Two Pints of Schlager and a Packet of Crispbread
IF you visited Boom Bang a Blog in the run-up to last year's Euro antics, you'll have read all about the Swedish heats for Eurovision - otherwise known as Melodifestivalen.
The five-week marathon to find the act bound for Russia in May is almost at its climax, so it's high time we let you know what's been happening so far.
There have been four Melodifestivalen heats broadcast on Swedish telly, with two songs from each heat going forth to the grand final - destined to be the most-watched TV programme in Sweden this year. And you may have to pinch yourself when it comes to this piece of Eurovision-related news - but there's a good chance you'll have heard of at least a quarter of the octet selected so far for the final sing-off.
The first of these is Alcazar. As there's a big clampdown by Swedish TV on Melodifestivalen clips going on a certain video-sharing website, we can't put the song on here just yet, but we can tell you that Alcazar's potential entry for Sweden is called Stay the Night.
Melodifestivalen aside, you'll probably know them best for this:
And the second finalist whose back catalogue has tickled the continental charts is Emilia. Her Melodifestivalen entry is You're My World (don't tell Cilla), but it's another sort of world which has a chance of resonating in the catacombs of your long-term pop memory.
Before the eight tunes fight it out at Stockholm's yooge Globe Arena (it looks like a golf ball) in a fortnight, there is the Andra Chansen round this weekend.
As any Swede can tell you, Andra Chansen means 'second chance', where the songs which finished third and fourth in each of the heats have a few improving tweaks applied and placed before the Swedish voting public once again.
The top two Andra Chansen acts will become the ninth and tenth songs competing in the final, with an eleventh lucky duck selected by an international jury from the remaining non-qualifiers. This is in case a potential Contest-winner has been overlooked by the schlager-loving Swedish public in the initial heats.
Whet your appetite for harmless pop fun? If it's your idea of a great Saturday night in (and why not? We are in a credit crunch), the Melodifestivalen final can be viewed online on March 14.
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Jamie McLoughlin - The news editor of Southport Visiter reveals all about his musical hobby that more people should admit to having.
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