This Saturday night sees the fourth and final heat of Melodifestivalen take place. Have we heard the winner yet? Many people believe not, and that it – or specifically she – has been hiding in this very heat.
Competing, we have a boyband member gone solo, a teeny-bopper, a dansband parody, three young female artists looking for their big break, and seemingly the chosen one to represent Sweden at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.
Get to know the artists below, and find out what their songs are gonna sound like.
And here’s our run through of what happened in Heat 3, if you missed it on Saturday night!
HEAT 4: Örnsköldsvik (Feb 24th)
Emmi Christensson – Icarus
(Thomas G:son, Christian Schneider, Andreas Hedlund, Sara Biglert)
A young lady who has already been making a name for herself in the musical world, starring in productions such as Mamma Mia, The Sound of Music, West Side Story and Les Miserables. Emmi has said that she’s going to be performing a mid-tempo song, with ‘Icarus’ having an air of the epic and the cinematic to it. It’s not an up-tempo, but not a ballad – something in between. And she would cite the references behind it as a cross between Loreen and Enya. Blimey!
Elias Abbas – Mitt Paradis
(Anderz Wrethov, Hamed “K-One” Pirouzpanah, Sami Rekik)
16 year old chap Elias debuted last year with ‘Min Queen‘. Which we neglected to feature on here as we weren’t really a fan. He’s hooked up with the same team again for ‘Mitt Paradis’ (which is presumably where ‘Min Queen’ resides). And he’s confirmed that it’s an up-tempo pop track with dancehall vibes.
Felicia Olsson – Break That Chain
(Bobby Ljunggren, Kristian Lagerström, Henrik Wikström, Joy Deb)
We loved our introduction to this lady back in 2013, when she debuted in Melodifestivalen with ‘Make Me Number 1‘. And were dismayed to have never heard from her again. But she’s back, looking fabulous, and hopefully sounding just as good too. We’re massively overjoyed to see the schlager writing legends Ljunggren and Wikström on board as well. And a Deb is always a good sign. Felicia promises that she’s bringing a really strong song to compete with. And those who have heard the song, reckon it’s a big contender.
Rolandz – Fuldans
(Fredrik Kempe, David Kreuger, Robert Gustafsson, Regina Hedman)
On paper we should like this. A dansband track penned by Kempe and Kreuger amongst others. However, Rolandz are a parody dansband created by comedian Robert Gustafsson. Let’s hope they don’t forget the importance of the melody in a dansband song though, while no doubt trying desperately to make a nation of Swedes halfway through an evening of Lördagsgodis fall about laughing. Their song? It’s about drunk dancing. Great.
Olivia Eliasson – Never Learn
(Anton Ewald, Jonas Wallin, Trond Smeplass)
From the same management stable as both Wiktoria and Anton Ewald (who has co-written this song), Olivia Eliasson has previously delivered the goods on 2016’s ‘Do You‘, and 2014’s ‘Meet Your Mother‘. And we’d expect ‘Never Learn’ to sound more like the former of those two songs, as she’s confirmed it has both pop and tropical house vibes. Anton and Wiktoria have made the final both times they’ve entered. So it’s fair to say that Olivia’s team know a thing or two about sending a song to Melodifestivalen. Olivia has confirmed that she’s bringing a staging with her to match that of the standard we saw with Wiktoria’s entries.
Felix Sandman – Every Single Day
(Noah Conrad, Tony Ferrari, Parker James, Jake Torry, Felix Sandman)
Him out of FO&O. Not the pouty one. Or the one with the electro-shock platinum hair. The other one. While the band are on a break, he’s been in TEN Music’s LA studios working on tunes. And let’s face it, nothing bad ever comes out of TEN’s studios, does it? Felix has said that his song is an emotional one, and a world away from what he ended up in the final with last year as part of FO&O.
Mariette – For You
(Jörgen Elofsson)
After two entries that both ended up very high on the Melodifestivalen final leader board, it feels like Mariette is due a win this year. Particularly, in our opinion, given that her summer single last year – ‘Louder‘ – would have been a worthy contest winner itself. It’s quite exciting that Jörgen Elofsson is behind this song, as he’s recently been responsible for the a pair of ten-out-of-ten singles by Swedish artist Rhys – ‘Last Dance‘ and ‘Too Good To Be True‘. Mariette herself has confirmed that she’s competing with what she believes is a winning song. As such, pretty much everyone else is expecting her to walk it this year. Let’s hope she can live up to that pressure in her performance on Saturday night.
