the Swedish iTunes top ten featured nine
Melodifestivalen tunes, with Sean Banan’s
Copacabana
at the top. The song might be
described as a Swedish
Gangnam Style
,
a
catchy comedy rap with a little less satire
and dancing skill.
Only Robin Stjernberg, alas, will be on
stage when the Eurovision final comes
to Malmö in May, and more than 125
million viewers around the world will tune
in (Eurovision is said to be the world’s
most-watched non-sporting event). Jan-
Erik Westman, a spokesperson for host
broadcaster SVT, tells us why the town was
chosen in the first place: “It’s a smaller
city. We wanted to scale the event down
and make it more intimate, so that you get
that Eurovision feeling in the whole city,”
he says. “We also chose Malmö because
there are more than 160 nationalities in the
city and Eurovision is really about getting
people together and building bridges
between cultures. We wanted to take it
back to the philosophy that existed in the
1950
s.” Whatever the philosophy, Sweden
will be watching in large numbers.
The Eurovision semi-finals and finals take
place in Malmö on the 14, 16 and 18 May
eurovision.tv
Norwegian flies to Malmö from Stockholm,
or it’s a short train ride from Copenhagen
Sweden’s
five key
Eurovision
moments
The first one
Sweden made its debut
in the competition in
1958,
when singer-actor
Alice Babs came fourth
for
Lilla stjärna
.
The
song is the only Swedish
entry ever not to be
chosen through the
Melodifestivalen, which
started in 1959 – it was
chosen by Sveriges
Radio.
The last one
Malmö is hosting
Eurovision 2013 because
Swede Loreen won last
year’s competition in
Baku, Azerbaijan, with
her catchy hit
Euphoria
–
and a new
record of 18 maximum
scores.
The four
other wins...
...
were Charlotte Perelli
(
then Charlotte Nilsson)
in 1999 with
Take Me to
Your Heaven
,
Carola’s
Fångad
Av En Stormvind
(1991),
Diggi-loo Diggy-
ley
by Herrey’s (1984)
and, of course, Abba’s
Waterloo
,
in 1974.
Abba
In a 2005 show to
celebrate 50 years of the
Eurovision Song Contest,
Waterloo
was voted the
best Eurovision entry
ever.
And the
bad ones...
Sweden’s worst showing
came in 1992 with
Christer Björkmann’s
I Morgon är En Annan
Dag
,
which came 22nd.
The country boycotted
the contest in 1970 over
voting procedures and
didn’t progress beyond
the semi-finals in 2010
–
the first time that
Sweden hadn’t appeared
in a final since back
in 1976.
1984
champions
Herrey’s, three
Mormon brothers
who were Sweden’s
bestselling pop group
in the 1980s, and
ahead of the trend-
curve when it came to
New Balance trainers
n
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