Swedish music competition
Melodifestivalen 2010 was a Swedish song contest held in February and March 2010. It was the selection for the 50th song to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest, and was the 49th edition of Melodifestivalen. Five heats were held in the Swedish cities of Örnsköldsvik, Sandviken, Gothenburg and Malmö, with Örebro hosting the final "Andra Chansen" (Second Chance) round.
After the five heats 10 songs had qualified to the final of the contest, contested in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, at the Globe Arena. After the voting of 11 juries and a public televote had been revealed, the final winner was Anna Bergendahl with the pop ballad "This Is My Life", which received top marks from the public televote, and placed 2nd in the votes of the 11 juries.
The 2010 Melodifestivalen, as with recent editions of the festival, implemented a number of new rules which changed the dynamics of the contest, including the new "web wildcard" competition, held on the SVT website from October to November 2009, selecting the final heatist from submitted entries on the SVT website.
Rules.
The current Melodifestivalen rules were first introduced in 2002 – five heats are held every year: the first four heats each with 8 songs, where the top two songs directly qualify to the final of the contest, while the third and fourth-placed songs qualify to the final heat, the "Andra Chansen" (Second Chance) round. Eight songs compete in the Second Chance round, competing in a knock-out format until two songs are left, which qualify to the final. These songs are chosen by a public televote held on the night of the contest. The final consisted of 10 songs, who are awarded marks by 11 regional juries of Sweden, alongside televoting, with each comprising 50% of the total result.
28 songs are selected from a public call for songs by SVT. These are chosen from a large number of entries, with over 3000 entries being received by SVT in past contests. These songs are reduced by the Swedish Music Publishers Association ("Svenska musikförläggareföreningen"; SMFF), who reduce this large number to around 1200 entries. A sixteen-person jury reduce this number once again to the final 28 competing songs. These 28 songs are then joined by compositions by four songwriters invited by SVT, who each submit a song into the competition.
For the 2010 contest SVT decided to change parts of the format. The duels during the heats introduced in 2008 were abolished. The single "international jury" used in 2009, which selected an 11th finalist and voted during the final as a 12th jury, was also abolished. This was replaced by a complete change in the jury voting during the final - instead of 11 regional juries there would be 6 international juries in Russia, Ireland, Norway, Greece, Serbia and France voting on the 10 finalists along with 5 Swedish juries in Luleå, Umeå, Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholm.
Details.
Six different cities hosted the six shows of Melodifestivalen, revealed on 27 August 2009. The opening heat was held at the Fjällräven Center in Örnsköldsvik; further heats were held in Sandviken's Göransson Arena, the first time the city has hosted a Melodifestivalen heat, the Scandinavium in Gothenburg and the Malmö Arena in Malmö. The Second Chance round was in Örebro's Conventum Arena, while the grand final would be held once again at Globen in Stockholm. There were plans to hold the 2010 final in Gothenburg, however as hockey matches clashed with the date of the final it was necessary to hold the final in Stockholm for the ninth consecutive year.
The dates for the six shows were announced at the same time, with the first heat held on 6 February 2010, with the final of the contest held on 13 March, over six weeks.
This year's contest was hosted by a trio: comedian Christine Meltzer, three-time Melodifestivalen participant and Eurovision winner in 2015 in Vienna, Måns Zelmerlöw, and actor Dolph Lundgren. The three hosts were revealed at a press conference by SVT on 10 November.
Visual design.
The Melodifestivalen logo for the Contest, the five spotlights, has been in place since 2002, and remained in use for the 2010 Contest. The first details of the 2010 stage were released on 28 January. For the fourth time, the set was designed by Viktor Brattström, with the intention to provide the feeling of a club environment: "This year we can present a scene that should evoke the idea of an exclusive club environment. Levels and stairs offers artists the opportunity for action and linking the stage into a place of celebration."
The stage uses different height to allow the artists to use the stage most effectively to create their own number, and extensive use of LED screens to create different moods.
Entries.
32 songs competed in Melodifestivalen 2010. 27 of them were selected from a public call for songs, in which public songwriters and artists could send in songs to SVT, until 22 September 2009. Five songs were selected to compete in the contest as wildcards: SVT internally selected four songwriting teams and artists to compete in the contest, to diversify the musical quality of the competition; a final song was selected through a "web wildcard" competition, with the Swedish public selecting one song by an unknown act to progress to the heats.
Wildcards.
As since 2004 SVT has specially invited four artists and composers to compete in Melodifestivalen, in order to diversify the musical qualify of the contest. As well as this the 2010 contest introduced a "web wildcard" competition, in which songwriters who were not linked to any record companies could publish compositions over two weeks in September and October 2009 on SVT Melodifestivalen website. The winner of the web wildcard was selected by the Swedish public through SMS voting, with the song that received the most votes by 12 November competing in the televised heats.
The first wildcard competing in Melodifestivalen 2010 was revealed by SVT on 3 November 2009, with Darin selected by SVT to perform in the contest with the song "Out Of My Life", written by Tony Nilsson and Henrik Jansson. SVT revealed the winner of the web wildcard contest on 12 November 2009 on SVT's morning news programme "Gomorron Sverige". The winning song was "Come And Get Me Now", performed by MiSt. On 5 December MiST and Melodifestivalen's producer Christer Björkman approached the band Highlights, a participant in the "Dansbandskampen" competition, to join MiSt on stage in Melodifestivalen, which they accepted.
On 16 November 2009, Salem Al Fakir was announced as the second wildcard participant, and it was announced he would take part with the song "Keep on Walking", which he wrote and composed himself. SVT revealed the third wildcard for MF 2010 on 3 December 2009: Peter Jöback was selected by SVT to compete in the competition, where he would sing "Hollow", composed by Anders Hansson and Fredrik Kempe.
SVT's fourth and final wildcard was announced on 7 January 2010. Soul singer Pauline Kamusewu would compete in the second semifinal of Melodifestivalen with the song "Sucker for Love", written by herself and Fredrik "Fredro" Ödesjö, Andreas Levander and Johan "Jones" Wetterberg.
Web wildcard.
The first web wildcard contest for Melodifestivalen was held from September to November 2009. This allowed new promising talents a new way to enter Melodifestivalen instead of through the regular public submission process, in which amateur musicians rarely succeeded. Musicians who didn't have or had never had any contract with a music publishing house or never had any of their work published could enter songs onto SVT's Melodifestivalen website from 21 September to 4 October. From 14 October to 12 November 2009, the qualifying songs were voted for by SMS voting in Sweden, with the winning song being decided on 12 November 2009
246 songs were submitted for the web wildcard, with 180 selected to compete in the competition, after disqualifying those that did not meet the rules of the contest. Over the following weeks the bottom songs in the public SMS vote were eliminated from the contest, leaving 10 songs left:
On 4 November the top ten songs were announced by SVT. Each day, until 11 November 2009, one song was eliminated from the competition, with only three songs left. The winner was announced on 12 November at 8:45 am on SVT's morning news programme "Gomorron Sverige", with the duo MiSt (Mia Terngård &amp; Stefan Lebert) winning the contest with the song was "Come and Get Me Now".
Disqualified songs.
On 14 October 2009 SVT revealed the first 27 entries which the jury had selected, of a total of 2860 submissions to the contest. However, on 15 October 2009, it was announced that "Never Heard of Him", composed by Figge Boström and Anna Engh, was disqualified after it appeared briefly on Figge Boström's MySpace page. The song was replaced on 20 October 2009 by "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot", written by Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson and Tim Larsson.
On 27 November 2009, the song "Åt helvete för sent" was disqualified by the public broadcaster of Sweden, SVT, because the decision on the artist to perform it (Rikard Wolff, Sara Löfgren or Mathias Holmgren) was being obstructed by the team responsible for the song.
The entry to replace the disqualified song was the song "The Saviour" by Henrik Janson and Tony Nilsson.
Heats.
The heats were held this year in Örnsköldsvik, Sandviken, Gothenburg and Malmö. SVT released 13 artists on 30 November 2009 which performed in the first and the second heat. On 7 December 2009 a further 14 entries were released, who competed in the third and fourth heats.
SVT announced the running order for the heats on 8 January 2010. Ola Svensson opened the contest in the first heat, and wildcard Peter Jöback closed the heats at the fourth heat.
New voting measures in the heats were implemented, with the song receiving the most votes in the first round automatically qualifying to the final, skipping the second round. The remaining top 4 battled again for a place in the final and "Andra Chansen" round - the 2nd placed song qualifying to the final, and the 3rd and 4th placed songs progressing to "Andra Chansen".
Heat 1.
The first heat was held on 6 February 2010 in Fjällräven Center, Örnsköldsvik. One minute clips of the eight competing songs were released by SVT on 5 February.
The first heat began with a performance by former Melodifestivalen contestants Charlotte Perrelli, Nanne Grönvall and Sonja Aldén of the Bonnie Tyler song "Holding Out for a Hero".
The first performance of the night was by "Andra Chansen" participant in Melodifestivalen 2008 Ola Svensson, and his song "Unstoppable", an uptempo Europop song. Ola, dressed in casual clothes, was joined by a pianist, and gave a simple performance with effective use of light movement, and later using pyrotechnics. Jenny Silver was next on stage, performing her slow-tempo electronic number "A Place to Stay". Silver was dressed in a golden corset and a single steel glove on her left arm, and performed alone on stage to flashing lights in the background. Linda Pritchard performed her song "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot", a strong dance number, next on stage. Pritchard was joined on stage by six female backing dancers, with dancing typically being an integral part of her stage performance. Metal band Pain of Salvation was next on stage, performing "Road Salt", a slow rock song. The band was dressed in casual clothes and gave a minimalist performance, with only lead vocals and keyboard performing and the remaining band members not playing.
The fifth act to take the stage in Örnsköldsvik was Anders Ekborg and "The Saviour", with an operatic and theatrical beginning, later turning more rock-ish. Ekborg, dressed in a suit, was joined by six female backing singers/dancers. Jessica Andersson, who represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 as a member of Fame next took the stage with "I Did It for Love", a strong ballad. Andersson performed alone on stage in a navy dress, and the song builds to a large climax during the choruses, before ending slowly. The penultimate act was Frispråkarn and his hip-hop/rap song "Singel" (Single), the first song performed in Swedish in the contest, joined on stage by six female backing dancers/singers in black dresses. The final act on stage was wildcard entry Salem Al Fakir and his song "Keep on Walking". Al Fakir performed alone on stage playing from a grand piano, dressed in a grey suit, with changing