Zara Larsson will perform during the interval of this year’s Melodifestivalen final on March 11th in Stockholm’s Friends Arena. This year’s Melodifestivalen final features Wiktoria, Ace Wilder, Robin Bengtsson, Mariette, and a whole host of faces that are new to the contest.
During Saturday’s ‘Second Chance’ round, comedian Daniel Norberg will take to the stage. Daniel is known for his parodies of the contest and appeared in the most recent series of Allsang Pa Skansen, as did Zara Larsson once again.
Zara Larsson
Zara Larsson rose to fame as a young child aged just ten after winning the Swedish version of SYCO’s ‘Got Talent’ series. In 2012 she was signed with the label TEN, and still is. One year on she released her debut single ‘Uncover’ (2013). Featuring alongside thirteen other tracks on her debut album, ‘1’ (Sweden only), Uncover peaked at number one in Sweden and Norway, three in Denmark and eight in Switzerland – since then the track has gone six time platinum.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRFHwsCgRDu/
In 2015 her first international breakthrough track was released, ‘Lush Life’ went on to chart in the top ten of nine countries, described by Scott Mills as the ‘summer banger of the year’. However, it wasn’t until the winter of 2015 when the track was picked up, following the release of her duet with London -based MNEK, ‘Never Forget You’. Lush Life and Never Forget You went platinum nine and five times respectively before Zara Larsson released her next single, this time again as a featured artist with Tine Tempah. The track ‘Girls Like’ peaked at number five in the UK prior to the release of David Guetta’s Euro 2016 anthem, ‘This One’s For You’. On June 9th, the two appeared in a concert beneath the Eiffel Tower to open the tournement, before opening the final of the Euro’s 2016 in Stade De France.
Two hit singles later, Zara Larsson released the title track of her upcoming album, ‘So Good’. The album will be released on March 17th.
Andra Chansen: Linköping
Next week in Linköping, the famous ‘Andra Chansen’, or ‘Second Chance Round’ of Melodifestivalen 2017 will take place as eight artists go head to head with one another – one artist from each dual going to the final in Stockholm’s Friends Arena. In each of the four semi-finals that have taken place, two artists have qualified for this round (those that come third and fourth in each respective semi-final show).
Each artist will go head to head with another artist who qualified to the second chance round, from a different semi-final.
[tw-column width=”one-half”]Gotta Thing About YouArtist: The FO&O Conspiracy
Song: Robert John ”Mutt” Lange, Tony Nilsson[/tw-column][tw-column width=”one-half” position=”last”]Road Trip
Artist: De Vet Du
Song: Johan Gunterberg, Christopher Martland[/tw-column]
[tw-column width=”one-half”]När ingen ser
Artist: Axel Schylström
Song: Behshad Ashnai, Axel Schylström, David Strääf[/tw-column][tw-column width=”one-half” position=”last”]I Don’t Give A
Artist: Lisa Ajax
Song: Ola Svensson, Linnea Deb, Joy Deb, Anton Hård af Segerstad[/tw-column]
[tw-column width=”one-half”]Her Kiss
Artist: Boris René
Song: Tim Larsson, Tobias Lundgren[/tw-column][tw-column width=”one-half” position=”last”]Hearts Align
Artist: Dismissed
Song: Ola Salo, Peter Kvint[/tw-column]
[tw-column width=”one-half”]Kiss You Goodbye
Artist: Anton Hagman
Song: Christian Fast, Tim Schou, Henrik Nordenback[/tw-column][tw-column width=”one-half” position=”last”]Statements
Artist: Loreen
Song: Anton Hård af Segerstad, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb, Loreen[/tw-column]
Melodifestivalen Andra Chansen Duals
Introduced as “SVT’s flagship show”, Melodifestivalen enters its 58th year as the selection process used to select Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest participant. It remains Sweden’s favourite television show and one of the most watched national selection shows in Europe.
Show producer, Christer Björkman has described this year’s series as the “Best Melodifestivalen Ever”, with twenty-eight hit songs being released over four weeks, almost all of which are bound to top the charts in Sweden.
A total of 2,478 songs were submitted to SVT, up by twenty-eight from last year but is still 1,400 short of the 2011 record when 3,832 songs were submitted. This year a total of 362 songs were submitted through the public contest, this was for singers or songwriters who had not released a song commercially before. This figure is the lowest it has been since the public were given a separate round in 2010. Tomorrow, seven of the twenty-eight competing songs will fight for two places in the final, and two places in the famous Andra Chansen.
SVT made a clever decision by inviting a well-known Swedish singer to be the interval act at Friends Arena next Saturday! 😉