FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL đ«đđșđœ️đ. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
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Showing posts with label Melodifestivalen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melodifestivalen. Show all posts
Just 4 years ago -but another lifetime ago- in Göteborg @SVTmelfest 2010, DeltĂ€vling 3, Timoteij wows with Kom, :-) http://t.co/UdnVlslYnk — HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) April 17, 2014
Taggiga törnen i blomsterĂ€ngen! Nu hoppar Johanna av Timoteij för att det Ă€r ”svĂ„rt att jobba med sina bĂ€sta vĂ€nner”. http://t.co/isEIadL5nH — Nöjesbladet (@ABNojesbladet) April 17, 2014
Jag har beslutat att lĂ€mna Timoteij! Tusen tack till alla fina fans för allt ni har gjort och gör! đ pic.twitter.com/lTcsjBblSK — Johanna Pettersson (@tweetsbyjohanna) April 17, 2014
Guess this decision means we'll never see that Kom video after all, eh?
That Timoteij vid they filmed recently isn't for a new song. It's for an English version of Kom, which they will release internationally :( — scandipop (@scandipop) August 16, 2013
Hia80 YouTube Channel video: The Ark - Calleth You Cometh I (LIVE at AllsÄng pÄ Skansen 2003, Stockholm) Uploaded May 28, 2008. http://youtu.be/u5PNmHCvZg8
In my music-oriented post of this past Monday, titled, Sweet, sweet music to our ears: the 'Nashville' soundtrack album; 'Nashville' star Hayden Panettiere (Juliette Barnes) sings "Fame" and "Consider Me"; Clare Bowen (Scarlett O'Connor) and Sam Palladio (Gunnar Scott) sing "If I Didn't Know Better," and cause a ripple to turn into a wave; #ABCNashville, @haydenpanettier http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/sweet-sweet-music-to-our-ears-nashville.html I mentioned that I'd spent a good part of Saturday listening to the sweet sounds of the "Nashville" soundtrack album from the ABC-TV show, but that in between, around two o'clock, I hopped onto my computer and rode the Internet to Sweden and our friends at SVT Play. Then, from thousands of miles away, I watched LIVE the fourth heat of this year's Melodifestivalenin MĂ€lmo to send Sweden's representative to the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/malmo-2013
Since Sweden won last year in Azerbaijan with Loreen, Sweden will be hosting this year's competition in May. In fact, in the very arena where last Saturday's competition was held. I also mentioned that it was probably the worst individual heat I'd seen in years, and that I even felt obliged at times to mute the volume because I was so NOT feeling it! :-( What I didn't mention then was that the only time where I actually stood up and paid attention was when they introduced teen singer Ulrik Munther. And that's only because the music intro they used to fire-up the crowd as he walked across the catwalk and onto the stage -at 0:45:33 here, http://www.svt.se/melodifestivalen/se-program/23-2-20-00?autostart=true was The Ark's "Calleth You Cometh I," only one of the most melodic and punchy pop song of the past 25 years, and one of my Swedish favorites. Literally, a song I have hummed to myself while stuck in traffic more times than I can count. Which is why I have two versions of the song above today for you to see. The second video was uploaded by Hia80, known here on the blog as "Sofia from UmeÄ," who was the savvy person we all have to thank for recording those four simply amazing videos of Robyn performing LIVE in concert in SkellefteÄ back on July 1, 2011, which I posted here a week later on July 9th, a post which received a ton of hits from all around the world: Wow! Sofia in UmeÄ -a.k.a. Hia80- has four must-see home videos of Robyn performing at SkellefteÄ 2011 last Friday http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/wow-sofia-in-umea-aka-hia80-has-four.html Sofia's YouTubeChannel is at http://www.youtube.com/user/Hia80 Check it out and subscribe!
ABCNetwork YouTube Channel video: 'Nashville' star Hayden Panettiere (Juliette Barnes) sings "Fame" at the Ryman Auditorium. Uploaded February 24, 2013. http://youtu.be/X2hnCfrIxyA
Listened all day Saturday to the amazing 'Nashville' soundtrack album. That is, before and after watching Melodifestivalen's Fourth Heat in Malmö on SVT Play Saturday around 2 p.m., 8 in Stockholm, by far the worst group of songs performed so far in this year's contest. I even had to mute the sound for some!:-( http://www.svtplay.se/video/1033650/deltavling-4
'Nashville' stars Clare Bowen (Scarlett O'Connor) and Sam Palladio (Gunnar Scott) sing "If I Didn't Know Better" (entire song) Uploaded October 2, 2012. http://youtu.be/gAI_1FsJ8rE
SVT video: Petra Meade: "It's been hard to keep quiet about it."
SVT throws the world a curve in naming comedienne and new mom Petra Mede as its sole host for Eurovison Song Contest Semifinals and Finals in Malmö in early May. And not everyone is happy with the choice, whom even the show's producers call "beloved but controversial"
So, either still feeling the effects of lingering jet-lag from my trip to Stockholm and my return to reality -six hours in the past- or restlessness, I woke-up early this morning, more than early enough to watch something that I've known was coming down the pike for a while. The IT was the press conference carried LIVE on both Aftonbladet and Sveriges Television, SVT, at 5:15 Miami time, to see whom SVT would name as hosts for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest's Semifinals and Finals in Malmö in May, which are expected to be watched by about 100 Million viewers throughout Europe in May.
Plus me and other interested parties around the world, of course...
The first surprise was that there will be only one host, and the second surprise was the identity of the sole host, a name that created a frenzy this morning: Petra Mede.
But it's just the latest serendipitous step for the former ballerina-turned-tour guide-turned-stand up comedian, who is so well-liked by most but not all Swedish TV viewers.
But already, less than two hours after the official announcement's been made, the mainstream Swedish news media is reporting that a not-so-small element is really NOT-so-crazy about her selection, with many penning words on social media much worse than these: "Det hÀr kan inte vara sant." (This can not be true.)
Sverige uppdelat i tvÄ lÀger. Christer Björkmans beskrivning av Petra Mede "Àlskad men kontroversiell" stÀmmer in pÄ reaktionerna.
(Sweden is divided into two camps, Christer Björkman's description of Petra Mede "beloved but controversial" applies to the reactions.)
Additionally, as was somewhat predictable, and as would be the case here in the U.S., with the identity now known, the press is now focusing on the story line of how the brains behind the selection were able to keep their months of inquiries secret from THEM. It turns out that the small band of SVT insiders involved in the important selection(s) used code words to keep the news about who was being actively considered -and perhaps more importantly, who wasn't!- from being prematurely disclosed and blowing-up in their face. The name they used for Mede in their various meetings and communications? "Harry Potter."
Aftonbladet video: Christer Björkman - "Vi kallade Petra Mede för Harry Potter" Björkman om hur hemligheten hölls. http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/noje/article16142083.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/melodifestivalen/article16140974.ab This selection of host today effectively starts the three-month countdown for the national music contests throughout Europe, some of which have already started in earnest, like in Iceland, where HBB fave Yohanna has already competed. In the case of host Sweden and its selection to Eurovision, via Melodifestivalen, which begins on February 2nd with the First Round in Karlskrona, well, it is exactly as I've described here on the blog many times before, a national obsession. To quote myself from an upcoming blog post here that was written about some news re SVT that I discovered while I was in Stockholm ten days ago:
The whole country watches Melodifestivalen, even people who think it's stupid, and people were talking about it last week to me, despite my only being somewhat famiar with some of the contestants, because the first nationally-televised competition takes place very soon. The Swedish news media positively fixates on the weeks of competition to an extent that would be hard to explain if it wasn't so self-serving, and yet also surprisingly, mean-spirited in many cases, as lots of people have reason to create or pass-along rumors!
Summer 2012 is officially here as Timoteij's new album, Tabu, drops today. And they also celebrate a new-and-improved website that's delightfully more-colorful, engaging and pleasing to the eye -and more intuitive!
The top of the new website, which changed slightly from the original template a few weeks before their participation in the 2012 Melodifestivalen two months ago, now sports new photos for both the website and the blog, and I must say that in the week since I first saw the photo of the new album over at Swedish Stereo blog in Damian's description of the songs and their order, http://swedishstereo.blogspot.com/2012/05/timoteij-tabu.htmlwhich seems to be fresher, more upbeat and dance-friendly but with all of the Timoteij folk and authenticity trademarks we love, I've been eager to see what it looks like in a new and improved online environment.
Well, in my opinion, the new features and photos really POP off your computer screen in a way that the old pinkish/purple ones really didn't after awhile because... well, we just got so used to them. http://www.timoteij.se/
The new group photo for the website now is, left-to-right: Elina Thorsell, Johanna Pettersson, Cecilia Kallin and Bodil Bergström, and the photo is the same as the album but in the header photo, you don't see their instruments, while the header above the blog text http://www.timoteij.se/category/timoteij/is a variation of that: Cecilia, Elina, Johanna and Bodil.
I also saw that last week's news also had this great teaser: Buy the new album and enter a contest to have Timoteij perform at your home/place of work -in Sweden: http://www.ginza.se/product/timoteij/tabu-2012/11863/
Correct, it's remarkably similar to what the amazing Full of Keys (Anni Bernhard) did on her tour in February for her winning fan, Victor: http://fullofkeys.com/blog/?p=228 I was so envious!
On Monday, the girls were still busy promoting the new album and swung by the Sveriges Radio (SR)studio in Skovde, and fortunately for us, the folks at P4recorded a bit of what happened, which is how I can share it with you here now:
Not to give away too many teasers about some future posts you'll be seeing here soon, but as some of you reading this particular post already know, I actually have hopes of seeing these talented ladies perform -as well as the fabulous Florrie, whose new album drops next week- in a few months in their native habitats, though I'm still working on exact dates and logistics.
Hours of work down the drain! I was so beyond frustrated!
Below are some odds and ends from that the draft of that post which I'd thought to save to an email draft before I started trying to finish up and the electricity went kaput, my post going adios! Obviously, there were lots of what I thought at the time were some well-chosen words, photos and videos that ought to be below but which aren't.
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Today is D-day for Timoteij and its fans: Clear sailing to next week's Melodifestivalen Finals in Stockholm, or, Stormy Seas? (Stormande Hav)
It's the day we've all been waiting for... "Andra chansen." The second chance. One last chance to make the grade for the chance to represent Sweden at Eurovision.
Yesterday the band posted this short acapella version of them singing an excerpt of Stormande Hav in one of their hotel rooms onto their official YouTube Channel.
Like many of you out there, I've wondered, too, why they and the record company still hadn't posted a HQ copy of their performance at the Second Heat as good as the one that uris1 posted two weeks ago, or done a series of occasional updates on their YouTube Channel since then on their preparations the past few weeks, a variation of what they've been writing on the blog. But now at least, somebody finally decided to do something positive.
uris1 video: Timoteij - Stormande Hav. Second Heat of Melodifestivalen 2012 in Göteborg, Sweden. February 11, 2012. http://youtu.be/Nw73WHckdNY
Fans of the band may want to start looking at this page to see what's also being written about them on Social Media: http://whotalking.com/flickr/Timoteij
Sweden's nationally-televised WTF (musical) car crash moment of Saturday night during Melodifestivalen -Björn Ranelid feat. Sara Li., performing "Mirakel"
Proof that, at least in Sweden, some people love a (musical) car crash as long as they are not in it...
No, it's NOT your imagination.
I really HAVE been avoiding mentioning what's been going on thus far at this year's installment of Melodifestivalen, the iconic and nationally-televised song selection contest over five weeks that annually leads to Sweden's choice for the Eurovision Song Contest, this year, taking place in Azerbijan in a few months.
*All screen grabs on this page are from SVT by South Beach Hoosier
To say the least, the reviews of Björn Ranelid feat. Sara Li are in and they are so angry, scathing and unmerciless in their pummeling, that it's a wonder that many of my friends and folks I know, like Sofie and Pernilla -who keep coming back to the blog!- who watched the show LIVE Saturday night didn't, well, blow a gasket.
Or make like Elvis and shoot their TV set!
Though now that I think about it, maybe some of them did, since as of early Monday morning, I have NOT heard from some of them after Saturday night's deltÀvling 3 -Third heat-of this year's competition in Leksand, like I did after the two previous weeks the past two Saturday nights in VÀxjö and Göteborg, respectively.
I urge you to watch this video ASAP because this video will probably be yanked-off YouTube very soon by SVT for copyright reasons, but it's the only one I've seen that shows how truly horrendous the act was.
Oops! Too late.
They already hit it and removed it since I saw it a few hours ago.
Since that's the case, watch their performance here on SVT Play's website, which will have the entire show online for viewing until MIDNIGHT Tuesday morning Stockholm/Central European Time (CET), which is one hour ahead of GMT and six hours ahead of yours truly in Miami, in U.S. Eastern. So the deadline for seeing this is 6 p.m. Eastern.
Get moving, because the clock is ticking!
Björn Ranelid feat. Sara Li appearance starts at 0:45:58 on the vid, ends at 0:50:05.
I watched the show in its entirety on Sunday afternoon, taking notes.
So, did I mention that people were angry?!!!!
Apparently, more than I thought, there were thousands of people watching TV in Sweden on Saturday night who thought they'd say a big f-ck you to the Swedish music industry, and do it by spending what amounts to about two bucks to text this "car crash" -the favorite metaphor being used among Swedish bloggers to describe this performance the first 36 hours afterward- and send them directly to the Finals in Stockholm on March 10th, at Globen.
Hmm-m... imagine if a participating country's national Eurovision song selection competition was hijacked by the country's usually-friendly folket in order to send the worst possible act to Baku, Azerbijan for the actual European competition...
Hmm-m... now that's a question so preposterous and diabolical that even Stieg Larsson never thought of it while toiling away in Gamla Stan thinking of things for Lisbeth Salander to get upset about!
Yes, it's sort like what the Florida Marlins did in November in announcing their new Miami Marlins logo and uniforms for their new stadium in Little Havana... which was, itself, a rainbow-colored WTF moment as far as most fans were concerned! Yet typically, the condescending Marlins owners and management act like this finished product is what they always wanted, and don't much care what fans really think. They're so in love with the idea of being "bold," of marketing themselves in Latin America in pastel colors, that they've lost sight of what the real fans who actually attend their games think.
For those of you reading this outside of South Florida, I honestly DON'T see anyone wearing this stuff around the area, that is, except for the sort of person at the shopping mall who does so clearly to bring attention to themselves. Like the sort of woman who purchases a new expensive purse or accessory and takes it with them to Sunday brunch and tried to appear blase about it, even while craning her neck to see who notices it.
...it certainly got people talking, as well as voting – “Björn Ranelid” and then “Ranelid” both became wordwide trending topics on twitter last night after his performance.
At the ESC Xtra, which LIVE blogged the show, when it was finally announced that Ranelid & Li had qualified to go directly to the Finals in Stockholm, along with Molly, they wrote simply,
I am lost for words Sweden. See ya next week…
At the more action-oriented Schlagerblog, which was not so crazy about Molly's song, either, they wrote
The big surprise for the Schlagerboys was how excited we got about Björn Ranelid feat. Sara Li. Who'd have thought a bonkers orange bloke wandering around the stage rambling on in Swedish while his granddaughter prances around for the chorus in a glittery frock would be so fab! The best bit was near the end where the key change should have been, when he clearly forgot his microphone was live and started mumbling the words to the chorus. Love it!
Timotiej appeared on TV4'sNyhetsmorgon back on April 30th, performing two songs and doing a four-and-a-half minute sit-down interview about what's new with the girls and their new album.
The two singing performances included a mellower version of Kom, performed sans drums and with three of the girls without their trusty instruments, which seems very strange at first, but without the drums, you can really hear Bodil Bergströmon the accordion in a way that you really couldn't in their great Melodifestivalen performance of a few months ago. The harmonies are just perfect, of course, especially towards the end.
In the Kom video, performed as the show was ending, are, from left to right, Johanna Pettersson, Bodil Bergström (on accordion), Cecilia Kallin and Elina Thorsell.
The girls also performed LĂ€ngtan till landet (Vintern rasat) which I haven't heard in a while. http://www.tv4play.se/aktualitet/nyhetsmorgon?videoId=1.1619474
This is the new TV ad for their new album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfowcDq27A0
For more on Timoteij, see their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Timoteij/286938310265
Their wry and very amusing personal videos can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Timoteij/286938310265#!/pages/Timoteij/286938310265?v=app_2392950137
Among the many hopeful performers last month in Göteborg (Gothenberg) at the thirdSemifinal of Sweden's extremelypopularMelodifestivalen singing competition -telecastLIVE bySVT- http://svt.se/2.120908/melodifestivalen_2010 for the chance to represent Sweden at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contestin late May in Oslo, http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home was a very intriguing four-womanpop group known as Timoteij, singing whatI'd call a folk-inspired pop song titled Kom. ("Come" as in a plaintive plea.) The band only formed in the Fall of 2008, from some music students in the Skaraborg area of central Sweden: Cecilia Kallin, Bodil Bergstrom, Elina Thorsell and Johanna Pettersson. Despite how talented each woman was known to be individually, nobody could've honestly predicted that Sweden as a whole would be so knocked-out by themensemble, but appealing they are, and this has caused some pop culture watchers to say that maybe the fog has lifted, and that Swedish power pop has -finally- returned to its roots, by doing what it always did so well when it really mattered and was actually popular outside of the country: well-crafted songs with catchy hooks and great harmonies that linger in your head long after the song has ended.
Some Swedish music industry types have even gone so far as to publicly say that this overdue return to fun power pop is not just a very welcome breath of fresh air, after an era where Sweden, quite frankly, had really become a bit of a tired afterthought musically, continually sending performers to Eurovision that were clearly too obscure or overtly theatrical than musical -and sure to get hammered by judges and millions of European TV viewers at home for these very reasons- but an opportunity for the entire Swedish music industry to regain its balance.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that, but certainly there's a palpable sense of new confidence there that a certain degree of competitiveness and interest has returned.
The group's tremendous performance last month before a nation-wide TV audience has earned them a spot in the Finals next Saturday night at the Ericsson Globe Arena a.k.a. Globen, in Stockholm, where they will be one of ten acts vying to perform at this year's Eurovision competition being held in Oslo, because it is the home of last year's winner, Alexander Rybak, whose Fairytale captured so many people's attention last year, for both good and bad reasons.
Timoteijhas created quite a buzz for themselves all over Sweden and one reason for that, though hardly the most important one, is that they sing in Swedish and not in English, as so many other acts have chosen to do over the years for all sorts of practical marketing and voting reasons.
Not that there's any consensus about the issue, per se, since people clearly understand why a Swedish singer or group hoping to make it big would choose to go the Englishroute for the contest, but from reading comments in different forums over the past few weeks, people definitely seem pleased that sucha talented and immensely appealing group has consciously chosen to perform inSwedish, not Engelska.
Their harmonies are tight and heavenly, as you'll hear for yourself when you watch the video.
Melodifestivalen's homepage for Timoteij is at http://svt.se/2.121002/timoteij?lid=puff_1786706&lpos=lasMer Hanna intervjuar vinnarna i Göteborg LÀngd: 03:10
An SVT promo from December 21st, 2009Timoteij utklassade alla -----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grThquUDlKs ---- Interview on SVT'sGomorron Sverige with Cecilia Kallin and Johanna Pettersson of Timoteij.
The groups's website is at http://www.timoteij.se/
And just when you counted them out, Slovakia, yes, Slovakia, goes "Solid Gold" in its entry, almost like they could get votes from South Florida precincts,with the lovely Kristina singing her heart outabout Horehronie, a beautiful region of Slovakia. http://www.horehronie.com/
You know what they say, after the country girl has seen the bright lights of Bratislava, there's just no going back tothe farm!
FYI: One of my former housemates from Arlington is a member of the Foreign Service stationedin Slovakia. Slovakia shoots and it scores!Here's the travelogue version of the song
