Melodifestivalen, my secret obsession

Alright, so I have a confession…I have a secret obsession with the Swedish TV show Melodifestivalen. For the past 6 weeks in a row on a Saturday night I have been mysteriously unavailable between the hours of 7 and 9, having used several pitiful excuses to avoid having to leave the house should somebody want to see me socially (excuses I have used included “I trapped my leg in a door last night and I think I trapped a nerve” and “I can’t leave my building at the moment, there has been a gas leak and it is not safe”), Melodifestivalen has, of course, been shown on a Saturday night for the past 6 weeks between the hours of 7 and 9.

Melodifestivalen is ridiculous, and wonderful. It is basically the Swedish search for their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest that year, but in reality it is SO MUCH more than that. It is the biggest TV show in Sweden, often watched by well over half the Swedish population. It has been running for literally billions of years, and is by far its own standalone contest outside the Eurovision Song Contest, with its own rules and traditions, and to be honest, generally the musical standard of Melodifestivalen is much high than Eurovision (that is of course if you like slightly dated shiny Swedish pop, slightly dated ridiculous female-sang Swedish schlager, cringeworthy attempts at being “current” often resulting in bizarre dance music experiments, 80s-style Swedish hair rock, and tradional Nordic ballads).

It is basically a hell of a lot of fun, and has amassed a huge overseas fanbase outside of Sweden – Melodifestivalen could probably get shown on a Sky Digital channel in the UK these days and pull in decent viewing figures, the live webstream at www.svt.se often crashes through huge demand.

A simple blog post is not enough to explain Melodifestivalen properly, there is such a ridiculous amount to write about it. In Sweden there are singers (mostly female) that virtually base their ENTIRE careers around Melodifestivalen, and enter frequently almost year-in-year-out, usually to the delight of homosexuals worldwide. The Queens of Melodifestivalen are probably bitter rivals Lena Philipsson -

and Carola -

both who have represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest several times, and both had a Melodifestiovalen come-back in the Naughties and went on to win again, and again went through to Eurovision (Lena in 2004 with “It Hurts” and Carola in 2006 with “Invincible”). Again Lena and Carola alone deserve multiple blog posts , and I cannot alas pay them their full due dues right here right now. Other FIRM FIXTURES of recent times of Melodifestivalen include :

the ancient, and frequently ludicrous Nanne (who was utterly robbed from winning in 2005) -

The slightly wonky-eyed, voice of a bleating sheep-ed and somehow the sweetheart of the Swedish public Sanna Nielsen -

The mekon-foreheaded, twice winning, alien faced, former Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli -

The gammon-legged, slightly desperate, flame-haired disco-beast Shirley Clamp -

and the slightly insane, and utterly wonderful Linda Bengtzing, who has somehow entered Melodifestivalen FOUR TIMES with essentially a re-write of the same song -

I COULD GO ON, but for now at least, I will not.

Back to 2011, and the contest this year. It finished last night and was won by the one-man Backstreet Boys, male Swedish heart throb ERIC SAADE -

and his track “Popular”, a deserving winner I feel (more on him later).

There were 32 tracks entered into the contest this year, and here are my pick of the best of them. The word “best” here has several different connotations. In the context of Melodifestivalen, the “best” song doesn’t always have the best melody or tune, it is often about the performance and how ridiculous it can be made, bonus points are often added for ancient freaky-looking Swedish women singing dated schlager songs that would never exist anywhere outside of Sweden, high-energy dance routines and backing tracks, and inventive use of props or bizarre stage set-ups that make very little sense.  So my 2011 favourites -

05 – LOVE GENERATION – DANCE ALONE (Knocked out at the second chance round)

Love Generation were the favourites to win the entire contest. They were given the plum (and often winning) spot of 8th song in the fourth (and last) heat in the contest, and were unleashed upon Sweden with huge amounts of hype and press attention – why? Love Generation are the pet project of Swedish mega-producer (and long term Lady Gaga collaborater)  RED ONE. “Dance Alone” is a typical high energy Red One pop production, that isn’t quite a “Bad Romance” but is definitely up there with Nicole Sherzinger’s “Poison”, with meloncholy pop lyrics reminiscent of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own”. Its a strong track, and despite a few ropey/screechy vocals from the girls, it had a pretty good performance too, yet for some reason Sweden did not take to them. Be it the suffocating amount of Swedish press-hype around them irritating the general public, or modern pop not being what the people wanted this year, the girls came third in their heat clinching them a chance in the second chance round (named Andra Chansen), where they were eventually knocked out by a Stepford Wife singing a song about domestic violence. Its a shame as I think this could have been a European hit outside of Melodifestivalen, and certainly would have done the business at Eurovision this year, POOR LOVE GENERATION.

04 – SANNA NIELSEN – I’M IN LOVE (Fourth in the final)

God bless Sanna. As I mentioned above she has become a stalward of Melodifestivalen over the past few years, having entered now a staggering SIX times at the age of 26, and having finished 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th in the final. This track “I’m In Love” wasn’t quite up to her usual standards, but in a year that is quite low in traditional Swedish schlager, this was a welcome slice of dated ridiculousness. Sanna is such an odd one, the star quality of a librarian, a slightly wonky eye and the voice of a bleating sheep and yet the Swedish people love her, and you can’t really get much more Swedish than this track. Blonde as anything, major-key sparkling pop, huge key-change shoe-horned in at the end, its all there. The performance is slightly bizarre, Sanna trapped in a GIANT OVARY for two verses, only to be unleashed at the end to spaz-dance for her adoring public, yet somehow it (just about) works, despite her awful outfit (and hair). Come back next year Sanna shit-eye, you are always welcome.

03 – DILBA – TRY AGAIN (8th in Heat One)

Dilba had some success a few years ago in Sweden as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter, had a few hits and then promptly disappeared. For some unknown reason she decided to re-emerge in 2011 entering Eurovision as an ELECTRO DIVA with slightly bizarre results. Her song itself “Try Again” is actually very good. A modern clubby electro-pop track, that went on to become a big Swedish hit after the contest, and yet she came LAST in her heat. The problem here is her Tron-inspired performance, which borders on hilarious at times. Dilba is just a little TOO OLD for this these days, and she doesn’t really look particularly comfortable as an ice maiden Tron-inspired electro-diva. She generally shuffles around the stage and looks rather uncomforable, whilst whispering her vocal to the extent it is quite obvious that a backing track with her recorded vocal is being played on top. It is almost comedy gold, everything about the performance is a little bit wrong, and yet probably could have worked in the hands of a more capable performer. But still god bless her for trying, and blessing us gays with a good song to play on our ipods, and a hot mess performance to laugh at when drunk.

02 – ERIC SAADE – POPULAR (WINNER!)

So here we have the winner of the whole contest, and the Swedish selection for Eurovision 2011 in Dusseldorf, and WHAT a winner it is. Eric Saade is the resident Swedish male heart-throb, and he is MASSIVE in his homeland. He entered Melodifestivalen last year with the similarly high-energy pop track “Manboy”, but lost out at the final hurdle to bleating goat-woman Anna Bergendahl with “This Is My Life”. He returned in 2011 with “Popular”, and the rest is history. He walked the final, and it is easy to see why. “Popular” is a relentless slice of one-man Backstreet Boys Moroder-inspired electro-pop ridiculousness, that has been accused of ripping off pretty much every track ever under the sun, not least “Rasputin” by Boney M.  But I think this is all a bit irrelevant. The performance is amazing (the breaking of the glass boxes is ridiculous/massive/silly/wonderful etc), despite looking a little bit like a rat Eric is very likeable on stage, and the song is dynamite. Eric can’t actually sing a note and relies heavily on a backing track and backing singers, but hey what does that matter when the song is this much fun. I hope he does well in Dusseldorf.

01 – LOREEN – MY HEART IS REFUSING ME (Knocked out in the second chance round)

And so on to my absolute favourite from 2011, and what I consider to be by far the best song from 2011, and performance. Loreen was a bit of an unknown in the 2011 Melodifestivalen, she had previously come fourth in Swedish Pop Idol in 2004, but hadn’t done a lot since then. She wasn’t favoured to do much in this years MF, but blew everybody away with this song and performance. Without a doubt one of the best (sincere) performances and songs I have seen on the Melodifestivalen stage, this was a bit of a moment when it was UNLEASHED upon the public. A tragic electro-pop song in the vein of Kleerup and Robyn’s “With Every Heartbeat” (indeed this could well have been a Kleerup production, its not, but it certainly sounds like one) with a flawless vocal sung by a hunchback in a red rope top. What more could you want. This warmed the hearts of the Swedish people and made it through to the second chance round, where it was unfortunately knocked out by the same knocked-about Stepford Wife that felled Love Generation (to the huge outrage of MF fans), but Loreen has had the last laugh, “My Heart Is Refusing Me” has gone on to become one of the biggest hits in Sweden from the entire contest, and she has cemented herself in the hearts of gays worldwide, Loreen we love you. UK RELEASE NOW PLEASE.

And so Melodifestivalen finishes for another year, and there is so much more that I could say. Let me finish on one of my personal favourite MF performances from the past few years, the encapsulates everything that I like about the contest, the UTTERLY RIDICULOUS performance by Velvet and her song “The Queen” -

Who ever thought this was a good idea I do not know, but I am pleased that they did. The giant dress! The mid-90s piano-house rip off song! The terrible lyrics to the song! The ludicrous dancing during the quiet part before the final chorus! ONLY IN SWEDEN.