Melodifestivalen 2009: My Thoughts on Round One

One minute clips of the first batch of Melodifestivalen songs are online! Here are my thoughts, with one to four star ratings, that are very subject to change as I hear more.

Nina Söderquist - Tick Tock: I like this. Nina’s got a strong voice (reminds me a bit of Nanne’s) and the beat to this song is also very strong. I’d like to hear the whole thing before making up my mind, but this is definitely a contender, though I doubt it’ll sail through to the final. ***

Jonathan Fagerlund - Welcome To My Life: Wow, this is a strong final. I like this one too. It’s a little boy band at times, but I like the beat and the melody is super catchy. It’s a very summery sounding song. I wonder if it’ll be more “rock” in the performance. I bet the full song is even better than the clip. ****

Shirley Clamp - Med hjärtat fyllt av ljus: I like the music here, but I’m not noticing a lot of melody to grasp on to. It could just be the short sample, though. Maybe when I hear the whole thing it’ll come together for me. As of now, it’s kind of a forgettable ballad. **

Scotts - Jag tror på oss: I really like the melody to this. It’s extremely poppy, though I’m not sure if it’s memorable enough to make it through, given the tough competition of this round. Like some of the others, it’s really hard to tell with just this one sample. ***

Emilia - You’re My World: Nothing really stood out here for me. It sounds like a bland pop song, which makes me think that it’ll struggle to get past round one. It’s definitely not bad, but just not interesting enough to be memorable. *

Alcazar - Stay The Night: I love the short clip of this! The beat, the chorus… it’s all great. And I’m not even much of an Alcazar fan. I can imagine a very good performance going along with this and, if they pull it off, I see no problem getting through the final. This reminds me of a BWO song. *****

Caroline af Ugglas - Snälla snälla: Definitely not as good as her last entry, and quite boring, but one song like this always seems to get through at Melodifestivalen every year. Hopefully it won’t be this one. *

Marie Serneholt - Disconnect Me: It’s difficult to tell from this clip, but this could very easily be the best of this bunch (as predicted). The beat is very Austin Powers in a way, building up to a really great chorus. Marie as an artist is very hit and miss with me, but this is definitely a hit, and not really the typical Bassflow sound I was expecting. *****