Qassändra

These twinks are so much more CHARMING without that signature 'just worked with Kempe' thousand yard stare.

Det går för långsamt FINALLY GETS ITS SECOND CHANCE! And is REJECTED ONCE MORE

WHY IS NOBODY ELSE TALKING ABOUT HOW FUCKING BRILLIANT CRUCIFIED IS THIS IS POSSIBLY THE GREATEST MELODIFESTIVALEN ENTRY SINCE HERO (AND YES I DO INCLUDE EUPHORIA WITHIN THAT CONSIDERATION)

This heat is incredible. 1 - Bella & Filippa - This is the Amanda Jenssen heat 4 song 7 entry of my dreams. When the backing vocals came in on the second chorus they took my breath away. When they then took over the show in the final chorus, it gave me the same feeling I had when I first heard the choir come in on Kati Wolf's seminal What About My Dreams? - but somehow even better. This is so good I could cry. 2 - Robin Bengtsson - That production is sublime. 3 - Anton Hagman - So the original brief here was really obviously to just rewrite Stitches but for the first time in the history of Melodifestivalen "recycle a recent hit" entries it actually improves on the source material. There's so much more going on in this than in Stitches - that countermelody in the chorus is absolutely infectious. 4 - Krista - Love the secret weapon in the middle eight of a XYLOPHONE SOLO. This is doomed and everyone knows it's doomed but it's just a great pop song and at the end of the day THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS 5 - FO&O - This sounds really oddly like a host entry? It completely nails the rousing anthemic thing that the likes of Tell The World I'm Here all stretched so hard for but failed miserably in reaching. I won't begrudge this a place in the final too much. 6 - Owe - Absurdly good fun. 7 - Jasmine Kara - Possibly the biggest mess of a song entered into Melodifestivalen for years, to the extent I'm actually impressed - it's like somebody put the Mary J Blige demo of Titanium on and then let Jackson Pollock take over production with every 2016 sound preset going at his disposal. That postchorus drop is LAUGHABLE! I kind of imagine Ellen Benediktson looking at this and realising just how much worse Insomnia could have ACTUALLY GONE.

So I'm late on this for a lot of reasons (SORRY EVERYONE) but OMG THIS HEAT IS SO GOOD! I love them all!

Places is SO GOOD

THANK YOU

I've decided I fucking hate it in part cos of all this. His mannerisms and his voice go right through me anyway, but adding in the horrendously tired "god isn't technology awful we should just talk to each other instead!!!" crap in the lyrics just makes it even WORSE (sample lyrics: "Intellectuals in coffee bars, internet experts, honorary associates in the anonymous meetings of selfie-addicted, intelligence is out-of-date" / "Each person is a know-it-all thanks to the web, community's cocaine, the poor people's opium". yes love, because the SUM ADDITION to human knowledge is DEFINITELY the downside of the internet :manson:) What a PRIZE COCK all round. It's going to win, isn't it. UGH.

That is FABULOUS

Begging was a bit sleazy but Ben Ingrosso was just DORK DORK DORK. He had the vibe of a mid-90s school show where the bullied kid turns out to be a semi-competent performer. The nervousness! The cheesiness! The HYSTERICALLY LAME DANCING OVER THE CREDITS!

Oh there's always an audience for this kind of thing.

Sleazy?! He was like a FAUN IN THE HEADLIGHTS! You could practically see the repressed memories of MOTHER WAHLGREN with a BULLWHIP ON THE TREADMILL just a fifth place away

Good song but Christ I want to shoot him.

PRÉCIS!

OMG at Fisherman coming SECOND on the televote

DID FISHDANCE MAKE IT THROUGH

Bada nakna is a stone cold tune and I WON'T HEAR OTHERWISE THESE DAYS

I think Mariette over Lisa Ajax WAS a surprise considering the heart was going wild for Lisa from about half a minute in.

HOLY SHITTING CHRIST at Ben Ingrosso's dancing at the end

WHAT A RESULT!

OMG at Etzia making it as high as SIXTH. What a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT!

OMG THE HEART FOR ROGER I'M SO HAPPY

OMG at Mariette calling her fans SNOWFLAKES

1 - Mariette - right we've got a problem here because this is the sultry bewitching followup to My Heart Wants Me Dead that I'd come into tonight expecting from Lisa Ajax and yes it's f***ing superb but because Mariette's had to fill in for that DEAD-EYED AUTON I'm now missing the Euphoria to Don't Stop Believing's Heart Is Refusing Me that I was hoping for from Miss HOLLAND AND BARRETT here 2 - Etzia - the most hysterical MF carcrash since Alvaro Estrella looked at Moves Like Jagger and learned from the wrong half of the collaboration, wailing aimlessly for three minutes and thrusting incompetently in all directions. This is like an Onion parody of a feelgood banana republic summer hit recorded by one of its regimes torture victims and honestly I never want it to end 3 - Roger Pontare - that TANTALISING HINT of a key change at the end is a reminder to us all: times may come and times may go, but Roger will still be there to serve up the old time religion to us tired and weary fans beaten senseless by years of rock bands who couldn't care less about MF being given prime slots while those who live and breathe this bastion of Swedish light entertainment are callously tossed aside 4 - Benjamin Ingrosso - first Little Great Things now this. Why are the children of all our schlager icons so determined to shit on their mothers' legacies?! (I mean in this case chucking away his mum's name is the tell that he's doing it cos she's probably a dick but there are BIGGER BATTLES AT STAKE FFS) 5 - Lisa Ajax - I'm so furious at how generic this is that I can barely breathe to be honest 6 - Allyawan - I know Christer's trying to fulfil some kind of remit with this but what reality is there that involves anyone who cares about the Swedish hip hop underground staying in to watch TV on a Saturday night? 7 - dismissed - look if you're going to turn up looking like someone got lost in their mum's makeup box the least you can do is not sound like you got lost in her record collection too

It did give a pretty big hint to Saraha being one of the big AC breakout hits though. However I think the other bit of evidence that gives it a bit of credence is the online vote (3,333 votes cast): 1. Mariette - 36% 2. Benjamin Ingrosso - 26% 3. Lisa Ajax - 18% 4. Roger Pontare - 8% 5. Dismissed - 7% 6. Etzia - 3% 7. Allyawan - 2% Obviously self-selecting, so not a perfect reflection - but if you expected any artist in this heat to have a motivated fanbase skewing an online vote, it wouldn't be Mariette.