Melodifestivalen 2010

[amnesiac]

Oh my Carola!

I just realised we do not have an official Melodifestivalen 2010 thread! What is the Gaycork Eurovision Forum coming to?

Well to kick off, SVT have announced a major shake up in the way they will be selecting a winner this year. Traditionally the final of Melodifestivalen has been determined by the combined scores of 11 regional juries and a public televote. An interesting development this year is that only five of the juries will be Swedish and the other six will represent six different European regions. SVT are hoping by opening up Melodifestivalen to all of Europe to vote on they will select the entry with the best possible chance of polling well at the Eurovision proper in May.

Read more here (http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/14851)

Sounds like a good idea to me! With the Internet and live webcasts etc, fans all across Europe are watching many national finals with interest and it seems like a natural development to ******* this interest when choosing a song that will need to score consistently across 40+ countries if it hopes to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

Shiva and I of course would like to make ourselves fully available to SVT as prospective members of a Northwestern European Archipelago Jury!

[Carraigrock]

Would be great to get a timetable and links to broadcasts, if possible?

Am I asking too much?

Wilma is going to love me for this....

[Shiva]

Sorry Wilma [:-D]

http://www.eurovision-austria.com/2010/national_finals/schweden/images/melodifestivalen.jpg

The 2010 edition of Melodifestivalen will be like last years' arrangement, with four semi-finals, a second-chance round and a grand final. The four semi-finals will be held in Örnsköldsvik (6 February), Sandviken (13 February), Gothenburg (20 February) and Malmö (27 February). The second chance round will be held in Örebro on 6 March and the final in Stockholm on 13 March. There were plans that the 2010 final would been held in Gothenburg, however as hockey matches clashed with the date of the final it was necessary to hold the final in Stockholm for the ninth consecutive year. SVT presented the songs that will compete over late 2009 and early 2010.

Just like last year, a maximum of eight people will be allowed on stage, while only persons of 16 years or over can compete on stage. However, in accordance with Eurovision rules, only six people will be allowed on stage for the Swedish entry at Eurovision. The main singer(s) must perform live on stage, however other backing vocals can be pre-recorded onto the backing track, along with the song's backing track.

Major changes in the voting of the contest will be implemented in 2010: in the semi-finals the song with the most votes will progress direct to the final, and will not participate in the second round of the semi-final, in which the remaining top 4 songs battle again for a place in the final and in the Andra Chansen round - the 2nd placed song progressing to the final and the 3rd and 4th placed songs progressing to Andra Chansen. In the final, the original 11 regional juries of Sweden seen in past contests will be abolished, and replaced by 11 new juries - five of which are Swedish, and six of which are European, giving an even distribution into the new, enlarged Europe now participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.

This year's contest will be hosted by comedian Christine Meltzer, two-time Melodifestivalen participant Måns Zelmerlöw and actor Dolph Lundgren, who will present each of the six shows.
[edit] Changes

* It is now allowable to send multiple language versions of the same track as separate entries.
* Non-Swedish nationals may now submit entries to the wildcard selection of the contest.
* The international jury will still be in the contest, but they will only be the 12th jury in the grand final voting process[13]
* Viewers could use SVT's website to vote for the last wildcard in the contest.

Date City Venue Heat
6 February Örnsköldsvik Fjällräven Center Heat 1
13 February Sandviken Göransson Arena Heat 2
20 February Gothenburg Scandinavium Heat 3
27 February Malmö Malmö Arena Heat 4
6 March Örebro Conventum Arena Second Chance
13 March Stockholm Globen Final

Entries

32 songs will compete in Melodifestivalen 2010. 27 of them were selected from a public call for songs, in which public songwriters and artists could send in songs to SVT, until the 22 September, 2009. Five songs will be selected to compete in the contest as wildcards: SVT will internally select four songwriting teams and artists to compete in the contest, to diversify the musical quality of the competition; a final song was selected through a "web wildcard" competition, with the Swedish public selecting one song by an unknown act to progress to the semi-finals.

Wildcards

As since 2004 SVT has specially invited four artists and composers to compete in Melodifestivalen, in order to diversify the musical qualify of the contest. As well as this the 2010 contest introduced a "web wildcard" competition, in which songwriters who were not linked to any record companies could publish compositions over two weeks in September and October 2009 on SVT Melodifestivalen website. The winner of the web wildcard was selected by the Swedish public through SMS voting, with the song that received the most votes by 12 November competing in the televised semi-finals.

The first wildcard competing in Melodifestivalen 2010 was revealed by SVT on 3 November, with Darin selected by SVT to perform in the contest with the song "Out Of My Life", written by Tony Nilsson and Henrik Jansson. SVT revealed the winner of the web wildcard contest on 12 November on SVT's morning news programme Gomorron Sverige. The winning song was "Come And Get Me Now", performed by MiSt. On 5 December MiST and Melodifestivalen's producer Christer Björkman approached the band Highlights, a particapant in the Dansbandskampen competition, to join MiSt on stage in Melodifestivalen, which they accepted.

On 16 November 2009, Salem Al Fakir was announced as the second wildcard participant, and will take part with the song "Keep On Walking", which he wrote and composed himself. SVT revealed the third wildcard for MF 2010 on 3 December: Peter Jöback was selected by SVT to compete in the competition, where he will sing "Hollow", composed by Anders Hansson and Fredrik Kempe. SVT's fourth and final wildcard was announced on 7 January 2010. Soul singer Pauline Kamusewu will compete in the second semi-final of Melodifestivalen with the song "Sucker For Love", written by herself and Fredrik "Fredro" Ödesjö, Andreas Levander and Johan "Jones" Wetterberg.

Artist Song Semi-final
Salem Al Fakir "Keep On Walking" Örnsköldsvik
Pauline "Sucker For Love" Sandviken
MiSt & Highlights "Come And Get Me Now" Sandviken
Darin "You're Out Of My Life" Gothenburg
Peter Jöback "Hollow" Malmö

Web wildcard

The first web wildcard contest for Melodifestivalen was held from September to November 2009. This allows new promising talents a new way to enter Melodifestivalen instead of through the regular public submission process, in which amateur musicians rarely succeed. Musicians who don't have or have never had any contract with a music publishing house or never had any of their work published could enter songs onto SVT's Melodifestivalen webiste from 21 September to 4 October. From 14 October to 12 November the qualifying songs were voted for by SMS voting in Sweden, with the winning song being decided on 12 November.

246 songs were submitted for the web wildcard, with 180 selected to compete in the competition, after disqualifying those that did not meet the rules of the contest. Over the following weeks the bottom songs in the public SMS vote were eliminated from the contest, leaving 10 songs left. On 4 November the top ten songs were announced by SVT. Each day, until 11 November, one song was eliminated from the competition, with only three songs left. The winner was announced on 12 November at 8:45 am on SVT's morning news programme Gomorron Sverige, with the duo MiSt winning the contest with the song was "Come And Get Me"

Semi-finals

The semi-finals will this year be held in Örnsköldsvik, Sandviken, Gothenburg and Malmö. SVT released 13 artists on 30 November which will perform in the first and the second semi-final. On 7 December 2009 a further 14 entries were released, who will compete in the third and fourth semi-finals. The wildcard entries are marked in grey.

SVT announced the running order for the semi-finals on 8 January 2010. Ola Svensson will open the contest in the first semi-final, and wildcard Peter Jöback will close the semi-finals.

New voting measures in the semi-finals will be implemented, with the song receiving the most votes in the first round automatically qualifying to the final, skipping the second round. The remaining top 4 will battle again for a place in the final and Andra Chansen round - the 2nd placed song qualifying to the final, and the 3rd and 4th placed songs progressing to Andra Chansen.

Semi-final 1

The first semi-final will be held on 6 February in Fjällräven Center, Örnsköldsvik.

1 Ola Svensson "Unstoppable
2 Jenny Silver "A Place To Stay"
3 Linda Pritchard "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot"
4 Pain of Salvation "Road Salt"
5 Anders Ekborg "The Saviour"
6 Jessica Andersson "I Did It For Love"
7 Frispråkarn "Singel"
8 Salem Al Fakir "Keep On Walking" Wildcard
Semifinal 2

The second semi-final will be held on February 13 in Göransson Arena, Sandviken.

1 Eric Saade "Manboy"
2 Andra Generationen & Dogge Doggelito "Hippare Hoppare"
3 Anna-Maria Espinosa "Innan alla ljusen brunnit ut"
4 MiSt & Highlights "Come And Get Me Now" Web Wildcard
5 Pauline "Sucker For Love" Wildcard
6 Andreas Johnson "We Can Work It Out"
7 Kalle Moraeus & Orsa Spelmän "Underbart"
8 Hanna Lindblad "Manipulated"

Semi-final 3

The third semi-final will be held on 20 February in Scandinavium, Gothenburg.

1 Alcazar "Headlines"
2 Johannes Bah Kuhnke "Tonight"
3 Elin Lanto "Doctor Doctor"
4 Erik Linder "Hur kan jag tro på kärlek?"
5 Getty Domein "Yeba"
6 Timoteij "Kom (Run)"
7 Darin "You're Out Of My Life"
8 Crucified Barbara "Heaven Or Hell"

Semi-final 4

The fourth and final semi-final will be held on 27 February in Malmö Arena, Malmö.

1 Sibel "Stop"
2 Py Bäckman "Magisk Stjärna"
3 Neo "Human Frontier"
4 Lovestoned "Thursdays"
5 Anna Bergendahl "This Is My Life"
6 Pernilla Wahlgren "Jag vill om du vågar"
7 Noll disciplin "Idiot"
8 Peter Jöback "Hollow" Wildcard

[amnesiac]

1 Alcazar "Headlines"


I've a feeling it's Alcazar's year you know!

[Shiva]

I've a feeling it's Alcazar's year you know!

It would be hard to top last years performance, 4th time lucky though :)

[amnesiac]

It would be hard to top last years performance, 4th time lucky though :)

True Shiva and I think we should treat our lurkers to Alcazar's past MF efforts!

2003 - Not A Sinner, Nor A Saint

NLsCfU86QKg

2005 - Alcastar

YVRzMHtCeDE

2009 - Stay The Night

c1TgYKriIR8

Unfortunately I was still firmly in Camp Magnus last year which meant I was a little hostile to Stay The Night. Over the course of the year I have come to recognise it as the greatest Schlager Group Stomper EVER. It's an amazing track to play in the gym when you're 50 calories away from burning 1,000!

[Shiva]

8 days and counting peple.

To see a review of the first first heats artists go to your local ESCIreland.com (http://www.escireland.com/melodifestivalen/)

[Shiva]

After all 4 semis we now know 8/10 for the final and the final 2 spaces will be filled this weekend in the second chance final with Alcazar looking likely to take one of the 2 spots.

n the second chance final this weekend there is a series of playoffs, until the top 2 are left. Basically the winners from duel one will go against the winners of duel two and then that winner will go straight to the final. The same goes for duel 3 and 4. It looks good for Alcazar to go straight through, however the first one is a little more tricky to predict I think it will be down to either Pernilla or Crucified Barbara.

1)

Pain of Salvation – “Road Salt”

Vs

Pernilla Wahlgren – “Jag vill om du vågar”

2)

Pauline – “Sucker For Love”

Vs

Crucified Barbara – “Heaven or Hell”

3)

Kalle Moraeus & Orsa Spelmän – “Underbart”

Vs

NEO – “Human Frontier”

4)

Alcazar – “Headlines”

Vs

Jessica Andersson – “I Did It For Love”

In the meantime I will leave you with one of the finalists, the insanely addictive Kom.

qGMcNVjHhK4

[Shiva]

Down to the final 10, the final will take place this Saturday at 19.00 GMT.

We will be routing for the Shampoo girls :)

For a preview of all songs and the current betting odds, click here. (http://www.escireland.com/2010/03/sweden-the-last-final/)

[amnesiac]

Timoteij and Pernilla are my two favourites; we need some uptempo songs in an increasingly ballad-heavy Eurovision Song Contest!

[Shiva]

Ireland will have a say in the selection of the Swedish song this year, 6 of the 11 juries are international and Ireland is one of those countries.

Read more here. (http://www.escireland.com/2010/03/international-juries-in-melodifestivalen/)