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EUROVISION

Eight useless facts about Sweden’s Melodifestivalen mania

It's February, and in Sweden that means one thing: Melodifestivalen time. The country's qualifying process for the Eurovision Song Contest is a huge national event in itself, so with that in mind, The Local has compiled eight useless facts worth knowing ahead of this year's edition of the cheese-fest…

Eight useless facts about Sweden's Melodifestivalen mania
It's that time of the year again. The 2016 Melodifestivalen hopefuls. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

1. The viewers

In some countries the Eurovision finals aren't even a big draw, so it can be surprising as an international moving to Sweden to learn that even the qualifying process here is huge.

Melodifestivalen is televised from the semi-final stage onwards, and the final of the qualifiers was watched by a whopping 3.56 million people in 2016 – over a third of the population of Sweden at the time. That's only those who watched it on TV, and not online viewers via broadcaster SVT's 'SVT Play' platform.

For some further perspective: the final of Eurovision proper was watched by 3.68 million TV viewers in Sweden that same year. So almost as many people watched the culmination of the qualifying phase as they did the real Eurovision competition itself, which makes the importance and popularity of Melodifestivalen pretty apparent.


The 2016 Melodifestivalen final. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

2. The votes

With viewers comes voters: the winner of the Melodifestivalen final is partially picked by televoters, and boy do they like to vote. A massive 12 million votes were counted during the 2016 Melodifestivalen final (keep in mind that the entire population of Sweden was just under 10 million people at the time) an all-time record for the competition.

The fact that there is a rule in place which caps the maximum number of votes one person can make over the phone at 20 speaks volumes.


Use your 20 votes wisely… Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

3. The stage

A big part of Melodifestivalen is the staging itself, which seems to be getting more and more elaborate by the year. SVT only recently revealed the striking arrow-shaped design for this year's stage, causing an outpour of excitement and opinion on social media. And not just in Sweden.

4. The songs

The televised part of Melodifestivalen may start in February, but the process of reaching that phase in the first place begins during the previous autumn. Hopefuls are asked to submit their songs before a mid-September deadline, and from there they're narrowed down by a panel of judges and producers to a final cut of 28.

For the 2017 edition, songwriters knocked out 2,450 submissions to compete for a spot. That's down slightly from 2,478 in 2016, but still a lot of music. Speaking of Swedish songwriters and Melodifestivalen, here's a bunch you may know:

5. This year's notable artists

In Sweden it's common for performers to take multiple stabs at Melodifestivalen and Eurovision dominance, and this year is no exception.

Seemingly not satisfied with her 2012 Eurovision win (or perhaps just in need of something to do), Loreen is back this year with new song “Statements”. Another former winner making a return is Charlotte Perrelli (previously known as Charlotte Nilsson), who won Eurovision back in 1999, and Melodifestivalen again in 2008.

Then there's the eternal bridesmaid but never the bride, Roger Pontare, who has twice represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest (1994 and 2000 respectively) without coming close to winning, yet still comes back for more. He also participated in the 1999 and 2006 Melodifestivalen, and is now back again in 2017.

Finally, watch out for shameless Swedish One Direction rip-off The Fooo Conspiracy, who are huge among teenyboppers in Sweden, and hoping to make an impact on the rest of the world by earning the chance to participate in Eurovision. We're really, really sorry.

6. The controversies

With so much at stake it's perhaps no surprise that Melodifestivalen has attracted a few controversies since it started in 1959. In 2016 for example, Anna Book and her lyricist, Nordic Noir author Camilla Läckberg, were thrown out of the competition when it emerged that their song had already been used in Moldavia under a different name.

In 2009 meanwhile, Swedish boyband EMD were threatened with disqualification because they sang part of their song and showed off some of the dance moves during a press conference, breaking a rule that the songs should be kept top secret until they're performed live on TV. The horror.

7. The naysayers

Perhaps it's a sign of my Scottish cynicism, but one would expect something as overwhelmingly dominant in Sweden as Melodifestivalen to attract a sizable negative backlash, yet it's pretty difficult to find tangible evidence of that.

The Facebook group “People who hate Melodifestivalen & Eurovision” (Vi som hatar Melodifestivalen & Eurovision) for example has a paltry 55 members, while the “People who hate Melodifestivalen” (Vi som hatar Melodifestivalen) group has only 48. Where are all the haters? Do they even really exist? If they do, they need to get organized. Perhaps I can help.


An expression which may or may not represent the writer's feelings about Melodifestivalen. Photo: Richard Vogel/AP

8. The comedy entry

Inevitably given its popularity, Melodifestivalen has a habit of drawing a comedy entry or two, as exemplified by Swedish comedian Sean Banan, who made it to the final with his oh-so-hilarious “Copacabanana” in 2013. As one Youtube comment on the performance said succinctly, “what the hell did I just watch?”

This year, the comedy entry honour goes to quarter De Vet Du, who to their credit, have chalked up millions of views on Youtube with their distinctly Swedish brand of humour. They'll attempt to be crowned kings of Melodifestivalen with new song “Road Trip”. Here they are imitating some of the kind of folks you may just see on a night out in Stockholm's yuppie district Stureplan. Perhaps.

INTERVIEW

‘My song is about resilience’: The Ukrainian in Sweden’s Mello song contest

Maria Sur, 17, arrived in Sweden in March after a journey of hundreds of kilometres through Ukraine and Poland from Zaporizhzhia, her home town. She tells The Local's Yuliia Kyzyk of what she hopes to gain from taking part in the Melodifestivalen song contest.

'My song is about resilience': The Ukrainian in Sweden's Mello song contest

THE LOCAL: After weeks of war, a long journey, and emigration to Sweden, you still found the strength to participate in charity concerts in your first month here in Sweden. Tell us about your journey to Melodifestivalen. 

Maria Sur: The next day after I arrived in Sweden from Ukraine, I started looking for opportunities to work. It was obvious that whining and suffering would not help anyone, so I had to do something that would give me strength and help other people.

Since my passion is singing, I decided to continue working on it. I literally wrote to a lot of popular Swedish singers to find a way of making my dream come true and eventually, one of them helped to take part in my first charity singing festival for Ukraine.

As a result, we collected €8 million to help Ukraine. A few days after the festival, I got spotted by Warner Music Sweden. After a meeting and talk about my goals and skills, we started cooperating with them, and after a few months of hard work, we decided to take part in Melodifestivalen.

Maria Sur had been a participant in Ukraine’s version of The Voice. Photo: Maria Sur
 
Before the start of the Russian invasion, I was already working on a singer career in Ukraine. I took part in national singing competitions, and I was quite successful. It seemed like the best time in my career was approaching. I lived, dreamed, and acted, and then one day someone just came and took it all away. Everything just broke down. And suddenly I found myself in a situation where I needed to start all over again.

Now I live for today. Now I know that no one in the whole world can know what awaits us all tomorrow. Of course, I continue to dream, it helps, but I can no longer plan, or live in illusions. And it’s scary that young people like me think this way. That we live one day at a time.

My first goal at Melodifestivalen is to do a really quality performance that I will be proud of. I want to feel after the performance, “I did everything I could. I did the best I could. It was honest. People felt it.”.

That is more important for me than results. 

Maria Sur on stage in Ukraine’s version of The Voice. Photo: The Voice Ukraine

THE LOCAL: Your song for Melodifestivalen is called “Never give up”. What is the message your song has for listeners?

Maria Sur: “Never give up” is a song about my way, about my personal fight. This is my motto. You have to go forward no matter what. This is about my experience before the war, when I fought for a long time to end up singing on a big stage in Ukraine. And this is about my road now, when despite the war, separation from relatives and home, I still go on. With this message, I want to encourage Ukrainians and everyone in the whole world who needs to know it, to continue fighting on his own path. I don’t want to be pitied or win sympathy. My song is about resilience. My story is sad, but it is about strength.

Maria Sur (centre), surrounded by the team backing her at the Swedish arm of Warner Brothers. Photo: Maria Sur
 

THE LOCAL: Russia’s full-scale invasion caught us Ukrainians sleeping. What were the first weeks of life in the new reality in Ukraine like? And how do you see your journey as a refugee shortly afterwards?

Maria Sur: I remember February 24th clearly. Early in the morning, I had online lessons at school, I was going to go to an English class, and in a few hours it became obvious that the war had started. It was very unexpected for me personally. We hadn’t had any conversations in our family about it before it happened. 

I remember very well how many people I saw panicking, at the same time air raid sirens were sounding continuously and everyone ran to the basement. My family could not believe that all those things were happening. We were convinced that everything would be over in a few days. That is why we didn’t want to leave Ukraine. 

My family always stick together. However, in two weeks it became clear. We must leave my city, Zaporizhzhia. For three days we could not pack for the journey. Whenever we attempted to do it, we sat down and cried. Eventually, Dad stayed at home, and Mom and me were forced to go. 

I remember the train station in my city at that time – huge queues, a lot of people and everyone crying, saying goodbye to each other. The trains were completely packed with children and women. It was impossible to cross the carriage of the train because of the hundreds of people inside.

My city is located in the southeast of Ukraine, so we were evacuated to Poland by travelling almost through the whole of Ukraine. It took a very long time. At the border with Poland, they did not want to let the train pass, because it was completely full of people.

So we were sent back to Lviv, a city in the west of Ukraine. Still, a few days later we got to Poland. Later in March we flew to Sweden to my aunt. 

Maria Sur is interviewed on stage by the Norwegian TV host Fredrik Skavlan. Photo: Zap Group
 

How you have changed in the months that have passed since the war started? 

Maria Sur: I have grown up very quickly. I started to appreciate things that I used to ignore. I started to support my parents and my friends. I look differently at things such as happiness. For instance, I was happy when I got the news that I had been selected for Melodifestivalen. But it was not the same joy as I felt before the war, especially since, five minutes previously, I had talked to my dad, who is now in Ukraine, and told me everything that is happening there now.

Despite everything, we must go on living. If we have this chance to live, we should take everything from it to the maximum. That’s what I’m trying to do, and that’s what I’m singing about.

Today, we must not stop talking about the war in Ukraine, we must continue to organise charity concerts, as well as make music to support people.

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