Who Can Win Melodifestivalen 2013?

Whatever you may say about the schlager festival that is Melodifestivalen at the end of the day it will always be the most revered national selection there is and will always have a certain element of magic to it. This year though it has taken some strange turns and some very big surprises have occurred. The question that now remains is who to select as the winner of Melodifestivalen. Who should represent Sweden on homeground? I shall offer few thoughts....

Ulrik Munther will open tonight's show with his fairly formulaic Melodifestivalen song Tell The World I'm Here, not a bad effort but he does appear to have fallen out of favour with Christer Bjorkman. It's not the best song of the night and given the presence of so many male soloists and so many acts targeting the teen girl age group I find it difficult to see him getting a massive televote. However he may score well with the international juries.

David Lindgren follows Ukrik with a similar genre of song. The two of them drew for third place last year with David picking up more televotes than Ulrik. Though his song is good it is far from outstanding tonight and will certainly struggle given the running order position. David is followed by the lukewarm State of Drama and their good *yawn* song Falling. Another group who will be cannibalised in the televote, probably because of Yohio, they could pick up votes from the international juries.

In fourth we have Anton Ewald, the pick of some of the Swedish newspapers and leading the plays on Spotify. Personally I think this song is good but this would be a bad choice for Eurovision as it would be very difficult to organise the backing vocals without pre-recorded ones. Fifth in the running order is the only female act, Louise Hoffsten and her song Only The Dead Fish Follow The Stream, I like this but I cannot imagine myself picking up the phone and voting for it nor can I see it getting massive points from International Juries.

Sixth we have one of the favourites, Ralf Gyllenhammar, with his song Bed On Fire. In my opinion this is the most likely winner tonight. This is such a strong song and is so well performed from a technical perspective that this is certainly going to go top three tonight. If this is leading when the international juries have voted then this could well take the televote too.

After Ralf is my second favourite act, Ravaillacz, I think that this would be an ideal song to represent Sweden but for some reason I cannot help but wonder will this get any points from juries? Then it is followed by a more serious joke act, Sean Banan. Once again I can't see this getting to many jury votes, but I expect to see this in the top 5.

Robin Stjernberg follows with his song You, personally I think this would be a very strong choice but given that it came from Andra Chansen it probably will not win. Finally we have Yohio. OR The Ark less a number of years. This is an unusual favourite. Though SVT are pushing it for the win I find it difficult to believe this has mass appeal across Europe, however I do think they have a good song.

Whatever happens tonight it is going to be very, very close and there will be no landslide winner. I expect jury votes to left right and center and the public winner will not get 20% of the vote.

My votes are:

12 - Ralf Gyllenhammar

10 - Ravaillacz

8 - Robin Stjernberg

6 - Yohio

4 - Louise Hoffsten

2 - David Lindgren

1 - Sean Banan

My Predictions:

1st - Ralf Gyllenhammar

2nd - Yohio (by less than 10 points)

3rd Robin Stjernberg

What? Petra? Who? Oh....Her....Hum

Today we received the news that Petra Mede will host the Eurovision Song Contest. This came as a surprise to many fans, though unusually unexpected news was greeted with a moderate welcome.

This represents quite a change from previous years both in the choice of Petra and the decision to have only one host. Firstly, it has to be noted that this is the first time that there will be only one host since 1995 and it certainly will be interesting to see how that works in the new show. Personally I was impressed by the change to have three presenters for the show in 2010, 2011 and 2012 - certainly I don't think that having a hosting couple ever worked that well.

Secondly, it is surprising that SVT/EBU have decided to select a comedian rather than a host who can be funny to present Eurovision. It will be most interesting to see the sort of show that SVT will put on. Certainly, links to Anke will be drawn whose excellent presenting of the contest was widely praised by Eurovision fans everywhere. Petra herself certainly seems like a capable host of the show, having hosted Melodifestivalen in 2009, and having hosted her own show for the last number of years.

It's Time To Talk About Malmo

I know things are very quiet at the moment. I know I should still be posting a little more than I am but sometimes in life you've just got to accept that. Put simply things are quite for the summer and that probably will not change until October or November. But in the mean time it's time to take a look at the city that is Malmo.

Malmo, as everyone now knows was announced as the surprise host of ESC 2013. While many fans will be familiar with Stockholm, Malmo is somewhat unknown territory. So what do we known about Malmo?

• Malmo is the third largest city of Sweden.  
• It has a a population of more than quarter of a million people. 30% of the population are non-Swedish. 
• The economy is largely traditional historically being a shipbuilding city. Construction is a major employer. During the financial difficulties in the early 90's in Sweden, Malmo was the worst hit city in Sweden for unemployment.
• The economy is largely integrated with Copenhagen. 10% of the population work in Copenhagen. They commute over the large bridge spanning between the two cities.
• Women are allowed to be topless in public swimming pools on the grounds that men are not told to cover up their upper bodies and men can have bigger breasts than women. 
• Football and Ice Hockey are the two main sports of Malmo. However they have a GAA club! They won the Scandinavian championship.

 I'm going to leave it there for now but more facts to come!

Where In Sweden?: Another Hypothesis

There has been quite a lot of speculation about where in Sweden Eurovision might be going to. It's pretty likely that it will be in Stockholm, however some people also suspect that Malmo and Gothenberg could also be contenders but the biggest problem this would bring would be the difficulties in getting the semi 2 qualifiers from Malmo or Gothenburg to rehearsals in Stockholm on Friday afternoon.

It did occur to me that it is possible that Stockholm could host both semis by putting one semi-final in Globen and one in Svedbank or the friends arena. This would roughly halve the amount of rehearsal time needed.

Baku Completes The Crystal Hall

While I try and get to the end of the college year, the blog has become a little quieter than usual. I am sorry about this but I will make up for it as Eurovision nears [and exams are over].

Today we learned that Baku has now completed the Crystal Hall and Azerbaijan have now started to reveal plans about how Eurovision will operate. A press conference was held today in Azerbaijan about most the completion of the hall. They also mentioned that buses will be the main mode of transport, and each delegation will have no less than two buses each available to them 24 hours per day.

SVT have also started their preview shows, looking at the first nine songs of semi 1. Full results are here. Some of the votes are interesting, particularly Finlands high score.