We have come to the last one of the preliminary heats, and will have seen and heard all numbers by Saturday evening. And by the end of the show, we will know the full line-up of the Grand Finale to be held at the Strawberry Arena in Stockholm on 7th March.
We have everything from a previous winner to a joke entry to genuine K-Pop starpower. Let’s take a look at what you can expect this week.
1) AleXa – Tongue Tied
The coolest thing to happen to Melodifestivalen in a while, a genuine K-Pop star in a timeframe when K-Pop is more popular than ever and every kid sings to Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters. AleXa has of course been collaborating with Swedish songwriting/producing team Sunshine and Moonshine (including Mello star Cazzi Opeia) since the beginning of her career, and they also wrote for her when she went on to win the only season of American Song Contest with Wonderland.
The songwriting is fun and the structure goes in all kinds of unexpected directions, which is always a plus point among the many predictable Mello songs. AleXa brings high energy and is doing so much advanced choreo herself it is quite the cardio session, which results in some breathiness in her live vocals at the more whispery parts. She is joined by masked dancers and has plenty of lasers to match the clubby energy of the song. She is a real pro and very expressive both with her face and the gestures. The Swedish audience might still be lacking some kind of emotional connection though.
2) Juliett – Långt från alla andra
The boys next door in Juliett are all childhood friends from Vallentuna, and I first saw them opening for Orkid last summer, when they clearly had a front-row full of local fangirls with them. The band is doing contemporary pop in Swedish with three of the guys in singing duties. For their Melfest debut they are bringing a sort of euphoric pop song, which might not be the most original, but at least it sounds better than some very popular counterparts like Hov1. They give off very sympathetic vibes with their number which starts off in a rehearsal studio setting, and when the walls come down they go out on the catwalk, ending up in confetti rain.
3) Bladë – Who You are
Isa Tengblad is a veteran of Melodifestivalen, even though she is making her debut as Bladë. She competed as ISA both in 2015 (Don’t Stop) and 2016 (I WIll Wait), and she also joined as a songwriter for Malou Prytz in 2019. She has written and produced for other artists as well, most notably Peg Parnevik and Myra Granberg. Her new artist persona Bladë is both bolder and more personal than ISA ever was, so it is only fitting, that the song is about doing things from the heart and being who she wants to be.
Bladë starts out lying on the floor and the song starts off slowly, building up the energy little by little when the beat kicks in and the dancers join her. This is a real empowerment anthem, and you can feel it comes from a very genuine place. And here is an artist who sure can sing! She does join in for some choreo moves, but the movement never interferes with the singing.
4) Lilla Al-Fadji – Delulu
Lilla Al-Fadji is a legendary humour character that started out on Ison & Fille‘s records (Fille Danza is LAF) and went on to do TV and radio, and he’s found new generations of followers on YouTube and TikTok. For his Melodifestivalen debut Delulu he has enlisted among others the songwriting talents of genious Melfest script writer Edward af Sillén. Now I have never been a fan of the Melfest joke entries, and this is not my cup of tea either. I can only see the song and number appealing to those 10 years old or younger. But maybe the whole world is indeed so much Delulu that the Swedes send him to the final.
5) Vilhelm Buchaus – Hearts Don’t Lie
In his Melodifestivalen debut last year Vilhelm Buchaus won over new fans with his no-nonsense poprock and a great staging with one long camera shot. This year he brings more of the same, acoustic parts, strong drum beats and distorted guitars. But the song feels rather more boring than he is trying to make it look like, strumming his guitar very intensively and making big arena rock gestures – the song just does not match that energy.
6) Sanna Nielsen – Waste Your Love
Sanna Nielsen is celebrating 30 years of artistry by joining Melodifestivalen “one more time”. She had her breakthrough at 11 years of age, and is something of Mello royalty having participated seven times and won in 2014 with Undo. That classic ballad with her powerful vocals went and took third place in Eurovision. She has also done interval acts and hosted Mello, and was of course very popular as the host of Allsång på Skansen from 2016 to 2022.
She is bringing a perfectly competent Mello/Eurovision belter, with some Euro Club soundscapes. Nothing terribly original though. She is taking to the stage in a glittery diva dress, the likes of which she has not worn before. But the main thing is of course her immaculate vocals, about which there will never be any doubt! But I’m not sure the lyrics work in English quite the way they have intended. Slösa kärlek in Swedish can be something very positive, like showering someone in love, but wasting love in English feels more like a negative connotation. How do you native speakers feel? Let me know in the comments…
All photos © Nina Uddin
