SO MUCH BETTER: CAROLA IN SÅ MYCKET BÄTTRE

The 5th season of Så mycket bättre* started in Sweden last week. Among the artists this season we have finally Carola along with The Ark's Ola Salo, Orup, Amanda Jensen, Kajsa Grytt, Familjen and Love Antell. Blame it on Carola but the show broke its viewing record when 2.245.000 Swedes turned in to watch it. After all she's responsable for many Swedish records of that kind.... Update: the Carola episode was the most watched of them all. Of course.

All good things come to an end and this was the last week, dedicated to Love Antell. If you missed the post about last week's Carola Day, it's here. Next week it's still time for one special edition, with duets. But back to Love Antell. Carola took on his Gatorna tillhör oss. She lets herself wild, brings in the trademark wind machine and jumps on the table and gets everybody up and dancing. And yes, makes the song a Carola anthem. Next single?

Carola - Gatorna tillhör oss Vs. Love Antell - Gatorna tillhör oss

Fifth week already. Dedicated to Familjen. Her hair gets bigger and shorts shorter and she strips down the original song turning it into a growing anthem. Nice job.
Next week it's finally Carola's day and all the others will perform her songs. Can't wait!

Carola - Nyår Vs. Familjen - Nyår

Fourth week it's time for Kajsa Grytt and Carola takes Bakom allt and turns it into a lot poppier version. Nice job but like the other artists she didn't quite success to give a new life to her song.....

Carola - Bakom allt Vs Kajsa Grytt - Bakom allt

The third episode was for Amanda Jensen and Carola chose For the sun. She covers it in a quite different way but it's great. Simple and elegant and it brought a tear out of Amanda.....

Carola - For the sun Vs. Amanda Jensen - For the sun

The second episode was dedicated to Orup and Carola had chosen a song that could have been hers to start with, dealing with God and angels. Orup may have been ironic in her version but Carola went all for it without a trace of irony, just belief. This said this woman can sing, hallelujah!

Carola - Sjung halleluja (och prisa Gud) Vs. Orup - Sjung halleluja (och prisa Gud)

The first episode was dedicated to Ola Salo and Carola had chosen The Ark's Tell me this night is over. And she did such a great job she landed #1 in the iTunes immediately and may have a similar hit in her hands like Lena Philipsson in season 2 with Laleh's Live tomorrow. Ola seemed to approve and the other were jamming along. Great job. Indeed Ola chose Carola's the best version and dueted with her in the end of the show. (And no, no one covered The worrying kind....)

Carola - Tell me this night is over Vs. The Ark - Tell me this night is over

I will follow Carola's path in this TV-series every week so stay tuned for more covers by Carola and of course the new versions of Carola's songs by the other artists! Now that will be interesting!

You can follow the current Swedish series here and the Finnish here.

*Så mycket bättre is a reality show were seven artists are put together for a week 24/7. Each day is dedicated to one of them when the others do covers of her/his songs over lunch and dinner while the rest of the day is dedicated to activities chosen by the artist in question to let us know her/his world better, as are the stories before the songs to tell about their lives, the song in question and their career. This show has been also a megasellers with albums and singles and especially download charts relaunching a few careers and lifting some career to all new highs.

The show is enjoying hge success in Sweden (Så mycket bättre), Finland (Vain elämää), Norway (Hver gang vi møtes), Netherlands (De beste zangers van Nederland) and Denmark (Toppen af poppen). The format has been sold also to France, China, Estonia, Germany, Brazil, United Kingdom, Australia, USA, Italy, Spain and Russia so far.

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ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

Małgorzata Jamroży aka Margaret has also been tipped for Eurovision and apparently she did turn it down but she'd be perfect. She's got a look and persona you can't unnotice nor forget, she's got hit songs, she has been voted or nominated for everything from Trendy artist to the Hope of the Year, Fashion Icon and Glamour Woman of the year besides the usual best video, song, album, debut..... Oh she's also a fashion designer! She's very clever with social medias and would surely use it to her advantage if selected for Stockholm 2016. Her debut album is titled Add the blonde , do we need to say more? Except it includes mostly Swedish written pop tunes like Tell me how are ya , Wasted , Start a fire and Heartbeat . And of course her debut single and internationally noticed Thank you very much that you can enjoy below with all its anti-textil feel. I think she's Eurovision perfection, she's cheeky and fun, can we have her?

SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further? No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

CAROLA'S BOOBS STEAL THE SHOW, SVT APOLOGIES

Update! Another thing got Swedes talking last night: Carola's boobs when she was giving away an award. This is not the first time her boombs cause headlines; her misfortunate adventures in the 80's in Japan wer explained with her boobs being too big for Japanese market. Ok.... Or was it the song ? Anyways, Carola apologies and says she thinks the dress is stylish and elegant (even her friends said so) and she's a mature woman in her 40s, not a 16-year-old girl and looks like one. The Swedish Oscars, Guldbagge awards were given out last night. Carola was there as a guest star to sing Barbra Streisand's The way we were when honoring the movie stars who passed away during 2012. However, the cameras were too much on Carola, not on the stars showed in photos in the background and that upset many viewers as that part of the show was to celebrate them, not Carola. Oh well... The producer of the show tells in Aftonbladet the part of the show was made the sam...

TIM SCHOU AND HIS NAKED GRAVITY

Tim Schou has a pretty good solo career going since he left his friends in London. He's travelling the world and relesing songs and videos. The latest one is a great track and comes with a steamy video that kinda takes away from the song really. But who's complaining. If you got it, flaunt it. Enjoy the video below. This post coming after the other Dane, Rasmus Seebach as wishlist for Eurovision. To think about it, Tim would do nicely, too. Maybe he should give it another go?

GREECE: HELENA PAPARIZOU HITS AGAIN WITH HAIDE

Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face.... Here's the English version , below the Greek version.

Regina Lund - naked and censored

Regina Lund's new video Jag är osynlig was censored by Youtube only minutes after it had been uploaded. In the video she was playing a female Jesus who gets crusified in the end. "I was shocked!" she says. "There's nothing more naked in it as in every church! It's ok to have naked man hanging on the wall but my nakedness is too much on internet? ". Oh well, no comment. She's prepairing a new album Dare Regina Lund and we of course remember her from her Melodifestivalen 2007 adventure with Rainbow star .

JEDWARD GETS NAKED FOR THE FANS

Well, almost. The boys celebrated their 650.000th follower on Twitter by being photographed fresh from shower as promised. It's not the first time they drop their clothes as you see here . Meanwhile their second album is nearly here and the title track Young love is hitting the charts....

Russia recycles the video

Here is the video for Alexey's previous hit Бам Бам! and here is the video for his Eurovision 2011 entry Get you as Alex Sparrow as he likes to be called now abraod. Looks like he potreys the new rich Russia well.... The only problem is that he can't play the bad part convincingly not even a second. And did I say the song is crap? And of course as he is a Russian star he must have nude fotos of him flotaing around internet trying to be sexy and he fails there, too, big time. If you are not bad nor sexy you shouldn't push it. Maybe he should stick to singing jolly little numbers like the Kalinka rip off instead....

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW GETS NAKED FOR THE GOOD CAUSE

Reigning Eurovision song contest champion and the host of the next contest in May 2016 in Stockholm Mäns Zelmerlöw bares it almost all in GT following some other Eurovision stars like Blue and Jedward ( see more here ) All for the good cause of course, prostate cancer - something this blogger can also relate having experienced it in my closest circle. Nothing to laugh about. The annual Naked issue of GT or Gay Times features also several other celebrity men out of their designer fashion and stage or sports outfits. I guess Christmas came early to some fans when they can unwrap their most wished gift already now.... Maybe. But it's not the first time he gets naked.... he did so when hosting the annual QX Gala some years ago. Who knows what he and Petra have in store for us in May?!

Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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