This Saturday in Sweden, we get the third heat of Melodifestivalen. Here’s a round-up of all that happened in Heat 2, if you missed it.
This time around we have two artists who are coming back for a second time after debuting in Melodifestivalen 2016 (one finished in 5th place in the final, the other crashed out in 5th place in their heat). And we have a whopping five artists who are entering Melodifestivalen for the first time. From a completely new name in Swedish pop to a three-time MTV EMA Award winning act.
You can now listen to one minute clips of each of the songs right here, plus watch thirty second clips of their rehearsals right here.
But until the big event on Saturday night – here is all you need to know about the artists and songs competing in Heat 3 of Melodifestivalen 2017;
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Robin Bengtsson – I Can’t Go On
(David Kreuger, Hamed ”K-One” Pirouzpanah, Robin Stjernberg)
Another very welcome return in 2017 from the 2016 contest. This time he’s armed with a song that’s composed by the guy who won Melodifestivalen in 2013, and two guys who wrote the song that won Melodifestivalen in 2014. Despite their win with ‘Undo’ though, Kreuger and K-One are more well known for their big produced belters. And Robin confirms that he’s going more up-tempo this year – and that the song will be a funkier, speedier number that shows a different side to what people saw on ‘Constellation Prize’.
Krista Siegfrids – Snurra Min Jord
(Krista Siegfrids, Gustaf Svenungsson, Magnus Wallin, Gabriel Alares)
You might be surprised to see Krista back because of the relatively poor performance of ‘Faller’ in last year’s contest. But don’t forget that outside of Melodifestivalen she’s a proper awesome popstar who is more than capable of delivering the big tunes one after the other. And so we imagine she’s delved into her repertoire and presented SVT with an even better song than last time around. The big hint is seeing Gabriel Alares as a songwriter – the gent who brought us Robin Bengtsson’s ‘Constellation Prize’ last year, and who was behind the Russian Eurovision entry that almost stopped the Swedish win in 2015. Krista has confirmed that this song is a CLUB anthem. And we are so ready for this!
Anton Hagman – Kiss You Goodbye
(Christian Fast, Tim Schou, Henrik Nordenback)
We’ve championed this guy on here a lot over the last few years – first as a member of the duo JA, then the trio Lines & Colours, and then finally with his own solo endeavors via YouTube covers. So we’re pleased to see him finally launch his solo career properly – and on the Melodifestivalen stage too. He’s got Tim Schou on board as a songwriter – the frontman of Danish Eurovision entrants A Friend in London. Tim has never really moved away from anthemic guitar pop since then, so we reckon Anton (who plays guitar himself) will be latching onto that sound well here. He’s been at pains to showcase his musicianship over the past couple of years on YouTube, so we’d be very surprised to see him put down the guitar and mic stand, and replace them with a dance routine.
Jasmine Kara – Gravity
(Anderz Wrethov, Jasmine Kara)
Jasmine got given a massive promotional push a few years back, to some disappointing commercial results. And it’s been diminishing returns ever since, with a string of independent releases over the past 12 months going by largely unnoticed. Still, it seems long overdue that she get given a place at Melodifestivalen. And with Anderz Wrethov by her side as a composer (he was behind three MF finalists last year year, by SaRaha, Samir & Viktor, and David Lindgren), we have high hopes in ‘Gravity’ being a lot better than what she’s recently had to offer.
Owe Thörnqvist – Boogieman Blues
(Owe Thörnqvist)
Aged 87, he’s the oldest Melodifestivalen contestant of all time. With a completely self-penned track, he’s therefore unlikely to steer away from the retro troubadour blues that he’s now synonymous with in Sweden. And we’re therefore probably unlikely to really get behind him. But we’re sure many will….
Bella & Filippa – Crucified
(Peter Hägerås, Mats Frisell, Jakob Stadell, Filippa Frisell, Isabella Snihs)
Their debut single ‘Missing Rose’ was released at the end of last year, and so we can only really look to that for clues as to how ‘Crucified’ might sound. But they’re pretty obvious clues. Bella & Filippa are a country-pop duo through and through. The aforementioned debut single was VERY strong. And so their entry could well be a contender for being the big surprise of the night.
FO&O – Gotta Thing
(Robert ”Mutt” Lange, Tony Nilsson)
Formerly known as The Fooo Conspiracy, these chaps are the frontrunners of the contest, and the big favourites to win. Their fanbase alone could well be enough to give them a victory (the same voting fanbase has already resulted in them winning three MTV EMA Awards, most recently beating Zara Larsson in votes). And that, coupled with the fact that their song is written by the man behind Shania Twain’s biggest hits? They’re gonna need to do something monumentally awful on the night for them to fuck this up. But then performance-wise, they’ve proved to be pretty flawless in that respect too.
