At Melodifestivalen 2020, The Mamas told the world to “Move”. And it seems like songwriters were listening, as they’ve worked their hands and hearts to create 2,747 submissions for Melfest 2021.
“It is incredibly fun to see an increase in submissions, as it shows a great interest in the competition,” competition Karin Gunnarsson says on Insta. “I feel like I have the world’s largest musical candy bag to dive into and that’s exactly what I’m going to do in the next few days.”
If songs are calories, then Karin is definitely going to see an increase on the scale. This year’s 2,700+ entries are up 202 on last year — and represent the highest number since 2018.
As you know, a total of 28 songs will compete in Melodifestivalen 2021. Fourteen of these will come from among the submitted songs, as chosen by a jury panel, while the other fourteen will be selected by SVT during the fall. As ever, we expect SVT to select a few artists who will generate major buzz. Give us that soap opera and give us the music!
Who will sing in Melodifestivalen 2021?
Naturally fans are already speculating about who those artists might be. The Mamas, who won the 2020 competition by a single point, aren’t getting an automatic ticket to Eurovision this year. Plenty of fans hope they’ll at least get an invitation back to Melfest.
Another name on the tip of so many tongues is Dotter, who could very well enter the contest for a third time, after delivering one of the most talked-about performances of the entire Eurovision pre-season in 2020 and hitting #1 on the Swedish charts. She played it coy with Aftonbladet earlier this summer. “We shall see,” she said. “I have not received any invitation yet.”
The only confirmed artist thus far is Julia Alfrida. She earned her spot by winning Sveriges Radio’s P4 Nästa competition last weekend.
Hope one of them is something different from what Sweden sent for the 4 last years. Europe wants Sweden to take risks. Stop the perfect staging, let’s make something dirty.
just wondering, does anyone know how just 28 are chosen from 2747?? I can’t even imagine ranking 2747 songs fairly to choose from, so I was wondering how it’s done
Half by a selection jury, half by SVT. SVT did a documentary where they showed how they choose. The famous coloured lists with criteria such as hit-factor, how well it could do abroad, language criteria, gender criteria and so on. Looked quite fun
It gets watered down from record companies and other institutions. The 14 the jury chooses are chosen from like 100-200 songs, and the other 14 are chosen by invitation from Svt and are not normally amongst the 2000+ songs.
oh cool thx for letting me know 🙂
whoa that’s cool, thank u for the insight Robyn!
Even if eurovision is cancelled, I feel confident that at least melo would be a go! So sick of this damn virus.
Great to see an increase of submitted songs, Melfest is always that event which makes me officially settle right in the new year and this season it will feel very different given everything we’ve been through this year. I look forward to whoever new faces and returnees are competing and I’m confident by next Spring when NF season wraps up the global pandemic will be far less effective so we can all look forward to the return of ESC and everything else that was cancelled/postponed last summer.