Thursday, March 8, 2012

I do not understand Melodifestivalen


Melodifestivalen is a European singing competition and you can read more about the details of the competition here.  What I don't understand is how the "winners" from each week are chosen.  Jon and I have watched the program faithfully every Saturday night and I'm constantly surprised by who the public chooses to win each week.  Basically, it goes something like this:  all singers/bands perform 1 song and the Swedish public texts their votes at the end of the program.  One person advances to the finals and 2 advance to the "second chance" or wild card round.

After watching all of the weeks I can now easily predict who will be the winner.  Essentially the worst performer I have ever heard in my life wins while the talented, artistic and accomplished musicians are cast aside -- not even to the wild card round.  It's really disheartening to watch and this is just the Swedish version that we are watching.  Once the Swedish winner is selected, s/he will go onto compete against all of Europe where they will compete with other horrible singers.  I'm not sure if this is a joke or a serious competition.  Also, whoever controls the cameras for this show must be on crack.  The last time I saw this level of erratic camera work was my 8th grade history class filming scenes to illustrate Prohibition Era.

We took some clips from one week of Melodifestivalen just to illustrate the quality (or lack thereof) of these performers:

Watch each video and see if you can guess who was the winner this night:
This chick not only wore a dress full of spikes but she is pretty AND can sing well!

As if channeling 'This is Spinal Tap' wasn't enough, these guys also rock the eye make up!

These guys have that hipster vibe (which I normally hate) but the song is catchy

Nope, that's not your computer or the quality of my video camera.  His vocals are really awful. The LED track suit is just icing on the cake.

So, which of the above talents do you think the Swedish public chose as their winner of the night?  Remember my strategy -- pick the worst act of the night.

...If you guessed the pretty-boy making a mockery of Justin Timberlake-ish moves and swimming in a ridiculous LED jacket, you'd be right!  They actually chose this guy to move onto the finals!  I just don't get it!  He can't sing.  Someone actually said, "he has moves like MJ."  Nah uh. No you didn't just desecrate Michael Jackson's legacy by linking this hack with THE greatest performer of all time!  Seriously?!? Is there no sense for talent here? No ear for tone deaf performers?  Who is letting these people on this show?  At least on American Idol, there are a few rounds of embarrassing no-talent auditions that give us a good laugh and they go home in tears.  In Sweden, they send these folks to the final rounds of their national singing competition to compete on the European stage.

2 comments:

  1. gah! This somewhat motivates me to digitize the Prohibition video (yes, I have it).

    When I do, I'll certainly send along a copy. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mrs. Deutch's class! Be sure to burn me a copy and put it in the mail!

      Delete

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