel Adams-Ray, Jasmine Kara, Timbuktu, Pauline, Petter and many other artists united as Kedjan have recorded song "Ringar på vattnet", all income from sales will go to Somalis suffering from famine catastrophe in the Horn of Africa.
Talking about "Ringar på vattnet" it's nothing more that just a pleasant calm hip-hop track with soft melodic choruses but with its emotional background story it turns worth checking.

Yesterday Lotta Engberg has made big present for us inviting artists we love especially - Malena Ernman, The Poodles, Pauline, Christoffer Hiding and Swingfly. How can we categorize them all? You wouldn't expect any of them to appear at Melodifestivalen but they were there and succeeded quite well (probably Pauline not so much but still Andra Chansen is someting).
Malena was singing her biggest hit "La Voix" and fresh single "I det Fria", Swingfly performed his latest singles "Me and my drum" with Christoffer Hiding (receiving absolutely fantastic public reaction - you could expect it at least won Melodifestivalen) and Pauline has joined guys for "Little did I know". The Poodles were performing acoustic versions of their classic hit "Night of passion" and new single "Cuts like a knife", Evert Taube's "Änglamark" and "Skönheten och odjuret" together with Malena. Another guest of the show was Talang-2011 patricipant Rasmus Eriksson with "Änglahund" and his ows song "Cowboy superstar". Watch whole episode here and best pieces below.

Malena Ernman - La voix
Malena Ernman - I det fria
Swingfly - Me and my drum
Swingfly feat. Christoffer Hiding och Pauline - Little did I know
The poodles - Night of passion
The poodles - Cuts like a knife
Malena Ernman och Jakob Samuel - Skönheten och odjuret
Rasmus Eriksson - Cowboy superstar
Allsång - Änglahund
Allsång - Igelkottaskinnet
Allsång - Änglamark
Allsång - Loppan
Allsång - Hålligång i skogen

Few weeks ago I told you about Pauline coming back to the spotlight to provide vocals for Swingfly's and Petter's latest releases, fact that we were absolutely delighted to discover. But to our big and pleasant surprise Pauline is presenting brand new single "Jack In The Box" this summer!
"Jack In The Box" is classic "Give Me A Call"-Pauline with hit-feeling jazz-pop tune emotionally complicated and vocally absolutely sweet.
Pauline is still unique artist in Swedish music and we're really glad she's back with new portion of her lovely retro-pop, hope to get more soon!

These days I'm starting missing Pauline like I couldn't suppose I would before I've re-discovered her before Melodifestivalen-2010. What an amazing and unique artist she is. After last year's contest she has re-released her latest album, has taken part in Bydgoszcz Hit Festiwal in August and has appeared this year on records of two rap-artists - Swingfly's album "Awesomeness - An Introduction" on the track "Little Did I Know" and Petter's "En Räddare I Nöden 2.0" on the track "De Där".
Talking about "Awesomeness" it's re-release of the last Swingfly's album "God Bless The IRS" with new songs "Me And My Drum", "Rags To Riches" and "Little Did I Know" that turned to be little light tune with fantastic energy and feel-good sparkle of Jason Mraz' music. Totally enjoyable!

One of the most long-awaited winter releases of this year "Christmas With Friends" was provided by Måns Zelmerlöw. Album was released in charity collaboration with ICA market and sold nowhere except ICA shops but supported by digital singles "December" and "Vit Som En Snö" featuring Pernilla Andersson - the only original tracks of the albums. The rest of the songs are traditional Christmas covers as it happens usually on this sort of albums. But it wouldn't be fair to speak about Måns' album as another Christmas album because actually it's quite nice experiment in completely new style for Måns being almost 100% jazz-record with quite special mixed atmosphere of retro, musicals, it's not trying to sound like big band-jazz of 30-40ies, it sounds very naturally like it was recorded then, sure with modern production but Måns just floating out in your mind in black and white colour performing at some glamourous VIP-party entertaining public in old suits and dresses. You're diving into this atmosphere of retro-party right from the opening "Jag drömmer om en jul hemma/White Christmas" and this track presents another trend - this album contains both Swedish and English covers. You'll hardly find here any sadness or Christmas melancholy, mostly it's playful happy mood and loads of energy and big wide smiles in such beloved gems like "Christmas (Baby please come home)", "Christmas song" and "Winter wonderland". Though fans of classic religious ballads also get amazing treatment with "The angel Gabriel" - probably the deepest track of the album - epic and spiritual and being one of a kind becoming especially precious. Another ballad-highlight of the album is duo "Vit Som En Snö" with Pernilla Andersson that in contrast with cheerful jazzy "December" is fragile and delicate love-ballad single. Another duo on the album is arranged for cover of "All I want for Christmas is you" performed with Pauline, earlier Måns recorded this song with Agnes and when Agnes was felt like primary vocalist artists are equal in this version, on the one hand track's losing identity on the other hand it's still as good as any track that could be performed by such pleasant voices. The album serves as great treatment for Christmas mood creation so if you'll just put it as background making some Christmas preparation I can promise you'll fall into this festive atmosphere not later than in 4-5 tracks.
Örebro had ability to watch amazing Christmas show "O, Helga Natt" with Måns as main artist this year and we're also becoming luckies to watch it now! Whole show was held in Allsång-format so beloved by Swedish public where everyone was involved in singing traditional songs with artists, Måns performed "Tomten Jag Vill Ha En Riktig Jul", "All I want for Christmas is you" and "Vit Some En Snö" with Pauline. Another invited artists were Moa Gagnert with quite impressive schlager-smelling performance and French tenor Avi Klemberg. I really recommend you to watch this Allsång-concert to get taste of real Swedish Christmas.

Unexpectedly fast Måns' already releasing his brand new Christmas album "Christmas With Friends" - album that turned to be collaboration with charity organization World Childhood Foundation and market net ICA and it's coming out already on November 15th. Album will include tracks recorded with Björn Skifs, Lunds Studentsångare, Pauline, Göteborgs symfoniorkester and Pernilla Andersson and produced by Peter Nordahl.
Mostly album contains some popular Christmas hits but also you'll find completely new song "December" written by some biggest Swedish songwriters Jörgen Elofsson, Andreas Carlsson and Niklas Strömstedt. Another new song "Vit som en snö" is written with participation of Måns himself.
Below you can already get the first taste of this album with classic "Christmas Song" recorded in quite classy and very pleasant way with soft Måns' vocal that turned to be much better Christmas treat than I even could imagine.

Every year a lot of Swedish artists represent country in two huge Polish festivals in Sopot (both are very spectacular and you can see many European big international stars there). This year plans of both festivals were broken with reconstruction of Opera Leśna which was always a place for these events. However though Sopot Festival had to be cancelled, another one - Sopot Hit Festiwal was moved to Bydgoszcz and surprisingly visually it almost didn't affect beauty of this show featuring such stars like Ameerah, Locnville, Lou Bega, Safri Duo, Tom Boxer and others.
This time we could see Sopot-veteran Velvet on the stage, I think Jenny performed almost all tracks of her second album for the last few years of her participance so now it was turn of "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" that she presented in a torn bridal veil, not that we know for sure but obviously it was made by her jealous rivals and isn't it great that Jenny was able to show such a flawless vocals and nice performance after it? Another Swedish contestant was Pauline with one of her latest hits "Never Said I Was An Angel", it was sweet and funny performance with Pauline walking around the stage like she came out there ocassionally, she was waving to audience and asked "How are you?", audience obviously felt fine and Pauline probably even better. Third Swedish contestant was newcomer Carina Dahl with debut single "Screw" and this performance was otherwise overfilled with concentration and energy of the singer, Carina looked and sounded like she was ready to tear stadium to pieces, very appreciated confidence for newcomer! Though Poland didn't appreaciate it enough and Carina took 13th place, Pauline - 8th and Velvet - 7th. However Ameerah with Didrik Thott's written "The Sound Of Missing You" won first round of voting with Anders Bagge's written "Drip Drop" by Safura on 5th and final voting was won by another Scandinavians - Safri Duo so let's hope next year will be more successful for Swedes as every year they try to provide really worthy artists and songs.

Another famous Swedish artist competing in Polish music contest these days was Anna Bergendahl who performed her hit "This is my life" at Orange Warsaw Festival and took 3rd place, watch fan's recorder performance here.