The Wiwi Jury is reviewing the eight acts who have made it direkt till final at Melodifestivalen 2016. The last finalist to be reviewed is Molly Sandén with her epic ballad “Youniverse”. Was Molly at the centre of our-niverse? Read on to find out…

Molly Sandén “Youniverse”

“Youniverse” reviews

Angus: This is the bomb. Everyone was watching and waiting for Molly, and predictably the super-hype has resulted for many in a super let down. For me, “Youniverse” nailed everything it set out to do. It is more sophisticated than “Why Am I Crying”, Molly’s vocal is killer and the performance is out of this universe. If Molly’s starpower can get her the ticket to Stockholm, then SVT has plenty of time to iron out any kinks in the song and win again on home ground.

Score: 10/10

Deban: Molly Sanden returns with her flawless vocals, tight choreography and stellar production values. “Youniverse” is A-Game, until it hits the hook. How could everything build up to such a lame chorus? Melodifestivalen 2016 is showcasing the usual heavyweights, and a few strong debuts. “Youniverse”  should get noticed, but may fail to secure a landslide victory.

Score: 6.5/10

Padraig: “Youniverse” is a bit of a younimess – yes, we’re all capable of coming up with ropey puns. The track itself sounds dated. It’s riding on the four-year-old coattails of “Euphoria” yet it sounds like it pre-dates Loreen’s winner. And it lacks vision – this love song sounds more like a lament, the universe of two is filled with avant-garde dancers, and why oh why is there so much smoke? Molly is capable of better. Next time Danny offers her his sloppy seconds she should throw them in the bin.

Score: 6/10

Molly Sanden Youniverse Melodifestivalen 2016 First Rehearsals 3

Robyn: “Youniverse” just doesn’t grab me. The song title is super cringe, but this seems to only be an issue for native English speakers (Swedes: would a song titled “uNIversum” seem just as cool?). The verses are strong, the staging is bold and beautiful, but the chorus is a disappointing cliche. And weirdest of all – the ending is really weak. It sounds like it should be a quiet pause before a massive final chorus, but no, Molly stops singing and the song grinds to a halt.

Score: 6/10

Tobias: Molly is a great artist but this song doesn’t really bring out the best of her. You can tell they have put a lot of time and money behind this performance. Everything looks perfect and almost a bit too planned. I get the vibe of Loreen and Yohanna from Iceland. However, this is a typical Eurovision song so it would do well in Eurovision but it’s not a winner. I have an issue with the end of the song — it’s just weird and you can’t really tell if it’s the end or if she will continue singing.

Score: 7.5/10

William: “Youniverse” has been called an emaciated “Euphoria” — and it really does need to eat. The opening sounds are enchanting and magical, but ultimately this song lacks substance. The title is completely cringe, the lyrics are weak and the melody rather forgettable. I’m still convinced Danny pressured her into singing this, saying, “Baby, I got this hot track for you.” Well he lied because this is awful.

Score: 5/10

Josh: My dear colleague Padraig summed it up perfectly in our video for the semi-final four review:”Youniverse” does not rock myniverse. The song starts off so promising, and Molly Sandén looks great surrounded by the mysterious fog, but the song doesn’t build into anything that exciting and the abrupt ending is a serious turn-off. Perhaps my expectations were too high of Molly.

Score: 7/10

Molly Sanden Youniverse Lyrics Melodifestivalen 2016

Steinunn: First of all I just can’t get over how ridiculous the title of the song is. It’s wordplay gone oh so wrong. I’m sure it’s supposed to be some very deep metaphor of someone being someone’s universe, but girl, get over it. Nobody’s that amazing to excuse this kind of language. I made the effort to look past the word-butchering and guess what, I still don’t like the song, I just think it’s pretentious. Molly sure tries her best but I’m not buying it. Plus I don’t understand the ending, it’s like she just thought “Jag orkar detta inte mer” and decided to stop singing.

Score: 4.5/10

Chris: A huge big ball of meh. I mean, it’s all very slick, but once again it seems that Molly can’t send her best work to Melfest. There’s obviously the slight nepotism of entering a song by your boyfriend, I suppose. Nothing about the performance screams “winner” or, really, that there’s any confidence in this. A huge damp squib of an ending too doesn’t help. Molly is great — really great, in fact — but there’s only so much she can do to rescue this.

Score: 7/10

Antranig: Molly Sandén deserves to be a Eurovision winner which is why Sweden should not send this song. She can do much better. Perfect staging, flawless vocals but the song does not wow me — it’s been stuck in my head all day but it’s almost more annoying than it is catchy. A huge positive is that “Constellation Prize” is an even worse pun than “YOUniverse”.

Score: 6/10

In the Swedish Wiwi Jury we have 26 jurors but only have room for 10 reviews. The remaining 16 scores are below!

Bogdan: 8.5/10

Denise: 7.5/10

Marek: 9/10

Maria: 9/10

Patrick: 9.5/10

Rezo: 7/10

Sinan: 6/10

Sami: 6/10

Mikhail: 5.5/10

Bernardo: 9/10

Luis: 6.5/10

Edd: 7.5/10

Ron: 9/10

Anthony: 7.5/10

Max: 6.5/10

Ramadan: 7/10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 4.5 and a high of 10.

WIWI JURY SCORE: 7.17/10

FOR OUR LIST OF MELODIFESTIVALEN 2016 RANKINGS, CLICK HERE

FOR MORE MELODIFESTIVALEN NEWS, CLICK HERE

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beccaboo1212
8 years ago

Molly! Molly! Molly! Molly! (3 hours later) 😀

per
per
8 years ago

Årets sämsta låt

DutchGuy
DutchGuy
8 years ago

Molly for the win Tomorrow! I think Frans will get robbed at jury votes and molly taking the lead together with Ace and Wiktoria and then the most points from the voting goes to Frans and hopefully its not enough to pass those 3 amazing Woman.

cheesecake
cheesecake
8 years ago

Awful title, awful chorus. I like the verses though. Well sung as well.
Overall a 6.5/10 from me.

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
8 years ago

I like the song but it was over-hyped.
The lack of an ending hurts it a lot.

Milla
Milla
8 years ago

This song doesn’t have an ending! Lol

MGR
MGR
8 years ago

This entry is one of the greatest disappointments this year.

Criticca
Criticca
8 years ago

I like the concept of the song, but the lyrics really don’t gel well at all. Totally agree with Steinunn, its wordplay gone wrong. “There’s only Youniverse”? or did she actually mean “there’s only you and us/me, in this universe”? Still a pretty decent entry to be sent to Eurovision.