The last of the four Melodifestivalen heats concluded last night. And we have two more finalists, two Andra Chansen hopers, and three songs crashing out of the contest altogether. The quality in songs was turned up a notch last night, and there wasn’t a bad song amongst them. But the result had to unfold one way. And here’s how it all went down;
Ok, so let’s get the obvious out of the way first. No, not the obvious fact that Måns Zelmerlöw could have turned up and kicked a puppy around the stage for three minutes and still qualified to the final. The obvious fact that the staging of ‘Heroes’ was nothing short of brilliant, and one of the best three minutes of television production that we’ve ever seen in a song competition. Your fave broadcasters could never. Like, WOW – that was incredible. A performance that incredible however, does bring with it some expectations that the song is also going to be that up there on that level. And perhaps we need to readjust our expectations somewhat, but we did find ‘Heroes’ to be ever so underwhelming. It’s a good song – there’s no questioning that. But in terms of the eight songs already in the final – we’d place this as our fifth favourite. And we really wanted to love it a bit more than that. Still – if Sweden were allowed to recreate that on the stage in Vienna, Sweden would be guaranteed a fourth top three finish in five years of Eurovision. But we think that’s more down to the staging, and the comparisons to what’s already in the ESC this year, than it is to the song. Though we’ll probably need to revisit the song in a different context – outside of the expectations that a Måns Zelmerlöw Melodifestivalen comeback results in, and without that awe inspiring staging going on all around it.
JTR were the surprise second finalist with their song ‘Building It Up’. A song that stays in the middle of the road and uneventfully treads the line of generic safe play. They’re capable of much better, and we thought that they’d actually made a mistake entering this into Melodifestivalen. But you can never underestimate the power of a teenage girl with an app. And so ‘Building It Up’ has its place in the final. Baffling.
Best song of the week was Dinah Nah‘s ‘Make Me (La La La)’. That post-chorus DROP! It’s life giving, and then life taking-away again. It should have been the other finalist, but we’ll make do with Andra Chansen instead – as it means we only have to wait a week to see THAT performance again. It’s the dancepop BANGER of Melodifestivalen 2015, and we’re already gagging for more sound-a-like gems from her. Feed us Dinah. Make us La La La.
‘Guld och Gröna Skogar’ by Hasse Andersson is a song that Swedes have heard a million times before. But yet, they LOVE to hear it again. And again. And again. And we’re totally with them on that. It’s odd. We know it’s odd. We can’t explain it. It transcends a need for reason. And we’ll all be listening to it again next week – because Sweden has sent it to Andra Chansen.
It seems grossly unfair that Caroline Wennergren should return to Melodifestivalen ten years after her debut, with a song that’s so much better, and yet end up a result that’s so much worse. ‘Black Swan’ is an Amanda Jenssen flavoured Motown jam that she performed brilliantly. So well, that all bad will we had towards her for THAT other Melodifestivalen song of hers, was washed away after three minutes. It aches that we won’t see this performed a second or third time. But we’ll be listening to the studio version of it until she makes her return in another ten years.
‘Ett Andetag’ by Annika Herlitz is the perfect merging of a timeless schlager ballad with a traditional Disney ballad. A good song elevated (literally) by an amazing peformance. After Kristin Amparo’s ‘I See You’ last week though, no other ballad can even compete in he awesome stakes. Still – it stings a bit that this crashed out in 6th place, while the inferior ‘Can’t Hurt Me Now’ by Jessica Andersson sailed straight to the final a few weeks back.
And now we come to 7th place. One of the least deserving last place finishers EVER (and there have been a few). ‘Don’t Say No’ is an exhilarating journey back to the 80s, paying homage the biggest and bestest sounds from that era, and tarting them up with an even brighter gloss and sparkle. And Midnight Boy sold it with all the passion he has for that kind of music. His performance last night was one of the best Melodifestivalen debuts we’ve had over the past couple of years. We hope the last place finish doesn’t cause him to shy away from releasing more bangers like this in the future. If he continues to churn them out like this, he’ll be one of Sweden’s best popstars.
As it”s the end of Heat 4, ALL 28 songs have now been released on Spotify. And we’ve compiled a handy Melodifestivalen 2015 playlist for you to listen to. Christ knows how many of them the labels have made available to listen to outside of Sweden though. But if you live outside of Sweden, you can buy the Melodifestivalen 2015 CD featuring all 28 songs, from our store.
All 28 performances are also available to watch now, over on SVT’s website. Here are the seven from last night;
