Swedish Schlager
The Swedes are big into schlager music. I would describe schlager as overdone pop songs that almost seem like they were made more for a musical than for radio. After I gave this explanation to someone, a friend laughed and pointed out that the most famous Swedish schlager group is ABBA.
Last night was the Eurovision song contest. I'll explain this in a minute but first I'm going to back up.
Leading up to last night, Sweden had Melodifestivalen. Basically, a person or group performs an original song on live television and then viewers vote for their favorites, American Idol style. Actually several of the entries were from former Swedish Idol contestants. I don't know how many entries they started with but it went on for a couple of months - with first rounds, quarter finals, semifinals, etc. I caught bits and pieces of some of these. Most of the songs were schlager - and super catchy in that you only need to hear the chorus once or twice and it's stuck in your head. The ones that made the final round are also continuously played on the radio, in commericals, in shopping malls, everywhere. I could sing the chorus to at least a dozen of these (and parts of verses of some of the ones in English) right now, if I had to. The winner of the Swedish Melodifestivalen was a song called "The Worrying Kind" by The Ark. Here's a YouTube video of it, if you're interested.
Last night was the Eurovision song contest. I'll explain this in a minute but first I'm going to back up.
Leading up to last night, Sweden had Melodifestivalen. Basically, a person or group performs an original song on live television and then viewers vote for their favorites, American Idol style. Actually several of the entries were from former Swedish Idol contestants. I don't know how many entries they started with but it went on for a couple of months - with first rounds, quarter finals, semifinals, etc. I caught bits and pieces of some of these. Most of the songs were schlager - and super catchy in that you only need to hear the chorus once or twice and it's stuck in your head. The ones that made the final round are also continuously played on the radio, in commericals, in shopping malls, everywhere. I could sing the chorus to at least a dozen of these (and parts of verses of some of the ones in English) right now, if I had to. The winner of the Swedish Melodifestivalen was a song called "The Worrying Kind" by The Ark. Here's a YouTube video of it, if you're interested.
This song was Sweden's entry into Eurovision. I think there are somewhere around 50 countries that have entries. Over the past week this has been cut down to 24 finalists, which performed last night. This is huge here - it's the longest running tv show (over 50 years) and it draws the largest tv audience (excluding sporting events) in Europe. Previous winners include ABBA (Sweden; mid-70s) and Celine Dion (Switzerland; late 80s). It was interesting to watch. Some the acts were just horrible - whether it be lack of talent or really cheese factor. Others were entertaining. Sweden was picked to be a favorite but ended up finishing in 18th place. Serbia won - and, in my opinion, deserved to. The Ukranian song came in 2nd and it was one of the most entertaining, in a weird sort of way.
posted by Kim at
6:17 AM
1 Comments:
My Irish choir director used to tell us about Eurovision all the time...apparently it's HUGE all over Europe. Funny that most Americans have never heard of it, though.
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Anonymous, at 12:34 PM
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