(photo: Stina Stjernkvist)
What’s all this then? Last night, as well as the regular Andra Chansen round of Melodifestivalen (and you can find the results right here), SVT offered us an extended show to present the newly opened Melodifestivalen Hall of Fame.
And what does that entail? In its first year, 2020, 48 inductees have been selected, and last night the prizes were presented to each of them (not all of them showed up, but all were announced). And every year from now, a further six will be inducted annually. The list of the 48 inductees from last night can be found right here.
So it was an awards ceremony? Basically. With some special performances thrown in, and then an extra-special medley performance.
Ok gimme. So then, we had;
Lill Lindfors performing her 1966 Eurovision entry ‘Nygammal Vals’ as a duet with Måns Zelmerlöw. WATCH.
Towa Carson, Siw Malmkvist and Ann-Louise Hanson performing a medley of some of their own individual Melodifestivalen entries, as well as the schlager classic they entered together in 2004, ‘C’est La Vie’. WATCH.
Björn Skifs and Tomas Ledin performing together for the first time ever – again, a medley of some of their Melodifestivalen songs. WATCH.
THEN we had the excellent Hall of Fame Medley, in which we got to see:
Agnetha Munther from Family Four perform ‘Vita Vidder’ together with Andreas Johnson, David Sundin and Linnea Henriksson;
Andreas Johnson perform ‘Sing For Me’;
Anna Book perform ‘ABC’;
After Dark perform ‘La Dolce Vita’;
Cecilia Vennersten perform ‘Det Vackraste’;
Claes Göran Hederström perform ‘Det Börjar Verka Kärlek’;
Ann-Christine Bärnsten perform ‘Ska Vi Plocka Körsbär’;
Kikki Danielsson perform ‘Bra Vibrationer’;
and Alcazar perform ‘Stay The Night’.
WATCH.
And then we had Loreen. Who showed up, along with all of the other icons celebrating their songs in the history of the contest, and decided to use the opportunity to showcase how she had moved on; how beneath her all of this was; and how, despite the fact that she’s never had a hit song outside of the context of the contest, she’d rather pretend that those songs never happened. We would have expected that had we been watching a concert or performance of her own – as she’s made it very clear in recent years that she has moved on as an artist, and so she should, and so does she have every right to. But to show up to a celebration of the history of Melodifestivalen, alongside every other artist, each of whom was getting into the spirit of things accordingly, and perform whatever *that* was, was just a little bit distasteful. Not to mention quite disrespectiful – to all of the other artists who showed up last night, but who weren’t granted a performance slot, and who would have loved to have been given the opportunity to perform their Melodifestivalen hits on the Melodifestivalen stage one more time. Truly baffling. You can watch it here if you so wish. SVT, clearly feeling the need to defend it, have titled it as being a mash-up of her three Melodifestivalen songs. But it’s nothing of the sort. It’s all style, not a lot of musical substance, and absolutely in zero way connected to the history of Melodifestivalen. Very disappointing.