The third heat of Melodifestivalen takes place next weekend – this time coming from the North of Sweden, in Skellefteå.
Here’s your weekly introduction to the eight artists and songs who will be competing. This heat contains a lot of pop names and some Scandipop favourites. And it also plays host to the song that betting agencies have today made the clear favourite to win Melodifestivalen 2013.
Check back here throughout the week for our interviews with some of the artists. And then on Friday for our full report from the Friday afternoon rehearsals.
And until then, if the excitement proves just TOO MUCH, the Melodifestivalen 2013 CD with all 32 songs, is already available to order from our store.
Now though. Heat 3 looks something like this;
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Eddie Razaz – Alibi
Låtskrivare: Peter Boström, Thomas G:son
Despite the fact that ‘Alibi’ is his debut single, this young chap has actually been a high profile on the music scene for almost half a decade now. He took part in Swedish Idol in 2009, and then immediately afterwards formed the pop duo REbound, with his fellow Idol participant Rabih Jaber. After three hit singles including a number one, both boys went solo. And on a couple of occasions since, Eddie has given Scandipop readers previews of the solo material he’s been working on, and he picked up the Brightest New Hope award in the 2012 Scandipop Awards. Now though, he’s finally about to launch his pop career on the largest scale there is in Sweden. His song ‘Alibi’ was written by the same two men behind Loreen’s ‘Euphoria’ (good omen), who are also the same two men behind Swedish House Wives’ ‘On Top Of The World’ (bad omen). ‘Alibi’ has been described as a massive dancepop track, and Eddie himself has promised us a big number and great show. We’re super confident that he will deliver the goods. On paper though, this is the toughest heat of all three – so he’s gonna need to live up to our confidence in him.
Elin Petersson – Island
Låtskrivare: Elin Petersson
Elin won this year’s variation of the web joker contest. And then her and Christer Björkman sat through lots and lots of submitted songs to find the right one for her. On the one hand, any association with that bloody web joker thing doesn’t cause us to get very excited. On the other hand though, like we said – they sifted through a lot of songs to finally settle on ‘Island’ – so chances are it’s gonna be quite good, right? She describes it as a melancholic pop song.
Ravaillacz – En riktig jävla schlager
Låtskrivare: Kjell Jennstig, Leif Goldkuhl och Henrik Dorsin
Four old codgers (Tommy Körberg, Claes Malmberg, Johan Rabaeus, and Mats Ronander), each famous and successful in their own right, come together for a one off Melodifestivalen experience. Like Swedish House Wives, but older. Like Hanson, Carson & Malmkvist, but a little less glamorous. The songwriting team behind it have a big background in comedy, and the song is described as humorous. A light hearted piss-take SLASH homage to the traditional genre of Swedish music. There’s certainly enough good will towards these guys on name alone, to make people want to vote for them. So unless they balls it all up with a less than mediocre song, it’s difficult not to see this finishing at least 5th.
Amanda Fondell – Dumb
Låtskrivare: Freja Blomberg, Fredrik Samsson
The winner of the most recent series of Swedish Idol, one would be forgiven for thinking that she’s the most likely to progress from this heat, based on her past success with the whole televoting thing. However, she describes her song as dark, dramatic, mystical, and magical. And while that could well lead to an amazing song, it could just as easily lead to something which doesn’t quite connect with a Saturday night television audience. We like Amanda Fondell though, and have high hopes for her impending music (her previous single ‘Bastard’ was an absolute triumph). So we’d like to see this contest give her career as much of a jump start as possible.
Martin Rolinski – In And out of Love
Låtskrivare: Thomas G:son, Andreas Rickstrand och Martin Rolinski
BWO’s former front man returns to Melodifestivalen as a soloist. Martin describes the song as happy, up-tempo electropop – but different to anything we’ve heard from him before. He also promises that his performance will be quite the spectacle, and that he’ll do something which hasn’t been seen in this context before. We love Martin and we’d really like him to do well with a great pop song. But we’re slightly concerned about the fact that his previous solo outing, the debut single ‘Blame It On A Descent Matter’ went more or less totally under the radar, despite also being a great pop song. That caused him to disappear for another eighteen months. We don’t want a bad result on Saturday night to have the same effect.
Caroline af Ugglas – Hon har inte
Låtskrivare: Heinz Liljedahl, Caroline af Ugglas
The woman who came second in the contest in 2009, and who very nearly won, with the spellbinding and beautiful ‘Snälla Snälla’. That’s enough form to suggest that she’s one of the favourites to go to the final on Saturday night. But then ‘Snälla Snälla’ has been something of a red herring when glancing through her career. Her previous Melodifestivalen entry in 2007 didn’t do anything, and since ‘Snälla Snälla’, she hasn’t actually managed to have another hit. Still though, if anyone’s gonna cause upset to our Pop 4 on Saturday night, we reckon it’s this lady.
State of Drama – Falling
Låtskrivare: Göran Werner, Sebastian Hallifax, Emil Gullhamn, James Hallifax
These boys won the quite high profile Metro on Stage contest last year. They’ve spoken a lot about what they have planned for the performance (beautiful, hot, sexy, spectacular), but not a lot about the song itself. They’re a pop/rock band though, and their most recent single was pretty boring. We’ll be surprised if this doesn’t end up being our least favourite song this week, but we’re always open to being proved wrong in these cases. Do your best, chaps.
Janet Leon – Heartstrings
Låtskrivare: Fredrik Kempe, Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad
And now we come to a song that we’ve actually already heard. And in fact, out of all of the Melodifestivalen songs we’ve heard this year, ‘Heartstrings’ is our absolute favourite. Evidently, everyone else who has heard the song feels the same way, as due to what we imagine must be a lot of insider gossip surrounding it, ‘Heartstrings’ has been slowly rising up the list of betting agency odds. And after last night’s Heat 2 result, ‘Heartstrings’ is now the clear favourite to win Melodifestivalen 2013. What’s all the fuss about though? Well, it’s bloody brilliant, that’s what. A superb dance/pop/disco production from Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad, and a catchy top-line from Fredrik Kempe. And Janet herself does a fantastic vocal on it (on the studio version at least). This song was originally offered to Agnes, and her label really wanted her to do it, but Agnes said no. Not because of the song though, just because she didn’t want to compete in Melodifestivalen again. If you’ve been missing the glamour, the gala, and the God damn amazingness in this year’s Melodifestivalen entries so far, ‘Heartstrings’ will restore all order for you. Listen out for the spectacular glory note.
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