12points.tv

The popularity of Loreen's huge song for Sweden means lots of people are trying out covers and remixes.

On the first of september, one of the last summer days in northern Europe, Sweden has announced further details about Melodifestivalen this winter..... who will follow up Eric Saade .....

For the eleventh time in a row, the ever so popular Melodifestivalen tour will cross the country. The competition that doubles as Sweden's selection show for the Eurovision Song Contest, has quite a repetiotion of its own. Its viewing figures have been rising since 2002. In 2007, approximately 4.1 million Swedes—almost 44% of the country's population—watched the final, and between 2.9 million and 3.2 million viewers watched each of the semifinals.

News Round-up of the day. Summertime and the living is easy...

We are far away from last year's contest and 2012 is still out of sight. the only thing we could report today is that rumors say Måns Zelmerlöw is intending to submit a song to the 2012 edition of Melodifestivalen, the Swedish Eueovision selection. He did so successfully twice before with Cara Mia (2007) and Hope and Glory (2009).In 2010 he was one of the hosts in Melodifestivalen. Nothing has been confirmed yet however.

Today the 32 entries for the biggest national Eurovision final, Melodifestivalen have been presented..

On Monday Christer Björkman, the big man behind Melodifestivalen and its success, already revealed that the 32 participating songs in the contest would be announced today. 16 of the songs have been selected by a jury, fifteen were invited by SVT and one was selected by the voting internet audience. Which artists will be singing what songs will be revealed later, also in what semi final they will appear.

Speculation abound as 12points.tv looks deeper into today's reveal of the Melodifestivalen 2012 song entries.

Now it seems the true Eurovision 2012 season has been kicked off when SVT, Sweden's state network, announces more tantalizing information about next year's Melodifestivalen competition.  Yours truly usually watches in anguish as the Swedes vote for the most anondyne boring songs to go to the final and the most fabulous ones to go home... but nevertheless the anticipation is fun and now we can sit and analyze what today's announcement could bring forth.  Here are a few things to ponder over.

News Round-up of the day. Sweden's Eurovision season started today, the host cities for Melodifestivalen 2012 have been announced.

Växjö, Gothenburg, Leksand, Malmö, Nyköping and Stockholm will be staging semi finals, the second heat and the final of the Swedish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest this year: Melodifestivalen. Växjo kicks off on 4 February, the final will be in Stockholms Globen like every year and will take place on 10 March.

Perrelli's return to the schlager spotlight yielded mixed results for her dedicated fans 

Third time lucky? Charlotte Perrelli is one of Sweden's most talked about pop stars. Launching herself onto the wider public by winning ESC 1999 for her country, her career since has been filled with poptastic highs and lots of sparkley outfits. A second attempt for Eurovision glory in 2008 led to another win in Sweden, but not such a brilliant placing at the ESC final. This year, a third song, "The Girl" tried to secure its place at Eurovision, but didn't even get past the semi-final heat in 2012. 

12points.tv were situated inside the arena in Malmö for her Melodifestivalen turn and sensed a problem was coming when the reaction of the audience during rehearsals was muted at best after her performance. How could this consumate professional who threw everything but the kitchen sink into this great performance not strike a chord with the Swedish public? The 12points jury does it's analysis below. Was the song girl-licious and girl-tastic or just girl-umpty?

Song/Lyrics - 12/12
Most Melodifestivalen songs that make it far don't get too personal in the lyrics. For example, this year had the classics: "you're amazing/amazing/you're oh oh oh amazing". But through our interview with Charlotte Perrelli, she told us that the lyrics were very personal to her. After some chaos in her own life and a particularly nasty divorce, she had her feet on the ground again and was happy to sing about it all. The music sounds as if it's an old ABBA record with a scratch in it, but managed to throw in musical enough tricks to keep it interesting. 

Performance - 12/12
We saw Charlotte rehearse and perform this song a total of 10 times over 3 days of rehearsals and she hit it 100% every time. No other act in rehearsals could manage such a feat, suffering with tired voices and shattered nerves. Watching Perrelli march back and forth over 3 minutes would be tiring for most people, but Charlotte does what a performer should do - be consistent. The use of the Beyoncé-esque video screens worked well but maybe were a little distraction.

Choreography (including Arm-ography and Hair-ography) - 6/12
We think the staging and choreography are what ultimately kept the votes away for poor Charlotte. I am guessing in an attempt to make this song even more exciting than her other two entries is what derailed it. If you look carefully at the song, it has four different settings over 180 seconds - in front of a screen, on stage, back by the screen, on stage again. It was almost too much to take in. Combine so much movement with some typically frantic and meaningless choreography (a ballet/line dancing combo) and the effect of that could mean all the intricacies are nullified. Swedes DO tend to voite for something that is reasonably safe, and maybe this was just too scary for them.

Camp Factor - 12/12
Charlotte's costume cost 500.000 Swedish kronor (€56.000). Enough said.

Would My Mother Like it? - 8/12
I would imagine she'd like it. She appreciates good camp, like her son.

TOTAL: 50/60.  Well done, Charlotte. Better luck next time. 

News Round-up of the day. Mr Lordi himself will appear as coach in Kuorosota, the Finnish version of Clash of the Choirs. Vicky Rosti and Marion are two Eurovision artists who did this before him.

Eurovision news seems to be quite rock orriented today. The first rumours about who will be taking part in Melodifestivalen have started. According to Swedish Poplight, H.E.A.T might be lining up. The rockers took part in the 2009 edition of the Swedish Eurovision selection contest, with 1000 miles. How can we take this news positively? Well maybe by stating that this probably is good news for rock fans..... oh no, there is other good news, the song they are going to perform is said to be written by Fredrik Kempe, the man behind Eric Saade's Popular and Charlotte Perrelli's Hero, to name a few....

Timoteij, Sonja Aldén, Afrodite, Andreas Lundtsedt, Loreen. Quite some names that make us happy.

This morning SVT announced the first half of the artists that will be taking part in Melodifestivalen this year. Quite some names were rumoured already. And most of these rumours were right.

SVT has announced the rest of the artists participating in this year's Melodifestivalen. Quite some familiar names again.

After two previous successfull attempts, Charlotte Perrelli is going to be participating in the 2012 edition of Melodifestivalen again. Like in 2008 with a song written by Fredrik Kempe. She is not the only name we recognise from earlier editions of the contest that is so popular in Sweden and among Eurovision fans in the rest of Europe.