Saturday, 16 March 2019

SWEDEN

The Swedish Final was held on March 9th at the Friends Arena in Solna, hosted by Marika Carlsson, Sarah Dawn Finer, Eric Saade & Kodjo Akolor. Before the final there were 4 heats and a second chance round. The winner was chosen by 8 international juries (50%) & a public vote (50%). The public vote consisted of a mobile phone app votes (7/8) & televoting (1/8). The winning singer was John Lundvik with the song “Too late for love”

John is alone on stage with a rectangular array of light above his head. This moves around and shines and pulsates in different ways whilst he is singing on his own, otherwise there are yellow and blue lights strobing on the background and from above. He is dressed in black, as are his backing singers who come on later, and there are very few distractions on stage. It is almost like the lack of staging puts the emphasis on the song! There is some choreography, of sorts, during the verses but is more free form in the chorus.

The song is an mid-tempo pop song with a very defined beat and a gospel feel. The start is very low key and has just a piano backing. During the bridge, which cleverly repeats the name of the song before it gets to the chorus proper, the piano starts to create the beginnings of a beat and the crowd starts to join in. For the first part of the chorus the beat drops out again but comes back in for the second part. This beat then threads through the second verse and pre-chorus and during the chorus the backing singers appear (although they have been very audible up to now) and makes for a very different kind of culmination to the song. Their interaction with each other and John looks totally genuine. There is then one final chorus but this time John starts off singing it in a falsetto then returns to his normal range, then the backing singers take control of the rest of the song whilst John does some vocal gymnastics and ends with a final ‘is it’ which feels a bit of an odd ending but does make you want to say the rest of the line, which just happens to be the title of the song.

This is very much a feel good song and the ensemble setting of the song really makes it feel like a happy and uniting 3 minutes. It is a very welcome departure from the gimmicky and over choreographed numbers Sweden has sent for the last few years – and one could even add Heroes and Euphoria to that list too. The entire thing is quite wholesome in many ways and although the lyrics of the song are somewhat ambiguous as to how the question is actually answered the song’s personality is joyful.
The song's unique SP should be easily enough to get it into the final and not only will this appeal to juries, but is one of the few songs this year I can actively see people picking up the telephone for. Sweden is the songwriting and song production capital of Europe, if not the world, and this really shows it. Can they win again? Yes.

ARTIST –  John Lundvik
SONG –  Too late for love
MUSIC -  John Lundvik, Anderz Wrethov, Andreas “Stone” Johansson
LYRICS - John Lundvik, Anderz Wrethov, Andreas “Stone” Johansson


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