Moopyvision 2000-2009: Round 1 - Sweden, UK & Macedonia RESULTS

Never Let It Go is probably one of the most important Eurovision entries of all time. In a contest still dominated by women shouting ballads, it was a significant surge forward in bringing contemporary pop music to the main stage. There is an urgency to it that instructs its listener to keep on dancing, even when the chips are down. And in a post 9/11 landscape, it proved more poignant than ever.
 
7th: Friends - Listen To Your Heartbeat (101 points)
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You really never do see that brand of red leather ensemble anymore, do you...

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Moopy Melodifestivalen 00-09 Runners Up Survivor fifth placers/fourth alternates Friends found themselves wondering HOW on earth they could follow up trad schlager epic När jag tänkar på imorgon after that lost out on the ticket to Globen in 2000, and naturally - back when this was the shortcut to such things in Sweden - landed on the answer 'do something ABBA-y on autopilot', got themselves the ticket to Copenhagen, and finished 5th (back when 'something ABBA-y on autopilot' was the shortcut to such things at Eurovision). Alas, someone in Belgium had had the near-exact same idea six years before, and novice Melodifestivalen songwriter Thomas G:son found himself handing over a payload of cash after the matter got taken to court. He wouldn't find himself making the same mistake so blatantly again in the future...

Anyway, I can't say it's one I find hugely inspiring when it comes to Sweden at Eurovision, though lord knows it was a port in a storm in that hideous year. Moopy seems to agree, with middling to lukewarm scores being the order of the day here. Onwards!

4 x 8 (Ill Advised, auretz, David 5000, win the game)
1 x 1 (Tisch)
 
I love the Afro-dite song - but ultimately there is better on offer here

I mean as a pure rush of joy though, it's a TONIC, and still too low.

I can't see how anyone can get more enjoyment from Greta's mum than this
 
Nina och Kim (who cares about the boys?) still loving life and serving HR staff having a Friday night post-work tipple realness.

 
Listen to Your Heartbeat is fun, but if you were asked to envision the platonic ideal of the average Swedish Eurovision entry of the 00s, that would pretty much be it.
 
Listen To Your Heartbeat is probably one of the most important Eurovision entries of all time. In a contest still dominated by women shouting ballads, it was a significant surge forward in bringing contemporary pop music to the main stage. There is an urgency to it that instructs its listener to keep on dancing, even when the chips are down. And in a post 9/11 landscape, it proved more poignant than eve
 
6th: Malena Ernman - La voix (104 points)
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:greta:

La Voix is probably one of the most important Eurovision entries of all time. In a contest still dominated by women shouting ballads, it was a significant surge forward in bringing contemporary pop music to the main stage. There is an urgency to it that instructs its listener to keep on dancing, even when the chips are down. And in a post 'Dima Bilan winning Eurovision' landscape, it proved more poignant than ever

Probably the clearest example of a trend that started to sink Sweden towards the end of the decade (with the exception of Charlotte Perrelli's record-breaking victory in 2008) of Melodifestivalen winners not really managing to translate to the Eurovision main stage. What was an OMG/10 money note moment with six backing dancers and the aid of a backing tape for backing vocals rounding out a glittering Melodifestivalen final in Globen in March turned out to be a bit forgettable performing from fourth limited to just five backing dancers that also had to double up as backing singers. Little surprise that the sound wasn't quite so stunning to all viewers the second time around and Malena ended up giving the Swedes their worst result of the decade. Still, worse was yet to follow and a big rethink of the approach Melodifestivalen winners took to the contest was just around the corner...

2 x 8 (ButterTart, wurst)
1 x 0 (Zu 2)
 
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La Voix isn't something I go back to all that much, but it was of course GREAT FUN at Melfest 2009 and Malena is truly a gift to the world.

Just a shame it probably siphoned so many gay votes away from Alcazar.
 
I might give Malena's one and only pop album a proper spin actually (Disc one only, naturally). It really is QUITE ludicrous :disco:

 
See I'm not familiar with the melodifestivalen set up, but La Voix definitely seemed like a total misstep - almost borderline "chuck gimmicks in a pan and see what COOKS UP" that feels below Sweden. I have no problem with her of course and it's still NOT BAD all told
 
5th: Fame - Give Me Your Love (107 points)
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SCREAMING at the state of Magnus on this CD cover! :D

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Hot on the heels of Friends (more or less Sweden's equivalent of Hear'Say), Magnus Bäcklund and future NATIONAL SWEETHEART Jessica Andersson were the top two on the first Swedish series of Fame Factory, the Scandinavian answer to Fame Academy, beating out future Melodifestivalen hitmakers Andres Esteche and David Lindgren (and future Melodifestvialen soylent green byproduct Mathias Holmgren). With slightly more appeal than a team-up of David Sneddon and Alex Parks would've probably implied here, the two were paired up and duly sent on their way to Melodifestivalen, hot on the heels of its increased popularity following the format revamp the year before, and triumphed over one of the more formidable (or at least gay-friendly) final line-ups the contest has given us to get the ticket to Riga that year.

The song itself fervently following the same Poundland ABBA template as Friends two years before, with a bit more of a countryfied twist (and to be fair, an absolutely stonking lead into its key change), almost as if by script it obviously finished 5th. I can't say it's one I go back to much but it was surprisingly more popular than I'd given it credit on here, scraping together a few bronze and silvers from Moopy's raters.

1 x 10 (win the game)
2 x 1 (David 5000, ZenGiraffe)
 
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Magnus Båcklund appears to have left showbiz behind and his insta is private.

Jessica of course remains Sweden's NATIONAL SWEETHEART

 
5th: Fame - Give Me Your Love (107 points)
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SCREAMING at the state of Magnus on this CD cover! :D

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Like Gillian Taylforth and a slightly more lesbianified H from Steps duet

2003 was so strong but this strangely held its own. I doubt the Friends song would have done had it been this year instead, there's just something more euphoric and elevated about Give Me Your Love
 
4th: Roger Pontare - When Spirits Are Calling My Name (133 points)
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Winning the REAL PRIZE here - of who'd nab fourth behind the schlagerqueens - SYPHILITIC OLD RODGE manages to coast in pretty comfortably ahead of the rest, a clear 26 points past Fame.

This one has the benighted title of being the first Eurovision entry to truly MESMER a young Penelope en route to making me a lifer, a big, dramatic, tribal jojkrock-musical theatre stomper that went down an absolute storm with the home audience and garnered a very respectable top ten entry. Mad old Rodge came back a few times after this to Melodifestivalen with Queenesque banger Silverland and...the less banging Himmel och hav, but really, you can imagine him doing a lot with some of the entries we've had in the contest proper since (just IMAGINE if we'd had his level of WILD COMMITMENT on Higher Ground!)

Probably the platonic ideal of a host entry, I'm a little surprised this isn't a furrow the Swedes go back to a little more often. It suits them well!

2 x 12 (ButterTart, dmlaw)
1 x 1 (Kratz - RACIST!)
 
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It's a brilliant song and all round piece and definitely better than at least one of the remaining schlager ladies' efforts.
 
3rd: Lena Philipsson - It Hurts (185 points)
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The first of the schlager holy trinity to fall. One of my favourite little runners throughout the voting was that basically everyone (aside from those with the TRUE FAITH) took the approach to Carola, Charlotte and Lena of a failed threesome where two of them ganged up on one and ordered them to leave, giving a 12 and 10 to two and a 4/5 to the other :D Alas, Lena was the one who tended to lose out most from this dynamic.

Lena - a woman almost certainly no stranger to a threesome herself - had a much more successful time of it entering Melodifestivalen in 2004, near-single-handedly taking the popularity of the revamped Melodifestivalen to the next level with this track in its original form, Det gör ont, coasting through the contest to deliver it its own Spinning Around cougar career revival moment with a pair of thigh-high boots, a banger of a track, a simple but memorable microphone stand gimmick and enough performing chops to sink a ship (if you'll excuse the impoliteness about a pre-Weight Watchers Shirley Clamp).

Naturally, not wandering too far from the post-Heaven Swedish formula, it finished up fifth - despite the yelps of horrified gays complaining that the English translation had nothing on the lyrics of the Swedish original. Though frankly, I think they PROTEST TOO MUCH given she at least had the decency to throw in some anal sex connotations to the translation for the bargain. HEATHENS!

4 x 12 (Kratz, Ag, Ill Advised, wurst)
1 x 2 (David 5000)
 
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If your Eurovision evening does not feature someone dressed in fuschia yelping “Ow, it hurts” you are doing it wrong.
 
4th: Roger Pontare - When Spirits Are Calling My Name (133 points)
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Winning the REAL PRIZE here - of who'd nab fourth behind the schlagerqueens - SYPHILITIC OLD RODGE manages to coast in pretty comfortably ahead of the rest, a clear 26 points past Fame.

This one has the benighted title of being the first Eurovision entry to truly MESMER a young Penelope en route to making me a lifer, a big, dramatic, tribal jojkrock-musical theatre stomper that went down an absolute storm with the home audience and garnered a very respectable top ten entry. Mad old Rodge came back a few times after this to Melodifestivalen with Queenesque banger Silverland and...the less banging Himmel och hav, but really, you can imagine him doing a lot with some of the entries we've had in the contest proper since (just IMAGINE if we'd had his level of WILD COMMITMENT on Higher Ground!) Probably the platonic ideal of a host entry, I'm a little surprised this isn't a furrow the Swedes go back to a little more often. It suits them well!

2 x 12 (ButterTart, dmlaw)
1 x 1 (Kratz - RACIST!)
Father of one of these, moderately successful ASFM entries

 
2nd: Carola - Invincible (212 points)
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Where one goes, the others follow...

In the wake of Lena's career revival in 2004 - scoring herself as number one hit and number one album in the process - other 80s icons decided to get in on the game too, with Nanne Grönvall scoring the biggest hit of her career and only barely missing out on the Eurovision ticket with Håll om mig the year after. And so of course, the nation's biggest 80s icon of all (Främling being the biggest selling album of all time in Sweden), twice-Eurovision entrant and part-time skeksis Carol Hagbits SAW HER OPENING

Practically deciding the result of that year's Melodifestivalen the second her name was announced, schlager odyssey Evighet went into the contest with sky-high expectations and somehow managed to meet them all, sending gays, flag manufacturers and audience members into fits of ecstasy on its debut (literally - my favourite part of this performance is probably the random audience members erupting in SPONTANEOUS RAPTURE throughout :D)




Naturally, everything else was left mulch in its wake. Lena - in perfect poetry, hosting the contest that year - summed up the expectation asking a dead-eyed Carola in the final if she'd already booked her hotel in Athens. And so it followed. Sadly, on arrival she was beaten out by the only other flesh-eating monsters entering that year's contest. The evil being defeated, she was exiled back to Sweden forevermore :(

6 x 12 (Madison, win the game, Broomhelga, Pingu, Soldi, Zu 2)
2 x 4 (Kratz, ButterTart - LOCK YOUR DOORS AND STOCK UP ON SHOTGUN SHELLS, GIRLS!)
 
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I feel Carola had the performance, Lena the better song.

But she and the ever so slightly by numbers "Invincible" still leaves me just a TAD cold. The sheer obvious want and need for it with her thrashing about on stage just doesn't compare to Lena's iconic and POISED delivery, oozing sex appeal with a cheeky wink over her thumping track and simple but oh so charming microphone stand routine.
 
1st: Charlotte Perrelli - Hero (237 points)
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(Charlotte Perrelli, pictured with the flag of the vanquished Bilan)

But of course - how could she not have won at a canter?

Some victories seem just inevitable in retrospect. Fairytale. Euphoria. Waterloo. But normally, when you chip them down and deconstruct them to their key elements, you can see clearly the considered thought that went into them, and the clear factors that put them ahead of all other competitors in that year's contest. Most of them certainly didn't seem inevitable at the time.

In the lead-up to the 2008 contest, a lot of people had doubts about the competitiveness of Hero compared to some of the entries it was up against in Belgrade. And as we know now, those doubts were wrong. A striking, memorable face and a simple performance stands out - is more important - than a cluttered stage show. Desperation is better done through sending a star performer halfway through a marriage breakdown, rather sending a star ice skater halfway through a cocaine breakdown - or throwing every trick in the book and the kitchen sink at the stage performance. There is a class - a dignity - to sending a track that evokes a magic beeping box, and intimating the rest through lasers, rather than literally putting a magic beeping box onstage.

People relate to a pop track more when its lyrics don't mean anything but the meaning can be entirely inferred from a woman staring into the chill wind of her 40s with her facial muscles stretched like Lady Cassandra from Doctor Who, two women and two porky gay men yelling their way through a key change like they are charging into the final battle of their lives. Obviously that would stand out compared to Believe, compared to Shady Lady? Who could have doubted someone who had already won this contest before?

*eyelid twitches*

11 24 x 12 (Raining On Me, Diddy, David 5000, auretz, Queen of the Bay, Music, ZenGiraffe, Tisch, Suomi, Penelope, VoR)
1 x 3 (win the game)
 
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If Carola left me cold, 2008 Charlotte left me ICY which is frankly the way to do it.

Whatever else...never let it be said that Hero isn't one of the most heart-busting, drama-pushing stratospheric pop songs of all time. I come back time and time again and I'm never not teleported to its snowy realm of defiance. So happy she won Eurovision twice! :disco:
 
10th: Andy Abraham - Even If (27 points)
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Oh, who CARES?

Probably the nadir of the UK's participation in Eurovision, this felt every bit the reheated leftovers of uninspired, mid-00s ITV Saturday night entertainment that it was. Music for people who get excited by covers of We Are Family. To its credit, it did at least manage to deliver us from Terry Wogan, who really took to this - forcing it into the final of the UK selection with his wildcard - and stropped on out of the UK presenting gig when it came joint last in Belgrade.

2 x 4 (Pingu, Queen of the Bay)
14 x 0 (dmlaw, Raining On Me, wurst, David 5000, Jacques, Broomhelga, Ill Advised, Ag, Tisch, ButterTart, Kratz, Soldi, Penelope, VoR)
 

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