Swedish~ Stereo~

Time for new heroes of Rockbjörnen awards have come. Aftonbladet's readers were nominating candidates and now you can vote for the one of top entries here.
Loreen logically have got three nominations (Best female, Best song and Best concert), Eric is still hotter than fire with Best male, Best song and Best concert. Dead By April, Panetoz, Moa Lignell, Alina Devercerski, Sabaton and Takida were included in two nominations. Really great to see Melodifestivalen finalists Molly Sandén and Ulrik Munther in Best male and Best female.
The concert will take a place on August 29th in Gröna Lund and you'll be able to watch it on Aftonbladet site.

Veronica Maggio has become a big winner of yesterday's Grammis awards, she has won Best Composer, Best Lyrics Writer and Best Pop. Avicii has taken Best Song ("Levels") and Best Innovator, Lykke Li has become Best Artist and also has won Best Album (absolutely rightful here, her album is the most inspiring and beautiful Swedish record of 2011 in my personal list). You can check full list here.
Today Veronica presents the video for the song "Mitt Hjärta Blöder" that has already managed to reach #5 of Swedish chart and has spent whole year in chart but seems like the label wants to keep promoting Veronica this year too and we don't mind.

We've lost a track of the latest episodes of "Moraeus med mera" that had more than worthy line-ups all the time though. Today Andreas Johnson and Tove Styrke performing their latest singles couldn't leave us silent so here are the most interesting performances of the last month from Sanna Nielsen, Charlotte Perrelli, Daniel Adams-Ray, Serenades, Lisa Misovsky, BAO singing ABBA-classics and Veronica Maggio performing with Benny Andersson.

Last night results of Rockbjörnen-2011 voting were announced. Veronica Maggio can be considered as the biggest winner of the night winning Best song and Best female artist. As we expected all pop-boys were left without Best male artist and it's gone to Håkan Hellström. The Ark, Mando Diao and Daniel Adams-Ray were another Swedish winners. Below you can check whole list and some live performances - mini-gigs of Danny and The Ark, Salem al Fakir in his new music project Earpony, Amanda Mair singing canidates for the Best song nominee and Magnus Carlson with his recent cover of "Från och med Du".

Yesterday Patti Smith and Kronos Quartet received year's Polar Music Prize awards.
Every year some Swedish artists are invited to perform covers of a honoured artists and this time it was Veronica Maggio, The Ark, Anna Järvinen and First Aid Kit who have managed touched Patti to tears. Evening has turned quite warm, sentimental and orchestra has brought some special charm we enjoyed last time on a Royal Wedding concert year ago.
You can check whole concert here and separate performances below.

Anna Järvinen - Distant fingers

SVT makes fantastic present to all fans of Veronica Maggio who seems to be incredibly huge in Sweden this year showing 50 minutes Veronica's concert with the latest programme including best hits from previous two albums and loads of new songs from the latest successfull album "Satan i gatan" as the part of "Musik special" project.
Very intimate and pleasant gig of miss Maggio who can seem to be an ordinary girl with a nice voice from the first sight but if you'll take a look a bit closer you'll realize what an interesting and special artist she is. You have a chance to make it watching this show.
Check whole concert here and setlist below.

Rockbjörnen-2011 candidates are revealed this year and you know what I think looking at Best male category? Seems like Swedish girls audience's getting more powerful and wilder these days, when Eric Saade, Danny, Ulrik Munther and Ola (honestly I sent my vote for Danny, yes, but...) are best male artists of Sweden seems like it shows that this category (of young pop-chaps) gets loads of commercial potential these days in Sweden, will next Melodifestivalen get pop-guy vs. pop-guy next year again?
Alright, moving to other candidates - Tove Styrke, Veronica Maggio, Takida, In Flames, Ola, Eric Saade and Ulrik Munther have gor two nominees. We're personally glad to see September, Eric Amarillo, Dead By April, Roxette, Adele and Jedward in nominees as well (Tokio Hotel again? They've won two of last year's nominees. Have they even released anything since that?). Though there's loads of commercial pop it absolutely doesn't mean it will win (m)any categories but you can affect it voting here.

Let's start new week with some refreshing sounds from Veronica Maggio.
DJ King Rollo has made really nice mashup of Veronica's grand hit "Jag Kommer" with Lady Gaga's "Judas" and it's something that's gonna light your day up a bit.
If you're in a mood for something more melancholic and romantic you should check new Veronica's cover of Petter's "Måste vidare". She worked with Petter before on a track "Längesen" and this is another example of how good this artistic combination can function.

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.

Veronica Maggio's new album "Satan i Gatan" can already be called a big success, in a first week of sales it has debuted at #1 with all 11 tracks getting into singles-chart (10 have filled Top-30, do you remember anything like this? I don't!), next week it has become golden and it's still on the top of Swedish chart.
The biggest success of Veronica ever. And was it rightful? Absolutely! "Satan i Gatan" has become very delicate soft work with airlight melodies and fairy atmosphere sounding like nowhere else. Sure, it's not completely true. As I told you before album is produced by Christian Walz and sometimes it sounds like Christian's album he hasn't released himself but it's ok as we love his own music and the album wasn't disappointment to us.
Two of the biggest hits from the album are "Välkommen in" and "Mitt hjärta blöder" and already now you can check the first one in a new video-teaser from "Satan i Gatan" series and another at presentation of the album. Very nice to see Christian on the stage singing with Veronica, fantastic team!

Latest Veronica Maggio's single "Jag Kommer" can already be called success becoming highest charted one (#4) so far.
Two weeks before Veronica's new album will be released she also presents video for the single, a bit weird, artistic a lot and incredibly sweet, like the song and like Veronica actually is.
Due to words of the artist she's writen so many songs about love coming to an end that she'd like to write something about everything in the very beginning. So here it is, fresh video for "Jag Kommer".

Veronica Maggio's long-awaited new album "Satan I Gatan" is getting release already on April 27th.
As it was previously announced album was produced by Christian Walz and if the first single "Jag Kommer" gave a slight hint of changing Veronica's sound from previous Oskar Linnros produced album to something closer to what we used to hear in Christian's songs new presented track "Mitt Hjärta Blöder" has exactly that sound you could expect from new Walz's work even containing his vocals. Mitt Hjärta Blöder is very positive pulsating track light-heartedly building up with relaxed Veronica's voice to completely euphoric chorus. Video of kissing old woman and young boy looks a bit provocative but I think actually it works, can't suppose if it has something with lyrics without reading text though.

Veronica Maggio is back with new single "Jag Kommer" written and produced by Christian Walz participating this Saturday in Melodifestivalen, Christian is really on fire last time writing Idol-winning ballad of the last season, participating in MF and now becoming main force behind Veronica's upcoming album ”Satan i Gatan” (among others songwriters you can also find Markus Krunegård) that will be released this Spring.
Previous Veronica's album "Och vinnaren är..." was result of collaboration with Oskar Linnros and changing Oskar to Christian actually is felt in sound of the first single, "Jag Kommer" is still air-light positive relaxed track with very recognizable Veronica but with a slight move to guitar Summerish pop of Christian. Still very hit-stuff I think and Veronica can become this year female Snook in one person.

Some news for all who missed Veronica Maggio and sure for all who likes Petter. Petter's releasing his collaboration with Veronica as a single.
In a few words about Petter he came to music in 90s with hip-hop band Sherlock but going solo little later he showed himself like a really successful artist selling platinum albums and making a lot of hits. This year he's back with the album "En räddare i nöden" and after the first single "Gör min dag" we got follow-up.

"Längesen" is a calm melodic piano-based hip-hop song with pitchy-filtered Akon-like vocal in refrain turning to a beutiful intimate vocal of Veronica. Kaveh Azizi recently has made very nice mix for this song.

Probably new name for you but last days new single of Oskar Linnros has extremely tightly got #1 of Swedish iTunes chart and it means we need to give him our attention. Before decision to show himself as solo-artist Oskar was involved in some popular projects like hip-hop duo Snook and another hip-hop project Maskinen (the biggest success band achieved in 2009 with their single "Alla som inte dansar") but probably the closest to his new solo music he made with Veronica Maggio. In 2008 they written together Veronica's album "Och vinnaren är...", the album has become platinum and spent 77 weeks in albums chart. Impressive? So imagine Veronica's light summer pop with male vocal and you'll get new Oskar's songs. First single "Ack, Sundbyberg" was released back in January but only the second one "Från och med Du" has shot immediately and you can get a taste of it below. Oskar's album "Det är första gången för mig med" will be released very soon and you can check its trailer here.