It's the first of March. The month when spring starts, the month during which I'm forced to wear that red-and-white bracelet signalling my Bulgarian heritage from outerspace and the month through which the winner of Eurovision is unveiled.
Incidentally, the first day of March is also when I traditionally reveal my ranking of melfest entries, so here it goes:
Eva Rydberg & Ewa Roos - "Rena rama ding dong"
Dotter - "Little Tot"
WAHL & SAMI - "90-talet"
Tusse - "Voices"
Charlotte Perelli - "Still young"
Arvingärna - "Tanker inte alls gå hem"
Clara Klingenström - "Behöver inte dig idag"
Tess Merkel - "Good life"
Jessica Andersson - "Horizon"
Kadiatou - "One touch"
Danny Saucedo - "Dandi dansa"
Elisa - "Den du är"
Mustasch - "Contageous"
Klara Hammarström - "Beat of broken hearts"
Anton Ewald - "New religion"
Eric Saade - "Every minute"
The Mamas - "In the middle"
Emil Assergård - "Om allting skiter sig"
Lovad - "Allting är precis likadant"
Nathalie Brydolf - "Fingerprints"
Paul Rey - "The missing piece"
Sannex - "All inclusive"
Patrik Jean - "Tears run dry"
Frida Green - "The silence"
Alvaro Estella - "Baila baila"
Lillasyster - "Pretender"
Julia Alfrida - "Rich"
Efraim Leo - "Best of me"
Lol the high amount of greens imply I enjoyed this edition of Melfest and I did not.
It's the second worst MF I've seen so far lol
That said, Melfest used to be outrageously good, and it was one of my fave NFs when I started following them back in 2013, I will now ALSO post my top 25 non-winning Melfest entries from 2010 to 2020 to remind EVERYONE here how good things used to be and how Sweden can do so much better than it is doing currently.
01. Army of Lovers - "Rockin' the ride" (2013)
The first ever NF show I saw was the first Deltävling of Melfest 2013, this glorious bad taste bacchanalia performed first in it and it was LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Most perfect and iconic trashcamp entry of all times, Samantis Demon could never...x
02. Loreen - "Statements" (2017)
Better than Euphoria/Possibly ever other song in the euroniverse, Sweden DECLINING this marveloous avant-garde masterpiece over a pallid Shawn Mendes knock-off is the crime of the century.
03. Linda Bengtzing - "E det fel på mej?" (2011)
If you pay close attention, you can visibly notice Linda's descent into an unapolegetic performance frenzy, and it's such a fucking ride of on-stage gaiety it leaves the 'scandipop festival' paradigm and enters a state of menopausal bersärkergång. DELIRIOUS.
04. Timotej - "Kom" (2010)
THE quintessential Swedish folk entry, such a fucking bop even 10+ years after its conception and brutal destruction at the hands of everyone's favourite goblin princess Anna Boringdull.
05. Dotter - "Bulletproof" (2020)
I am not going to insult your intelligence by mansplaining Bulletproof's self-evident greatness to you.
06. Lisa Miskovsky - "Why start a fire?" (2012)
I heard of Lisa Miskovsky before
learning she had an entry in Melfest (I mean, she makes fucking AMAZING music so ofc I knew her) and as one may expect 'Why Start a Fire?' is a glorious serve of intovert friendly ethereal synthpop that I want hooked up to my ears via an IV twenty-four/sevs.
07. Boris René - "Put your love on me" (2016)
Besides his excellent name, I predominantly love Boris René for bringing a flirty pop banger this addictive and infectuous. Playful flirtation that AVOIDS coming off date-rapey, WHO KNEW THIS EXISTED!! By the way, have you tried lip-synching to this song? You should. It's a wonderful experience. The sass just hits
you like the electrical discharge after a lightning strike.
08. Ace Wilder - "Busy doing nothing" (2014)
Absolutely ICONIC underdog heroine so tragically taken form us by some uncanny valley, bland, cliché, badly sung pop ballad, forgot its name!!
09. Loreen - "My heart is refusing me" (2011)
Like Lisa Miskovsky, I actually didn't know 'My heart is refusing me
' was in Melfest until three years after I had first heard and fallen in love with it. Whatever, this song owns beyond the description of words,
it's one of my favourite songs ever
and i will put it on this list even if the live in Melfest wasn't up to snuff.
10. Mariette - "Don't stop believing" (2015)
Mariette is grossly overrated, but this song is so beautiful and ethereal. Whenever I feel ready to give up on life, this is the song listen to, as it resets my mood to casually optimistic each time I finish. Potent stuff for a basic eurogay anthem.
11. Elise Ryd & Rickard Söderling - "One by one" (2015)
The first of many tragic victims of the NF-destroying/vag-destroying EVIL that is the Melodifestivalen App vote. It is a CRIME that Rickard Söderling (oh my god what a BRILLIANT opera gay) hasn't come back to Melfest since, but Melfest clearly
doesn't deserve someone of his calibre.
12. Helena Paparizou - "Survivor" (2014)
Remember when Helena entered Melfest, owned and then Sweden IMMEDIATELY voted her into AC? And some people here still insist that Sweden have respect for good music.
13. Oscar Zia - "Human" (2016)
The most convoluted coming-out anthem ever. Yessss sing my beautiful, tonedeaf cygnet, siiing. If ONLY a-lister hadn't targeted Oscar with a voodoo singing curse before
it could beat Frans in the Top two.
14. Jon Henrik Fjällgren & Aninia - "I en värld ful av strider" (2017)
Yeah, Jon Henrik is cool and all, but Aninia was the sole heroine protecting us from male-fronted EVIL in the barren wasteland known as "Melodifestivalen 2017" but lol Sweden rewarding a woman post-Sanna think again chickens!!
15. Charlotte Perelli - "The Girl" (2012)
The entire premise of The Girl was "let's rewrite 'Popular' as a kick-ass schlager anthem
" and they succeeded. Sadly, that also meant it went out in the Deltävling an ignominous 5th place.
16. Outrigger - "Echo" (2014)
Glorious Melfest schlagermetal, epic staging that SJB would later recycle for Minus One, high voltage ENERGY that takes you on a psychedelic ride through out. Finland would commit homicide for such a song. Sweden? Chucked it into AC, where it lost to Helena Paparizou.
17. Eric Saade - "Manboy" (2010)
Eric is always funny when he's incompetent, but especially
here? Horror hour intro the convoluted staging THE LYRICS "Man-boy man-boy you can call me manboy
" being an unironic line EXPERTLY displays Eric's hapless straight-acting-but-in-reality-campier-than-a-drag-queen personality, so of course it lost and Eric went to ESC with a completely SOULLESS douchebag anthem.
18. Salim al-Fakir - "Keep on walking" (2010)
This baffling jazz reconstruction of music somehow stumbling its way to second place and sadly not winning because Sweden once again HAD to reward the most insipid sound in the room.
19. Anna Bergendahl - "Kingdom Come" (2020)
'Ashes to ashes', but with an act. (see '21. Ashes to ashes' for more info)
20. Dismissed - "Hearts align" (2017)
A gloriously provocative coterie of ultraqueer culture distilled into three empowering minutes. Does Rainy like this? THIS FEELS like the quintessential Rainywoods anthem. I should rag on Sweden for putting this in AC, but let's be honest it's a victory in itself that Dismissed even reached AC in the first place
21. Anna Bergendahl - "Ashes to ashes" (2019)
Imagine shaming the most snobistic Eurovision nation by delivering them their only NQ, and then returning to Melfest after years of public silence with an anthem that comes with a built-in redemption arc, draws empowerment of the main failure you're known for and transposes it into a message EVERYONE can draw inspiration from? an EPIC return, but ofc Sweden wasn't done rewarding DEGENERATE MALES (--tenko chabashira) over kick-ass women in 2019 lol are you kidding me.
22. Isa - "I will wait" (2016)
I love both Isa entries, but I do have preference for the one that is better at bringing 'the hopeless gay' out in me. Sorry girl, you should have tried out for Denmark instead.
23. Krista Siegfrids - "Snurra min jord" (2017)
Krista is SO hopeless, SO hapless and SO completely unaware to why she is
I love her, and I love this song.
24. Yohio - "Heartbreak hotel" (2013)
Japanese kei somehow finding its way into melfest and almost hijacking the contest, until the juries, for some reason, miraculously decided that Robin GwernBern was THE best alternative option, as opposed to, say...
25. Louise Hoffsten - "Only the dead fish follow the stream" (2013)
... this marvellous, highly charming coutnry anthem? But lol Sweden are NEVER going to crown a woman over the age of 30, or just any women, unless they deliberately give bad songs to all the men.
2018 doesn't deserve a rep.