Swedish pop gent Måns Zelmerlöw makes his long awaited return to pop music today, with the release of his brand new single, ‘Broken Parts’. It’s the first single to be taken from his third album ‘Barcelona Sessions’, which is released this spring – a full four years after his previous album.
In those four years he’s become a top television personality, hosting Melodifestivalen in 2010, and then finding his feet as the permanent host of SVT’s huge Allsång På Skansen every summer. In that time, he’s also completely overhauled his sound. Gone is the schlagerpop, and in its place we now have melodic and tuneful, “easy listening” pop. Måns has matured.
Technically we’re not really meant to like this change in direction – as we were big fans of the likes of ‘Forever’, ‘Find Love’, ‘Hope & Glory’, ‘Cara Mia’, ‘Brother Oh Brother’ etc etc ETC. However, ‘Broken Parts’ is undeniably an absolute tune and a half – already one of the best things he’s ever put out. The music might be different to the Måns of old, but thankfully he’s stayed true to the big melodies that he made his name with. ‘Broken Parts’ is stunningly beautiful. One-listen-and-you’re-hooked kinda stuff. So yeah – in that sense at least, not much has changed.
It screams “radio hit”, and not just in Sweden either.
Ironically, since Måns is clearly trying to distance himself from his Melodifestivalen sound of old, ‘Broken Parts’ actually has a lot more in common with the sound of Melodifestivalen 2013, than ‘Cara Mia’ or ‘Hope & Glory’ do. But he’ll be content in the knowledge that he’s doing it a hell of a lot better than this year’s participants are doing. One of the expected winner’s, Ulrik Munther’s ‘Tell The World I’m Here’, for example.
