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Who'd have predicted? For the first time since 2008 - Charlotte with LIFE-CHANGING ANTHEM and Buzzjack-certified greatest MF song of all time Hero and Linda with LIFE-CHANGING ANTHEM and me-certified somethingth greatest MF song of all time Hur svårt kan det va, for those keeping notes - last Saturday gave us two veterans direkt till Friends Arena, with Eric Saade sweeping through to the surprise of nobody (though leaving Carly Rae Jepsen and Ariana Grande's lawyers AGOG and FRANTIC) and more surprisingly Jessica Andersson finally achieving what she'd never done before and going direkt solo with laidback Undo-inspired country ballad Can't Hurt Me Now, shoving it in the face of second-rate Oscar Zia lookalikes EVERYWHERE/Brighton.

Meanwhile, manbun shame to a nation Daniel Gildenlow and facial inspiration to Globen or Busters everywhere Molly P-H slumped out in round one, Daniel exiled to the northern wastes of Lappland to hopefully waste away forevermore, and Molly exiled to an andra chansen comeback NEAR YOU in MF 2016 as a result of her confected 'scandal' at going out early (which has been blamed on the app, but frankly I'd put it more down to the shit song and appalling STYLING OCH CONSULTING). Ell n Rikki demonstrated about as much chemistry as their Azeri namesakes though minus the financial wherewithal to purchase a few thousand spare SIM cards, condemning them to the shame of fifth as ICONS TO US ALL Dolly Style and icons to librarians Behrang 'n' Vicky went to andra chansen to fight another day.

BUT ANYWAY, ignore all that - we're BACK IN MALMÖ! And even though on paper this week doesn't look like one of the strongest, don't let that fool you - we're in for a killer competition, with veterans and breakout stars all over the shop and a very special songwriter on board (G:SON of course, though others are insisting Miss Li takes precedence for SOME REASON). And I'm scared, because if there's anything this contest has taught me it's that it's NEVER nice to you two weeks in a row, and last week could not have gone much more perfectly for me. Yep kids, strap on in - we're almost certainly due our FIRST MELTDOWN OF THE YEAR! *.*/*_*


01: Linus Svenning - Forever Starts Today
Text och musik: Aleena Gibson, Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad och Fredrik Kempe
Best known for: Finishing 5th in MF last year with Bröder
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 2.37 / 11/8 / 4th
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 17.00 / 16/1

Someone send the ADVANCE WARNING to Stockholm International - the metal detector botherer is BACK BACK BACK, Apadravya and all

Despite literally looking like an orc, Linus here somehow managed to build up a following as one of those dull-arse Youtube sensations who get teenage girls padding out their training thongs with Bounty by doing covers of Passenger and the like, which brought him to the attention of Christer () who naturally HAD TO HAVE HIM (as it were).

And so last year's entry Bröder came to pass, possibly the most cynical entry to the contest I can recall in my many wizened years - after all, nothing says 'sensitive heartfelt tribute to deceased relative' like getting on board noted IVOR NOVELLO-WORTHY LYRICIST Fredrik Kempe of Undo/Popular/Hero fame, before even getting onto punctuating the middle eight with videos of his brother playing with puppies as a baby and ending the song with the onscreen subtitle 'I MISS YOU DEAD BROTHER'. Honestly loves, I couldn't EAT FOR A GOOD MONTH for want of all the INVOLUNTARY GAGGING

Naturally all that immediately marked him out as the BIG THREAT to Helena Paparizou's comeback, though as it came to pass both got shafted by some simpering ballad bitch (more on her next week...) and had to slum it through andra chansen, whereupon THOSE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS among us got to have their rainbow cake and eat it by getting both the gay anthem and somebody they INEXPLICABLY find yearnsomely attractive into the final, where Linus made it all the way up to fifth (pipped at the last moment to fourth by a single extra point to R LEN *.*), powered on by Bröder's status as one of THE big Spotify hits of MF 2014 second only to Busy Doin' Nothin'.

So obviously, all that made him one of last year's most blatant prospective returning alumni, and here he is. He's spent all last year getting the ballads out of his system (with another two dedicated to OTHER family members, along with the thrillingly haunting and actually not that bad Dansa sakta), and he's back with something that would doubtless provoke the late great Ms Rowland into reactions of OWWWWWWWHOKNEWYACOULDDOMIDTEMPOWWWWW?, with early comparisons suggesting we might be in for Tell The World I'm Here part 43 with an Avicii twist. He's going English, with Kempe's fellow miracle lyricist Aleena Gibson on board here, and the production and melody should be utterly superb with Anton Le Kid and Kempe at the helm. The only question is the one those surprising odds are posing - given Linus's follow-ups mostly stiffed, will Sweden still care without the sob story?


02: Emilie Irewald - Där och då med dig
Text och musik: Emilie Irewald
Best known for: Coming 4th in short-lived talent show True Talent four years ago and reputedly getting the wang from noted heterosexual and serial MF loser Danny Saucedo
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 9.00 / 8/1 / 7th
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 81.00 / 80/1

Nothing says 'irrelevant' like getting a self-written entry into THE MELFEST based mostly on which famous MF entrant you've been getting ragged by (though given Danny's not especially impeccable credentials re: heterosexuality, I'd quite like to see some RECEIPTS here first - though mainly out of envy), because god knows whatever talent show old Em was in hardly had the kind of following that a 4th place finish in it alone would justify entry into the biggest TV show Sweden has.

That said, the last time this happened I'm sure everyone reacted in exactly the same way. Yet in 2007, Marie Lindberg (who was getting the wang from noted heterosexual and soon-to-be serial MF loser Måns, and now I need to sit down for a second after creating that mental image) entered with the exact same kind of low-key acoustic ballad that Där och då med dig is reputed to be in Trying To Recall and managed to take it all the way to the final. In a heat as full of big names as this I wouldn't predict this to do big things from the death slot, but then statements like that have come back to bite me very, very badly in the past. Can Emilie overcome my snark and the tag of 'MF WAG' to make it to andra chansen?


03: Samir & Viktor - Groupie
Text och musik: Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad, Kevin Högdahl, Maria Smith, Viktor Thell
Best known for: Obnoxious 'it-boy' duo with reality/blogging fame who teamed up to record summer plague #1 Success last year
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 1.73 / 8/11 / 2nd
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 26.00 / 25/1

First things first - despite those two looking the spitting image of the 'date rapist lad' archetype, this track isn't about some starstruck teenage girl staggering about backstage on a roofie, but instead about a group selfie. God shit like this makes me feel old, and I'm YOUNGER than one of them.

These two are literally everything dreadful about social media culture in the 2010s (the odds of an emoji being crowbarred into the staging for this must be pretty high). Samir did reality show Paradise Hotel last year (from what I can gather, imagine TOWIE doing Survivor) and Viktor's a huge fashion blogger/vlogger. Naturally, being two infamous attention-seeking missiles in and of themselves, teaming up to do boastful anthem Success was the obvious next move (and good lord, listening to a track like that is almost enough to make you want to RENOUNCE CAPITALISM and take up the AK-47 for the MEMORY OF MARX). Sweden turning its back on social democracy more and more with each passing year, it of course went to #1 on Swedish Spotify and dominated the summer charts there. And what more could a pair of it-boys want than to repeat the trick on the biggest stage Sweden has to offer?

The only saviours here are the writers - the indomitable Anton Le Kid, RedOne studio alumnus Kevin Högdahl (behind Molly Sandén's hit comeback Freak), and most excitingly glittering synthpop duo in their own rights Smith & Thell. Being the equivalent of a Dapper Laughs entry minus the casual sexism controversy, this is a cert to go through in some form on the youth vote - but will the writers manage to make it listenable enough that I can deal with two monuments to the failings of the Swedish education system sailing through?


04: Neverstore - If I Was God For One Day
Text och musik: Thomas G:son, John Gordon, Jacob Widén
Best known for: Swedish punk band with similar career trajectory/timeline to Fall Out Boy
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 2.25 / 5/4 / 3rd
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 17.00 / 16/1

EVERY BLOODY YEAR

Look, you aren't interested, I'm not interested, Eyes is possibly interested, that is it. Every time SCHLAGER SONGWRITER ICON G:son betrays THE CAUSE and returns to his roots as a heavy metal rocker I die a bit inside, especially when he's doing it to assist the corruption of my PRECIOUS GAY POP CONTEST with hideous grunge music. God, AWAY WITH YOU. THE POWER OF ALCAZAR COMPELS YOU! *flicks bottle of poppers as holy water*


05: Marie Bergman och Sanne Salomonsen - Nonetheless
Text och musik: Andreas Stone Johansson, Allison Kaplan
Best known for: Veteran rock and soul vocalists with MF pedigree - Marie a three-time winner in 1971, 1972 and 1994, Sanne a finalist in 2005 with Higher Ground
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 6.00 / 5/1 / 6th
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 41.00 / 40/1

Shit ME, and there I was thinking SANNA AND ACE looked haggard...

Crone one in leopard print: Sanne Salomonsen. Sadly not the schlager icon I ordered (luckily, that's up next), but instead Denmark's answer to Anastacia before America even asked the question (Higher Love should give you an idea on that front - that Botox wore off AWFULLY in the space of ten years...). Despite being hugely successful in Denmark (with twelve big selling albums and two greatest hits stretching all the way back to 1973), Sanne's oddly never given trying for the Danish entry a shot - and you'd think with her blues-rock MoR appeal she'd go down a STORM in Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, but there we go...

Crone two in the Soluna Samay ensemble: Marie Bergman. Much more the veteran of this contest, equalled only by Carola for the record of having represented Sweden the most at Eurovision, each having done so thrice apiece. However, unlike Carola, Marie doesn't command anywhere near the same levels of reverence, having done so twice in the early 70s pre-ABBA Eurovision years as part of schlager group Family Four, and once as part of a duo with pre-'syphilitic Lapp years' Roger Pontare in 1994, finishing sixth, thirteenth, and thirteenth respectively. No wonder the poor old moo doesn't have Eurogays dedicating corners of their rooms to shrines to her (though Carola also has the advantage of being the earthly embodiment of Cthulhu and as such must be sated with regular worship).

Anyway, nothing says 'MF SUCCESS IN THE WAITING' like two ex-MF also-rans teaming up in a duet!!!! I wouldn't stake my hopes too high on this birthing something as transcendent as Maria Haukaas Storeng & Sahlene's soul/schlager throwback Killing Me Tenderly, though if they could at least do better than barking their way through an Anastacia B-side I'll be happy. Can these two even hope to get a sniff of the final?


06: Magnus Carlsson - Möt mig i Gamla Stan
Text och musik: Thomas G:son, Lina Eriksson
Best known for: Schlager veteran as frontman for finalists Barbados and Alcazar and soloist in his own right
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 1.61 / 8/13 / 1st
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 13.00 / 12/1 (joint fourth favourite)

Quite the WIDOW'S PEAK there MAGZ

It won't surprise any of you to know that THIS is the one I'm pissing my panties for this week - as much a part of the Melodifestival as the requisite annual shot of a small child looking UTTERLY TERRIFIED by a drag queen/Charlotte Perrelli, it's this year's obligatory TOKEN SCHLAGER ENTRY! *o* And for once, MIND-BOGGLINGLY, it seems like it actually STANDS A CHANCE of getting through...

I know, I know, I can already feel you YOUNG'UNS rolling your eyes and wondering 'BUT WHO CARES? I WANT MY NEXT DOSE OF POP THAT SOUNDS LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE I LISTEN TO IN THE CHARTS AND I WANT IT NOW!'. Well first off, SHUT UP, and secondly, yes, those can be good fun and all, but when it comes down to it we're dealing with the genre Melodifestivalen built its reputation and its following on, and one which is HUGELY endangered in terms of living on much longer in the contest. Think of schlager as the GIANT PANDAS OF POP - immensely beloved cultural icons of their respective countries, but shit at actually birthing any hits these days.

Not that it was ALWAYS SO. Schlager had been in decline in the contest during much of the late 00s (mainly down to a mix of criticism from the Swedish media for the 'predictability' of the contest given its predominance going back to the 70s and schlager starting to die off as a successful genre in Eurovision itself, with Hero and La voix both having back-to-back and heartbreaking flops for Sweden on the European stage), though even as short as four years ago we were in a situation where three of the four heat winners of the year were schlager tracks (Sanna's I'm In Love and Linda's E det fel på mej, with Eric's Popular a mix all round but owing its greatest debts to schlager, and Danny repping for the mindless chart cast-offs with In The Club).

Unfortunately, Linda's wholly unexpected success came at the expense of Christer's CHOSEN ONES for the year, RedOne's handpicked group Love Generation, cast off by 800 votes from automatic qualification and eventually falling into andra chansen where they were vanquished the week after. Christer was so immediately enraged by this he cancelled his afterparty for the evening and decided to exterminate schlager THERE AND THEN, with the genre overnight going from one of the predominant genres of the contest to having just one token entry per year, each time fronted by also-ran veterans with little remaining appeal to a domestic audience (though I'll always love Charlotte and my Swedish House Wives. Elisa can go take a running jump though.), and with the few returning schlager veterans each turning their backs on THE CAUSE with their comebacks - Sanna and JessAn converting to ballads, Linda to electro album tracks, Jessica Folcker to reggae howlings.

So I really mean it when I say that how this does could end up being the most influential result this year for the future of the contest, with Magnus Carlsson being the first returning veteran since 2011 we can both rely on to not BETRAY THE CAUSE and who also brings along domestic appeal in bags, with plenty of goodwill left over from eight (8!) entries into MF, from his time fronting early 00s schlager group and perennial MF runner-ups Barbados before switching across to join boyfriend Andreas in Alcazar and play lead vocalist for MF third placers and Swedish #1s Not A Sinner Nor A Saint and Alcastar, before going solo and reaching the MF final in 2006 with Lev livet!. Let's not mention the time he turned up the year after looking porky with curtains and went out 5th. (but let's ABSOLUTELY mention the track he did it with because Live Forever is FABULOUS).

Basically, with granny and hag appeal to spare he's favourite to win the heat for a reason - though damnit if it still doesn't stop me being SCARED WITLESS for how he does. Put simply, this is the first big legitimate test for the genre in MF where it's being given a decent shot, and with echoes of 'Kalla nätter verses and an updated Kom hem chorus for 2015' with G:son on production I'm going to be all over this like a SCHLAGER RASH - to say nothing of the obvious gay appeal given the title translates as the Swedish equivalent of 'Meet me in Soho' (!!!/Lee AGOG). Will Sweden spare me from a meltdown this weekend - or does the last bell toll for schlager?

HOLD ME


07: Mariette - Don't Stop Believing
Text och musik: Miss Li, Sonny Gustafsson
Best known for: 4th place on Idol 2009 fronting a track written by critically acclaimed domestic artist Miss Li
William Hill odds on going direkt till finalen (decimal / fractional / projected heat finish): 2.50 / 6/4 / 5th
William Hill odds on winning Melodifestivalen (d / f): 21.00 / 20/1

Bloody hell Ettie, rub a COMB THROUGH IT FIRST, you're going ONSTAGE IN FRONT OF MILLIONS

Hands down THE unknown quantity of the heat, Mariette here hasn't been up to much since coming 4th on Swedish Idol six years ago (why are we cursed with a plague of 4th placers this year?) save for playing backing guitar for Ace Wilder's tour last year, which I'd have thought was basically an admission you don't have a career LEFT! Still, for whatever reasons the gods of pop have smiled upon Mariette, and she's been hooked up with the biggest guest songwriter of the contest in Miss Li, one of Sweden's most critically acclaimed newcomers in the last decade, with bagfuls of Grammis since her début in 2007 and a star turn on Så mycket bättre (the smash show where several big Swedish artists get together in a countryside retreat and cover each other's songs) in 2012.

Yet despite that, this apparently is going to sound nothing like Miss Li's signature style of piano banging, and the reviews for this one have been little short of astonishing - with comparisons ranging from My Heart Is Refusing Me to Lisa Miskovsky - Why Start A Fire to Madonna - Frozen. That's all got me very excited, but followers of MF will know that superb reviews for a track beforehand don't necessarily translate into votes, especially if the artist hasn't got the kind of big name power that'd automatically get Björn and Björnetta picking up the phones for them, and the fields of MF past are littered with the bodies of artists who brought along critically acclaimed tracks without even the slightest semblance of star power to their performance (step forward in that nightie Anna Järvinen!). Can Mariette live up to the hype?

-x-

Thursday: Reviews of the rehearsals with thirty secondclips of the performances. Needless to say if they're that short, take any impressions with a silo of salt - unless they're obviously Hero-level quality and going to change our lives in which case SET HYPERBOLE TO 11
Friday: Reviews of the second rehearsal and the notoriously hit-or-miss results of the 'gen-rep' poll of audience members at the rehearsals
Saturday: In the afternoon 2:30 clips of the songs are uploaded to SVT. A livestream of the heat will start at 7pm GMT on svt.se/melodifestivalen

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