The swedish selection Melodifestivalen is ready to kick off with it’s first semifinal at Saturday the 6th February, 20:00 CET. The scene will be the northern town of Örnsköldsvik. The criticised voting system used last year has gone through some important changes. We also have the reactions from the audience after the first public rehearsal.
The system used last year was criticised by many viewers for being too
complex to understand. Especially the duel system was criticized.
Melodifestivalen 2010 involves the following changes to the rules:
– The duels in the semifinals has been removed (The duels involved the four most voted songs who had to face each other in two separate pairs where the winner of each duel won a place in the final).
– The twelve jury groups has been reduced to eleven.
– Last year the jury consisted of 11 swedish regional jurygroups and 1 interantional jurygroup. This year there will be 6 european jurygroups (2 each from western, eastern, and south europe) and 5 regional jurygroups (Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Umeå and Luleå). Each jury consists of five members.
– The song with most votes in the first round will qualify directly to the final in Globen. This means that we will know which entry that received the most votes in the first round (the number of votes will still be reveald first after the final).
– A second round of voting will open for the four entries with most votes (after the winner) after the first round. The winner of the second round will take the 2nd slot in the final while nr 3 and 4 will go to the second chance round and nr 5 will be out.
– The final will consist of 10 entries (which was not the case in 2009 where 11 entries was competing in the final).
The starting field:
1 – Ola Svensson – "Unstoppable"
Text & Music by Dimitri Stassos, Hanif Sabzevari, Alexander Kronlund & Ola Svensson
2 – Jenny Silver – "A Place To Stay"
Text & Music by Torben Hedlund
3 – Linda Pritchard – "You’re Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot"
Text & Music by Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson & Tim Larsson
4 – Pain of Salvation – "Road Salt"
Text & Music by Daniel Gildenlöw
5 – Anders Ekborg – "The Saviour"
Text & Music by Henrik Janson & Tony Nilsson
6 – Jessica Andersson – "I Did It For Love"
Music by Lars "Dille" Diedricson, Texy by Kristian Wejshag
7 – Frispråkarn – "Singel"
Music by Hamed K-One Pirouzpanah, Text by Håkan Bäckman (t)
8 – Salem Al Fakir – "Keep On Walking"
Text & Music by Salem Al Fakir
Surveys done by Melodifestivalklubben (OGAE Sweden) & Poplight right after the first rehearsal indicates that Ola was the clear favourite of the audience. Salem Al Fakir, Jessica Andersson and Linda Pritchard are all close to each others for places 2 to 4.
