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[LexC]

As the misery and darkness of January gives way to the slightly less miserable and dark February, a beacon of light appears on the horizon, whispering but three words...Nu kör vi!

To quote Qass, the original dark mother of the eurovision forum...

In times of misery, despair, and Ed Sheeran, only one obstacle stood between queer liberty and the rise of fascism

That obstacle was one nation's Eurovision selection: a festival of women with hair in shades of magenta never seen in nature, of witness protection programs that send white people in front of a nation to pretend to be from Tanzania, and of 28 tracks which without fail provide at least 20 exquisitely crafted bangers to keep all listeners safe in the deep eurovisionless midwinters.

Bangers that cross cultural boundaries, bangers that appeal as much to office Spotify listeners as they do to hardcore fans who can in one breath name the definitive ranking of all Afro-dite's entries group and solo (for the record: aqua playa > the boy can dance > innan natten är over > det vackraste jag vet). Bangers helmed by some of Sweden's biggest stars that are responsible for the nation's Eurovision selection being more popular than Eurovision itself. Contemplate that.

let the greatest six weeks of the year begin

For the benefit of any MF virgins amongst us, Melodifestivalen is so much more than just another national final for the eurovision song contest. It's part song pageant, part scandalous reality television show, part "comedy" (depending on who's writing the script that year) show and part battle royal fight to the death! Over the course of the next six weeks, 28 songs will be divided into 4 heats of 7 in the provinces of Sweden, with the top 2 progressing directly to the final in Stockholm on the 9th of March, the third and fourth placing songs getting another lifeline in the fight to the death Second Chance/Andra Chansen round the week before the final. The other three will be condemned to watching their career go up in a puff of glitter, although given how competitive it is to even get onto the televised show, for many the battle has already been won by getting here in the first place (as Janet Leon (RIP) tells herself every night to help her sleep).

So to recap the highlights of what happened in last years Melfest:

- Margaret became the first fully foreign non-Swedish speaking contestant to make it to the final of Melodifestivalen (more on her next week)
- Mariette tried and, for the third time, failed to happen
- Rolandz did so well on the public vote (only about 1% lower than the actual winner) that they have now subsequently BANNED comedy/novelty acts
- Hypechild Dotter only managed 6th in Heat 3 because, shock horror, you have to sing in tune and not look like an aggressive hard faced bitch to convince people to vote for you
- HRH Crown Princess Jessica Andersson SAVED SCHLAGER and qualifies directly for the final with life anthem "Party Voice"...and then gets a cold the week before the final and comes last but we're not going to talk about that!
- Babyface McSnakehips Benjamin Ingrosso won Melfest over Scandi Twink #37B Felix Sandman with a moderately enjoyable bop "Dance You Off" winning both the jury and public vote which is usually a pretty good sign. But then....well....I want to tell you a story...

...It's some time around 22:30 or maybe closer to 23:00 BST on the 12th May 2018. Somehow, for some unexplained reason, Austria has won the Eurovision 2018 jury vote to the confusion of everyone, not least the watching public in Austria. But deep down we all know that the televote for that song isn't going to be in the upper echelon that it needs to be in order to properly compete for the win. But we've done the math...Sweden's only 18 points behind them. Early fan favourite Israel is about another 40 points behind Sweden which is obviously going to be the height of the tension in the televoting sequence because obviously both of them are going to do well. The current fan fave Cyprus is another 30 odd points behind Israel which seems to suggest that they're out of the running. The televoting sequence begins...

...Australia tank the public vote, as do the hosts Portugal and their best buddies Spain, we're expecting to hear the UK called out any second now...and then, someone who used to be in NCIS (I think?) says four fateful words.

"With 21 points...Sweden!" And to my surprise, the television audio feed is picking up...cheers from the crowd in Lisbon!

-x-

So, yeah, that's the question hanging over everyone's heads going into Melfest this year. Are Sweden becoming victims of their own success, churning out soulless overpolished pretty young boys to diminishing returns? Or was "Dance You Off" just never that good a song to begin with and between them "Toy" and "Fuego" gobbled up all the pop votes in the final? At the end of the day, nobody can know for sure but there may be a distinct theme this year of Sweden needing to send something that isn't just Melfest autopilot.

And so, with that said, lets check out the seven contestants for this week's heat


01: Nano - Chasing Rivers

Opening our heat is the 2017 runner-up Nano who managed to beat eventual winner Robin Bengtsson in the final televote with his late 00s style drum'n'bass song "Hold On". And all this despite looking like a mix of Rag'N'Bone Man and Mr Potato Head. Rumours were abounding he was due to be in last year's melfest but, well, lets just say there have been *allegations* made #MeToo. And talk about getting pedigree writers on board, he's got the writers of three different Eurovision winners on this track including Tomas G:Son (Euphoria) Joy & Linnea Deb (Heroes) and Lise Cabble (Only Teardrops) so needless to say he's going all in for the crown on this one. odds are we'll get something more or less in the same vein as Hold On in tempo and mood so expect Nano to be in the mix for this heat.


02: High15 - No Drama

In this week's death slot is girlband "High15" or at least this was a death slot until John Lundvik (more on him in week 4) qualified directly from this slot last year so anything is possible. They've got a Debs penned song (but as we'll soon see, so does virtually everyone this week) but even that might not be enough in this highly () competitive first heat


03: Wiktoria - Not With Me

You remember how I mentioned Mariette trying and failing to happen for the third time? Enter Wiktoria. You'll remember her from 2016's projection spectacular "Save Me" and 2017's "As I Lay Me Down" aka The Madonna-Whore complex set to music. And if she hadn't (allegedly) fluffed the jury show on the Melfest final then maybe she would have got the ticket to Kyiv and we wouldn't be but that's that. This year she's changing pace with a "big ballad" which should be a note of caution for someone whose vocal stylings can sometimes be on the side of "unrestrained" and given how cutthroat this heat is likely to be, keep an eye on this to be the surprise flop of the week (now watch this be the winner now I've said that!)


04: Zeana feat. Anis Don Demina - Mina bränder

Those of you who are particularly observant will recognise Anis Don Demina as the sax player in "Shuffla" from 2018. Zeana however is such an unknown she doesn't even have a wikipedia page (where I definitley have not done the majority of this research). I think this is competing with High15 to be the "song that is on the other side of "Finalen or Bust" with one of the main 4 this week). I think this will be comfortably safe from last though considering...


05: Arja Saijonmaa - Mina Fyra Årstider

Up next we have the winner of the OGAE second chance contest....1987! In an interesting parallel with St. Anna Book, Arja came 2nd to "Fyra Bugg och en Coca Cola" (which if you thought SaRaHa was a bit distasteful, just wait until you see six white scandinavians trying to do Carribean Calypso) in Melfest 1987 with "Högt över Havet" which then went on to be a massive hit and thus, a legend was born. And she did this all despite being Finnish born and you know Swedes just love to hate Finnish people (someone I knew at Uni said "to Swedes, Norway's like the annoying little brother, Denmark's the cool older sister and Finland's the retarded cousin"). In addition to her pop career she's also devoted her life to politics and fighting dictatorships. Yaknow, just as a side career.

Fastforward to 2005 and she comes back to Melfest ready to take the crown and, well, observe for yourselves. On the plus side, by virtue of turning up she's already bested that 8th place by one place. 14 years later she's back with another schlager track (the only one in this heat with no Debs or G:Son involvement) to give gays, Swedish housewives and the over 70s everything they want!


06: Mohombi - Hello

Now, on that same night that Arja came 8th in her heat in 2005, a group called Avalon came a mildly disappointing 6th. One of those singers then went on to have a string of pretty big hits in the first few years of the 2010s, including one particularly egregious sample of the Cranberries but replacing his own name in place of "Zombie" partly due to riding the coattails of fellow African-born Swede RedOne and, well , here he is! Presumably here to resurrect his career/get an easy radio hit out of Melfest I suspect Mohombi wants to go to Andra Chansen so they can drop the track immediately.


07: Anna Bergendahl - Ashes To Ashes

And then we come to the last song. The only reason that Sweden does not have a 100% qualification record at Eurovision. Anna missed out in 2010 by only five points in an act of national disaster and, understandably, ran away never to be heard from again. Although you could argue that it was thanks to her going down in flames that Sweden gave themselves a kick up the ass, brought in the international juries to Melfest and have now only missed the top 10 at Eurovision once since her act of self sacrifice.

In the last few years she's had a few songs that got some airplay but haven't made too much of an impact but here she is in the pimp slot and ready for her redemption story. The buzz is that this is a big contender and she, say it with me now, has G:Son credited on her song. Nevertheless, win or lose, Anna will be the story of the first heat and is probably the song that is the most eagerly anticipated.

So there are the seven contenders. What we expect the course of the week to be:

Wednesday: The Press get their first plays of the weeks songs, their reviews will appearing on social media after 18:00 CET
Thursday: 1 minute clips of the studio versions and 30 second clips of the stage rehearsals will be uploaded
Friday: Dress Rehearsal for the final show, the "genrep" poll of audience members from the rehearsal crowd gets released, giving us a first clue as to what's going to be popular with the Swedish Public
Saturday: 14:00 CET - 2:30 studio versions of all the songs uploaded on SVT's website
20:00 CET - The show!