And somehow the victory photo managed to get even WORSE than the week before. What an absolute shit shower of an MF season.

Nonetheless, let us PLOUGH ON, for we come through what is in many ways the highlight of the Melodifestivalen season - the second chance round, where a bunch of also-rans who weren't quite popular enough to make it straight to the final on their own terms fight it out for the last two places in Friends Arena on March 9th. The last gasp of a career is extinguished in seconds or relighted by chance. It's vicious, it's bloody, and it's entirely essential to the Melodifestivalen viewing experience: just think of Carola losing her crown by having a nation turn against her the second she had to make do with AC in 2008, Caroline af Ugglas making it through against the odds in 2009 to nearly take the whole contest home, and the cruelty of 2011 where countless schlager idols were exterminated by a domestic abuse victim and the living embodiment of diabetes. Newcomers: welcome to andra chansen *.*

So, here's how it works. Everyone who finished third and fourth the last four weeks enters this round. Traditionally, all eight competitors would be split into duels, with the winners of those duels facing off against each other in second round duels, and the winners of those duels going into the final. This had the advantage of being incredibly cut-throat and compelling to watch, but also had the disadvantage of being almost irredeemably unfair - after all, the two most popular tracks could end up being drawn against each other in the first round, and notionally the other half of the draw could lead to the fifth most popular track getting a ticket to the final.

So, it's all change this year! The first round will go akin to the standard heat - all eight tracks performed in one go. Then there'll be voting, and the bottom four tracks will be knocked out. The top four tracks will be split into duels according to the voting results - 1st place against 4th place, 2nd place against 3rd place. Not as fun to watch, but probably far more fair, and we're bound to get more Sylvia Vrethammar-style reaction shots to the original top four announcement given Cookies N Beans have in all likelihood staked a mortgage on getting to the final somehow. But hey - even if someone loses, there's always next year. Let us not forget that Loreen died at the hands of the since forgotten Sara Varga in the schlagercaust that was andra chansen in Sundsvall 2011, only to get the biggest radio hit of the contest and power to Eurovision victory just over a year later.

So, with all that in mind, given we're following in the hideous occasional tradition whereby the andra chansen round is FAR BETTER than the final this year, let's see what no-hopers 2013 has lined up for us.


Robin Stjernberg - You
Text och Musik: Robin Stjernberg, Linnea Deb, Joy Deb och Joakim Harestad Haukaas
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 44 / 43/1 / =3rd

♫ I know that if the sky would fall
I would survive it all
because of YOU-OOOOOOH-OOOH-OOOOOOOOOOOH-OH ♫

So, quick roll call. This lezza got in over: the strongest case for a plagiarism lawsuit since Kempe came out of a sex coma and heard Youngblood on the radio; a woman (estimated age 104) croaking her way over an Emma Bunton B-side from 2004 with a vast array of Oscar-winning facial expressions (sadly unveiled too late to be eligible for votes); the hottest mess ever presented to the world outside of the boundaries of Vauxhall (featuring a woman so fabulous she couldn't even be bothered to perform a spoken word section live); and an unknown Lewinsky-alike on a track which cruelly gave the starving schlager gays a key change, albeit one which mindbogglingly went downwards (Linda Bengtzing must have been camera-spinning in her grave). So, probably not too much of a struggle to get in over that stellar line-up of Melodi luminaries. On the other hand, Sweden's answer to Josh Dubovie (with better pitching) DID have to go up against Ulrik Munther coming along with a song basically in the same style, so he did well to get this far without having all of his votes cannibalised. And in many ways, he's already got his vengeance by getting a step further than Amanda Fondell (his erstwhile slayer in the final of Idol 2011) managed to. Will we see Robin again in Stockholm, or is his falsetto bound to be ejected with haste this Saturday?


Eric Gadd - Vi kommer aldrig att förlora
Text och musik: Eric Gadd, Thomas Stenström och Jacob Olofsson
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 160 / 159/1 / 7th

♫ They say our dreams are too big
and we're aiming too high ♫

Poor Eric. Cast your minds back to week one: in many ways caught up in a pretty difficult three-way race, being one of two competitors with an ounce of stage presence after the inevitable qualifier in David Lindgren, the respected pop veteran found himself wound up in andra chansen with the melodic Vi kommer aldrig att förlora, only to immediately lose all momentum and wind up at the foot of most of the odds. With predictions that it's nearly 160 times more likely he won't qualify than will, does Eric stand even the remotest chance of getting through to the top four?


Caroline af Ugglas - Hon har inte
Text och Musik: Heinz Liljedahl och Caroline af Ugglas
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 44 / 43/1 / =3rd

♫ So what does she have that I do not have? ♫

Stop the presses ladies, it's time for a rare moment. I WAS WRONG. Despite dismissing this hag as washed out and hopeless, this actually turned out to be a work of towering, fragile beauty as much as Snälla, snälla had been. Unfortunately, Sweden has a long memory and knows that the only answer to Caroline is to make this bitch work for her success, so through to andra chansen it was. Caroline is, of course, no stranger to having to sing for food, having written herself into the fairytale books (along with Shirley Clamp, the original andra chansen desperado) by fighting her way to the runner-up slot after a trip through andra chansen in 2009, so don't rule her out. Can Caroline make lightning strike twice?


Behrang Miri - Jalla dansa sawa
Text och Musik: Behrang Miri, Anderz Wrethov, Firas Razak Tuma och Tacfarinas Yamoun
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 130 / 129/1 / 5th

♫ It doesn't matter if you're fly, hype or tight
It will flop ♫

Having enough plagiarised rewrites to choose between in heat four, it was inevitable one of the more egregious examples would get through, so here we are. Deeply fuckable contender Behrang bambadambadababambadambadababambadambadababambadambadambam'ed his way through to AC with his cheeky Allez Ola Olé-'inspired' piece, but will his stage of deeply attractive dancers (plus Jesy from Little Mix plus ten stone and an afro) make it much further than Karlstad?


Erik Segerstedt och Tone Damli Aaberge - Hello Goodbye
Text och Musik: Robin Fredriksson, Mattias Larsson och Måns Zelmerlöw
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 140 / 139/1 / 6th

♫ Let's not make things complicated
We're better off separated ♫

Heat two broke my heart in ways which will not be fully comprehended for many years to come, but the utterly horrifying failure of THE WIVES (R.I.P.) was matched in pain by this package here in three ways. Firstly, against my expectations Hello Goodbye turned out to be far more of a heartcruncher than I'd ever anticipated - being a subtle, mature track about a one-night stand that could never work long-term, totally at odds with the twee countrified midtempo it was wrapped in. Secondly, the chemistry between Erik and Tone onstage was totally endearing and sold the song like nobodies business (although possibly a little too well, given this was supposed to just be a terrific one-off boinking that had no prospect of going any further) - and oh my, the ad libs! For about half a minute I was looning over this bitch so hard you'd have thought Silas had been airlifted to North Essex for the evening. Then finally, having convinced myself that regardless of the in-the-balance fate of THE WIVES (NEVER FORGOTTEN) Tone och Erik would make it through somehow, they were consigned to andra chansen.

Well FUCK THAT. I'm prepared to smash plates if this doesn't get to the final - for ONE as we're missing vagina from there, and also because this is possibly my favourite track in the contest left in contention. But enough of my subjectivity. Can this overcome really quite dreadful odds to pick up the MoR vote and make it through to the final somehow, or will Danny be forevermore the only relevant one from E.M.D. and Tone forced to return to Norway in shame?


Anton Ewald - Begging
Text och Musik: Fredrik Kempe och Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 27 / 26/1 / 1st

♫ I'm running out of time
I see you're leaving ♫

With the most uncompromising set of blowjob lips and non-existent vox since two fifths of Youngblood (oh KEMPE), it came as little shock that Anton swished his way into andra chansen with ease, but the real test of whether he'll become a Kempe twink for the ages is now. As it stands, Begging's number one on the (admittedly irrelevant) Swedish iTunes chart, and he's probably my early pick for victory in MF 2014 if his fanbase is anything to go by. But lest we forget, the road of predicting andra chansen qualifiers by iTunes positions is one littered with the bodies of many (including, thankfully, Sean Banan last year). He's probably sweeping into the top four with ease, but will Anton's Calvin Harris-esque boypop be acceptable enough to the masses to make it through a duel, or is Anton doomed to become a footnote as forgotten as Forsberg and Mitsogiannis?


Cookies N Beans - Burning Flags
Text och musik: Fredrik Kempe
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 210 / 209/1 / 8th

♫ You were the one that I could turn to
But when I did you turned to someone new ♫

These three minxes came back from their 2009 failure and went to heat one armed with a 90s video effects set and a country drama ballad of pain, revenge, and masculine chins. And it WORKED. Sort of. To all intents and purposes having announced themselves to the world as fourth in the heat with a bullet by mere virtue of not being one of the big three, the odds say it all at this point - for these ladies, andra chansen was the realistic aim, and they've gotten what they can out of the experience. Beyond a moderately successful radio hit and a semi-hit album, can the STILL hideously named Cookies N Beans squeeze another drop out of this year's Melodifestivalen and come top four?


Martin Rolinski - In and Out of Love
Text och Musik: Thomas G:son, Andreas Rickstrand och Martin Rolinski
Betfair odds on winning Melodifestivalen (decimal / fractional / projected finish within AC): 32 / 31/1 / 2nd

♫ I need to know, are you gonna set us free? ♫

With the only straight-up pop song that could legitimately claim to have stood alongside the greats of Melodiyears past, Martin exceeded expectations and left Alexander Bard weeping into his Ronald McDonald beard by strutting into andra chansen with ease (although doubtless the writers of 80s classic Cheri, Cheri Lady will be paying CLOSE ATTENTION to the result in Karlstad to see if this goes much further). Having been here before with BWO in 2009 and falling out with the endlessly overhyped career-ender You're Not Alone against general life icons Lili och Susie, Martin knows more than anyone that a continued pop career for him in all likelihood depends on him getting through to the final. Can he deliver an answer back from Melodifestivalen past, defy the voting trends of 2013 and get through to the final with a straightforward Scandipop song without bells and whistles?

-x-

So, with that, you have three tasks - say which two you WANT to qualify, predict the order of the top eight, and say which two you think WILL qualify. Let's see if we can make it through ONE week this year without a dose of heartbreak.

FUCK'S SAKE Pavel I was going to do a proper thread