It’s finally happening? After four heats, a second-chance round and a whole lot of build-up and excitement surrounding every aspect of it, 28 songs have become the final 12. Tomorrow Sweden chooses its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest via the Melodifestivalen final.
OMG who’s gonna win? Well, despite what the bookies seem to believe (and more on that below), we actually think it’s quite open. There are seven songs out of the 12 that we can see receiving a similar amount of votes at the top end of the table (well, since you asked – Dotter, Anna Bergendahl, The Mamas, Robin Bengtsson, Hanna Ferm, Felix Sandman and Anis Don Demina). And so, once again, it’ll probably fall to the international juries to decide the winner. Since they probably won’t be so favourable to Anis Don Demina’s ‘Vem E Som Oss’, that leaves six songs. Six songs that we think will be getting a similar portion of the votes from Swedes, and will be falling into order depending on how the juries rank them. Probably. Exciting stuff, right?
The sort of stuff to live for. And what do the bookies think? They say there’s a 50% that Dotter will win with ‘Bulletproof’, and another 30% chance that it could go to either The Mamas’ ‘Move’ or Anna Bergendahl’s ‘Kingdom Come’. The other nine might as well not show up as far as they’re concerned. But we believe it to be a bit more open that that.
And what do the streaming stats say? Understandably it’s the songs that reached the final via Andra Chansen that have earned the highest numbers of streams to date. Though in terms of the charts this week, in the week leading up to the final, one of them has been consistently streaming higher than all others on a daily basis – ‘Vem E Som Oss’ by Anis Don Demina. Just behind him has been ‘Bulletproof’ by Dotter and ‘Brave’ by Hanna Ferm. Beyond that, ‘Talking In My Sleep’ by Paul Rey and ‘Move’ by The Mamas have been the next most popular, with ‘Kingdom Come’ by Anna Bergendahl some way behind in sixth.
This is gonna be good. How do I watch? 8pm CET, over on svtplay.se.
A final word on each of the songs? Go on then – here are our thoughts on the twelve songs in the order that they’ll be performed;
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Victor Crone – Troubled Waters
After going to war for another country against his own (ESC, Estonia, Sweden, respectively), Victor Crone has re-ingratiated himself with the Swedish public by delivering them a bop that’s right up their street. But no – they won’t ever be seen to be sending ‘last year’s Estonian entry’ to Eurovision. No way.
Paul Rey – Talking In My Sleep
The sleeper hit that has had wonders worked for it by going through Andra Chansen. But it’s probably too sleepy to grab that all-important win – regardless of how much Paul whispers sweet nothings throughout.
The Mamas – Move
After giving last year’s victor a leg-up to the win, these ladies have made a so-far successful bid to come back and take that win all for themselves. They might just do it, too, considering how every jury last year gave the Mamas-assisted ‘Too Late For Love’ its top marks. Whatever happens though, they’ve used this as the best possible launch for their career together. And we can’t wait to hear what comes next from them.
Mohombi – Winners
Oddly side-lined this year – in terms of the finalists, at least – considering how mammoth a song it is. We can’t quite work out how it’s not being considered for the win. But the streaming figures are showing that it just hasn’t connected in the same way as most of the others. And so unless the juries take to it unanimously, it’s well out of the running tomorrow night.
Hanna Ferm – Brave
This one has been doing the numbers on Spotify, and deservedly so. And so we can also see it picking up the hundreds of thousands of votes tomorrow night. But will it be jury pick? Given that it’s a little difficult to detect a lot of the lyrics when she performs the chorus, we’re right now leaning towards – probably not.
Mendez feat. Alvaro Estrella – Vamos Amigos
Every Melodifestivalen needs its soup’d up party track – the Swedes demand it! But do they vote for it to go and represent them at Eurovision? Oh good heavens, no!
Dotter – Bulletproof
The current favourite to win. And in all honesty, we think it will and we think it fully deserves to. That song, combined with that staging, combined with that artist – will give Sweden its best possible result at the Eurovision Song Contest out of this lot.
Robin Bengtsson – Take A Chance
The dark horse of the competition. We say that because we can imagine him coming in 5th or 6th in the public televote, but then storming the jury vote with a win, taking his combined result up to the very top of the leaderboard. He’s the one to watch to cause an upset tomorrow night.
Mariette – Shout It Out
Mariette made history last month by becoming the first artist to progress direct to the final on every four of their first four attempts. But the most she should be hoping for tomorrow night is to just not finish in last place. The goodwill is there, but the momentum isn’t.
Felix Sandman – Boys With Emotions
He went into the contest as the big favourite to win, that pretty soon went south, though, and the contest widened, which is better for everyone, really. He got his mammoth hit single out of the whole thing, however, and even in terms of the contest tomorrow night, he’s absolutely not to be counted out.
Anna Bergendahl – Kingdom Come
The narrative on this is just too good. Ten years after giving Sweden its first and, to date, only non-qualification at Eurovision, she’s back with a banger, in contention for the win, and is aiming to re-write her Eurovision history, give herself the fairytale ending she deserves, and retire from it all to work as a Doctor. We would love for all of the above to happen (apart from the retiring from music bit – please don’t ever do that, Anna), but after seeing how disgracefully the juries slaughtered her song last year, ‘Ashes To Ashes’, we just aren’t allowing ourselves that chance to dream. But wow – wouldn’t it be amazing?
Anis Don Demina – Vem E Som Oss
Hands-down the biggest hit of the whole contest, and the highest charter on Spotify all week – the first to break the 2 million stream mark (and probably many other million marks further down the line). Will it win the actual contest? Not a chance. But has it sort of, in a round about way, already won? We would not argue with that statement.
