On Saturday night we got to watch it all commence again – as Sweden’s Melodifestivalen returned to our screens for 2024.
Smash Into Pieces and Lisa Ajax got the tickets to the final, with Elisa Lindström and Adam Woods making it into the second-chance round. Samir & Viktor and Melina Borglowe were eliminated from the competition.
This coming Saturday, we head to Gothenburg for the second semi-final!
You’ll be able to watch it live at 20:00 on SVTPlay.se – and that’s also where you’ll be able to hear snippets of the songs from 07:00 on Thursday morning, as well as clips from rehearsal performances at 07:00 on Friday morning.
SVT gave us a preview listen of all six songs ahead of the weekend’s second semi; so to get an idea of what it’s all gonna sound like – read on…
‘When I’m Gone’ – Maria Sur
(Anderz Wrethov, Jimmy “Joker” Thörnfeldt, Julie “Kill J” Aagaard, Maria Sur)
Last year she made her debut in Melodifestivalen, and made an impressive Maria Surge directly into the grand final with her song ‘Never Give Up’. Now the Ukrainian artist is understandably back for another shot in 2024.
This year, she’s graduated from the balladry and onto the dance anthems of emancipation. With lyrics like “I gave it my all, now I don’t even think of you“, it’s easy to get on board with this emboldened banger.
The beats on this are even more amp’d up than last week’s dance music opener, ‘Supernatural’. But with the synths going this hard, it seems to have been at the expense of having a more traditional chorus included. We loved Kadiatou’s ‘One Touch’ despite this, as did many of you. But as we recall, much to our disappointment, the Melodifestivalen voters didn’t!
Where Kadiatou couldn’t, Maria Sur is going to have to pull out a powerhouse performance to really give this song the sales pitch it deserves.
‘Norrland’ – Engmans Kapell
(Larry Forsberg, Lennart Wastesson, Sven-Inge Sjöberg)
As a band they’ve been going for around 30 years and touring extensively around Sweden. So chances are that on Saturday night, a lot of folk tuning in will have been charmed by these guys doing their thing at some point over the past three decades.
Their Melodifestivalen entry is a love song dedicated to the northernmost region of Sweden. Lyrically, it will of course appeal to the most patriotic of viewers from there. But musically, it’s probably not quite strong enough to rope everyone else into its enthusiasm. It’ll all come down to just how many of Norrland’s admittedly huge population can be activated enough to vote on Saturday night. We can’t imagine many others going to the effort.
‘The Silence After You’ – Dear Sara
(Benjamin Rosenbohm, Jonas Thander, Marcus Winther-John, Sara Nutti)
We wrote and raved about Sara’s debut EP back in 2021, and since then she’s been releasing more of her own music, collaborating with other artists and writing for different musicians.
It sounds like she’s quite sensibly saved the best of her scribings for her Melodifestivalen debut. ‘The Silence After You’ is a melodically anthemic mid-tempo number which packs plenty of rousing instrumentation into its production.
It’s always best to be open-minded when we have a newcomer enter the race – and we’d recommend keeping an eye on this one in particular. Where other songs in this semi-final fall short in places, this tune ticks all the boxes it needs to, and does so with great flair. It deserves to be a qualifier on the night, and it should be.
‘Ahumma’ – C-Joe
(Charles Koroma, Diana Kambugu, Michael Didriksson, Palle Hammarlund, Tony Malm, Twice Ice)
Having been a member of the artist collective G-Force, C-Joe has since managed to forge a solo career for himself, with a lot of his most popular tunes being renowned for their infectious energy and welcoming vibes. He’s also earned a reputation for being an unmissable live performer, which should do him no end of favours on Saturday night.
With the explosion of Afro-beats around the world in 2023, it would have been remiss for SVT not to have included at least one example of the genre in the Melodifestivalen lineup this year. But it’s a shame they’ve not gone for something much more representative of where Afro-beats is today – the kind of stuff that continues to do so well in the charts.
This is Afro-beats watered down for a Saturday night entertainment show on television, on the assumption that its viewers aren’t also listening to the radio. We have little doubt the performer will ensure that it’s fun for all on the night. But it does feel like a missed opportunity to have something both much more competitive and representative.
‘Dragon’ – LIAMOO
(Anderz Wrethov, Jimmy “Joker” Thörnfeldt, Julie “Kill J” Aagaard, LIAMOO)
The last time he competed at Melodifestivalen – in 2022 with ‘Bluffin’ – he already had a winner’s song and a winner’s performance on his hands. But alas, it wasn’t to be.
Understandably, he’s back with a song that’s been tailored towards remedying precisely that. ‘Dragon’ sees him move away from the dance-pop of ‘Bluffin’, and step into some truly epic arena-pop. In Eurovision terms, think of ‘Break A Broken Heart’ from Cyprus last year, but with more of an edge written into it.
Its production is grand enough to fill the entirety of Friends Arena in March; an opportunity which we have no doubt it will be afforded.
‘Unga & Fria’ – Fröken Snusk
(Fröken Snusk, Sara Ryan)
One of Sweden’s most successful artists in the EPA genre (just think hard, bouncy, donk-filled dance music) has recently turned into one of the most controversial, with accusations of money laundering for criminal gangs being funneled into buying streams on Spotify. It’s resulted in Spotify recently removing much of her catalogue from the streaming platform. And her presence in this week’s lineup has already attracted a lot of heat from the Swedish press. So her result on Saturday night might depend on how many of the voters have read the papers, and of course how much they actually care about it when making their decision.
Paying homage to the genre which has made her famous, ‘Unga & Fria’ has got a lot of stand-out elements packed into its three minutes. It contains the most undeniably charming of fiddle riffs (yes, really) in its post-chorus, as well as a fun-filled key change and cheeky lyric to read between the lines.
Given how much it’s leaned into traditional Swedish folk rhythms, this unexpectedly might just appeal to the older voters almost as much as it most definitely will to the younger ones. Or at least the ones south of Norrland anyway!
