Last Saturday we decided on the last two performances to send to the finale next week. As you might have understood by now, each elimination round has sent two songs directly to the finale, two songs have gotten a Second Chance and four songs have been eliminated. Two days ago the Second Chance was given to the eight performances who still had a shot at a place in the finale.
This is perhaps my least favorite part of the Swedish Melody Festival. It feels a bit redundant. If you came, at best, in third place in your elimination round, what makes you believe that you will have a chance at winning the finale. But regardless of me disliking this part of the competition, I obviously have opinions about the results.
This part of the competition is much different from the previous weeks. Up until now, it has been simple voting that have determined the faith of the contestants. However, in yesterday's round, the contestants were competing head-to-head, in duels. According to a pre-set tournament scheme, two songs would be crowned the winners and be given a pass to the finale next week.
I'm not going to explain the rules in more detail, let me head straight to the results.
First of all, with the elimination procedure shown above, there is always the chance that your two favorites will end up in the same quater-final group. Of course this was true in my case. But before I tell you about the winners, let me start at the beginning.
The first duel was between Jenny Silver and Love Generation. If you want to know more about any specific performances and songs, please refere to my blog-posts from previous weeks. In this duel, I didn't really have an preferences. Both of them were super generic in their own ways and we already have similar kind of music in the finale. If I forced myself to have an opinion, it would have been Jenny Silver. The Swedish people preferred Love Generation.
The second duel was more interesting. It was between Loreen and Sara Varga. I definitely hoped Loreen would go on to the next round, but I should have learnt by now not to care too much, I tend to get disappointed. And yes, I was disappointed yet again. Sara Varga survived and Loreen was eliminated.
The third duel was between The Moniker and Linda Pritchard. It was painful to watch. They were my favorites performances of all the ones who got a second chance. Unfortunately, they had to cancel each other out. However, I did have a favorite. Considering that I wanted The Moniker to go straight to the finale from his elimination round, I obviously hope for his success. This time it wasn't in vain, he did survive the first round of duels.
The fourth and last duel was between Shirley's Angels and Pernilla Andersson. I wasn't too passionately involved in this duel. I like all the artists performing, but none of the songs did anything for me. I was leaning towards Shirley's Angels, but given the shear joy and surprise on Pernilla Andersson's face, when they announced her as the winner of the duel, it made me happy that she won this duel.
Semi-finals. The first semi-final was between Love Generation and Sara Varga. It was difficult for me to be happy about the outcome, regardless of what it would be. I really didn't care much about Love Generation and Sara Varga disturbed me as an artist. Her songs is actually ok, but she is very "plastic-fantastic" and looks very shallow. But for the sake of having a good mix in the finale, I guess I preferred Sara Varga. And as it turned out, I will see more of her in next week's finale.
The Second semi-final was much more interesting. If the other semi-final was between pretty, young ladies with perfect hair and make-up, this semi-final was much more down to earth. Both The Moniker and Pernilla Andersson seemed genuinely nervous and you could see in their faces that they really cared. While they were busy being nervous, I was busy crossing all my fingers, hoping for The Monikers success. And HURRAY, he will be competing in the finale!
Next week is the final showdown. Who will be representing Sweden in 2011s Eurovision Songcontest? I'm pretty sure I already know the answer. But more about that in my next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment