Melodifestivalen 2022: Deltävling 1 - Avicii Arena

Ranking and positive analysis:

1. Cornelia - I can definitely hear the Shallow comparison. I really like her voice and this feels like the most organic song of the lot.
2. Malou - This starts strong and I feel like it will be a grower. I'm willing to overlook the talk-singing because I generally wish her well.
3. Omar - I wasn't expecting to rank him this high, but this is perfectly serviceable in a sub-Alvaro Estrella way. I realise sub-Alvaro Estrella isn't massively complimentary.
4. Robin - By no means a bad song, just very generic. I feel like the performance will rescue it.
5. Shirley - Ranked this highly for name value and the possibility of it going tits out mental towards the end.
6. Theoz - People who for some reason enjoyed Dandi Dansa will be well suited.
7. Danne - He looks like an angry Irish lesbian and the clip was brief.
 
The GALL of Robin and his serial-killer eyes to rock up with a shameless The Weeknd-rip off called "Innocent Eyes" :D
 
01 - Hold Me Closer - OMG thank CHRIST for someone finally swerving the Billie Eilish/Biktopia entries and just going all the way back to LANA DEL REY - BORN TO DIE (2012) revivalism! Already terrified to find out the performance for this is terrible or that she can't sing it because this is immediately important enough that I'm manning the bridge I was planning to throw myself off for Shirley if she didn't qualify for this

02 - Bananas - Does anyone else think it's sad when kids are killed? Anyway I really enjoyed this remedial spelling bee anthem, but it would've been a lot more fun being entered by a 47 year old Ace Wilder fully entering her Girl Gone Wild era :disco: Love the energy, love the mis-spelling of bananas, like someone pushed Gwen Stefani down a flight of stairs and still made her perform afterwards - never wanted it to end

03 - Som du vill - That chorus was FAR stronger than I thought this little whelklet deserved, but then I read he taught Samir & Viktor how to do the shuffle in Shuffla when he was 12?? SOLD! (Nobody tell @Suomi I loved this - he has my building surrounded and wants me to come out with my hands up)

04 - Innocent Love - Now look, I love a bitch that only listens to Eurovision national finals tracks, but I'm howling that none of the press previewers had the range of musical knowledge to cite either The Weeknd or Ed Sheeran ripping off The Weeknd here - only the two biggest artists of 2020 and 2021 respectively girls! Anyway once again, Melodifestivalen's most boring but fervent pop defender has immaculately brought it to us another ball, giving us another entry in keeping with his catty clapback to Salvador Sobral's "music has no fireworks" comment that it was "below the level of a true winner - 'fast food' pop music can be the best thing in the world at the right place and time". And in line with that philosophy, I believe Innocent Love will be the best thing in the world playing through my earphones at least 17 times between now and the beginning of Melodifestivalen 2023 :disco:

05 - Moving Like That - Shaking my tits wildly to this - Mizz Rudberg really has come to make sure Alvaro Estrella won't be making his rent payments next month 😍 Love it when the young of the nation eat their parents

06 - Let There Be Angels - Basically the verses of Burning Alive and the chorus of JessAn - Can't Hurt Me Now, but obviously because it isn't being entered by Sweden's sweetheart that still averages out as a 6th place finish. Marks for the optimism of "all that glitters is gold" but you have FAILED this GCSE Chemistry exam missy!!

07 - Hallabaloo - This is basically that Stiko Per Larsson waste of space from the other year and I didn't enjoy it then either. And neither did Sweden! The evil will be defeated!
 
1. Innocent Love - A bit BASIC but a huge improvement on the dreadful TAKE A CHANCE :disco:

2. Hold Me Closer - The chorus is LITERALLY just Shallow :D! I like it but the Slot 6 ballad didn‘t work for Nathalie and Faith so I’m not getting my hopes up.

3. Bananas - I wonder which young pop star Malou will be ‘taking inspiration from’ in two years time :disco:

4. Moving Like That - fun4andrachansen

5. Som du vill - Meh

6. Let There Be Angles - Oh SHIRLEY SHIRLEY SHIRLEY

7. Hallabaloo - What’s even the point in these?
 
Sounds like an amazing heat!

1. THEOZ - Som Du Vill - instantly sounds like a classic, I think this could come top 5 overall
2. Shirley Clamp - Let There Be Angels - As soon as the clip was over I started to smirk at all the hot takes I had read that this was no good. I'm sure it's easy journalism to say that the older female ballad is hopeless but anyone with musicality can hear the potential in this?? At least top 4 in the semi, if not overall.
3. Cornelia - Hold Me Closer - I am so excited to hear the rest of this! A surprise qualifier?
4. Robin Bengtsson - Innocent Love - I appreciate Robin's efforts to just dutifully enter good pop songs. The 80s vibes sends this, in the words of Loreen, UP UP UP
5. Danne - Hallaballo - No harm done here, just a bit of regional fun. Like a Buttertart post.
6. Malou - Bananas - a future disaster for the ages. Sibel - Stop called and she wants her life back!
7. Omar - hated him first time round, hate him this time round. Faceless music that just takes up the space of someone more deserving of an entry into the competition, like Jennifer Eskola or Oskar Enestad
 
1. Malou - I do really like the current wave of pop-punk even if the lyrics aren't great
2. Danne - sign me up for niche Swedish fun
3. Cornelia - sounds potentially great but I don't think the clip really sold it well for me
4. Shirley - kinda sweet if uninspiring
5. Robin - there is nothing I'd like better than to put this rock bottom and start making posts around hating it but it's sadly listenable
6. Theoz - average Swedish twink, pass, hate that this will inevitably be very popular
7. Omar - fucking kill me

all in all, average heat
 
I’m not going to spoil it for myself but I want to thank Robin for still being that bitch. At least he isn’t ashamed to turn out a bop.
 
I’m getting TWO new people on board for a virtual sync watch of this 🥴

Haven’t listened to the clips and clinging to Su’s positive vibes
 
It’s not THAT bad a heat, it’s just what every heat in 2018 was like (a few decent but beige pop songs with a load of tat inbetween).
 
Crushed by the Shirley clip. I never had much hope that she’d qualify but I at least hoped to love the song. It just sounds so… tired :( Maybe it’s better in full.

Malou sounds fun but a classic 5th placer. Robin easily qualifying, with some combination of Theoz, Cornelia and Omar likely rounding out the top four.
 
It’s only Heat One and there could well be some exciting prospects to come, but it just sounds like they’re in a bit of a RUT… it’s all very Scandi and polished but all so neutral and bland…

I wonder if they’re so deep into the Melodifestivalen formula that they don’t know how to get out of it.

I’m not just basing this one these 7 clips, but I wish I could envisage Sweden producing something that has the same kind of IMPACT as Zitti I Buoni or Shum or Voila or Dark Side or Russian Woman, but right now I can’t…
 
Pingu said:
I’m not just basing this one these 7 clips, but I wish I could envisage Sweden producing something that has the same kind of IMPACT as Zitti I Buoni or Shum or Voila or Dark Side or Russian Woman, but right now I can’t…
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Post reserved for somebody to mention Statements
 
Pingu said:
It’s only Heat One and there could well be some exciting prospects to come, but it just sounds like they’re in a bit of a RUT… it’s all very Scandi and polished but all so neutral and bland…

I wonder if they’re so deep into the Melodifestivalen formula that they don’t know how to get out of it.

I’m not just basing this one these 7 clips, but I wish I could envisage Sweden producing something that has the same kind of IMPACT as Zitti I Buoni or Shum or Voila or Dark Side or Russian Woman, but right now I can’t…
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This is all true but I would still always bet on Sweden getting a Eurovision success, and occasional winner, out of it. The failure of ‘Voices’ last year must have surprised the delegation a little - but it just wasn’t that good. I don’t think Sweden is beyond sending something a bit ‘different’ from the MF formula - a Jon Henrik entry, or even ‘Ashes to Ashes’, would have felt like that IMHO.
 
I think it's a bit misguided to expect a Zitti, Shum or Voila from Sweden TBH. Those songs were all entirely on-brand for those countries. Sweden has one of the strongest brands in the history of the Contest, and that brand is slickly produced pop music.

I'm not ready to write them off after a few clips from the first heat, which is traditionally the safest of the four anyway. But even if it turns out to be a weak year, Melfest still towers above virtually all of its competition.
 
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VoR said:
I think it's a bit misguided to expect a Zitti, Shum or Voila from Sweden TBH. Those songs were all entirely on-brand for those countries. Sweden has one of the strongest brands in the history of the Contest, and that brand is slickly produced pop music.

I'm not ready to write them off after a few clips from the first heat, which is traditionally the safest of the four anyway. But even if it turns out to be a weak year, Melfest still towers above virtually all of its competition.
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I don't know - something can be slickly produced but still have a proper sucker punch impact. Euphoria did, Ashes To Ashes did (on record if not quite in performance), Statements did (while not getting it quite right in performance), Behöver did in principle (while not necessarily being able to translate perfectly to a broader audience).

I'm holding off judgement until we have all this year's tracks, but the thing that really stood out for me while doing my top 50 from the last 5 years list is how much I enjoyed last year's Melodifestivalen overall, but actually how few of the tracks ended up as lasting favourites for me.

It was part of what I'd say is a broader trend for Melodifestivalen - it's very, very good at producing very listenable 7 or 8/10 tracks, but that's a trend that's been happening anyway in Eurovision as a whole in recent years (and it's testament to Melodifestivalen's strength that that's the base level here when it's usually the best a lot of countries can manage in their respective years - hence why so many go to Sweden to get that type of track). Where it feels like it's possibly starting to fall a half step or so behind lately compared to the top competitors is producing something a little spikier, a little more authentic, that has a real gut-punch impact.

But as I say - we're only on the clips in week 1, so I'll reserve judgement. Who knows, the full thing of Cornelia could render everything I've just written moot within 36 hours!
 
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I suppose you could make the case that the songwriting is a bit too recycled. Although that was ever thus too - Jimmy Joker and Anders Wrethov are just to this era what Fredrik Kempe and G:Son were to the 2006-2012s. They're probably at their Youngblood point now we're it's all starting to run on fumes a little bit.

What we probably need is for one of the lesser known songwriters to really have a breakthrough moment to kickstart the next era. That could happen, they do still get invited. I believe at least a third of this year's songwriters are first-timers.
 
To be honest I was concerned about this before the 7 clips came out, based on the slightly diminishing returns and increasing middle-of-the-roadness of their last handful of Eurovision entries.

I was hoping with Christer leaving and their first top ten miss in ages, they might be motivated to give things a bit of an overhaul (particularly when it comes to the same writers dominating again and again and again), but it doesn’t seem to be the case and instead they’ve just done some shiny new voting sequences as a distraction.

Obviously things aren’t DIRE yet and I wouldn’t expect them to send anything completely un-Swedish and off brand, but as Penelope alluded to, I do worry that Eurovision as a whole could be entering an exciting new chapter and Sweden is perhaps getting left behind.

It is definitely possible to do slick, polished pure pop music and also make it exciting, fresh and impactful. I’d argue that they’ve just got a bit lazy and haven’t managed that so much recently.
 
It feels like a lot of expectation on Sweden to now start delivering masterpieces as if such a thing can be produced easily? Often it’s a case of the staging combined with a momentum that makes a classic a classic. The only country I would say that delivers a quirky entry consistently is Ukraine, and their method of choosing a song is not as varied or big as Melodifestivalen.

Melodifestivalen is a not just a song competition, it’s a narrative and soap opera about success and failure. It’s about democracy, old and new traditions, and a sense of community. Very few other national finals can say that.
 
Suomi said:
It feels like a lot of expectation on Sweden to now start delivering masterpieces as if such a thing can be produced easily? Often it’s a case of the staging combined with a momentum that makes a classic a classic. The only country I would say that delivers a quirky entry consistently is Ukraine, and their method of choosing a song is not as varied or big as Melodifestivalen.

Melodifestivalen is a not just a song competition, it’s a narrative and soap opera about success and failure. It’s about democracy, old and new traditions, and a sense of community. Very few other national finals can say that.
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Absolutely - it’s not easy to produce a masterpiece, and Sweden will always do reasonably well at Eurovision as the country that can be most relied upon to bring something polished and professional to the table.

You’re absolutely right that Melodifestivalen still works for Sweden and the Swedish audience for the reasons you’ve said. I just worry that the very sense of tradition you’ve mentioned might hold them back when it comes to their place as part of Eurovision.

Yes Melodifestivalen is much more than just the Swedish selection process for Eurovision, but that is still its core purpose at the end of the day and I’d hope that the fact that the “more” still works so well doesn’t mean resting on their laurels when it comes to that core purpose.
 
Pingu said:
it just sounds like they’re in a bit of a RUT… it’s all very Scandi and polished but all so neutral and bland…
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Devastatingly accurate. I know the MF classics are no longer relevant, but they managed to take sounds that were popular at the time and make them dynamic and memorable. A lot of this crop, and last year’s, could at best be described as ‘pop’.
I dunno, I don’t want them to reinvent the wheel but I’d have liked to have gone ‘wow’ at least once. When you look at the last few years, Norway had One Last Time and Monuments, Denmark had Human, Finland had Cicciolina… I just don’t feel like MF is delivering many moments that make you pay immediate attention like those.
 
I will say, to compare and contrast in defence of these snippets - did any of us expect during the clips last year that Kadiatou - One Touch would be the everlasting piece of art we were all still listening to a year later? No we did not, but look where we are now :disco:
 
Snippets of the performances have been released. There's a lot of CHATTER between each clip however.

www.svtplay.se

Melodifestivalen 2022: Smygtitta! – Avsnitt 1

Vilket är det mest spektakulära framträdandet? Smygtitta på veckans bidrag tillsammans med svenska folket, familjer, skolklasser och kollegor. Gör dig redo för lördagens tävling genom denna exklusiva förhandstitt!
www.svtplay.se www.svtplay.se
 
Rehearsal clips:

1. Cornelia - If Dotter was singing this there wouldn't be any doubt it was going DTF. Really strong.
2. Malou - She looks like she got dressed by standing at the end of a wind tunnel as a t-shirt cannon was fired into it, but it feels like a qualifier to me.
3. Theoz - So Melodifestivalen-by-numbers I half expected Christer to have his hand up his arse working the controls. A good performance, mind.
4. Shirley - The promise of something good is there - the stage is pitch black, she's dressed as an Irish matador... Don't let us down.
5. Robin - The song is good but if you Sharpied tattoos onto a blow-up doll it would be more charismatic.
6. Danne - Charming staging but the song is still crap.
7. Omar - He's got nothing about him and he does that stupid exaggerated dancing Felix inflicted on us for Boys With Emotions.
 
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Jesus christ, the camera work on those rehearsal clips is disastrous. Robin's performance seems like a total mismatch for the song to begin with anyway, but the camera work takes all the urgency out of it. Cornelia isn't hitting any of her camera angles, Hallabaloo is laughably low energy, and Bananas is just long-shot hell.

We might be heading for a massive, massive sledging from the public and the press for this heat if that's what we're going to be seeing tomorrow.
 
Malou's song isn't exactly what I wanted from her, but I'm more encouraged by the rehearsal clip than the original snippet. Still slightly confused how so much of her non-MF output is better than what she offers up in competition.

After watching that Theoz clip it is a definite NO TA. Maybe I am just drawn to a glittery blouse but Omar looks like the much better boy pop performance to me.

Shirley sounds a little more powerful in the live clip. I am not expecting much though, and give me some Burning Alive on the edge desperation over this any day.

Cornelia seems to have the best song of the bunch by far, especially going by the studio clip. I do hope that she isn't going to sing through her teeth for the whole thing.

Robin is dry like bread with no buttah. His first couple of entries did a good job of covering this up to an extent. The song (and staging) is fully giving me Coldplay in slightly naff eighties mode but it sounds decent.
 
Yeah after the KLIPPEN I’d like to swap round Robin and put Shallow lady as my fave.

Still think she’s heading to AC though.
 
These don't sound half as bad as everyone made out. Isn't semi one usually a pretty safe and boring field anyway?

Cornelia sounds so promising! That Theoz thing looks like a terrifying child ghost from 1996 and but the song doesn't sound awful. Danne a bit of silly nonsense. Omar is a semi-bop. Robin as you'd expect. Shirley, it's...nice? Malou actually sounds the least interesting although I doubt it'll translate that way.

I'm not worried yet but can Sweden please just send a woman again for once. It's been 8 fucking years! And I don't count The Mamas because they never got to go!
 
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