Whatever your opinion on the songs of this year’s Melodifestivalen, the great big televisual and music contest has proved once again that it is capable of delivering the actual hits. Much has been said on social media over the past few weeks that the quality of the songs in this year’s Melodifestivalen is of a different (ie – lower) standard to previous years. But it would seem that the Swedish music listening public largely disagree. Spotify numbers are a clearer indication than ever of what people are listening to. And right now, Sweden is obsessed with the songs that this year’s Melodifestivalen has given us.
As of today’s chart, Melodifestivalen is responsible for a whopping 15 of the Top 50 songs on Spotify, with the top three positions all taken by tracks from the contest. YOU might be pining for a new Linda Bengtzing or Alcazar song (hell, who wouldn’t – though in actual fact you’ll find their new singles here and here respectively, thank you very much), but the Swedish music listening public have evidently found a lot to love from this year’s 28 songs. And SVT themselves can walk away from Melodifestivalen 2018 knowing that they’ve successfully achieved both of their missions – top the TV charts, and the music charts. Job done – and we’ve not even witnessed the final yet.
The final! We now have our twelve finalists thanks to last weekend’s Andra Chansen round, which saw four more artists get those last four slots in the final. Margaret, Renaida, Felix Sandman, and Mendez won their respective duels, and we’ve now got ourselves a top quality line-up to look forward to tomorrow night.
What order are they gonna perform in? What does that mean for its chances? Who’s been the most streamed on Spotify? And who’s been the most viewed on YouTube? Let’s fine out!
First of all, let’s look at the total Spotify plays for all of the Melodifestivalen finalists, as of today (and it’s worth remembering that the Andra Chansen qualifiers mentioned above have all been available to stream for longer);
Mendez – Everyday: 3m
Felix Sandman – Every Single Day: 2.82m
Samir & Viktor – Shuffla: 2.63m
Margaret – In My Cabana: 2.39m
Benjamin Ingrosso – Dance You Off: 1.93m
Renaida – All The Feels: 1.63m
Liamoo – Last Breath: 1.49m
Rolandz – Fuldans: 1.29m
Mariette – For You: 1.19m
John Lundvik – My Turn: 1m
Jessica Andersson – Party Voice: 929k
Martin Almgren – A Bitter Lullaby: 720k
And with all of these plays, this is how the Melodifestivalen finalists have performed over the last seven days – resulting in this week’s Sverigetopplistan (Sweden’s singles chart) published today;
#1 Every Single Day
#3 Shuffla
#4 Everyday
#7 Dance You Off
#10 Last Breath
#12 In My Cabana
#14 Fuldans
#21 For You
#22 My Turn
#28 Party Voice
#38 All The Feels
#42 A Bitter Lullaby
All very well, but what about the streams the day before the actual final? Below are how the songs rank on today’s Spotify chart;
#1 Every Single Day??
#3 Everyday??
#5 Shuffla??
#7 Dance You Off??
#10 In My Cabana??
#12 Last Breath??
#20 Fuldans??
#21 For You??
#25 My Turn??
#31 Party Voice??
#32 All The Feels??
#42 A Bitter Lullaby??
And finally, this is how often people have been pulling the videos up online and watching the performances again. The total YouTube views of each performance;
In My Cabana: 1.9m
Shuffla: 1.3m
Fuldans: 738k
Everyday: 659k
All The Feels: 511k
Dance You Off: 467k
Every Single Day: 343k
For You: 243k
Party Voice: 170k
My Turn: 148k
Last Breath: 145k
A Bitter Lullaby 78k
Now – here is the running order of the songs as they will be performed tomorrow night – along with out own view on what this means and what their chances are. Enjoy the show tomorrow night, everybody!
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01: Mendez – Everyday
SVT need a big, audience-friendly party tune to open the show. Just not one of the chosen ones, thank you very much – they’ll need to be performing later. Mendez’s ‘Everyday’ has been one of the biggest hits on Spotify, holding up well after its heat when all of the other finalists were released – it’s currently the second most popular finalist on Spotify. But we get the feeling that SVT don’t really want to send this to Eurovision to represent Sweden. So let’s put it on as the opening number. Serving its purpose as a party starter, without becoming too much of a serious contender.
Renaida – All The Feels
The cruelty of getting your place in the final, only to minutes later be given the dreaded second performance slot. Thank you for being here, but we have absolutely zero faith in you as a contender. Charming. We doubt she’ll mind too much though. Her Andra Chansen duel was the toughest one to call. And either winner would have been lucky to have come out on top in such a close race.
Martin Almgren – A Bitter Lullaby
The ‘direkt til finalen’ qualifier that’s been performing the absolute worst on Spotify. And rightly so. Get your pee breaks in now, guys. Because it’s the only dip in song quality until the twelve finalists have all performed.
Spotify plays to date: 480,399
YouTube views to date: 56,862
John Lundvik – My Turn
The starting position that housed last year’s winner, ‘I Can’t Go On’ by Robin Bengtsson. If anyone is gonna cause an upset to the current favourites, it’s the public-friendly John Lundvik with the jury-friendly ‘My Turn’. And we’d be just fine with that.
Jessica Andersson – Party Voice
If you’ve been reading this website for a while, you won’t need us to tell you that this is our absolute favourite. Does it have a shot of winning? Not really. Will it be a highlight on the night? Absolutely. Has it saved schlager from disappearing from the contest completely? We should bloody hope so.
LIAMOO – Last Breath
We come to our first of three ‘chosen ones’. And of all of the finalists, it’s ‘Last Breath’ which has grown on us the most since we first heard it. It’s a cracking great tune. And in a year that has many people wondering if Sweden can qualify for the final at Eurovision, we’d say it’d be a very safe bet to do so.
Samir & Viktor – Shuffla
The biggest Spotify hit of this year’s contest, in terms of the most time spent in the Top 5 – with even a stint at number 1. SVT love having Samir & Viktor here, as they’re big headline grabbers, a huge talking point of any line-up, and an act that most people just love to see perform for three minutes. We don’t think that SVT would ever want them to win, but since they’ve already been granted the opening and closing performance slots on their previous two appearances in the final, the broadcaster can’t very well get away with chucking them out there to dry yet again. And so they’ve been given one of the dangerously competitive slots instead, albeit reluctantly so, we imagine. Sweden loves them, but would Europe be drawn in by their charms? It looks like we might not need to ever worry about that anyway. The last time Samir & Viktor made the Melodifestivalen final in 2016, they got zero points from the juries, and scored the second lowest voting tally from the Swedish public – finishing in last position. Despite the Spotify success (which was present last time too, we might add), these boys have got more of an uphill struggle than most in the line up. But we’re over the moon that they’re here anyway.
Mariette – For You
Seemingly the second of SVT’s three chosen ones. But despite being hyped as the big contest favourite going into the show, Mariette closed Heat 4 with what’s been her weakest entry to date. Her (also hugely hyped) performance of it wasn’t all that special either, and left us wondering what was going on, more than anything else. Though admittedly, we’d had a few wines by that stage. Still, while we were all wondering a few weeks back whether it would be Mariette’s year this year, we think it’s safe to say that it’s most definitely not.
Felix Sandman – Every Single Day
Without a doubt the dark horse of the competition. Or at least he was – he’s now the clear favourite alongside Benjamin Ingrosso, after the week he’s had on Spotify (today he spends his second day at number 1). We reckon it’s his to lose. And Andra Chansen will be producing its second winner to date. He’s consistently had one of the highest charting Melodifestivalen songs since its release, so we know the Swedish public are listening to it. A hell of a lot. And it’s the sort of number that usually draws huge support from juries too. One question though – why has he got that huge microphone?!
Margaret – In My Cabana
We find it highly unlikely that Sweden would vote for a non Swedish person to be their winner. But they have been giving it plenty of listens. And rightly so. It bangs. And is gonna be another big performance highlight on the night. We wonder who the Polish jury will give their twelve points to…
Benjamin Ingrosso – Dance You Off
The last of SVT’s chosen ones, and we’d wager a bet to say that he’s their main one too. He’s certainly been given the best performance slot. And what a performance. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Sweden send this to Eurovision, for their pride in its staging alone. But as it stands, we’re looking at probably the most contemporary song in the line-up, delivered by a performer that has bags of natural charm. Along with Felix, we see Benjamin as the most likely to win this. And if he were to win, we’d say Sweden are looking at their seventh Top 5 finish at Eurovision in eight years.
Rolandz – Fuldans
Yeah cheers guys ha ha very funny.
