Swedish~ Stereo~

Sara Varga's new single "Hur Gör Vi Nu" gets support of a nice summer video she presents today.
The song is currently #36 on iTunes but I have a feeling that the album, when it will be out, will go much higher. Wondering if other tracks will get a folk-touch? I wouldn't mind.

After a pretty big break Melodifestivalen-2011 finalist Sara Varga comes back with a new album "Ett år av tystnad" she was working on with her boyfriend Lars Hägglund (mostly known to Swedish pop-fans as constant Melodifestivalen backing vocalist).
The album will be released in one day with Sara's book "Min inre röst" on September 12th and the first single "Hur Gör Vi Nu" is out already this Wednesday becoming soundtrack for a new film "Bäst före".
"Hur Gör Vi Nu" is right that acoustic Sara you could hear on a previous album but the song has got unexpectable folk-touch which works really nice while the song grows.

Taking part in shooting for charity calendars has become an amazing tradition among Swedish musicians.
Last year I told you about Caroline Roosmark's calendar. If you haven't heard about it - it's made for charity collecting some biggest Swedish celebritites who participate for free. This year all income will be aimed to help children living in families with the only one parent and low budget. We've got not so many pop-artists - it was only Sanna Nielsen, Ulrik Munther and Marie Fredriksson this year but their images have become as impressive as we use to see in Caroline's works. You can check calendar and order it here.
Alsoe you can find another great calendar with loads of well-known faces of pop-music (Eric Saade, Danny, Loreen, Sara Varga, The Moniker, Nicke Borg, Martin Rolinski, Adam Tensta, Lisa Miskovsky) helping two organizations - Friends (against bullying in schools) and Naturskyddsföreningen (ecology organisation) here. And don't miss some videos of making it.

After mostly male line-up of last Allsång På Skansen this week Måns' had loads of female guests and every artist has made big breakthrough this year.
Melodifestivalen finalist Sara Varga was singing her monster radio-hit "Spring för livet" and new song "Förlåt mig älskling", Veronica Maggio presented "Välkommen in" and "Jag Kommer" from the last album, Dansbandskampen winners Elisa's performed main track of their album "För det här är bara början" with some other dansband-covers (Elisa looked fierce in a Sanna way I should say!). And especially interesting was to listen another big hit of this summer - Eric Amarillo's "Om sanningen ska fram" in rockier live-arrangement and brand new song "50 kvm" (very Orup-sounding). Måns' cover of "Human" was also quite adorable.
Karaoke with folk wasn't interesting this time but you can check it along with whole show here.

New Sara Varga's album "Spring För Livet" is out on Wednesday. Just like Nicke I've mentioned in previous article, she was one of artists who has made breakthrough in Melodifestivalen-2011 with ballad "Spring För Livet" co-written with Figge Boström and sharp social theme of family violence. Not to miss right moment album is ready to be released and due to tracklist it's 100% Swedish 11-tracks album including (except main track "Spring För Livet") the song "Du gick" Sara has presented in the end of last year on her Myspace page and another one - "Vår stund" - also calm acoustic ballad sounding like sister of "Spring För Livet" so seems like everyone who liked Sara's contest song are not gonna be disappointed with this album. Check Sara's recent performance in Nyhetsmorgon with schlager-choir veterans Lisa Nilsson and Lars Hägglund.

Don't forget that tomorrow you'll be able to watch last 4th semifinal of Melodifestivalen in 20:00 by Stockholm time here and maybe tomorrow we'll see the winner of this year. Snippets of rehearsals were presented yesterday and below you can find links and our thoughts about them.
Melody Club - The Hunter - very warm melodic pop-rock track with Spring positive feeling and cool guitar-part, much warmer and schlageristic than we could expect from Melody Club with stable professional performance.
Julia Alvgard - Better or Worse - beautiful ballad performed by sensual Julia's voice with dark blue background and Julia looking very charismatic and nice.
Lasse Stefanz - En blick och nånting händer - "Simply The Best" in dansband-arrangement, sorry, but it's SO not our style.
Linda Pritchard - Alive - song was written by Oscar Görres and Fredrik Kempe so on one hand it's what you could hear from previous presented Linda's songs and on the other hand it's a lot in a style of Linda's "Hollow". It's all about incredible Linda's voice that makes whole pack sounding amazing but remembering that even "Moving On" hasn't reached the final directly we're especially scared for Linda.
Anders Fernette - Run - Anders' dynamic guitar pop that we use to love and this song doesn't seem to be exception, but it's hard to judge by snippet of rehearsal where Anders obviously doesn't feel comfortable vocally, we'll love it in studio-version however.
Linda Bengtzing - E de fel på mig - probably biggest disappointment, it's s classic Linda's track sounding a lot like Värsta schlagern but weaker and without whole-packed performance of Hur svårt kan det vå, still Linda gives it all on the stage but I guess she won't qualify to the final directly.
Nicke Borg - Leaving Home - classic big rock-ballad with loud guitars and everything you can expect, I'm not sure that it's song for Nicke though, I'd imagine it better with some more screaming loud vocal, otherwise it doesn't go whole road for me.
Love Generation - Dance Alone - very effective performance with 90s eurodance song that screams to get into Globen and girls are gonna be on fire this year in Sweden but is the song will be as big favorite as press now claims? I'm not sure, it's still not what Gaga could release but wishing luck to girls, they do great job on the stage and I'm not gonna be against if they'll win whole contest.

After rehearsal due to public voting Melody Club has colected 47% (!!!) of votes today (that is not much less than after Eric's performance), so do we have new favorite that will be able to slip into first place of the final while Danny will be sharing votes with Eric and Sanna with one of schlager-ladies Jenny/Shirley/Linda having big chance to get there? We'll see tomorrow but due to svenskaspel Melody Club currently goes 2nd for the win.

Four new singles covers have come from Danny, Eric Saade, Melody Club and Sara Varga, you can check them above. Melody Club's EP will also contain b-side "Anyone Else" and Joniverse Remix for "The Hunter". Probably now you say - oh my! Is it gonna be the first or the only melomix this year? And I say - no. In a few days mix for Dilba's "Try Again" from Jacob Czitrom is gonna be released and we really like that Romanian-dance sound in verses with dark baseline decorating chorus so fine! And hope it's not the last mix for "Try Again", this song deserves maxi-single after charting so successfully on iTunes. By the way talking about not qualifying songs success in common chart - it's obviously not so well comparing with last year. Week ago Dilba debuted at #20 and Le Kid - at #31, this week chart has only Christian Walz at #30. Hope it'll go better when the rest of the songs will be released after 4th semifinal.

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.

We've been waiting for it since May and finally it happened! Second Rebound's single "Not Helpless" recently was released on "NRJ Summer Party 2010" compilation and you can already enjoy it on youtube. The song perfectly keeps the style of the band containing r'n'b influenced verses, electro-pop vibes and infectious dance chorus with repetitive final string being completely stuck in your head after first listen. Official release single due to Rebound's blog is coming in the nearest future, next week the single goes to the radio and though guys are still very unsure about their future and touring around Sweden with programme consisting of popular hits covers in the mixes of Sara Varga, it's obvious that they've got a huge fans-army for the last year since they appeared on Idol casting and new Rebound's stuff is on the way.

By the way you can check this site and found out some nice specially recorded ringtones with Eddie's vocal (The Curtain, Hej Hej, Arvika and Get to), my favorite one is "The Curtain" - pleasant track with a nice Spanish fiesta-relaxing mood and Eddie's melodic velvet vocals along with female Laleh-like voice.

This week Sommarkrysset hasn't left us without another Melodifestivalen-2010 discovery, fresh pop-project and premiere of new single from one popular artist.
If you're really into Swedish pop you couldn't miss great hit of this Spring "Kom" from new girl band Timoteij, band whose album has become golden for one day. Another freshest pop-project that I've been talking about is Rebound!, they performed their successful debut single "Hurricane" with Sara Varga as DJ. And finally Eric Gadd presented his new single "Rise Up!" from forthcoming album "Rise Up" that's gonna be released in July. Host of the show this time was Linda Bengtzing and foreign guests were American Joshua Radin and Scottish Amy Macdonald. Check their performances below.