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

Isn't That What National Finals Are All About?

After a surprising night of national finals and semi-finals we've two more Eurovision entries, and many songs have been eliminated in the quest to find a Eurovision entry. Many people have been shocked to see some of the choices made in some of the shows yesterday. But really is this not The story continues....

Malta
Malta have selected Gianluca Bezzina, to represent them in Malmo, with his song "Tomorrow". It's a delightfully bouncy song and might do well at Eurovision. On reflection though it was not my favourite entry in Malta, it probably was the best selection. Hear Gianluca's song here.

What could have been one of the most embrassing stories to come from eurovision.tv they put a story up on eurovision.tv saying that Amber had won the Maltese selection about one hour before results were due to be announced

Iceland
In one of the Iceland's most surprising moves they selected Bill Bailey Thomas G:sson Eybor Ingi Gunnlaugsson to represent them in Malmo. By all accounts it is a poor choice from a fairly selection which is a same given the strong run that Iceland have had since 2008. You can listen to the song here.

Sweden 
Melodifestivalen is my favourite national final and despite its critics last year it is able to produce some really great songs. In last nights semi-final Daivd Lindgren and YOHIO progressed to the final directly with Eric Gadd and Cookies 'N' Beans going to Andra Chansen.

Unusually and surprisingly SVT do not appear to have censored the songs progressing in the contest from the internet, perhaps they understand that at this stage they would have some job to do that. They also have left the semi-final up on their site and you can watch it here. 

I was also very impressed with Danny and Gina as presenters the interval act was very impressive. Well done!

Norway
Three more songs have made it to the final in Norway. Gaute Ormasen, Sirkus Eliassen and Aledén all qualified. The most surprising of these was Aledén who came in first place. As far as I can see this had nothing to do with her legs.

Hungary
I don't pay much attention to Hungary so I shall let escXtra fill you in.

So we can all look forward to next weekend when Norway and Finland will select their entries.