12points.tv

News Round-up of the day. Lena's new CD coming up, Glenn Vella back to Düsseldorf.

On 22 October one of the German Eurovision fanclubs will hold their annual party in Düsseldorf. Sign up now, if you're ready to see Malta's Glen Vella again! 

Hallelujah! On 25 August the international Jewish Song Contest will be held in Ramat Hasharon. Thirty Jewish comunities from around the world will be represented.... May the best Jew...uh song win!

News Round-up of the day. Saade meets a princess and Junior Eurovision heats up.

Eric Saade performed three songs, including an acoustic version of "Popular" for Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. Unfortunately, the queen of Swedish schlager, Charlotte Perrelli, was not in attendance. 

Azerbaijan has issued some conflicting statements lately. First all hotel bookings are not able to be made in the country around the dates Eurovision takes place, but the Culture and Tourism Ministry has promised improvements in their local tourist sites before Eurovision. 

San Marino has confirmed itself as the twelfth contestant in this year's Junior Eurovision, according to eurovision.tv. Latvia and Serbia have withdrawn this year thanks to ongoing financial crises.

And don't forget articles you may have missed here on 12points.tv:
Go here for Eurovision song chart action for this week.
Go here for Louis' profile of amazing San Remo diva Anna Tatangelo

On 25 February 12points.tv is organizing Schlagerbaren Breda, an evening filled with Eurovision, with lots of love from Sweden.

We'll start of the evening by watching the 4th semi final of melodifestivalen. And after that the 3th 12points party will kick off, offering you 100% eurovision, with lots of Melodifestivalen too. This year's selected songs will be presented and all danceable tracks from recent years as well. See you in Breda!

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.

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. 

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.

News Round-up of the day. With the song Second Change Peter Andersen (Denmark 2007) tries, for the second year, to get a ticket to Eurovision in the Swiss national selection.

This year final of Eurovision Song Contest has been nominated for a price in the category 'Best Entertainment' at the German TV Awards! Our favorite show is competing in this category with 'I'm a celebrity - Get me out of here' and 'Let's dance'. On the 2nd of october the German TV awards will take place in Cologne Coloneum.

ESC winner Charlotte Perrelli launches her new website to an astonished world: Charlotte 2.0 is born.

Eurovision 1999 winner Charlotte Perrelli has announced a total relaunch of her website, just in time for her appearance at Melodifestivalen's four semi-final on 26 February. On the front page, Charlotte has her best catsuit and high-heels on a la Olivia Newton-John at the end of the film GREASE, and you can find out more about her new solo album, her upcoming appearance in the musical EVITA at Malmö Opera, and how to get fit with Charlotte's exercise video.

Visit Charlotte's new site here.  The text is in Swedish but you can always use Google Translate or just look at the pretty pictures.

Charlotte participated in ESC 2008 with the song "Hero", but this song from 1999 gave Sweden its first victory in 8 years. 

News Round-up of the day. Hande Yener expresses her interest in representing Turkey in 2012. 

Eversince her debute album in 2000, hande yener has belonged to the top of Turkish pop music. In an interview with newspaper Sabah, she has stated that she thinks it is time to renew Sertab Erener's 2003 victory. She would like to represent the country nex year and bring the contest back to Turkey. TRT is expected to reveal the artist for Baku in December.