Smiling In Love - Melodifestivalen round-up

Much of my February and March was taken up by Melodifestivalen. If I wasn't in Sweden watching it live I was in a Swedish pub in London watching it on the big screen. What I love about Melodifestivalen is that it has so many good songs in the competition - most of which would do well at Eurovision.

Here are my favourite 10 songs from this year's Melodifestivalen:

1. Hero - Charlotte Perrelli

The ultimate Melodifestivalen song and a worthy winner.

2. Smiling In Love - Caracola

Amazing feel good schalger song with a cute dance routine and a wonderful key change.

3. Lay Your Love On Me - BWO

Discotastic - great to dance to.

4. Love In Stereo - Ola

80's sounding dance-pop - a great floorfiller.

5. Thank-You - Amy Diamond

Cute electro-pop.

6. Deja Vu - Velvet

Another great dance song from a disco diva.

7. Hur svårt kan det va? - Linda Bengtzing

Great schlager - what we expect from Ms Bengtzing

8. Empty Room - Sanna Nielsen

Beautiful and emotional ballad.

9. Razborka - The Nicole

Just for fun - not to be taken seriously!!

10. One Love - Carola & Andreas Johnsson

Big anthem from two big stars.

Hero - Charlotte's glittering comeback

March saw me return to Sweden for the Melodifestivalen final with Alex. We were guarenteed a good show with six of my favourites from the competition in the running for the chance of representing Sweden at Eurovision. For me, there could only be one winner and that was the "comeback queen" Charlotte Perrelli.

During the day of the final I was able to catch a PA from Ola and meet him. Upon meeting him he seemed surprised that I had come from the UK to catch the final of Melodifestivalen and even more so when I told him that I had seen him perform at his semi-final a few weeks previously.

At the final Charlotte Perrelli was first up with her schlager-by numbers "Hero", wearing a fantastic silver dress she gave a flawless performance that was amazing to watch - Charlotte really set the standard for the rest of the finalists.

Next out was the cute Sibel with "That is Where I'll Go" for a tiny girl she could really belt out this power ballad. Following Sibel was Rongedal with their Scissor Sisters sounding "Just A Minute" with kitch dance routine - it was a good performance and certainly got the audience dancing. Linda Bengtzing's "Hur svårt kan det va?" was a great song but sadly was a bit of a car crash performance onstage as it was just too frantic and messy with Linda running around the stage. Christer Sjogren followed Linda with the extremely dated "I Love Europe". The youngest performer in the final Amy Diamond gave an energetic performance of her Rachel Stevens sounding "Thank-You" which was one of my favourite songs of the competition - sadly Amy got a bit out of breath during the performance and her vocals occasionally went screachy.

The emotional ballad "Empty Room" changed the mood of the final when Sanna Nielsen performed next, it was a beautiful and flawless vocal delivered by Sanna. Carola and Andreas Johnsson's nemesis, Nordman (who beat them in the second chance round the week before) was next and was popular in the arena. Frida & Headline the act that in my opinion didn't really deserve to be in the final came next with "Upp o Hoppa" as they performed I couldn't help but think it should have been Caracola with "Smiling In Love" there instead.

The last song of the final came from the mighty BWO with the discotastic "Lay Your Love On Me", it was a great stage performance with a big production using a metal cage that elevated lead singer Martin above the stage. With the ten songs performed I thought it had to be either Charlotte, Sanna or BWO that would be going to represent Sweden in Belgrade. As the results came in I was prooved right as Charlotte took first place with Sanna taking the runner-up position and BWO coming third.

Squeezy x

One Love - Or was it??

February saw me travel to Sweden for the second semi-final in the Melodifestivalen competition which was held in Västeras. The "wildcard" entry for that semi-final was the pairing of former Swedish Eurovision winner Carola and Andreas Johnsson. It was wildly assumed that with the pairing of two huge stars that they would sail through to the final. This wasn't the case. Neither of them had reckoned on the popularity of Rongedal's catchy and Scissor Sisters-esque "Just A Minute" and Sanna Nielsen's beautiful ballad "Empty Room". Carola and Andreas though having a good song, didn't have the performance to match and watching it looked like two solo artists trying to out sing each other as opposed to dueting. As a result, the pair found themselves in the second chance round along with Ola who performed one of my favourite songs from the contest - the 80's inspired "Love In Stereo". Other highlights in this semi-final was The Nicole's "Razborka" which didn't seem to go down well with anyone apart from me and my friends. Though she wasn't a very good singer, the song and performance was great fun and very entertaining and is still a favourite of mine.

On our way to Stockholm from Vasteras my friend Craig and I encountered Andreas and Lina from one of my favourite groups, Alcazar. They had been in the area promoting their fantastic comeback single, "We Keep On Rockin'" and informed us that they were working on a new album. When we told them that we had been to see the Melodifestivalen semi-final Andreas told us that the third member of Alcazar, Tess has choreographed the routine for Ola's performance.

At the end of our weekend in Stockholm we went to the club Patricia which is on a boat. There we were treated to a PA from a previous Melodifestivalen entrant, La Gaylia. We were really excited as we already had heard her entry for the Romanian selection for Eurovision, "Dr Frankenstein" which she performed. After her performance we spoke to her where she revealed that she knew that she wasn't going to win the Romanian selection and that she would "try again next year". Here's hoping that she does!!

Squeezy x