Many debutants and also some experienced names can be found in heat 1 and 2 of Melodifestivalen 2013 that was announced by SVT today. Maybe not the strongest field we’ve eveer seen but still not that weak either. And even without the really big names, is it still possible to find a winner in any of the first two heats?
Among the more credible names in the lineup to Melodifestivalen 2013 we find the award winning and by critics praised name Anna Järvinen who was supposed to take part in 2012 with the song Porslin but was replaced David Lindgren with the song Shout it out for unknown reasons. Now she is back with the same song. David is also back after enjoying great success with his fourth placed song. The song was a radio hit after the contest and the relative unknown David is now somewhat of a beforehand favourite in the first heat. A breakthrough one year does however not automatically mean success again the following year, The Moniker for example who quite sensational came 3rd in 2011 was came last in the first semi in 2012.
Rikard Wolff is a well known name in Sweden and belongs to the category of older debutants while 17-year old Yohio is a more unknown name despite having made himself a well known name in Japan. Anton Ewald is a name unknown to most swedes but it looks like he could turn out to be this years Eric Saade with both having the looks and backed up by a song written by Fredrik Kempe. An intersting debutant is Joacim Cans who is lead singer in the heavy metal-band Hammerfall, now we can expect to hear something completely different from his great vocal voice than what many are used to. In the second heat we also find the fields most experienced MF-veterans in Pernilla Wahlgren, Jenny Silver and Hanna Heldund. However they will not be seen as favourites, intead that honour could possibly go to Erik Segerstedt & Tone Damli in what looks like a strong second heat.
One of the songwriters behind Louise Hoffstens song is Stefan Örn. He was one of the composers behind Azerbaijans winning song in 2011 Running Scared and he also was one of the songwriters to the entry of Azerbaijan 2010 Drip Drop. Seeing him enter Melodifestivalen is quite remarkable since he earlier this year made a statement that e would never put his foot in the competition. The criticism was mainly towards Björn Ranelid and Sean Banans participation which he meant was as a joke against all the "serious" songwriters. Sean Banan will now be in the same heat as Stefans song which could be a bit of a battle of presitge for the later.
So is it possible that the winner could be in one of the first two heats? If we look at the past 11 years with the current semifinal system there is only one winner who came from the first heat – Loreen with Euphoria in 2012. In the second heat we had three winners – Afrodite with Never Let It Go in 2002, Fame with Give Me Your Love in 2003 and The Arks The Worrying Kind in 2007.
Many are those who probably will look for a winner in the third or fourth heat since there are not big enough names in the first two ones. Especially the first heat lacks well known names but remember that Loreen was far from being an obvious winner before the first heat of 2012, so just anything could happen.
