Five weeks of mass hysteria in Sweden, as in the beginning of February the annual Swedish Melodifestivalen kicked off. 32 songs have been heard, of which 8 qualified directly for the big final this week in Stockholm. The numbers 3 and 4 of those heats, had another chance to join the finalists the past weekend during Andra Chansen. And now we come to the conclusion: Who will represent Sweden at this years Eurovision Song Contest?

Over the next coming evenings we will be giving you a chance to meet the contestants, have a look at their songs and predict a result for them. We’ll do so in the order of performance on Saturday evening, which means tonight David Lindgren, Thorsten Flinck och RevolutionOrkestern and Death By April are up for the verdict.

One thing’s for sure… the final of this years Swedish preselection is an interesting one.

David Lindgren – Shout It Out

Opening this years final in Globen is David Lindgren, one of the two winners of the second heat in Göteborg. It’s the 29 year old performers debut in Melodifestivalen but is not new to the stage as he’s appearing frequently in musicals. Among some of the plays he was involved are High School Musical and Mamma Mia!. His song ”Shout it Out” (written by Tony Nilsson & Fernando Fuentes Vargas) is a dancey pop-song in the style of ‘In the Club’ (Melodifestivalen 2010), but better composed, less silly lyrics and a good dose of beats and fun. The song was originally offered to Danny, who rejected it as he had found something better.  And we’re glad he did because we think it wouldn’t have worked quite so well with Danny’s vocals as David does. The ”singing accountant” as David is called on a few messageboard delivers strong vocals and engages really well with the song. The dance routine is slick, and looks really nice on the stage. Great opener of the show.

Verdict: We wouldn’t rule David out in the competition as such yet. Yes he has the start position but he has a great song which would sound very up to date to dance music nowadays. The only trouble David might experience is the fact that there are songs in the final who are very similar to his which could means they are stealing points from eachother. He seems like a nice guy too but lacks just a little bit of that personality & charisma, which might just give the others the advantage.

Thorsten Flinck & Revolutionsorkestern – Jag reser mig igen

Time for the first of two finalists who made it through the second chance round of last week. Thorsten Flinck, Swedish director/actor/singer and his Revolutionsorkestern beat Lotta & Christer and Sean Banan to the final spot for the final. Yes we were shocked, when we heard but at the same time we can also see the very big appeal of this song ‘Jag Reser Mig igen’ (written by Thomas G:son, Ted Ström) . It’s everything you wouldn’t expect to see on a Eurovision stage. It’s a very difficult song in the sense that the intro is sung by Thorsten without any musical guidance. Once the music kicks in the whole number gets carried through by the interpretation of the main singer. He does it brilliant though, the performance is fully drenched with emotions. His husky voice gives it an extra touch too and we are very interested in seeing how this would work at Eurovision. We would prefer it to stay within Swedish, translating the song to English would probably do more harm than good.

Verdict: It could go either way with ‘Jag Reser Mig Igen’. Thorsten Flinck is a very popular individual in Sweden and judging by the performance above you can tell that the man knows how to sing. Unusual is in many cases great on a Eurovision Song Contest, however it’s been shown in the past that Europe rather enjoys Sweden to stay with its poppy tunes than the experimental touch. the recognition the man also receives within his country will most likely go unnoticed when the eyes of Europe will look upon him, plus even though we love the song it takes a few good listens to fully get the beauty of it. Something the Eurovision Song Contest only allows you once, for three minutes.

Death By April – Mystery

Metal band, Death By April, were the second act to be announced as direct finalists for Globen, in Vaxjo, where the Melodifestivalen circus started in the beginning of February. Originally from Gothenborg, the band has had fame since 2007 and is currently in its second line up with a new lead singer and guitarist. The former lead singer and guitarist, Pontus Hjelm who was also their writer is in fact still part of the band and is also the brain behind their entry ‘Mystery’. The song is difficult to explain as it consists out of two very different parts, there’s an almost metal gone melodipop battle going on which probably could be explained better by comparing it to the material Linkin Park does. It’s a very ‘Love or Hate It’ entry, which gets very mixed reactions from the fans. One thing’s for sure, the Death By April guys really spice up the final and it’s nice to see different types of styles being present in Melodifestivalen.

Verdict: It takes a lot of guts to send metal to a contest as the Eurovision Song Contest. The Finnish have done it before with Lordi and won, however ever since then metal hasn’t quite done as well as countries would have hoped. The Finnish will admit as they tried to do it a few years after Lordi and failed miserably. Lordi at the time had a good popsong which they performed in their usual metalstyle and it worked. The main problem ‘Mystery’ has is that you can’t really decide what type of song this is. The metal vs pop doesn’t show any connections and gives a rather messy impression. We don’t think Death By April, will be much of a challenger in Globen, but then again, the Melodifestivalen haters and the huge fanbase behind the guys, could give a surprise.

Tomorrow: Lisa Miskovsky and the TopCats