So, today was the big press conference to announce some new artists for Melodifestivalen 2011, and to say which artists and songs were competing in which of the first two heats. We went along to SVT’s HQ for the conference, tweeted the announcements live, and got to meet most of the artists that we wanted to afterwards for a chat. The huge black sheet with the Melodifestivalen logo, as background for the press shots, was on display, the Melodifestivalen theme tune was playing on loop, and there was a posh buffet laid out with caviar etc! Amazing.
And here are the artists performing in Heat 1. The artists in pink are the ones that we hadn’t know about already before this morning.
Luleå – February 2nd
Pernilla Andersson
Danny
Swingfly
Le Kid
Jonas Matsson
Rasmus Viberg
Jenny Silver
Dilba
Le Kid need no introduction to scandipop readers, as we’ve featured them lots before on here. Their song ‘Oh My God’ (which they insisted to us should be pronounced ‘’oh my gawd’’!) has been composed by Märta, Felix and Anton from the band. Anton told us that the song is typical Le Kid, with a little touch of Motown. They’ve yet to disappoint us with any of their songs, either their two singles ‘Mercy Mercy’ and ‘We Should Go Home Together’, or the songs we’ve seen them perform live or heard on their myspace. So we’re looking forward to ‘Oh My God’ IMMENSELY! And you just know it’s gonna be a spectacular show too. We’ve interviewed them and you can read it below.
Jenny Silver was of course one of the fan favourites of Melodifestivalen 2010, when she competed with ‘A Place To Stay’, despite it finishing last in its heat. She’s back, and this time she’s going a bit poppier. She told us that her song ‘Something In Your Eyes’, is a big disco schlager number – with a key change! The composers are Erik Bernholm, Thomas G:son, and Henrik Sethsson, who together composed Denmark’s entry to Eurovision this year, ‘In A Moment Like This’. And of course we all know Thomas G:son’s amazing schlager credentials! We also had a chat with Jenny, which you can read below.
And the artists competing in Göteborg are as follows;
Göteborg – February 12th
Anniela
Babsan
Sanna Nielsen
Christian Walz
Loreen
The Moniker
Brolle
Elisabeth Andreassen
Anniela is new to Melodifestivalen but not a new artist my any means. She’s already released one pop album, ‘Extravaganza’ back in 2009, and released a new single in August this year, ‘My Confession’, which should give a fairly good indication of her sound – electro dance pop, with the emphasis on pop. Her song ‘Elektrisk’ has been composed by Johan Alkenäs, Tim Larsson, Tobias Lundgren, and Johan Fransson. The team of Tim, Tobias, and Johan excites us – together they composed Linda Bengtzing’s ‘Alla Flickor’ and Alcazar’s ‘Alcastar’! Our interview with Anniela is below.
Christian Walz is a sizeable name in the Swedish music scene. His brand of soul/pop has been around for over a decade, during which he’s managed to bag a Swedish grammy. To be honest, we wouldn’t usually be very excited about his inclusion here, however, his song ‘Like Suicide’ has been composed by Fernando Fuentes, Henrik Janson, Tony Nilsson, and Christian himself. And we would like to point out that Henrik and Tony were the two songwriters behind the ABSOLUTE BEST SONG TO BE RELEASED IN 2010 – ‘FUNERAL’ BY ELIN LANTO!
Speaking of Elin Lanto, her ex boyfriend, Brolle, is a new addition to the Melodifestivalen line-up. Another big name, he’s been around since 2002, releasing four albums of pop/rock with a fifties twist, and gaining quite a big fanbase for himself in the process. He looks like a total rock star, complete with tattoos, fifties style hair, and a lot of black and leather. And he carries himself like one too, as we witnessed first hand at the press conference this morning. Again, he’s not the type of artist we’d listen to, but we’re looking forward to his entry. We get the feeling it’ll be on the poppier side of the usual output, especially for Melodifestivalen. Plus we think he’s absolutely gorgeous and are a TINY bit in love! His song ‘Seven Days and Seven Nights’ has been composed entirely by him.
Finally, The Moniker is otherwise known as Daniel Karlsson, who is most famous for his participation in Idol 2007. He finished fourth, in the same year that brought us Marie Picasso and Amanda Jensen. He’s an indie-pop kinda guy and has written his entry ‘Oh My God’ all by himself.
For more details on the rest of the artists above, that were announced before this morning, you can find and read our pieces about them by clicking on the small blue ‘Melodifestivalen 2011’ tag at the very bottom of this article. It’ll take you to earlier articles we’ve written about next year’s contest.
…………………………….THE INTERVIEWS!……………………………
Below are interviews with our three favourites from the new artists; Le Kid, Jenny Silver, and Anniela. Tomorrow on scandipop, we’ll be uploading our interviews with Dilba, Danny, Sanna Nielsen, and Loreen.
LE KID
scandipop: Well you guys are already well known to scandipop readers, so let’s go straight to the song! It’s called ‘Oh My God’
Felix: Yes, but pronounced ”gawd”!
Helena: Yes, it’s very important to do that! Gawd!
scandipop: Well are you gonna spell it Gawd instead of God?
Felix: We still haven’t decided yet.
Helena: It’s a work in progress!
Felix: We’ll see.
scandipop: Cos if you spell it Gawd, people would get it straight away.
Johanna: Ha ha, that’s true, that’s true! Thank you for that.
scandipop: And what does it sound like?
Helena: It’s a typical Le Kid song. If you listen to ‘Mercy Mercy’ and ‘We Should Go Home Together’, this one follows up in a good way. Yeah.
Anton: It’s very Le Kid, but with a little bit of a Motown sound to it also.
scandipop: Typical Le Kid but reduced to a three minute…..
Felix: And one second!
scandipop: Three minutes and one second?
Johanna: Yeah that’s very important!
scandipop: Are you sure you want me revealing that?! You might be disqualified for having a song that runs beyond the three minute limit!
Felix: We know!
Johanna: That’s the problem.
Felix: But it’s a risk we’re willing to take.
Johanna: It’s very important, that last second.
scandipop: And would you say you’ve schlagerfied your sound for the contest? Or has there been no compromise at all?
Anton: No we haven’t compromised our sound at all. We’ve written a great Le Kid song…
Johanna: Yeah, a great pop song.
Anton: We didn’t write it for the contest, we wrote it along with other new songs for ourselves. But eventually, this was the one that we sent to the competition.
Felix: I think that we always try to do great pop songs with strong hooks and strong chorus, and I think that that’s what you basically need to do for Melodifestivalen anyway. So we didn’t feel like we had to edit anything, from how we wrote it. We just did as we always do.
scandipop: And since you’ve been working on songs for so long, that hopefully means that there’s an album ready to go in March, once you’ve done Melodifestivalen?!
Felix: There just might be!
Johanna: Yeah, finally.
Felix: The album is ready, but we’ve decided that we’ll release it when the population of Sweden deserves it!
(laughter from everyone!)
Helena: So you have to earn it, Sweden! C’mon give us your love in the competition!
Johanna: Or just call us sometime, that’s fine.
(more laughter)
scandipop: And erm….and erm….erm…I can’t even ask a serious question after that! Ok, do you think there’ll be another single before ‘Oh My God’?
Felix: Maybe. There might be. Actually we don’t know. 50/50.
scandipop: And again, is that down to whether or not the Swedish public does something in the next couple of months to make you think that they deserve it?!
Felix: That would be helpful.
Anton: We’re having a pie eating contest in mid December. That will solve it. So until then, focus on eating pie and get ready.
scandipop: And just moving away from Melodifestivalen finally, before this announcement, you guys were all poised to go international. So what’s happening with that now? Is that on hold until after March?
Märta: No, we’re working on it all the time. Denmark is playing ‘We Should Go Home Together’…
Anton: So it’s going well in Denmark.
Märta: So we hope to go there soon.
Felix: And then we have four or five different countries too, but we can’t really say anything yet.
Helena: But we’re not pausing on the other countries because of this, we’re still working on all of that.
Märta: And in the UK we’re signed with 3 Beat and we should know more about our UK launch soon. Although ‘Mercy Mercy’ has already appeared on the Clubland 18 compilation there, released earlier this month.
scandipop: Ok, well thank you very much guys!
Le Kid: THANK YOU!
…………………………………………………….
JENNY SILVER
scandipop: So Jenny Silver, you’re back again!
Jenny: I am!
scandipop: Despite coming 8th in your heat last year, you still ended up being one of the fan favourites with your song ‘A Place To Stay’. You earned a lot of fans and favourable reviews from that alone. Were you aware of that? Or did you just try to forget about the contest once it was over?
Jenny: Well I loved the song myself. And that’s the main reason…why I would be doing anything really. Musically. But yes, I’m really happy that a lot of other people had that feeling for the song as well.
scandipop: And your song this year, ‘Something In Your Eyes’ is quite different isn’t it?
Jenny: Oh it’s totally different!
scandipop: Has it really got an Abba chorus?!
Jenny: Yes! It’s very happy. It’s an adorable song, it’s irresistable. It’s a happy, disco, Abba-esque song.
scandipop: *genuinely drifts off into a fantasy land for a second* Wow!
Jenny: Kind of rock too. A rock disco Abba feeling to it, yeah.
scandipop: And is that gonna be performed with a big dance routine, or will it just be you strutting around the stage giving it loads of attitude? Or just standing in the one spot perhaps?
Jenny: Well perhaps we’ll have to bring on a fan!
scandipop: A wind machine?!!!
Jenny: Yes, schlager all the way.
scandipop: And has it got a key change?
Jenny: Oh yes.
scandipop: Excellent! So, will we be getting an album from you afterwards?
Jenny: Hopefully.
scandipop: And will it be in the same vein as ‘A Place To Stay’, or will you be embracing this new schlager disco sound? Or is that just a one off for Melodifestivalen?
Jenny: I’m working on finding some more songs, and obviously we have to work on finding something that interacts with this song. Because the people who like this will probably want something more in the same style. So I probably will go a bit more pop than club.
scandipop: Although the two go together so well anyway don’t they.
Jenny: They do, they do. So it’ll be something in between.
scandipop: Sounds good! Thank you very much!
Jenny: Thank you.
………………………………………………………..
ANNIELA
scandipop: So Anniela! This is your first Melodifestivalen. But you’re not a new artist are you? You released an album last year.
Anniela: Yes, I released my album ‘Extravaganza’ a year ago. But I’ve been working in the music business my whole life. So I’m not a new artist, I’m just new here!
scandipop: And is ‘Elektrisk’ gonna be a different sound to your previous album?
Anniela: Yes, I’m actually working on my new album right now, so it’s going to be in the same line as that kind of music. But it’s gonna be a Swedish language song, and I’m really excited about that because I’m not used to it!
scandipop: Have you added more schlager to your pop especially for Melodifestivalen?
Anniela: I’m more pop than schlager, so it’s still going to be very much pop, club, electro. I released a new single in August called ‘My Confession’, and it’s quite similar to that. Club music that works on the dancefloor!
scandipop: And what about the performance, is there gonna be big staging to go along with the big song?
Anniela: Oh yeah, definitely! I’m working very hard on that. I’m very inspired by theatre, and so I’m putting a lot of that into the show.
scandipop: And finally, will the album be out directly after Melodifestivalen, or will you wait a little longer?
Anniela: Well we haven’t set a date yet, but it’ll be after Melodifestivalen, yes. Around then.
