The Melody Festival or Melodifestivalen is the most
popular TV show in Sweden. This is the official album of the 2013 edition,
containing all the 32 participating songs. Since the Melody Festival is to a
large extent a visual experience, the DVD is probably a must for hard-line
fans, but the CD works tolerably well.
As usual, there is a bewildering mix of very different genres, from Japanese visual kei to Swedish schlager. The best songs are 17-year old Yohio's "Heartbreak Hotel", Robin Stjernberg's "You" and Martin Rolinski's "In and out of love". Among the guilty pleasures were "On top of the world" with a trio called Swedish House Wives. Trust me, they didn't look like house wives...
A few songs are deliberately comical, including "En riktig jävla schlager" (A damn good schlager), which parodies the whole Melody Festival concept. Weirdly, it was performed by Tommy Körberg, the guy from "Chess"! The most bizarre tune, "Rockin' the ride", was performed (unsurprisingly) by Army of Lovers. The band includes a French gay man who once unsuccessfully run for office on an obscure libertarian ticket, a successful gay songwriter who once joined a quasi-Zoroastrian sect, and a bisexual woman rumoured to be the former mistress of the Swedish king. The song also includes the most pricelessly bad line in all of pop history: "I was born seven million years ago in Sweden, Africa. I am La Camilla and I rule the world". The king's mistress, huh? I can't believe the Social Democratic Party once let this awful womyn be a May Day speaker?!
The Melody Festival ended with a dramatic vote, in which Yohio got the people's support, while Robin Stjernberg got most points from the international jury groups, eventually winning the contest overall. Robin therefore represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest, also held in Sweden this year.
"Melodifestivalen 2013" isn't exactly US chart music, but it works pretty good on my CD player. Thanks for the entertainment! Five stars.
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