Since he became supervisor of Melodifestivalen in 2002, Sweden has secured nine Top 5 finishes and two wins.
And on Tuesday Christer Björkman suggested that a third victory could be in the pipeline when he spoke to wiwiblogger Kevin at the Melodifestivalen 2018 Artists Reveal press conference.
“I’m very happy,” he says of this year’s line-up. “It’s playful, it makes me happy, it makes me laugh even. There are so many expressions, different types of genres — it’s a variety of everything and we have some extraordinary hits actually.”
Could there be a Eurovision winner in the mix?
“Yes,” he says contemplatively. “We might have one. But you never know.”
Much has been made of the fact that Margaret — a singer from Poland — has made it into this year’s selection over local talent. He isn’t bothered by the chatter and thinks she has more than earned her place.
“She has established herself as a popular artist in Sweden,” he says. “She’s had one, almost two, radio hits. She’s just an interesting character. I like her way of performing. I think she’s really cool and she has a really good hit.”
Margaret’s participation does not mean that the floodgates are now open for any artist from abroad.
“You really need to make that groundwork that she has done,” he says of the Polish star, who went viral on Spotify with her song “Cool Me Down”.
“It’s the same thing with [fellow Melfest 2018 singer and Norwegian DJ] Kampferdrops. You need to be established and have an audience here. It’s not enough to just have been in the Eurovision because that’s sort of connected only to that show. You really need a broader base to get anywhere in Melodifestivalen. You have to establish yourself in the radio market here and then I can look at it.”
Christer, who competed at Eurovision in 1992, suggested that too many radio-friendly songs can become a bit monotonous.
“It becomes kind of flat,” he says. “Last year when I watched the first selection show I was like, ‘This is good. But is it fun?’ All of a sudden we talked about that and said, ‘Let’s have some more kinds of songs. Different types of songs — not only mainstream radio pop.'”
“It gets quite boring. We’ve given at least two [spots] in each show [to songs] that are different and have totally different expression. Could be very serious or joyful, playful even.”
“When I look at these I’m like giggling. I want to see this. It’s going to be fun.”
SVT says no to Alcazar
Anticipation was high that Alcazar — the legendary disco trio who have competed five times before — would make a comeback.
But on Tuesday it became clear that they wouldn’t, even if they really wanted to.
Responding to a comment on his Instagram account, lead singer Andreas Lundstedt confirmed that the group did submit a song, but that SVT passed on it.
“Despite having the best dance song they chose to say no (found out a few days ago),” he wrote. “They may have been scared when they heard the song and realized that we actually had a big chance of winning this time.”
The song was written by Linnea and Joy Deb — the authors of Eurovision 2015 winning song “Heroes”.
Andreas went on to say that SVT “have other plans for who will be next year’s winner.”
Are you hoping that Sweden can notch up another win at Eurovision? Are you sad that Alcazar won’t be there? Let us know in the comments box below.
They still can represent San Marino.
Alcazar! Hold the song for next year! It’s gonna be a banger with the Joy family behind it!
But why does Bjorkman think that established artists from abroad would even be interested in participating in the Swedish selection for Eurovision?
How many Despacito and Havana copies will there be? Or will most songs be dated like last year?
Anyone ever think this is an orchestrated PR stunt? Gets both Melfest and Alcazar a ton of press ahead of the competition/their 20 year anniversary. Christer will probably have them do a special appearance at one of the shows as well, as a sort of public “making amends”. At the end of the day, Christer got the attention and the headlines, and Alcazar got guaranteed air-time without the pressure of competing.
I bet you this is EXACTLY what happened. #pr101
probably:). Im a swede and im exited for this lineup. I want us to take a risk 2018 with a different style or a swedish song :). The native languages are coming back again i think + swedish is a nice language to sing in. Finnsh or icelandic for example does not work sadly to sing in but we can do it.
LOl, obviously we won’t send a song in Swedish. We won’t ever do that.
An native songs aren’t coming back just because a song in native language won
The line- up does sound interesting though and I think we even might have an ESC winner in there.
I think the esc winner is Mariette or Dotter.
Most songs sound better in Icelandic.
Not true. I know great songs in Icelandic and in Finnish, and I don’t even speak those languages.
I understand Alcazar is sad but melfest wanted more different kind of acts this year that stand out from the radio songs or in swedish or debutants. Alcazar does only disco. Jessica Andersson for example can do many different styles then one.
Bjorkman says exactly the same things every year. The truth is that last year the songs at Melodifestivalen were really bad. I hope this year it would be better.
Bjorkman is dreaming if he thinks Sweden will win next year, he wishes that with this weak lineup in
Names say nothing, i doubt you would’ve said salvador sobral would win this year just by looking at the name and not knowing the song.
It’s the site’s personal favorite country (Sweden) and the favorite national selection (Melfest), so…we should all expect more and more Melfest news daily, even 3-4 articles per day (like…interviews with all 28 participating artists, reviews of all 28 participating songs~ when they’ll be available, more news about Bjorkman and his involvement in other national selections, articles about past participating artists from Sweden, like Loreen, Mans, and so on)….
Correction: It’s pretty much EVERYONE’s favourite selection. It’s not like you can write daily stories on FiK or Cyprus…..And anyway the music is good so i say PLEASE WRITE MORE SWEDEN STORIES
Haha, thank you, nancy g. And for the record Dana — we review pretty much every song in every national final (so long as there are 30 or less). See track record here: http://wiwibloggs.com/wiwi-jury-eurovision-song-contest-reviews-rankings/
But you don’t review pretty much the same country as much as Sweden. As a Croat, I can relate to her comment. Well said, Dana!
Ignore the Trolls! If they don’t want to read about Melfest, they simply don’t have to click on the story. The fact that there are way more stories about Melfest is no coincidence. As Robyn just said, they can’t just make up news. It’s just another example of how Sweden are 100% on the ball and get how to build hype and excitement about their national selection and Eurovision. Imagine if every country was like Sweden in terms of their professional, smart management of their selection process – Eurovision season would be INSANE. FiK starts before Melfest and what hype… Read more »
Well, for a start, Jacques Houdek had a huge campaign last year with a lot of updates on his Facebook page. Rarely any of those stuff were mentioned here. But you didn’t seem to forget anything about Sweden or even, for example, Saraa Aalto’s journey on X factor step by step (and she didn’t get to be an Eurovision singer at that point). If I had more free time and found Eurovision as my bigger hobby, I’d ask you if I could join your team to show you how it’s done. 😉 But you’ll have to prove yourself on your… Read more »
Not mine.
@Dana: I’d take your point if there was less coverage on other countries, but even today I see stories about Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Ukraine, San Marino / Austria and Ukraine again. So actually today Ukraine has the most stories. Are you going to complain about that? People have a weird hatred of Sweden if they don’t love Sweden…maybe jealous?
Well, when other countries have news about selections or artists chosen then there will be articles about them. Until then there will be news about Sweden because they are the only ones who have some news.
How hard is it to get really? Don’t turn a non-issue into an issue!
Some countries insist to be the last to reveal (like Bulgaria 2016 and Armenia 2017). Why would you have a problem with Sweden? Many countries don’t want Swedish strategy.
Alcazar is an expired act. I’d rather get promising newcomers than another song from them.
How could they not take Alcazar on the Melodifestivalen? Alcazar is one of the reasons what made Melodifestivalen so great!
Completely off topic but does anyone know if theres any truth in the rumour about Bucks Fizz being shortlisted for the UK selection??
I hadn’t heard anything of the rumour, but I really really doubt (and certainly hope not) that’s the direction the BBC is taking, I think we can expect more Joe and Jake’s and Lucie’s. Maybe they’re performing on the show or something?
So much articles about Melfest, yet no explanation why Melodifestivalen became Melodyfestivalen this year 😉
It was a typo, no name change.
Ha I noticed that too…I was like “WTF?” when that kept showing up on the screen. That’s like the Swenglish version of the word ?
LOL Alcazar, another fan-wank act! They were outdated back in 2010! Not enough glitter in the world to save that act…
I admit they were fun in 2003 and 2005 and really good even but there is a time for everything!
Glad SVT and Björkman decide against them
I’m bored with this Bjorkman who’s everywhere (Switzerland, Cyprus, maybe San Marino, too). Bored with Alcazar, too. They’re outdated and almost ridiculous, this is a joke act. So glad SVT have rejected them…
Agreed.
++++