Swedish~ Stereo~

Today SVT revealed first 4 artists who'll perform at next year Melodifestivalen, all of them are quite popular so undoubtfully you've heard at least few names from list of artists and songwriters. If you didn't I'm gonna present you all artists during Autumn. But giving fast look on a list you can mention schlager-veteran-artist Linda Bengtzing with schlager-veteran-songwriters like Thomas G:Son so if there's someone who has doubs it's gonna be huge schlager, I would advice you to forget about them. Due to Linda's revelation she's fallen for this song from the first listen and she promises that no one will stay unsatisfied, even Bert Karlsson (another hint that song will be very schlageristic). Utterly popular dansband-group Lasse Steffanz will perform with the song of coming back songwriting team from 90s - Norell Oson Bard, actually this team already has huge experience with dansband acts but still it's interesting what Alexander Bard will bring to this song from his huge music portfolio after trio broke up. Probably mostly I'm excited about Swingfly - rap-artist who presented set of pretty nice singles not so along ago mixing hip-hop with fresh sounding pop, I'm gonna tell you about him later.

Pernilla Andersson - Desperados
(Pernilla Andersson)

Linda Bengtzing - E de fel på mig
(Pontus Assarsson, Thomas G:son, Jörgen Ringqvist)

Lasse Stefanz - En blick och något händer
(Alexander Bard, Ola Håkansson, Tim Norell)

Swingfly - Me And My Drum
(Teron Beal, Patrik Magnusson, Johan Ramström)

Another Melodifestivalen-newcomer is Pernilla Andersson who's not newcomer for Swedish audience in common though. She's relatively fresh name on indie stage but has already managed to release 4 albums for 3 years and all of them charted more or less well. Last one "Ö" has debuted 3 weeks ago at #11 of album-chart and right now Pernilla presents new single from it - "Som En Ö". Like the most of Pernilla's stuff this song is gentle guitar pop, a bit melancholic with feeling of light sadness and relaxing mood. You can check live performance of it right below.

Remember I warned you about Swedish representative at Junior Eurovision-2010 Josefine Ridell? The song has appeared online much faster than we could imagine!
Josefine is 13-year-old girl from Oxie (Malmö), she wasn't noticed in any big tv-events yet but being talented girl she's fallen to the spot of big proffesionals who decided to choose her as representative this year. This year Swedish delegation is headed by not less than Christer Björkman and just like year ago Sweden has got support of huge stars Arash, Thomas G:Son, Robert Uhlmann and Johan Bejerholm in writing the song who were responsible for many Swedish international hits and both - Arash and G:Son have written most successful Swedish-related entries on Eurovision last two years.
"Allt Jag Vill Ha" is beautiful touching ballad in Ryan Tedder's style, Beyonce is huge idol for Josefine so being co-writer of the song girl wanted to put this passion in it. So don't forget to switch on your TV on November 20th and vote for Josefine! If you will forget - I'll remind you, don't worry!

Vendela Hollmström won Scandinavian show Camp Rock 2 and we can already check debut single and video of this young and very sweet artist. As there's nothing a lot to say about Vendela for now, let's just enjoy this beautiful song. But if you want a bit more stuff regarding Camp Rock you can check soundtrack "Fire" recorded with Ola's participation and watch Vendela Palmgren's song "Här är jag" with What's up! (when Eric Saade was still in) from previous season.
Talking about young talents I can't be silent about coming collaboration of Arash and Thomas G:Son who (together with Robert Uhlmann and Johan Bejerholm) have written song "Allt Jag Vill Ha" for Josefine Ridell - girl who will present Sweden at Junior Eurovision Song Contest-2010. Song is described as midtempo Beyonce-inspired ballad. Year before Sweden has recruited another hige international name - Alexander Kronlund who have written song "Du" for Mimmi Sandén.

Can I not to mention release that includes credits of Fredrik Kempe, Bobby Ljunggren, Thomas G:Son, Kristian Lagerström, Oscar Holter, Henrik Wikström and other biggest names in Swedish music? Sure not!!! Especially when it's as good as new album "Mihalis" of Michalis Hatzigiannis.
In a short Michalis is 30-years old Greek-Cypriot who participated in Eurovision-1998 and since that has become incredibly popular artist selling tons of records in Greece and Cyprus and receiving multiple awards in these countries.
This year Michalis decided to record his first English album and he has got hard support of Lionheart team with it. The album turned to be amazing summer soundtrack, a little bit late for the end of August but always in time for all the lovers of classic Swedish pop-tunes wrapped in modern sound and flavored with Michalis special vocal. This is really one of the most worthy albums of this year - strong from the first track till the last and as one of the sickest MF-rejects detectives I couldn't not to suspect that Lionheart presented some great rejected song to Michalis and seems like I was right. Song titled "Do You Really Wanna Love" was rejected in 2008 and 2009 on Melodifestivalen and we have song with such title on this album, moreover it's written by Pontus Hagberg (Evan), Thomas G:Son and Bobby Ljunggren and it's less than 3 minutes, so now try to convince me there's any ability it's not MF-reject.

You're More Than Beautiful (Oscar Holter, Bobby Ljunggren, Kristian Lagerström)
I Raise My Hands (Fredrik Kempe, Bobby Ljunggren)
Favourite Mistake (Rob Davis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Adrian Zagoritis)
Do You Really Wanna Love (Pontus Hagberg, T. G:Son, Bobby Ljunggren)
Everyone Dance (Nikos Moraitis, Rea Garvey, Michalis Hatzigiannis)
Suddenly (Adrian Zagoritis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Nikos Moraitis)
One In A Million (Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali, Adrian Zagoritis)
In The Middle Of The Night (Bobby Ljunggren, Henrik Wikström, Kristian Lagerström)
Heart Surrender (Nikos Moraitis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Adrian Zagoritis)
Eyes Of A Sinner (Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali, Adrian Zagoritis)
Let’s Call It Love (Henrik Wikström, Niklas Edberger, Kristian Lagerström, Bobby Ljunggren)
Now That You’re Gone (Adrian Zagoritis, Michalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali)
Kiss On the Breeze (Mihalis Hatzigiannis, Eleana Vrachali)

Check this impressive list and remember that most of the songs without Swedish songwriters were produced by Jörgen Ingeström ("Favourite Mistake", "Everyone Dance", "One In A Million", "Eyes Of A Sinner", don't have information about the rest) who worked before with Martin Stenmarck, Sonja Alden, Sanna Nielsen and Charlotte Perrelli. Also you can hear backing vocals of Lars Säfsund (voice of Star Pilots in "I'm Alive") and schlager-veteran Britta Bergström in some tracks (here is credits-list for part of this album).

In the end of July Stockholm will host annual Pride festival with loads of different public events and open-air performances, as a rule it gathers most interesting and currently important schlager-names, so some of approved ones are Hera Björk, Hanna Lindblad, Jenny Silver, NEO, Safura, Anne-Lie Rydé, Rebound, Mariette Hansson, Caroline af Ugglas, sure this list's gonna be much longer in a few weeks.
Every year Stockholm's Pride gets it's official anthem and this year is no exception and it's Ankie Bagger & Peter Gustafsson who provide the anthem this time. It's not the first work of Ankie and Peter together, year before they recorded their first schlager-experiment "Du kan inte lura mig" (joke song about woman fallen in love with gay-guy) written by Thomas G:Son that reached #4 of chart.
"Secret Weapon" is as classic disco-schlager as it can be, like it or not, and sure it's gonna suit its aim very well, the song is written by Ulf Ekwall, Fredde "Francis" Jernberg and Charlie Mason. You can check enjoyable live performance of it below, it really lifts the song to a new level and changing this dead audience to open-air party people it could sound and look really great.

You can check the list of other Stockholm Pride's anthems of 00s. Best one to your opinion?

Jonas Hedqvist - I am What I am (2001)
Christer Björkman, Rickard Engfors och Shirley Clamp - La Vie (This is My Life) (2002)
Alcazar - Someday (2003)
Nina & Kim - Universe of Love (2004)
Leana - Dance With a Stranger (2005)
Christer Lindarw och Stockholms Gaykör - Kom ut! (Go West!) (2006)
6 am feat. Cissi Ramsby - I'm Gay (2007)
BWO - The Bells of Freedom (2008)
Marit Bergman - Casey, Hold On (2009)

ABBA and dansband-music. Can there be some more Swedish music combination? I guess no. And I'm gonna prove it's a great combination right now.
Sisters Cecillia Furlong and Lena Ström has started their music career in 2003 becoming popular in Denmark very fast and starting their own ABBA-show "ABBA Experience" having success with their live performances and strong vocals. But their first album "Gåva Till Dig" ("Gift to you") was released only in 6 years right after the show Dansbandskampen where girls finally has made a big breakthrough to Swedish hearts and the album produced by Amir Aly became very gentle mix of dansband, schlager and pop-music with catchy tunes and beautiful vocal performance. Due to rumours debut-single "Himlen Kan Vänta" ("Heaven Can Wait") was written by Thomas G:son and Calle Kindbom initially for Melodifestivalen but finally it was given to CC & Lee and just in a year girls decided to enter Melodifestivalen-2010 themselves with the song "Honey" written by schlager-veterans Bobby Ljunggren and Mårten & Lina Ericsson that almost qualified but unfortunately was left near qualification borderline but the song is alive and gets its release these days.
"Honey" is very nice positive pop-track inspired by ABBA and actually containing all those amazing melody tricks that made millions of people fall in love with ABBA. CC & Lee come back to their ABBA-roots and we're happily going along with them!

Last Saturday Thomas G:son and Anders Bagge were really on fire competing for Denmark and Azerbaijan in the final of Eurovision-2010 and reaching Top-5, Harry Sommerdahl also helped Georgia to finally reach Top-10 and I hope it will serve as the guarantee of success for Swedish songs next season of contest in pre-selections of other countries. Though not all Swedish songs were lucky enough, Eriksson family for Ireland (23), Fredrik Kempe for Norway (20), Robert Wells for Belarus (24) and Niclas Kings for Iceland (19) unforunately didn't achieve such success in the final but however these songs reached the final and it's already good result for Ireland, Belarus and Iceland which are often followed by bad luck on contest when it comes to qualifying from semifinal so our dear songwriters should be proud of their work. As Swedish songs didn't win pre-selections any time this year I decided to give you a guide to all Swedish songs competing in national finals this year, probably you'll find something interesting that should get its ticket to Oslo but didn't.

NORWAY
Didrik Solli-Tangen - My Heart is Yours
[Hanne Sørvaag, Fredrik Kempe]

Venke Knutson - Jealous Cause I Love You
[Laila Samuelsen, Alexander Kronlund & Lucas Hilbert]

DENMARK
Chanée & N'Evergreen - In a Moment Like This
[Thomas G:son, Henrik Sethsson, Erik Bernholm]

Thomas Barsøe - Just Like Rain
[Patrick Jonsson, Joakim Övrenius, Thomas Karlsson]

SPAIN
Coral - En Una Vida
[Tony Sanchez-Ohlsson, Thomas G:son, Andreas Rickstrand]

Venus - Perfecta
[Tony Sanchez-Ohlsson, Thomas G:son, Andreas Rickstrand]

IRELAND
Niamh Kavanagh - It's For You
[Niall Mooney, Mårten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff, Lina Eriksson]

GEORGIA
Sopho Nizharadze - Shine
[Hanne Sørvaag , Harry Sommerdahl, Chistian Leuzzi]

BULGARIA
Miro - Twist & Tango
[Thomas Thörnholm, Peter Panov, Danne Attlerud and Michael Klaus]

UKRAINE
Vasyl Lazarovych - Don’t wanna loose you
[Claes Andreasson]

AZERBAIJAN
Safura / Milk&Kisses / Maryam - Drip Drop
[Stefan Örn, Anders Bagge, Sandra Bjurman]

Milk&Kisses - Cancelled
[Stefan Örn/Negin/Random]

Safura / Maryam - Soulless
[Anders Lundström]

Safura / Maryam / Milk&Kisses - Under My Skin
[Stefan Örn, Phil Anquetil]

BELARUS
3+2 and Robert Wells - Butterflies
[Max Fadeev, Malka Chaplin]

ICELAND
Hera Björk - Je Ne Sais Quoi
[Örlygur Smári, Hera Björk Þórhallsdóttir] (produced by Niclas Kings)

MALTA
Thea Garrett - My Dream
[Jason Cassar, Sunny Aquilina] (produced by Johan Bejerholm)

If you didn't hear the story of this song it's quite simple but touching. Last year schlager-daddy Thomas G:Son gave a birth to the new schlager-anthem and has sent it to Melodifestivalen - the place where all (almost all) schlagers become legends but evil people didn't accept it and threw it out. How dramatical! Well, as long as this world has some hot schlager hearts beating these stories still can finish with happy ends. Two schlager-moms Linda Bengtzing and Jenny "Velvet" Pettersson adopted this pure child and has made it as glorious as only these faboulous ladies can. The story goes and we've got new really nice mix of this song!

Yesterday SVT showed the last part of "Inför ESC 2010" that you can watch here. Jury discussed the rest of 2nd semifinal and finalists of this year. Germany, Norway and Croatia has become today's favorites.



Common results of the 2nd semi:
Israel 24
Sweden 21
Croatia 19
Armenia 16
Denmark 16
Turkey 16
Bulgaria 15
Lithuania 15
Romania 15
Georgia 13
Ireland 13
Switzerland 13
Azerbaijan 12
Cyprus 12
Ukraine 9
Netherlands 2
Slovenia 0

Rehearsals in Oslo are already in a full mode and yesterday was the first day of Swedish rehearsals, Anna Bergendahl received positive feedback from press in common and jumped up to #6 by odds.



Also check press-conference with Anna (part 1, part 2).

This year contribution of Swedes in Eurovision is especially massive, we have five Swedish songwriters playing for other countries, two songs produced by Swedes and even one Melodifestivalen participant at the stage.

NORWAY

Didrik Solli-Tangen - My Heart is Yours
[Hanne Sørvaag, Fredrik Kempe]
(MF-veteran Mr. Kempe and Norwegian-Swedish Hanne Sørvaag who already composed German song in 2008)

DENMARK

Chanée & N'Evergreen - In a Moment Like This
[Thomas G:son, Henrik Sethsson, Erik Bernholm]
(Thomas G:Son is another legendary name, Henrik composed Eurovision song for Friends)

IRELAND

Niamh Kavanagh - It's For You
[Niall Mooney, Mårten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff, Lina Eriksson]
(Jonas participated before in pre-selections of Malta, Ireland and Denmark and you could hear loads of great stuff from Eriksson family on MF before)

GEORGIA

Sopho Nizharadze - Shine
[Hanne Sørvaag , Harry Sommerdahl, Chistian Leuzzi]
(Hanne was lucky twice to fight for 2 countries this year and Harry is also Swedish songwriter who worked before with Robyn and BoA)

AZERBAIJAN

Safura - Drip Drop
[Stefan Örn, Anders Bagge, Sandra Bjurman]
(Anders has written and produced songs for Madonna, Janet Jackson, Santana, J.Lo, Nick Lachey, Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion and Enrique Iglesias)

ICELAND

Hera Björk - Je Ne Sais Quoi
[Örlygur Smári, Hera Björk Þórhallsdóttir]
(Producer of the final version is Niclas Kings who gave tons of hits to Kate Ryan and participated before as songwriter of Belgium-2006 and producer of Iceland-2008)

MALTA

Thea Garrett - My Dream
[Jason Cassar, Sunny Aquilina]
(Producer of this song is Johan Bejerholm who produced Azerbaijan-2009)

BELARUS

3+2 - Butterflies
[Max Fadeev, Malka Chaplin]
(Famous Swedish pianist Robert Wells will perform on the stage with Belorussian band)

Few months ago fresh pop-project Lovestoned presented itself to a wide audience of Melodifestivalen with single "Thursdays" written by Thomas G:Son and Peter Boström. It wasn't their debut on a big stage though. Band (consisting of 2 former Idol contestants - Pär Stenhammar & Colombia-born Robert Kragh, Bulgarian girl living in Germany Elena Boyadjyeva and Swedish singer Emilie Fjällström) has started with their debut single "Rising Girl" in 2009 and tried to promote it in Germany (visiting Berlin this March I was very plesantly surprised finding this single in one of trade centers on a front shelf next to Agnes' "Release Me") preparing the ground for their debut album "Rising Love". Seems like Melodifestivalen and "Thursdays" (#21 of Swedish chart) didn't help them in Sweden a lot as album is currently totally ignored in charts and it's a real shame as this is very nice pop-work with a bunch of catchy tunes, summer vibes and loud names in album credits (Oscar Görres, Danny Saucedo, Remee, Thomas Troelsen, Niclas Kings, Stephen Simmonds, Daniel Lindström, Thomas G:son, Peter Boström), in common it rolls around band's Ace Of Base-raggae style that you could catch on their singles so those who like "Rising Girl" and "Thurdays" extremely need to get this album right now, it won't let you down. Now band releases second single in Germany and it's "I Know Nothing" (written by first Swedish Idol winner Daniel Lindström, popular singer Stephen Simmonds and Fredrik Larsson), hope it will help band to finally break through there along with German promo-tour and come back to Sweden for further hard-working on bringing up their career in home country.