Melodifestivalen

Melodifestivalen continues with it's third heat on Saturday, February 18th. In this article we take a closer look at the performers.

Tonight Sweden picked their first two finalists to Globen in Stockholm as the first heat of Melodifestivalen took place in the city of Växjö.

This Saturday Sweden will start searching for the artist who will represent the country in Baku at the Eurovision Song Contest in May. Here is a look at the first heat from the town of Växjö where we will see former Eurovision participants and other well known names together with singers who will take part in the competition for the first time.

Today SVT announced the full details about the rules of Melodifestivalen 2012. One of the news this year is that SVT will go back to a previously used system which means that there won't be a song that goes straight to the final after the first round of voting anymore and when a semi final is over the winner of it won't be revealed.

The full starting field of Melodifestivalen 2012 came clear today when swedish broadcaster SVT announced the final 16 acts at a press conference this morning. Fans of Melodifestivalen will discover several familiar names and amongst these the one perhaps shining brightest is the Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli.

Swedish top singer Nanne Grönvall, with a long list of national selections behind her and also one Eurovision Song Contest participation, has been working on a tribute album titled My Rock Favourites. The album, that contains 16 songs, was released today making it a likely Christmas present for many. 

Today the swedish broadcaster SVT held a press conference to officially announce the first 16 artists who will compete in semifinal 1 and 2 of Melodifestivalen 2012. Afrodite is back again along with the Moniker, Loreen, Sonja Aldén and Marie Serneholt. Among the newcomers we have names like the experienced Thomas Di Leva and the young Ulrik Munther.

News of an exciting recording collaboration in Sweden comes as an early Christmas present for fans of both Melodifestivalen and the Eurovision Song Contest, as the duet is made up of none other than contest veteran Tommy Körberg and hot property Danny Saucedo.

Denmark's rock mama number one, Sanne Salomonsen, is back with a new album titled Tiden Brænder. The album contains 13 songs all in Danish and will be the first in this decade, that is Sanne's fifth as one of the country's most popular singers. 

Swedish broadcaster has just announced the songtitles and the songwriters who will be participating at the 2012 Swedish selection, Melodifestivalen. The list include quite some familiar names such as Sonja Aldén, Thomas G:son, Fredrik Kempe, Lasse Holm and Andreas Johnson. 

Fans of Swedish schlager and pop can rub their hands with glee as Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet reveals some major artists rumoured to be participating in Melodifestivalen 2012 next spring.

In four online preliminary heats a total of 31 amateur songwriters have been competing about one spot in next year's run to represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in May. Minutes ago it was decided that Maria BenHajji won the final of this Webbjoker competion. 

Helena Bergström, Sarah Dawn Finer and Gina Dirawi are the three women that SVT announced will be the hosts of Melodifestivalen - the swedish national selection for the Eurovision song contest that will be broadcasted six Saturdays this winter. There are also some new rumours about possible participants for next years competition.

First four songs were disqualfied from the Webbjokern selection. Three of them replaced - and now the Swedish broadcaster, SVT, has announced that one of the replacement songs is out again due to yet another disqualification, this time because it should have been submitted for the actual Melodifestivalen instead.  

World famous baritone and opera star as well as former Swedish Eurovision entrant Ingvar Wixell passed away on Saturday, the 8th of October, aged 80.

Swedish broadcaster, SVT, has just announced that four of the 32 participating songs in the Webbjoker selection has been disqualified as they have been available on the internet. Three of them will be replaced by another song, but the one from first the heat, which has already started, won't be.

The Melodifestivalfever rises as the first eight songs to take part in the webbjoker competition were made available to listen to. The Webbjoker competition consists of four semi-finals with eight songs each. Every Monday two songs will be voted through to the final on 7 November where the winning song will be one of 32 songs in Melodifestivalen 2012.

After having been in the Swedish final twice, but never made it to the Eurovision Song Contest, Peter Jöback will in a couple of weeks be releasing an album with Swedish versions of French classics. As an extra bonus the album contains three new song written in the same style. A signed edition can be preordered now.

Carola is not the only big name to be currently holding concerts - Lena Philipsson, or Lena Ph as she is more affectionately known, has just kicked off a string of concerts as part of the 25 year anniversary celebrations of her career. And by all accounts, her show is an unmittigated success, with plenty of action, humour and a string of hits.

The interest for the swedish national final selection Melodifestivalen keeps on being high. When the deadline for sending in songs to SVT passed on Wednesday midnight no less than 3 485 songs had been submitted. This is the third highest number of songs submitted in the history of Melodifestivalen.