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[LexC]

The theme of this year's winners photos seems to be kneeling down doesn't it?

So for heat three this year, Melfest is turning up to Sweden's third biggest city, Eurovision 2013 host and culturally diverse melting pot, Malmö (i.e. the one Sweden's homegrown racists say is full of crime because some black people live there).

Before we get into this week's songs, a word of warning before we proceed. It's at this point in the Melfest calendar that Sweden's got back into the swing of things and so the public start feeling more confident in taking a punt on something random and throwing up a surprise result. Not always for the worse (hai Busy Doin' Nothing) but, for your own sake, it's probably best to expect the worst! A brief recap of some of the Heat 3 surprises of days gone by

2012: The Swedish David Dickinson and a member of a short lived Swedish girlband qualifies direkt with...well...this.

2013: The INFAMOUS Week in which NOX specialist Janet Leon, with the most talked up song of the year in the press, is unceremoniously dumped in 5th place whilst a bunch of old men singing "dad schlager" and a bloody Indie-Rock band go direkt in a Eurovision-adjacent event. Gay tears were well and truly shed!

2014: Whilst the basic straights were distracted by a Hockey Match in the Winter Olympics, Ace Wilder, a hitherto unheard of artist who'd worked as a songwriter previously, manages to qualify direkt to the final to the surprise of the very same Indie Rock band who'd usurped Janet Leon the previous year along with a Metal band who the producers were basically in love with. Said song then goes on to capture the imagination of the Swedish Public to the point where it wins the Jury vote in the Final and is only denied victory by TWO points to a Swedish National Treasure.

2015: Ellen Benediktson attempts a glow-up from balladeer to electropop dominatrix. She then gets dumped out in 5th place.

2017: One of the hot favourites, FO&O is beaten into Andra Chansen by octogenarian Owe Thornqvist with a 50s style rockabilly swing song.

So, before you go making any bold predicitons about what's going to go down this week, BEWARE THE CURSE OF HEAT 3!

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Now back to our regularly scheduled programming


Song 1: Martin Almgren - A Bitter Lullaby

Martin won Swedish Idol (so that makes consecutive Idol winner contestants trivia fans!) in 2015 and...hasn't really done anything of note other than a few decently performing singles since then. His forte tends to be pop/country so we'll likely see something along those lines. The writers of this one have written for Peg Parnevik, Alcazar, Le Kid and Agnes in the past so if he's pulled his socks up then this should be in the mix for the top 4.


Song 2: Barbi Escobar - Stark

Appropriately enough for a Malmö hosted heat, Barbi emigrated to Sweden from Chile. She's had experience doing backing singer gigs (much like the UK's poor, doomed SuRie) and describes her song as an uptempo R&B number. This may well be good but in this heat, I suspect she'll struggle.


Song 3: Moncho - Cuba Libre

Uh-oh, hip hop singer singing a song with a title in spanish? I think you already know what this is going to sound like! Moncho is an established act in the Swedish Hip Hop market and he's promising to bring something with elements of soca and reggaeton. Ordinarilly I'd say this is in the mix for direkt qualification...if it weren't for what's sitting in song 7's poisition...


Song 4: Jessica Andersson - Party Voice

Now I know there's folk here who could shart out a complete review of Jessica Andersson's career up until now but since I know my own limitations and you've not got the attention span to sit through it so the Sparknotes version is: After winning Melodifestivalen (as part of the duo Fame) in 2003, Jessica was a victim herself of the Heat 3 curse in 2006 and crashed out in 5th place to much shock. After clawing her way through a face saving operation in 2007 which got her to Andra Chansen she eventually battled her way back into the Melodifestivalen Final in 2010 by performing like her life depended on it in Andra Chansen. Five years later she qualifies direkt to the final for the first time ever as a solo artist.

So needless to say, Jessica's melfest track record follows neither the law of diminishing returns nor the law that "legacy" acts are permanently doomed in the era of the app vote. After being a lover of the power ballads for her last few attempts, she's opted this time for an UPTEMPO DANSBAND SCHLAGER number written by Papa Schlager himself Fredrik Kempe. If she does fall at this hurdle then let nobody say she isn't going down without a fight!


Song 5: Kalle Moraeus & Orsa Spelmän – Min Dröm

While we're on JessAn's time in Andra Chansen 2010, one of the acts she beat along the way there was this exact duo (wow these two back AND in Heat 3 as well, who's willing to bet Christer set all this up to deliberately reactivate Jessica's PTSD) with some dance-able folksy dad schlager in the shape of Underbart. For all intents and purposes, this seems likely to be Underbart: The Re-Up. Not only that but grandmaster G:Son has a hand in this so expect something melodic and sweeping. If Sweden is going to send something random through direktly only for it to crash in at 11th place in the Final, then this is my sneaky tip to do just that.


Song 6: Dotter - Cry

And here we have what may well be the dark horse of Melodifestivalen 2018. Dotter has been in the scandipop game for a few years now with some pretty good, if not massively successful singles. Her style settles at some comfortable distance between First Aid Kit and Florence + The Machine with a sprinkling of Loreen appearing in her later work. And, appropriately enough, the same team that wrote the immortal "Euphoria" is back together for this song alongside Linnea Deb, one of the writers of the other Swedish winner from this decade, "Heroes". Dotter also has a songwriting credit on this track after she penned Mariette's "A Million Years" in last year's competition.

Dotter has described "Cry" as a "different" and "quirky" modern pop ballad about supporting her friend getting out of a destructive relationship. So with the songwriting pedigree in this track and the fact that this seems to be the only song in this heat going down tempo, this is going to stand out in what I expect will be a very good way. Should Mariette fail to deliver the goods next week, then watch out for Dotter being ready to snatch the crown from under her


Song 7: Mendez - Everyday

And now, closing out the heat, is the comeback that nobody was waiting for. Mendez was a reliable provider of latin-influenced summer hits in Sweden in the early 00s, and (again, trivia fans!) closed out the first ever Melfest show of its current format (i.e. four heats and a second chance round in the Swedish regions before the final in the capital) in 2002. Whilst Moncho's track is probably a Despacito cash-in, this one is transparently a Despacito rip off. Still, with the writers of Dolly Style's Hello Hi involved, this promises to be an enjoyable piece of euro nonsense. But with two songs with more or less identical premises, is there going to be a cancelling out effect here or is their no limit to the Swede's appreciation of latin influenced hip hop pop?

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The schedule for the week:

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!