Swedish~ Stereo~

It's just a few days left before release of new Swedish pop-sensation Eric Saade's debut album "Masquerade" who has made a great break-through this year with his song "Manboy". Eric has no big artistic portfolio yet but there were some moments which probably didn't make him a big star for a Swedish audience but at least well-known face - manboy of Swedish sweetheart Molly Sandén and singer in a boy band What's Up! The band was formed in 2007 and released debut album "In Pose" along with some singles (most popular one was "Go Girl!" and actually the album was really fine!) and working with Disney Channel but in 2009 band broke up, Eric has gone solo with band's manager and guys have found new member and come back to work again later. Seems like record label "Plugged Records" that band's signed to decided to take opportunity of buzz around Eric nowadays and to release new band's single "Walk In Walk Out" just a week before Eric's album. Quite smart decision that already helped single to enter iTunes chart! Currently What's Up! is Johan Yngvesson, Ludwig "Ludde" Keijser, Robin Stjernberg and Johannes Magnusson who replaced Eric and wrote their comeback single, classic boy band pop song that's difficult not to compare with some older prototypes like O-Town, 98 Degrees, Five East-17 and other popular bands of 90s, this nostalgic feeling actually catches me and push me to listen it again and again. Band plans to release new album already this autumn.

Schlager-debutants Pain Of Salvation presented themselves on Melodifestivalen this year with single "Road Salt" and have just released their new album "Road Salt One" not long after it, the album is full of catchy schlager-tunes, faboulous key-changes and disco-rhythms you can dance along all night long with. Sure your intuition didn't find here anything suspicious so let's for real. First time I gave it a listen I thought that band has made a really smart step to keep just caught sector of schlager-audience and showed such a calm and unaggressive side of their metal rock. Later I've found out that actually it's normal for this progressive metal band. However this is quite complicated, original, melancholic and ragged work that won't be understood by most of pop-music fans, sometimes it sounds very theatrical, sometimes you even start to think that you listen to rock-opera, in common it gives impression of weird mix of Rasputina, Nine Inch Nails, blues, 70s rock in my ears, actually it's not bad, some tracks are really worth listening. Band decided to put single "Linoleum" (being released in the end of 2009 on "Linoleum EP") on this album as well and after "Road Salt" next planned single is "Sisters", next video will be filmed for "Where It Hurts" though.

Annual tv-show "Inför ESC 2010" currently takes place on SVT-channel. Every week you can see experts panel discussing songs of different participants of upcoming Eurovision. This year you can see among experts Marie Serneholt, Kayo Shekoni (ex-Afro-dite), Lena Philipsson, Thomas Lundin (Finnish artist and tv-host), Rennie Mirro (musical artist and brother of Sarah Dawn Finer), Christer Björkman is host of the show as always. In a third part of the show experts were amazed the most by Israeli singer Harel Skaat and on the other hand left Slovenian representatives - Ansambel Roka Žlindre & Kalamari without any points at all. In the end of the show experts revealed their favorite Melodifestivalen-songs who didn't manage to win the contest. Marie and Mirro chose "Moving On" by Sarah Dawn Finer, Thomas - Shirley Clamp's "Min Kärlek", Kayo - Alcazar's "Not a sinner nor a saint" and Lena - Nanne's "Håll Om Mig". You can see this episode here and see results below. Next week we'll see the last of 4 episodes.

By the way for all Eurovision followers now you can read official blog (in Swedish) of Swedish delegation where you'll find posts by both Christer Björkman (head of delegation) and Edward af Sillén (scriptwriter and director of Melodifestivalen) about everything regarding Anna Bergendahl's and her team's trip to Eurovision in Oslo.

After Robyn's comeback with single "Fembot" becoming as spontanous as successful (her performance in Swedish-Norwegian talk show Skavlan has brought a lot of attention to new single and top places in iTunes-charts of both countries) singer's preparing her next release from upcoming EP "Body Talk Pt. 1" - single "Dancing On My Own" (written with Patrik Berger), due to her twitter she shot the video for it last weekend. The single is out on the 13th June but tracks have already leaked and you can find 2 amazing mixes - very atmospheric club Fred Falke's one and another mix made by Buzz Junkies, it turns this beautiful song from meditative electro-pop follower of "With Every Heartbeat" to amazing summer dancefloor anthem.

These days you could read a lot about troubles of old poor schlager-veteran Kikki Danielsson, after her father's death Kikki moved back to her plans of comeback tour and recording album but luck didn't follow her in music as well. Her first single "Maybe I'll Do" (duo with Sulo) was rejected on the radio and KIkki was pushed into a heavy depresion isolating herself and crying all the time. However her fans and media helped to bring some attention to this problem and finally P4 decided to take another song "Let This Light Shine On Forever" and schlager-diva was brought back to life. Hooray! Putting hand on heart stuff sounds like totally lacking potential but girl needs a try. Sulo's becoming some sort of curse for artists he makes duos with. After Sara Löfgren came back in 2008 releasing single "Still looking for you" with him her album "Maskrosor" turned into great fiasko.