Melodifestivalen
This has got nothing to do with the regular themes of this blog, except that it’s about Sweden. Our selection procedure for Eurovision Song Contest - the “Melodifestivalen” or “Melody festival” - started a couple of weeks ago. I’ve missed both semi-finals that have been shown so far - we have four, and then a sort of extra final called “second chance”, where the people who almost won at the semi-finals get to compete with each other for a couple of additional spots at the actual final. But, thanks to youtube, I’m managing to keep up fairly well with the contest.
Why am I even interested? Most of the music is absolute crap. But then again, I’m a closet elitist bitch who likes to heckle people in my spare time (don’t tell anyone). Since my whole family is very musical we can watch it together and suffer. Nothing makes you feel as united as shared disdain for other people. There’s also another aspect to it: I like the way this is a huge event that the whole country, and later all of Europe, can relate to. For a little while we put away our political differences and just have some fun with really bad pop music. It’s rather like huge sports events, except I actually understand music, while sports will always be fundamentally uninteresting to me.
Of course, not all of the entries in Melodifestivalen or even Eurovision suck. Have a really quick look at this video (Swedish Television is cracking down on YouTube making them remove all the entries), and please note the huge audience even though this isn’t even our final:
I love the sound of these guys, reminds me of Scissor Sisters (of which I am as you can probably figure out a fan).
Jag förstår vad du säger men jag står /ändå/ inte ut, får allergiskt utslag av dem allihopa… Låt oss i alla fall hålla tummarna att Christer Sjögren vinner.
Kanske ska brusha up på mitt html one of these days, men det där css är nåt helt nytt för mig :O
Comment by Anna — February 19, 2008 @ 09:22
Njae, du får nog hålla tummarna själv, jag tyckte Sjögren var ganska trist. Jag har svårt för dansband och smör. Rongedal för mig.
Jag lämnade ett par länktips på din blogg. CSS är mycket lättare än man tror.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — February 19, 2008 @ 12:58
I absolutely agree on these red-costume guys.
I like boogie-sounds as well. Never thought they’d make it to the swedish final. This was also extremely influenced by Mikah, though. Especially the beginning of the verse part sounded like a slower version of “Grace Kelly”.
Comment by simple z — February 19, 2008 @ 15:28
I did hear the way the first few notes are very like Grace Kelly, but on the other hand, those two songs can’t possibly be the only ones utilising that particular sequence of notes (treklang), and the only other similarity is the use of falsetto singing, which is also common. On the whole I don’t think they are any more guilty of plagiarising than any other contestant. Most of the songs have striking similarities with other music, which I suspect is because if you introduce too much originality, no one will vote for you.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — February 19, 2008 @ 17:08