Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The Finnish trio KAJ that won Swden's Melodifestivalen and placed 4th at the Eurovision song contest 2025 has been collecting awards and milestones over the past year.  Bara bada bastu topped the charts both in Finland and Sweden, as well as Spotify's Viral Global chart. Last year it also topped the OGAE poll and won Eurovision song of the year at OUTmusic Awards. The Finnish music publishers awarded it as The Song of the Year and also gave an Export award to KAJ. They have won also an award by the Finnish language teachers union SUKOL and many more among them The Finnish-Swedes of the Year and even an award for promoting sauna culture.  In the Finnish Grammys, Emma Awards Bara bada bastu won The Song of the Year and they also won The band of the Year and the Export award. Now they have won in the Swedish Grammys aka Grammies also The Song of the Year award. Previously they won in Sweden's Rockbjörnen award the Band of the Year and the Breakthrough of the Year awards. I sup...

Sweden's Melodifestivalen has been the usual carnival travelling through Sweden with five semi-finals and the grand final that was won by Felicia as expected. She won both international jury vote and the televotes. Out of 3.888 submissions 30 songs made the cut, written by some ten names as usual, and two qualified from each semi-final for the final while the 3rd placed entry was sent to yet another qualification round where from two more songs made it to Stockholm. Among them two Eurovision veterans: Sanna Nielsen and Robin Bengtson. Add A-Teens that were dusted off for the occasion, Medina and Smash Into Pieces trying for another time after being close to the win already previous years. The pre-contest fan favorites this afternoon were Felicia (73%) and Greczula (8%). Read more here .  Final (jury + tele)  A-Teens – Iconic   (31 + 36) 67  7th Meira Omar – Dooset daram   (33 + 8) 41  9th Lilla Al-Fadji – Delulu   (24 + 39) 63  8th Saga Ludvigsson...

The long, loooong Swedish Melodifestivalen reached its climax after six weeks. In the end it was set to be a duel between Eurovision veteran and winner Måns Zelmerlöw and his utterly polished and perfect revolution and fresh and crazy nonsense by the Finnish band KAJ. KAJ was clearly the winner is streaming and video views and chart action beforehand. Also the only song in Swedish this year in the final, and even a Swedish dialect spoken in a small area in Finland only. In the end KAJ won. This is a bit like Cha cha cha phenomenon. Finland is the new Eurovision superpower; we have Finland, Estonia and Sweden in Basel! How I like happy endings! KAJ is a Finnish group from Swedish speaking Ostrobothnia region and sing in their Vörå dialect. The trio is Kevin Holmströn, Axel Åhman and Jakob Noorgård and they have been working together since 2009. They pop-folk.rock-schlager music is often spiced up with satire and humor. They have produced two musicals for Wasa Theater and have been award...

Swedish Melodifestivalen goes ahead as usual with the same songwriters and even three previous winners in the line up: Arvingarna, Måns Zelmerlöw and John Lundvik, Måns of course being also an Eurovision winner and host and ever present anyways.  Minor changes to the procedure: Five heats with six songs each. two will qualify for the final and the third placed ones will have a second chance in the end of fifth heat two making it to the final that will have 12 songs. A 50/50 televote/international jury will determinate the winner and the Swedish entry in Basel 2025 Eurovision. The heats start on February 1 each Saturday until the grand final on March 8, 2025. Another change is all the songs will be released to the streaming platform the day before their heat.  A total of 2.794 songs were submitted and yet majority of the songs are written by the usual songwriters in various combos. Jimmy Joker Thörnfeldt and Anderz Wrethov both are behind 6 songs, Thomas G:son 5, David Lindgren...

  Sweden is the host country for Eurovision song contest 2024 and they're represented by ...  Norwegians. So there isn't one Swedish artist competing. Oh the irony! But as usual there's no lack of Swedish songwriters, choreographers and etc in Malmö 2024. Marcus & Martinus will perform Unforgettable, a song that was clear to win Melodifestivalen with its easily most ambitious staging and camerawork of all entries. So, all went according to SVT's plans.  Marcus and Martinus Gunnarsen (22) are identical Norwegian twins. They were child stars and teenage heartthrobs causing hysteria also abroad, like Finland, before growing up and concentrating on building their adult career in Sweden. In 2012 they won the Melodi Grand Prix Junior with To dråper vann and scored their first Top-10 hit. Three years later they released their debut album and scored a string of hits in Norway and Sweden. Second album in 2016 spread the success to Finland, Denmark and Poland. Third album cam...

She did it. Sadly. Loreen has won Melodifestivalen 2023 with Tattoo. And I still don't hear what everyone is hearing. I find it shouty uninteresting piece of music that borrows the intro from ABBA's Winner takes it all a bit and that's the best bit in fact. Oh well.... Results (jury/televote) 1. Loreen  - Tattoo (92 + 85) 177 2. Markus & Maretinus - Air (71 + 67) 138 3. Smash Into Pieces - Six feet under (53 + 59) 112 4. Jon Henrik, Arc North, Adam Woods - Where are you (23 + 58) 81 5. Theoz - Mer av dig (42 + 36) 78 6. Kiana - Where did you go (37 + 39) 76 7. Paul rey - Royals (56 + 1) 57 8. Mariette - One day (35 + 16) 51 9. Maria Sur - Never give up (10 + 37) 47 10. Panetoz - On my way (22 + 25) 47 11. Nordman - Släpp alla sorger (8 + 36) 44 12. Tone Sekelius - Rhythm of my show (15 + 5) 20

Melodifestivalen is here again and this year Loreen has electrified the otherwise somewhat snooze fest and everyone seems to be taking for granted that she will again and that she will also win Eurovision in Liverpool again. Maybe she just got pissed off when Euphoria was kicked off from the first place in the ESC250 this New Year's? Who knows. She has entered Mello three times before, twice not making the final at all but this time the hype is real. But more about that later. A lot has been said about the quality of the songs, and especially the songwriters as there are names having six and four and who knows how many songs in the final, and each and every song having about a dozen songwriters. I find that a bit boring to be honest. Jon Henrik Fjällgren, Arc North feat. Adam Woods - Where are you (Sávežan) * Poor Jon Henrik used as a prop! And still he's the only interesting part of this mediocre pop song that goes on three minutes and vanished without a trace...  Tone Sekeliu...

Sweden's Melodifestivalen 2023 has cut down the songs in the previous four heats (here) and it's time for the semi-final, formerly known as Andra chancen aka Second chance round. In previous four heats two songs qualified for the final directly, and the 3rd and 4th placed ones are here fighting for four places in the final line up. It may not be a big surprise I haven't been a Mello fan for years anymore; great looking show, usually also very funny and entertaining but the songs haven't really made any impact on my own personal playlist, so let's see what they have in offer. I haven't followed the heats with attention, barely watching them when run on Finnish television delayed so basically all these songs are new to me.  Theoz - Mer av dig *** Old school schlager and he's quite likable but there's zero emotion, just perfect choreography and performance. Sterile. But the song echoes mello of the yesteryears. More like an opening number than a competing e...

Sweden has revealed the artists, song titles and songwriters for the 2023 Melodifestivalen. And as usual it's full of familiar names as almost half the artists have participated before including Eurovision winner Loreen along with two other Eurovision veterans, Victor Crone and Loulou. Add fan favorites Mariette, Wiktoria, Jon Henrik and Eva & Ewa, Tone and Theoz from last year and finally Panetoz, Paul Rey, Nordman and Axel and you've got the Mello veterans. But the writers list is even more familiar, and it seems most every song is written by a group of people in various songwriting camps and in the end we have six songs from Jimmy Joker, five from Joy Deb and Anders Wrethov and four from Jimmy Jansson and Linnea Deb and Thomas G:son. Just to name the most obvious. Jon Henrik's song has eight writers.... Uje Brandelius is the only one who has alone written his song.  The cas include also Ucrainian Maria Sur and Norwegian teenage idols Marcus & Martinus, plus Laure...

  Cornelia Jakobs has won Melodifestivalen 2022 with her Hold me closer. She won international juries and came  second in televotes won by Bagge, that juries placed only 7th. As Anders Bagge came 2nd  and Medina 3rd one say the pre-contest favorites did well. Liamoo was a surprise 4th while Anna Bergendahl dropped last. But even I have to say she wasn't good tonight, not even tonight. Sad but true. Melodifestivalen 2022 results 1. Cornelia jakobs - Hold me closer (jury 76 + televote 70) 146 2. Anders bagge - Bigger than the universe (31 + 90) 121 3. Medina - In i dimman (53 + 56) 109 4. Liamoo - Bluffin' (65 + 26) 91 5. Tone Sekelius - My way (31 + 53) 84 6. Klara Hammarström - Run to the hills (27 + 56) 83 7. Theoz - Som du vill (39 + 26) 65 8. John Lundvik - Änglavakt (43 + 17) 60 9. Cazzi Opeia - I can't get enough ( 26 + 29) 55 10. Faith Kakembo - Freedom (33 + 18) 51 11. Robin  Bengtsson - Innocent love (29 + 5) 34 12. Anna Bergendahl - Higher power (11 + 1...

Sweden's post-Christer Björkman Melodifestivalen is searching for its new identity and has been through four heats and one semi-final (aka andra chancen) hosted by Oscar Zia. Age group voting is ment to create suspence and excitement but I don't know, it feels kinda weird, especially as the votes have been announced in random order instead of really going from the youngest to oldest that would give a clearer idea for a watcher to see how and who voted for each artist.  As Finnish Yle was also broadcasting the shows (not live though) I have watched them all for a change this year. Generally the better ones got through or to the semi-final, except Omar Rydberg and Angelino that I would have sent through instead of Danne Stråhed and Lillasyster or Medina. Yes, Medina the big fan favorite. I would have preferred even Alvaro Estrella in final the line up. In the final there will be televoting and the international juries. The big fan favorite seems to be Cornelia with Medina and ...

  If Spain has been doing poorly for way too long, Sweden has been an Eurovision power house. Eight times in top-7 since their only non qualification back in 2010. But...  Melodifestivalen has been going down in my book for several years and has been very predictable and therefor rather boring, safe and manufactured for way too long. Somehow they have managed however to produce winners that have made well in the contest, usually helped heavily by the juries. This next edition on paper isn't anything different but same old, same old. In both artists and songwriters. Let's have a look. First of all there are three previous winners taking part: Anna Bergendahl (2010), Robin Bengtsson (2017) and John Lundvik (2019), each of them having other non winning participation in recent years. Then we have Alvaro Estrella, Klara Hammarström, LIAMOO, Lillasyster, Linda Bengtzing, Malou Prytz, Lisa Ajax, Omar Rydberg and Shirley Clamp. Among songwriters the Debs, G:son, Jansson, Boström, Aag...