#Eurovision Alumni Deaths
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singing-show-alums · 3 years ago
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Singing Shows and Eurovision: Sweden 🇸🇪 (Part Two: One Season, Three Alums, Four Melfest Wins)
Of the seven Idol Sweden alumni who went on to win Melodifestivalen, three of them made it to the final set of voting rounds in the same season: Idol 2008, which served as the show’s fifth season. Between these three alums, there are four combined Melodifestivalen wins and three Eurovision appearances. (I’ll explain that discrepancy when we get to the third alum in this part.) One of them also holds a pretty dubious distinction in Sweden’s Eurovision record. Speaking of which, she’s up next in our series! So, let’s get to it!
Anna Bergendahl
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Anna Henrietta Bergendahl was born 11 December 1991 in the Hägersten district of Stockholm, and was raised in the cities of Nyköping and Katrineholm, both of which are located a bit southwest from Stockholm. She has connections to the British Isles, as one of her grandmothers is originally from Ireland, and Anna first performed in front of an audience as a child in a cathedral in York, England. Anna auditioned for Idol 2008 with the Bonnie Raitt song “Have a Heart” and became known on the show for her folk-pop sound, which was unusual for singing shows at the time, and (if I caught the footage correctly) auditioned for the show at a time when Idols shows were just starting to allow contestants to play instruments onstage (and in some versions, even in auditions; Australian Idol began allowing them in 2006, while American Idol and Idol Sweden both began allowing contestants to perform with instruments in their 2008 seasons), and marked an evolution in the Idols format from simply being a singing contest (at times being glorified karaoke) to a performing contest to look for new overall artists. Anna took advantage of this format change from her very first audition. Anna was almost eliminated before the Finals even started, landing in the Bottom 2 in the last Semifinal round show, where 11 of the 12 remaining singers would advance to the Finals. Luckily for her, she avoided elimination that week. She would go on to land in the bottom group two more times, being eliminated from the competition in fifth place on her second trip on the episode taking place on 21 November 2008.
A few months after her Idol journey came to an end, Anna signed her first record deal in early 2009 and was approached by songwriters and producers Kristian Lagerström and Bobby Ljunggren about working on a song together to submit to Melodifestivalen 2010. Lagerström and Ljunggren wrote and produced the song, and Anna recorded it. That song, “This Is My Life”, was selected to compete in Melodifestivalen 2010 and won the first round of televoting in its semifinal, progressing directly to the Final. In the Final, “This Is My Life” placed second in the Jury voting, but ended up winning the public televote and by a large enough points margin over the Jury vote winner (“Keep on Walking” by Salem Al Fakir) to get the most points and win Melodifestivalen 2010. This marked the first time since 1998 that a ballad (slow-tempo) song had won Melodifestivalen, the last one being “Kärleken är” — which means “Love Is” and is roughly pronounced as “SHAR-leh-ken AIR” — by Jill Johnson, which was inspired by the death of Princess Diana the year before and was the last Swedish Eurovision entry to date to be performed in Swedish. Anna’s Melodifestivalen win also marked the first time that an Idol Sweden alum would go on to win Melodifestivalen (although Loreen and Måns Zelmerlöw competed on Idol before Anna did, they both won Melfest after Anna).
Then came Eurovision 2010, held in Oslo, Norway 🇳🇴 (by virtue of another Idols alum, Alexander Rybak — who was a semifinalist on season 3 of Idol Norway — winning the 2009 Contest). Sweden was drawn to perform in the second Semifinal, and Anna ended up performing 6th in the running order. When it came time for the results…for the first time ever, Sweden failed to qualify for the Final. It marked the first time since 1976 that Sweden was not competing in a Eurovision Final (as Sweden had withdrawn that year due to protests against the Swedish broadcaster spending money on its Eurovision efforts after it had hosted the Contest the year before), and the first and only time to date that Sweden has failed to qualify under the current multi-day Semifinals & Final format used at Eurovision. The Final was won by Germany’s 🇩🇪 “Satellite” by Lena, and when the full voting results were released following the 2010 Contest, it was revealed that Sweden had placed 11th in its semifinal (just outside the cutoff line of the Top 10 who would qualify), and was just 5 points behind the 10th place song that ended up qualifying, sent by Cyprus 🇨🇾 (“Life Looks Better In Spring” by Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders).
Since her infamous Eurovision appearance, Anna has released two studio albums and several EPs. She has also competed at Melodifestivalen two additional times, in 2019 and 2020. In 2019, she competed with the song “Ashes to Ashes”. It ended up finishing in the Top 4 in its semifinal but had to compete in the Second Chance round, where it ended up qualifying to the Final. “Ashes to Ashes” ultimately placed 10th in the Melodifestivalen 2019 Final, and “Too Late for Love” by John Lundvik (featuring one of the other two alums in this article on backing vocals) ended up going to Tel Aviv and placing 5th at Eurovision 2019. In 2020, she competed with “Kingdom Come”. That song won its semifinal and advanced directly to the Final, where it placed third. I’ll get to the winning song from that Melfest a little later. As of early February 2022, she is set to compete at Melodifestivalen again with “Higher Power”.
Robin Bengtsson
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Robin Bengtsson was born Hans Robin Gustav Bengtsson on 27 April 1990 in Svenljunga, Sweden, which is located in the southwestern part of the country. This part of Sweden is more rural, and in some ways it kind of showed with Robin’s initial audition for the show. But, he managed to impress the judges with a rendition of “Bring It On Home To Me” by Sam Cooke and he was rewarded with a Golden Ticket to the next round. He eventually made it to the final voting rounds, surviving four trips to the bottom group before being eliminated in third place, just one week before the Final. Robin was the last remaining Swedish-born contestant remaining in the competition that season, as both of the Final Two were born outside of Sweden: eventual winner Kevin Borg (who was originally from Malta 🇲🇹) and runner-up Alice Svensson (who was born in Vietnam 🇻🇳 and adopted by Swedish parents). It was just the second time that happened in the Idols format’s history to that point (the first being Greece’s 🇬🇷 only season of its first Idols series, Super Idol; winner Stavros Konstantinou was from Cyprus 🇨🇾, and runner-up Tamta Goduadze — who herself would eventually represent Cyprus at Eurovision — was originally from Georgia 🇬🇪).
After his Idol run, he signed a record deal and released his first post-Idol single, “Another Lover’s Gone”, in 2009. He would continue to release singles from then on as well as appear on several TV shows, including the Scandinavian version of Wipeout, where he placed 2nd in his episode. He released his first EP in 2014, Under My Skin, but it wasn’t until 2016 that he started making real waves on the Swedish music scene again, when he was selected to take part in Melodifestivalen that year with the song “Constellation Prize”. This was a high-stakes competition, as the acts were all competing for the right to represent Sweden on home soil, thanks to Måns Zelmerlöw’s win at Eurovision 2015. Robin’s song ended up qualifying directly to the Final from its semifinal. In the Final, though, it ended up finishing fifth in the Jury voting, fourth in the public televote, and an overall fifth place finish. The winning song that year was “If I Were Sorry” by Frans Jepsson Wall (or just “Frans”), who at 17 was the second youngest Melfest winner to that point (the youngest being Carola — yes, that Carola, who won Eurovision 1990 — who first won Melfest in 1983 at 16 years old). Frans ended up giving Sweden a 5th place finish at Eurovision 2016.
The following year, he got another shot at Melfest glory, set to compete at Melodifestivalen 2017 with “I Can’t Go On”. Almost immediately he became a favorite, as the stage show involved Robin and several male dancers in crisp suits doing synchronized choreography on treadmills (think of OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again” music video, but a little more sophisticated). He won his semifinal with over 1 million votes across two rounds of voting. When it came time for the Final, he ended up placing second in the public Televote (behind Nano), but his 20-point margin over Nano in the Jury votes was enough to give him the win and the ticket to Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv, Ukraine 🇺🇦. This also marked Robin Stjernberg’s second Melfest victory, although as a songwriter. (We’ll meet Robin Stjernberg in Part Three.)
Fast forward to Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv. Sweden was drawn to perform in Semifinal 1. After everyone had performed and the points were tallied, Robin made it into the Final. (It was revealed after the Contest that Sweden finished 3rd in that Semifinal, with the two songs ahead of Robin’s going on to place in the Top 3 in the Final.) Then came the Final. Twenty-six countries performed, and a total of 42 countries cast votes. After all the points came in, Sweden got 344 points, which could have been more than enough to win under the old system…but…
…the previous year Eurovision had introduced a new voting system: instead of points being awarded by a combined Jury/Televote system (where only one score was given and each portion of the vote accounted for 50% of the point total), it switched to the points system currently used at Melodifestivalen, where Jury and Televoting points are awarded as two separate sets of points and the country with the highest combined total after all points have been awarded is the winner. This makes for a bit more exciting results process, as it can result in a country winning neither set of voting still winning the overall Contest because the Jury vote winner finished much lower in the Televote, and vice versa. This is exactly what happened in 2016, where Ukraine ended up winning because the Jury vote winner, Australia, finished fourth in the Televote, while the Televote winner, Russia, finished fifth in the Jury vote; Ukraine finished second in both sets of voting. The same thing also happened in 2019, where the Jury vote winner, North Macedonia, finished 12th in the Televote, while the Televote winner, Norway, finished 18th in the Jury vote. The winner, the Netherlands, finished 2nd in the Televote and 3rd in the Jury vote. But…back to Eurovision 2017.
When the Final came around, Portugal (who had won Sweden’s semifinal) ended up running away with the competition, winning both sets of voting (the only time this has happened to date under the current voting system; Israel did win the Televote the following year, but Austria won the Jury voting). Portugal set a new record for most points scored by a winning song (“Amar pelos dois” by Salvador Sobral) with 758 total points, easily defeating runner-up Bulgaria by a 143-point margin. Moldova (who had finished 2nd ahead of Sweden in Semifinal 1) ended up taking third place, while Sweden finished in 5th place once again, getting third place in the Final’s Jury vote and 8th place in the Final’s Televote. Not another win for Sweden, but still a very good finish.
Since his Eurovision appearance, Robin Bengtsson has gone on to compete at two more Melodifestivalens: in 2020, with the song “Take a Chance”. That song gave Robin his third appearance in a Melfest final, where he ultimately finished in 8th place overall. He is also competing at Melodifestivalen 2022 with “Innocent Love”, but as of 4 February 2022 his semifinal had not taken place yet. The winning act of Melodifestivalen 2020 included our final Idol Sweden 2008 alum in this post, and let’s go ahead and meet her.
Loulou Lamotte
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(Yes, Loulou gets three pictures, because those latter two pictures represent each of her Melodifestivalen wins. I’ll explain soon enough.)
Stephanie Louise Caroline Lamotte, otherwise known by her nickname “Loulou”, was born on 16 April 1981 in Malmö, Sweden (which is the country’s second largest city). She is of Swedish and African-American ancestry. Loulou auditioned for Idol 2008 at the age of 27 (which by Idols standards is quite old, as most Idols shows have an upper age limit of around 30; by comparison, she was born the same year as Jay Smith, who won Idol 2010 two years later at the age of 29 and remains the Swedish version’s oldest winner by age) with “Put Your Records On” by Corinne Bailey Rae. (That song went on to have renewed success a decade later thanks to a cover by Utah-based artist Ritt Momney.) Loulou eventually made it to the finals, but was eliminated in 9th place. She did not release any singles immediately following the show, but did appear on the Swedish version of Wipeout the following year.
Her first Melodifestivalen appearance took place in 2013, accompanying (along with Oscar Zia, who was a finalist on the only season of The X Factor Sweden the previous year, and will be hosting Melodifestivalen 2022) Behring Miri on his song “Jalla Dansa Sawa” (“Come On, Let’s Dance Together”). The song failed to advance from its semifinal and was eliminated in the Andra Chansen round, but still made the Top 5 on the Swedish singles chart.
Six years later, in 2019, she made her second Melodifestivalen appearance, this time as one of four backing singers for John Lundvik, competing with the song “Too Late for Love”. And this time, his backing singers got a name of their own: The Mamas. The other three were Paris Renita, Ashley Haynes, and Dinah Yonas Manna.
Lundvik had started his adult life as a competitive sprinter, but later retired from athletic competition to focus on songwriting full time. His first breakthrough as a songwriter came in 2010, when he co-wrote with Jörgen Elofsson (renowned in the pop world for writing songs for artists like Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, and Celine Dion, among many others) “When You Tell the World You’re Mine”. The song was composed for the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling (who is now styled as Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland) as a gift to the couple, and it was performed at their wedding by Agnes Carlsson (winner of season 2 of Idol Sweden) and Björn Skifs (Swedish pop legend, former Melodifestivalen winner, and best known outside of Sweden as the lead singer of Blue Swede, who had a huge international hit with their cover of “Hooked on a Feeling” in the early 1970s). Lundvik would continue to be a prolific songwriter, also becoming a performer in 2016 and making his Melodifestivalen in 2018 with “My Turn”, which reached the Final, but lost out to “Dance You Off” by Benjamin Ingrosso.
So, when it came time for “Too Late for Love” to compete, it qualified to the Final, and then won the televote and jury points (the jury points by quite a decisive margin) and ended up getting the Melodifestivalen 2019 win, the first of two for Loulou.
At Eurovision 2019, held in Tel Aviv, Israel 🇮🇱, “Too Late for Love” ended up finishing third in its semifinal, advancing to the Grand Final to take place two days later. (The other two songs to finish ahead of Sweden were from the Netherlands 🇳🇱 and North Macedonia 🇲🇰…more on those in a minute.) “Too Late for Love” was actually one of two songs penned at least in part by Lundvik to take part in Eurovision 2019, the other being the United Kingdom’s 🇬🇧 entry, “Bigger Than Us” (performed by Michael Rice…which ultimately finished in last place in the Final). Once all the votes came in, Sweden ultimately finished in…5th place. Initially, it looked as though Sweden had won the Jury voting, but after the 2019 Contest it was revealed that the aggregate jury voting for Belarus 🇧🇾 (whose jury had been dismissed after the Semifinals due to some jurors sharing their votes during the Contest, which is against the rules; the Belarusian jury vote for the final was compiled by taking regional jury voting patterns into account and estimating how they would have voted in the Final) had been incorrectly compiled (mainly, their points had been awarded in the reverse order from what they had intended), and once the Belarusian jury points were awarded in their correct order, it turned out that North Macedonia had won the Jury voting (and Sweden had finished second). A ninth-place Televoting ranking killed Sweden’s chances of winning (just as Televote winner Norway’s 18th-place finish in the Jury vote killed its chances of winning). Ultimately, the win ended up going to the Netherlands 🇳🇱, who had finished third in the Jury voting and second in the Televote.
In 2020, The Mamas would make another appearance at Melodifestivalen, this time on their own and as a trio, as original member Paris Renita decided to leave the group after Eurovision 2019. This time they competed with a song called “Move”, which won (and opened) the first Semifinal round, advancing directly to the Final. In the Final, held on 7 March 2020, they tied for first place in the Jury vote and won the Televote by just 1 point, narrowly handing them their second straight Melodifestivalen win and making Loulou just one of a handful of artists to win Melodifestivalen multiple times (others including Björn Skifs, Carola Häggkvist/Carola, Charlotte Nilsson/Perrelli), and The Mamas just the second group to win it twice, after Family Four in the 1970s, although Family Four did it twice as lead artists.
Four days later, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic of the SARS CoV-2 virus, which caused a mysterious disease that had only been identified in humans about 2.5 months earlier in late December 2019, COVID-19 (often now shortened to just “COVID”). All of a sudden, The Mamas and their participation at the planned 2020 Contest in Rotterdam was uncertain.
A little more than a week after the pandemic was declared, the EBU announced its decision to cancel the planned 2020 Contest, which was to take place in Rotterdam. As the EBU also made the decision to not make the songs chosen for the 2020 Contest eligible for 2021, this meant that The Mamas would miss out on their Eurovision moment as lead artists unless they could manage another Melodifestivalen victory. They did make one more attempt in Melodifestivalen 2021 (staged in a single venue without a live audience) with “In the Middle” and advanced to the Final. Alas, the third time did not pan out for them as they ultimately finished 3rd overall and the ticket to Rotterdam went to Tusse Chiza, who we will meet in the third and final part of this series.
That is Part Two of my planned three-part series. Stay tuned for the final two Melodifestivalen winners who got their start on Idol Sweden: Robin Stjernberg and Tusse!
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wilhelminasrose-blog · 5 years ago
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