Title: 'Falling'. Krista Siegfrids gained international attention when she represented her native Finland at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, at which she sang 'Marry Me', which ended with Eurovision's first lesbian kiss. This year, she has her sights on Sweden with this catchy number, which was part of the prestigious Melodifestivalen. Here's her amazing live performance from the second heat:
Title: 'As In Heaven'. Danny Saucedo shot to fame as a contestant on the 2006 season of Swedish Idol. Since then he has had many hits both on his own and as part of the group EMD. He is also a prolific songwriter.
Title: 'Light A Candle'. Triad were big in the 80s in Sweden and this was their biggest hit by far, reaching number 1 in January 1988. It has since become a Christmas classic. Enjoy!
Title: 'She Has Not'. Caroline Af Ugglas devised the format for a TV show featuring duelling choirs that has been sold worldwide. When not dreaming of TV formats, she enters Melodifestivalen with amazing songs like this from 2013. There's no official music video, but when a singer performs with this much passion live, the Melfest performance is even more of a treat:
Title: 'Burning Heart'. Danny Saucedo with an extremely well-choreographed video. The whole world should be choreographed by Swedes! Fingers crossed we might see Danny return as a competitor in Melodifestivalen 2016.
Title: 'Your Soldier'. Albin scored a number one in 2014 in Sweden with this hit featuring Kristin Amparo, who went on to compete in Melodifestivalen 2015. She first came to fame in the 2012 season of Swedish X Factor.
Title: 'One Breath'. Annika Herlitz was one of the voiceovers for the dubbed Swedish version of the film Frozen. Here she is competing at 2015's Melodifestivalen:
Title: 'You Swipe Right'. This was Emil Berg's first single, earlier this year. A big hit in Sweden, I would not be surprised to see him appear in Melodifestivalen before too long.
Title: 'Die For You'. What hasn't Danny Saucedo done? He first came to fame as a contestant in Swedish Pop Idol in 2006 and has entered Melodifestivalen three times, returning again as host in 2013. As well as his solo work, he is part of the band EMD, plus he also writes songs for other artists.
Title: 'Meet Me in the Old Town'. Magnus Carlsson used to be in the group Alcazar, but has had plenty of solo success since he split from them. He's even duetted with Eurovision winner Charlotte Perrelli! He got to the final of Melodifestivalen with this hit in 2015:
I love listening to music in various languages, but it's often difficult to know where to look for new music in languages other than English, especially here in the UK where the mainstream media pretends that other languages simply don't exist.
So I've started this blog to give an accessible English language gateway to music in other, mainly European, languages.
It's mainly going to be about the music, so let's start with a sample from across the continent, starting with the great Unheilig from Germany, singing 'Wir sind alle wie eins' (We are all as one) of course in German:
Can you believe the great German public turned down the opportunity to send that to Eurovision? Schockierend! The Eurovision Song Contest and its various national selection processes are a big source of my foreign language music.
Let's go to Sweden, home of mighty Melodifestivalen, arguably bigger than Eurovision itself! Here's living legend Linda Bengtzing singing 'Ta Mig' (Take Me) live at Melfest Semifinal 4 in 2014:
Melodifestivalen is incidentally what inspired the name of this blog. In 2015 there were 7 songs per semi final, with the most hotly tipped song appearing as 'song number 7', which when said in Swedish sounds a bit like 'Melody Shoe'.
To France now, with Black M's huge hit from last year, 'Sur Ma Route' (On My Way):
To round of this first post, here with helpful English subtitles is the Netherlands' Ruth Jacott with 'Vrede' (Peace):
I welcome your comments and suggestions for songs and languages you'd like to see me feature. E-mail me on sotonbus@googlemail.com
