The schlager general Björkman’s 20 years with the modern Melodifestivalen ended majesticly last Saturday.
The handsome and talented ESC winner Måns Zelmerlöw hosted the final with the wonderfully weird musical actress Shima Niavarani. They sang that they were “both Edith Piaf and Backstreet Boys, an opera fan next to a padel fan, maybe it’s Sweden’s best couple of hosts you see?” Yes, maybe.
Christer Björkman was one of the creators behind the modern Melodifestivalen in 2002 with six shows instead of one and a wider variety among songs, artists and genres. Thereafter Sweden earned very high placings in the ESC with two gold medals. Appropriately enough, Björkman was celebrated to the tones of the drag band After Dark’s “La Dolce Vita”, even called the unofficial national anthem of the modern Melodifestivalen.
In every final, a band or artist makes a cover of last year’s winning entry. This year the amazing singer and host Shima Niavarani made a dramatic musical version of “Move” and made the best singing effort of the whole evening. But I’d rather replace Måns’ performance of his new single with Afro-Dite’s comeback, the first winners of Björkman’s modern Melodifestivalen.
No one deserved the victory more than Tusse and his professional and genuine winning entry that also scored a record high amount of votes, but my favourites were Arvingarna and last year’s runner-up Dotter. Unfortunately she was even this year one point behind The Mamas. But the Swedish singing debutant Clara Klingenström got the biggest breakthrough in this year’s contest when she got more votes from the Swedish audience than both Eric Saade and Dotter.

Did you know… that Joy Deb, Linnea Deb och Jimmy “Joker” Thörnfeldt, who wrote Sweden’s winning entry, are going to compete against themselves in the ESC? The trio has also written the very popular entry from San Marino and Thörnfeldt is also one of the songwriters behind the Cyprus entry.
What did you think of the Swedish result? Did your favourite win? Let us know in the comments!