(Photo: Stine Stjernkvist/SVT)
You can watch the whole thing again right here, up until tomorrow evening when SVT will take it down. And you can watch the individual performances of each of the songs that didn’t make the final (SVT will release those after Heat 4) right here.
A mostly pleasing result last night – with the two songs that were easily the best of the week, progressing to the final. And so Savior Of Pop Ace Wilder and Nano are the first two Melodifestivalen 2017 finalists, with ‘Wild Child’ and ‘Hold On’. ‘Hold On’ in particular looked and sounded like it may well go on to win the whole thing. Though we’d much prefer if Ace Wilder finally finished in the only position within the final Top 3 that she’s yet to land at.
Boris Rene and Dinah Nah both returned to the contest for the second time, with songs that weren’t AS good as their predecessors. However in last night’s line-up, both songs still deserved to match the success of what came before, and progress in the competition via Andra Chansen. But in Sweden, you can never underestimate the popularity of a ‘comedy’ act. And therefore while De Vet Du’s ‘Road Trip’ was a poor man’s Samir & Viktor, it did snatch one of the andra chansen slots on offer. With Boris Rene’s ‘Her Kiss’ joining them, and Dinah Nah’s ‘One More Night’ unfortunately crashing out in 5th place.
In 6th place we had ‘Amare’ by newcomer Adrijana. On record, we preferred it to both Boris and Dinah’s efforts. But hearing it being sacrificed live was a whole other matter. Crikey.
And then languishing at the very bottom we have the artist who has won the whole thing twice – Charlotte Perrelli. Walking out with a guitar, and performing that tuneless, drippy, dirge was an insult to the Melodifestivalen stage that has made her the top league star she is. And protesting that she is more passionate about her music now than she has ever been, is a further insult to those of us who bought into the music that she is so eager to move away from now. Voters responded to those two fingers up at us, in the best possible way. They chose not to. We love you Charlotte. And we respect your wish to see out this phase in your career. But the Melodifestivalen stage is not the time nor the place to be indulging it. And so we’re actually very satisfied with last night’s result.
We can’t really comment on the hosts, as they didn’t exactly do much to engage us. Or perhaps they tried, but we didn’t engage. Hmmm. Nope, we got nothing.
The two interval acts were absolutely dire – which as we all know by now, is some feat for SVT to achieve. They can get it so right without really trying (see: 15 of the most iconic Melodifestivalen interval acts of the past 15 years). So it’s with great disbelief that they got it so wrong last night. Twice! We’d have even been more entertained had Charlotte Perrelli come out and done a shit on the stage – though hang on, no, that was ‘Mitt Liv’, wasn’t it.
So there we have it. A shaky first week, saved mostly by the songs themselves. And the correct results. We’ll be back again at 20:00 CET next week for more!
You can find ‘One More Night’ and ‘Her Kiss’ on our Best New Pop playlist, and ‘Amare’ on our Best New Artists playlist.
