Sweden – SVT resumed Melodifestivalen 2016 tonight with the fourth semifinal, in Gävle. 100% televote decided 2 songs to go through to the final and 2 songs to the Andra Chansen second chance round. Check out now which acts made it through…
The show was hosted by Gina Dirawi and Sarah Dawn Finer. Tonight’s draw was as follows:
- Eclipse – Runaways
- Dolly Style – Rollercoaster
- Martin Stenmarck – Du tar mig tillbaks
- Linda Bengtzing – Killer Girl
- Frans – If I Were Sorry
- Panetoz – Håll om mig hårt
- Molly Sandén – Youniverse
The night featured many performances by Sarah Dawn Finer, including her MF 2007 entry I Remember Love that got 4th… behind Mans who was 3rd! It also featured a Swedish version of Australia’s first ever Eurovision entry! Helena Bergström, who was already a trio with Gina Dirawi and Sarah Dawn Finer in the Melodifestivalen 2012, reprised her roles of Lasse and Marianne which she introduced in 2012’s interval acts. 100% televote decided 2 songs to go through to the final and 2 songs to second chance.
The two acts that went through to the final were:
- Molly Sandén – Youniverse
- Frans – If I Were Sorry
The two songs through to the Andra Chansen were:
- Dolly Style – Rollercoaster
- Panetoz – Håll om mig hårt
The acts that were eliminated:
- 5th Eclipse – Runaways
- 6th Linda Bengtzing – Killer Girl
- 7th Martin Stenmarck – Du tar mig tillbaks
The Eurovision Times 
Maybe I expected Eclipse in AC, instead of the dolls. Otherwise, it was way too expected everything here.
What this edition needed was a Hasse. I mean seriously, where’s the Hasse song? A song that is unpretentious joy and happiness and 0% cool or modern (no, “Kizunguzungu” is not a Hasse song).
Frans was the best pick tonight. I do actually think he will be the number one in televoting in the final. But the juries might sink him.
Oooooh :(
Dolly Style shoud have qualified directly..
But there is still hope, in 2013 Robin won and came from AC..
And there is a hope Sweden will save the year for me..Frans, Lisa Ajax and David Lindgren received 10/10 from me!
Frans is my fave too ;)
Andra Chansen: The duels
Duel 1: Panetoz – Håll om mig hårt & Molly Pettersson Hammar – Hunger
Duel 2: Albin och Mattias – Rik & Boris René – Put your love on me
Duel 3: Isa – I will wait & SaRaha – Kizunguzungu
Duel 4: Dolly Style – Rollercoaster & Samir & Viktor – Bada nakna
Duel 1 Panetoz has won this easy
Duel 2 too bad for Boris who deserves this one but yeah he wont make it I fear
Duel 3 ooh Isa should be favorite but Saraha tops the itunes among all 8 second chance artists
Duel 4 samir and viktor are again in the final grr
Duels 3 and 4 are interesting. I expect Samir and Viktor and Panetoz to make it now. A pity for Isa though, I hope she makes it.
Yes,she should!I hope that this Kizunguzungu thing won’t make it instead of her.
Panetoz,Boris Rene,Isa,Samir and Victor to the final i guess.
The results make almost perfect sense.
Molly (7,5/10) and Frans (7/10) had the best songs out of this bunch.
I hope one of Molly, Oscar or Frans wins in the end ! I can support Lisa Ajax too!
Dolly Style were fun despite the poor song that keeps on repeating for ever (5/10)
I would have preferred Eclipse aka disguised schlager (6/10) over Panetoz (5/10)
Sad to see the two veterans losing but they were my bottom 2 last night. Linda especially offered a very weak song :(
Frans : Nice, unpretentious and intimate. Worthy qualifier – 8+1/0
Molly Sanden : Perfection. Molly delivers vocally, excellent presentation, very well made contemporary song. Winner alert ! – 9/10
Panetoz : They are very good at their style. A very energetic, well coordinated performance.Love their stage attitude. I enjoyed it quite a bit ! – 7/10
Dolly Style : It’s better than “Hello hi”. It’s not a matter of good or bad here imo. It is what it is and it either appeals to someone or it doesn’t. I find it catchy and enojyable but little more. – 4.5/10
Eclipse : They try too hard imo at points but overall this is a good effort and should have made it to AC at least – 7/10
Linda Bengtzing : I don’t like her new hair style, it does not flatter her, neither the super buff arms. It’s not her best effort overall I am afraid. Bring back the good old Linda please ! – 5.5+/10
Martin Stenmarck : Martin is going down a very sentimental road recently. This is nice enough but nothing too great. It has a warmth and a nostalgia but I can see why it didn’t make it – 6+/10
By the way all MF 2016 songs have been uploaded on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtjAn2p1vvgj9vSnpm4N_6A/videos
Check the Swedish i-tunes top-11.lol!Frans is #1.Maybe a sign of who’ll win televoting?
http://snkhan.co.uk/stuff/iTunes.php?chart=SE
*top 14
well the swedes really love their MF (except where I am living at lol) ! “Constellation Prize” 3rd is interesting as well.
definitely
Spotify streams can give a basic idea of who’s doing well and who isn’t with app voting (the demographics are the same)- and Frans is sweeping the chart there too. S&V have more streams of any contestant by far, but their song was released a couple weeks before the finalists.
After watching the whole semi,it’s easy to see that the public really connects with Frans.I predict he’ll win televoting in the final but i don’t really know if the international juries will love him the same way.
I do! <3
The gays at Eurovision Karaoke in Berlin all seemed to love Frans.
Eclipse:
This song sounds generic rock to the point where was it not for the fact that I know I haven’t heard it before, I would have thought I heard it a million times before.
Dolly Style:
I much preferred them last year. Last year their stage antics and characters were more in keeping with the J-pop stylings that they were designed around. Each character had a distinct personality that showed through in their personal movements and the set. This year, the only distinguishing features between the three automatons are the color of their wigs and vocal skills. I know the group is essentially a completely different group from last year, but it’s not like that had to dilute the characters they were playing. Anyway, the song is cue and catchy, but it does get repetitive after a while, and while I liked the light antics, nothing was really polished. So it was an overall disappointment. I expect them to come back one more time and get worse before disappearing, like Sean Banan.
Hello, I’m Polly!
Polly somehow went from gothic lolita to a polite English schoolgirl with the change from hi to hello. lol
Martin Stenmarck:
Let’s just get this out of the way. I HATE the turtleneck under the suit jacket. It’s horrific to look at, and it makes him look fat. The shower glass effect during random parts of the song was a weird and unrewarding choice. The random sentimental nostalgia kick that this song seems to be giving off doesn’t really suit Martin, by the way. I am not impressed.
Linda Bengtzing:
Every MF heat needs its big schlager number, and Linda provided the one for this show. Since nobody seriously enjoys this kind of music anymore, it came last. It’s just a simple equation. For a little bit of positive, I did like the staging of this act. It almost came off as a parody of a Bond ballad, which made me laugh.
yeah if it’s parody it’s golden, but only if we understood the lyrics we’d be sure they are indeed parody; alas it came last and I think it was meant serious (but with that look?!)
It was clearly meant serious, but the staging came off as parody, which made it better to me. She was so oblivious.
Frans:
So, I have a confession to make. When Frans was first announced as a competitor, I had him pegged as a dark horse for the win. And in a way, I wasn’t wrong. This is the kind of British indie that the UK should be sending sometimes. Instead, we finally get the speak singing indie style in MF, of all nfs. It’s kinda funny. It’s like a minimalistic (by MF standards) Mans-style stage show. It relies on the stage show to make the big moments, while the song just kinda plods along. The difference is that this show compliments, while Mans’ show distracted.
So is it your favorite in this year’s MF?
I think so. It’s probably a solid 9/12.
The we agree on this year’s MF ;)
Well, it seems that it’s been a long time. For me, the only two songs I really like from this year’s lineup are Boris’ song from last week and Frans’ song.
Boris is in my top 5 of this year’s MF, with Frans, Mimi, Oscar and Wictoria. Oh and Ace too. These are the only songs I’d listen to again. But Frans has probably the only real package of a “nice song” with THE strong live, while all other entries are either lives or songs but not really both.
I think I remember liking Oscar’s song, but I hated his performance, and it was clear that the song should not have been his to perform. It was so awkward to watch. Wictoria bored me, and all I remember is that she was off-center. And I thought Mimi was a great performer, but I hated the song.
I didn’t really like either part of Ace’s
Yeah Ace is my 6th by default for being “best of the rest”. I have a sneaky suspicion she’s going to be second again, behind Frans.
Oscar’s song was really good and was really harmed by being his to perform but if you look at writers/composers, he’s actually written it himself with two girls (no g:son or kempe pushing the young lad on this one) so it’s kinda cute in a way. But yeah, his performing is awkward, he aint Anton at it. Wictoria has an AWFUL live of another really good song. And Mimi was an AMAZING performer of a meh song (with a hilarious way to sing the line “my mama warned me” that makes it sound “my mama’s horny”). Boris has a very meh song but one of the best lives too. All in all, it’s Frans’ to lose, unless Bjorkman manages to pull the jury’s votes in Molly’s favor so that being a shock non-first in televote wont hurt her chances to win it all.
Panetoz:
I’ve never been a fan of this group, and this song seems very typical of them. A lot of singing in unison for no real reason and high energy stage antics. I think they make better showmen than artists, and I just don’t have anything to say about this one.
Molly Sandén:
Before this song even starts, I wanted to be sure to have it written here that I am determined to hate this song based on the title alone. That being said, everything typed after here was typed after the song started. Okay. They had an overblown stage show for an overblown repetitive song that had no inspiration and relies on Molly’s vocal gymnastics to be anything more interesting than say Isa’s ballad from heat 2.
and the live was messy and ugly, and the song utterly pointless no? and yes, that title ugh
I just watched the finalists’ performances for the first time, and these are my thoughts
Ace Wilder: I loved Ace in 2014 (in fact, “Busy Doin’ Nothin” is probably my favourite MF song of the past few years) but I have a feeling this is going to flop. It builds in much the same way as her last entry, but the pay-off is far less rewarding. The Ani Lorak cubes don’t really work, and the performance doesn’t really take off until the dancers come stage. Also, vocally this is a train wreck in the making. Ace sounds dodgy even with the pre-recorded backings, and I’m assuming they’d have to abandon them if she made it to ESC to make room for the dancers. I have a feeling she won’t make it that far though – with a 5th or so place looming. 6/12
Robin Bengtsson: It’s a nice song, and he’s got a nice voice, and I’d be able to take it more seriously if a) he removed the awful, irrelevant pun from the title, b) he stopped awkwardly breaking off from each line to mime the harp, c) he changed his outfit to look like less “basic club dick”. 6/12
David Lindgren: The laser light shadows looked kind of cool. That’s all I’ve really got to say here. 4/12
Wiktoria: She can sing, but the song is incredibly basic and monotonous, and not in an effective way. Also, the staging doesn’t add anything to it whatsoever, apart from a sense of frustration at watching her standing just left of centre of the projections. Hopefully she’ll return in the future with a more demanding song. 5/12
Oskar Zia: He can’t sing. Honestly, he sounded awful even with the pre-recorded backings, and this isn’t a vocally demanding song. The intro (of the song) sounded promising, but then we get hit with the typical MF power-ballad chorus and I lost interest. “Survivor” was a much better take on this style of song, and it had a better performer too. The lighting is effective and Oskar looks cute, but his camp movements detract from the “THIS IS SERIOUS” vibes the staging is trying to generate, and the frantic camera movements (just like Wiktoria’s projections) felt pointless, and didn’t complete the song or the staging whatsoever). 5/12
Lisa Ajax: Okay, the staging looked cheap and horrible, so obviously Björkman doesn’t care for it, but I personally found this the strongest song of the direct finalists (and maybe all MF 2016). It’s hooky as hell, the lyrics aren’t totally shit and the production (apart from the overdone chorus) is generally modern and decent. Hopefully she’ll choose a better dress for the final. 7/12
Frans: I get the idea here, and why everyone is going gaga over it, but the execution is weak in my opinion. The song takes the Bieber 2.0 minimal pop style and removes all the peaks, leaving a bland, if pleasant 3-minutes of MOR guitar pop. The lyrics are rather hard to take seriously, as is his affected British accent, but the staging was very effective and its minimalism makes it stand out a lot in a year of irrelevant and overproduced performances. I find him pretty uncharismatic personally, but I can see why people find him charming. And it would be interesting to see if a Frans win would spark a new trend in MF for next year. 6/12
Molly Sanden: While I understand the reasoning behind the hate this is receiving, I don’t actually think this is as awful a song as people are saying, and it might actually be my favourite entry of Molly’s to date. I love the production in the verses (oddly, my first point of reference was PC Music) and the melody there suits her voice well, but the chorus is a total letdown (even the production feels lethargic). The staging looked a little dated, but at least a little less cheap than Lisa’s similar one. 7/12
We have the same scores for Ace Wilder, Robin Bengtsson, David Lindgren and Lisa Ajax (who also sings my favourite MF 2016 song. Pity for the messy stage show).
Youniverse is the most decent package out of all, I agree!
Wictoria and Oscar have serious issues the former with her of centre presentation and the latter with his terribly weak singing.
Frans would be my 3rd choice but lyrics are cringe-worthy (A Bruno Mars’ Grenade vol.2)
Overall a VERY WEAK MF year!
Not a single entry scored above 7.5/10 in my books!
Yep, it seems to be going much the same way as ESC 2016 (no coincidence there knowing who’s in charge) – less awful, less great – more average.
Impressive. The ones that got the highest scores from you are the ones I like the least in the final.
Ooh, explain?
Molly’s song is just a dumb Alex Diehl thing going on again; a way of trying to make an “artsy” and crypto-philosophical tribute to the Paris victims. Plus that the Robin Stjernberg yodeling apparently made its way back again as soon as we got the hosting job.
Lisa’s song is perhaps not that bad in an objective way, but I simply can’t stand this kind of music that is running on Swedish radio all day long. It’s mostly about taste. Plus that Lisa to me feels like a papercut, pale and bloodless.
No, give me back Mimi Werner and her ranch partyers. Nightlight Duo & The Cowboys comin’ back!
What songs do you like?
I missed Mimi, but she sounded fun, like a better version of whatever Wiktoria’s trying to do.
“What songs do you like?”
Well, is that the million dollar question…
Well, joking aside there are a bunch of (7/12) songs I enjoyed. I’ve made a prototype ranking list on the bottom of my gravatar page. I think one can say I like the Top 8. Ace is the best.
I get the top two, but Isa :O
Lol. It’s an overproduced stage show, but I like the song. A better and more haunting “Undo”. And in this average year, it’s enough to put it in 3rd.
Both Mimi and Wictoria are in my top 5 of this year’s really poor MF
Nice to see we agree on Lisa Ajax. :) I’m way more enthusiastic about Frans, but I see its deficiencies and have chosen to look past them for the sake of my enjoyment lol
It’s been a weird MF for me, but I have made an effort to get into some of the songs (i.e. I put them in iTunes & into my playlist that I always use), but so far only Lisa, Frans, SMILO and (surprise surprise) Krista have stood out to me.
so we basically disagree on like every of them, interesting!