In Sweden, we’re now 2 heats and 16 songs into the 4 heats and 32 songs that find us a winner of Melodifestivalen 2012. Heat 2 was last night (and SVT are streaming it on their website for another day or so) and these are the results;
Direct to the final
Ulrik Munther: ‘Soldiers’
David Lindgren: ‘Shout It Out’
Qualifying for the second chance round
Timoteij: ‘Stormande Hav’
Top Cats: ‘Baby Doll’
NOT our favoured result, to put it simply!
Ulrik was always expected to progress to the final, on name alone. But since he didn’t bring to the contest with him an amazing song, it makes it a lot more difficult to accept that result. ‘Soldiers’ is good but that’s about it. It’s not the standout song that a heat as strong as this should be sending to the final.
David Lindgren’s ‘Shout It Out’ is much better. But we actually feel the same way about it as we do with Ulrik. To our ears there were four songs that were better than it in this heat. That they all finished below him in the result, is a little incomprehendible to us. On Friday, we likened the song and performance to a High School Musical version of Danny’s ‘In The Club’. But in other words, that’s just a poor man’s version of Danny’s ‘In The Club’. It’s a shame we feel this away about his great result, because we do actually like the song. And the performance. And him. But it’s just not in any way exceptional. And it pales in comparison in every way, when putting it next to the aforementioned Danny package last year. One year later, an inferior rehash should not be getting a direct ticket to the final.
Timoteij on the other hand, should be getting such a ticket. But instead they’re gonna have to fight it out in the second chance round with that awful Thorsten Flinck character, that grating Sean Banan chap, and those rockabilly boys Top Cats that shared Timoteij’s andra chansen result last night. What a frightening prospect for the girls, and a depressing reality for us fans!
Results aside, last night’s show was fab. Once again, it’s so apparent how entertaining it is to have Edward and Daniel back as the show’s scriptwriters. And Sarah Dawn Finer and Gina Diwari are continuing to do a great job as hosts. This was mostly evident in the Cheiron boyband opening number. It’s amazing that Melodifestivalen keeps pulling things like that out of the bag.
The interval act was an interesting one. An electro mash-up/medley of songs called ‘Electric’. And with a hugely welcome appearance from Jessica Folcker throughout. We enjoyed it. And we’ll be watching it again here.
Back to the songs though – as you might have guessed by our whining about the results above, most of our favourites from last night finished at the bottom of the table and are thus out of the competition. Sonja Aldén, Andreas Lundstedt, and Mimi Oh came 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively. Three genuinely great songs that we’ve written a lot more about here, and that we felt deserved a much better result than what they got. Further salt was rubbed into the wounds by this clown finishing above them in 5th. Ouch!
Oh well. That’s the nature of Melodifestivalen. We’re just a bit surprised that it’s the nature of the Swedish televoter. However, at least those three songs are released now and up on YouTube for all to admire (the songs progressing further in the contest will be online after the 4th heat has finished).
So for now, let’s all cop a load of them again!
