What a fucking HEAT! The best in QUITE some time - maybe going back to heat 3 2019? Not a single bad song in here. A little too soon to tell if it's pulled this year back from the brink, but thank GOD it's good enough to make it a question if nothing else
1 - Loreen - as I listened to this, I gazed across the landscape of this year's Melodifestivalen, this year's Eurovision, last year's Eurovision, every single member of Moopy (even the hot one), every single man I have slept with (even the hot ones), the corpse of Anton Hagman, the Mona Lisa, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and I thought
Forty seconds later at 6.09am I called
@Suomi, to find out he now too was a corpse, ashes crumbled to the earth and dust. Doesn't matter win or lose: we are all gonna die.
2 - Mariette - the track that finally condemns that pissy little bitch that runs the Crystal Ball account to the shame he deserves after calling this a fucking DISNEY BALLAD. This is tremendous - the production layers and quirks in that second verse are so warm, like a hug and a voyage all at once, and I can't wait for her to take me to the skies with the second chorus. I said after my first listen review of Don't Stop Believing that I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my life with that track - well here we are. This is the love letter back from the realisation of that promised future: I will spend the rest of my life with Mariette, and it is a life that is happier for getting to spend it with her and whatever else she does, even if it's just the five entries she has blessed us with till now
3 - Mary Kiani - god I hope she cannot sing for shit

This year's
ONE TOUCH /
NEVER LEARN
4 - Smash Into Pieces - the greatest hard rock entry since Outrigger - Echo (in fact possibly EVER if we're talking Melfest). This would make a tremendous Finnish entry most years, although this year I'd really rather ESTHONIA were sending this
5 - Signe och Hjördis - love these two lil AI generated Nordic cuties with their parody Swedish names (at first I was worried they were Lili & Susie underneath 5 foot of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics so they could smuggle themselves into the lineup again, but their voices don't sound like they've smoked a single cigarette in their lives so I think we're safe here). This is gorgeous! I'm kind of glad they took it this way rather than in an Avicii direction, but obviously I do also want that version (plus a Bassflow remix TACK). Can't wait to dance in the aisles to this with a Swede looking at me like a deer in the headlights at the church - hope these huns don't cry too much when they finish 6th
6 - Axel Schylström - LETHAL. When that chorus kicked in it took me back to the glory that was
Josef Johansson - Hela natten, except sung by somebody with actual stage presence rather than the first updo'ed whelk they tugged off the street near Sergels torg
7 - Emil Horehronie - I'm so sorry to this cute lil cub who's been coiffed, angled, lit up, touche éclated and FaceTuned to within an inch of his life to recreate Al*xander Bard when he was young, hot and non-transphobic in that promo pic - I really do love this, and will almost certainly be playing it on REPEAT until it ends up in my Spotify Wrapped 2023 top 20 like other famous Penrank last placers such as Änglavakt and Jasmine Kara - Gravity - but against this lineup I just needed a little, how shall I say it,
mera mera mera. Maybe it's just the clip though - love the Romanian prostitute pop wave energy of that double chorus
