After Melodifestivalen Heat 4, we went along to the after party and got to meet all of the artists. And what a lovely party it was! Each artist was very friendly and perfectly approachable. And we got to chat to many of the songwriters too. What struck us most of all though, was that many of them were incredulous at the idea that people from the UK admired and knew so much about the music that they were making. Agnes‘ team were genuinely amazed that her most recent album ‘Dance! Love! Pop!’ has a bit of a cult following amongst pop fans in the UK. They were impressed that we knew the album really well, and delighted to hear that that the likes of ‘Release Me’ and ‘On And On’ are getting a good reaction when played at the scandipop club nights in London. They’re looking forward enormously to coming to the UK later in the year for the release of ‘Release Me’.
Star Pilots were another act who are really excited about their UK launch. Their 2008 summer hit ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ is being released through Hard2Beat in the next few months and they were pleasantly surprised to hear that it’s already recieving radio play in the UK.
Another issue that we noticed us was the feeling of fair play. Sarah Dawn Finer was in the highest of spirits throughout the night, despite the fact that she’d only made the second chance round after being favourite all week to qualify to the final. Anna Sahlene, Maria Haukaas Storeng, and Susanne Alfengren were also in a good mood throughout the night, remaining upbeat about their future projects even though they’d been eliminated from the competition. And Next 3 didn’t leave the dancefloor.
Everyone present was there to have a good time regardless of their result at the show, and a result, the party had a great atmosphere. The dancefloor was packed with Agnes dancing to ‘On And On’, Anna Sahlene and her backing dancers all clubbing to the dance remix of ‘Killing Me Tenderly’, and Sarah Dawn Finer doing the splits to Timbaland! There were a few nuggets of gossip that were revealed to us, but we’ve been sworn to absolute secrecy! Though we will say that fans of Scandinavian pop music should rejoice in the fact that the pop royalty of Melodifestivalen, the artists, writers, and labels, have no intention whatsoever of giving up their day jobs and nothing excites them more than writing catchy, melody driven pop gems just how we like them. The music is going to keep on coming!
We’ll upload the photos later in the week to a new gallery page.
