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An evening with some glamour, some death metal flourishes, and lots of balloons, Melodifestivalen gets off to a good start...

Melodifestivalen got off to a somewhat subdued start tonight with a lot of the same crew that worked on the show up until 2010 returning to bring you this year's edition. Still, the show does what it does best, packs 90 minutes full with so many interesting things, you can easily see why it's a show that is emulated around Europe. With many different styles of music in the contest, a host that is a much-loved singer, some returing favourites from last year, the first semi finale had a ton of variety, and some usually predictable voting.

Of the 8 songs that competed tonight, two of the best justifiably went through to the final in Stockholm. Loreen, a former IDOL contestant in Sweden, got through with her wonderful song "Euphoria". Last year, she appeared with the very good "My Heart Is Refusing Me", but never quite made it to the final. This year, having paid her dues and with one of the best schlager writers in Europe writing her song, she went direct to Globen. 

The second song was the totally non-schlager "Mystery". The band Dead By April, similar in sound to American bands Linkin Park and Evanescence, delivered a really confident performance with their hair metal/death metal hybrid. 

Of these two songs, we feel "Euphoria" is the only one that could do well for Sweden in Baku - but there's still 4 more heats to go. A lot can happen in 4 weeks.

The songs going to the Second Chance round in 4 weeks were "Sean den Forsta Banan" by hilarious novelty singer Sean Banan, and the most bitter Melodifestivalen contestant ever, Thorsten Flinck and the Revolutionsorkestern with "Jag reser mig igen" (I Rise Again).

Afro-Dite, who represented Sweden in ESC 2002, appeared this evening but never made it past the first round of voting. The Moniker, a much loved artist who appeared to come out of nowhere in last year's Melodifestivalen, came last place with his good but somewhat confusing entry.

A lot of attention is paid to the hosts in the press - usually the headlines predict their huge failure and or boring potential. Tonight's hosts- singer Sarah Dawn Finer, actress Helena Bergström, and popular blogger Gina Diwari seemed very well rehearsed but bland bland bland. A lot of humour was usually part of the hosts' job, but the script seemed drained of anything spontaneous. Shame, the hosts were usually the best part. Additionally, they performed a song that was an almost word for word ripoff of the opening number for the Tony Awards, the USA's biggest theatre award programme. Shame on the writers for not coming up with something original.

What are your thoughts, those of you who watched this semifinal?

Here is the excellent Loreen's song. Enjoy before SVT take it off the interwebz...