ROAD TO THE FINALS

Or, 'Once Again I'll Be Proven Wrong At Every Turn'

I predicted Velvet and Michael Michailoff would go through to Andra Chansen and Suzzie Tapper and Christer Sjögren would be out in Heat 1. I was wrong.

I predicted Carola & Andreas would walk to the Final with Sanna, Alexander Schöld would be in AC, and the horrid pizza song would come in last place in Heat 2. Wrong.

I predicted Patrik Isaksson would at least move on to AC and we'd never hear of Frida again in Heat 3. Wrong again.

I predicted that Calaisa would be out after the first round of votes and Daniel Mitsogiannis would move on in Heat 4. And... wrong.

I predicted, retroactively, after having been wrong already, that Carola & Andreas would backdoor it into the finals from AC and that Ola would take the other spot. Yeeaaah...

So.

Now that we've established that I have NO talent for handicapping this stuff, here's what I'm gonna do. I am NOT going to say that Charlotte Perrelli will win Melodifestivalen 2008. Because if I do, then there is obviously no way it will happen, and everyone reading this will hate me and stop coming to visit and I'll be left spilling my thoughts to an empty web page, and that's never any fun, is it?

Instead, I will say that it looks like it's going to be a close race *cough*forsecondplace*cough* between Linda Bengtzing and Sanna, with Sibel the surprising unexpected dark horse.

In all seriousness, putting aside the schlager brilliance of Hero and the general awesomeness that is Charlotte Perrelli, this is really quite an acceptable final. Overall, this year didn't have the strongest group of songs, but, with only a couple of exceptions, the ones that did make it to the Globen really are the best of the bunch -- even if I'll never stop screaming about how Velvet was robbed. I do think that the top four, in some configuration or another, will be Charlotte, Linda, Sanna and Sibel. I know the public adores BWO, and I was completely off-base with how I Love Europe was received (I still hate it, but that's neither here nor there), but I don't think they'll place in the top grouping.

Where Sanna is concerned, however, she's stuck in Split-Vote Hell with Sibel who's coming out fighting, so if she wants to place higher, she's going to have to give an absolutely flawless performance. That Is Where I'll Go took a lot of people by surprise, and in a head-to-head with Empty Room, it comes out the better song. Sanna is, well, Sanna, and she's gorgeous and magical and pretty and has a voice that can knock your teeth out, and I love her, so this really has nothing to do with her, but Empty Room is just not the best-written song, and that should be reflected in the jury side of the votes. She sells the hell out of it as a singer, and the public will obviously vote for her, but that's not enough at this point. Additionally, as I've said before (and I would be interested to know, in both Sibel's and Ola's cases, if this actually came into play at all), as an Idol contestant, Sibel has a whole fanbase who's used to the idea of 'Call and vote for Sibel' which means she too could do well in the televotes. That kind of conditioning certainly can't hurt.

And, sorry Sanna, but I'm not sure you can beat a chiffon train and a wind machine. There are rules here, y'know...

As for the bottom chunk of songs, those will most likely be Nordman, Rongedal and Frida & Headline... Probably in that order, too, now that I think about it. I'm not a Sjögren fan, but apparently Sweden is, so I'm guessing I Love You-rupp does far better than I'd personally want it to and comes out ahead of these three. I personally happen to like both I Lågornas Sken and Just a Minute quite a lot, but the competition they're up against is just too strong, and while Nordman seems to have more support than was expected, I don't think it will be enough to keep them from the bottom.

The one contestant I'm not sure about at all is Amy Diamond. I don't think she'll be in the top grouping because there are simply better songs in the final. I'm guessing she does well with the popular vote cuz she's Sweden's little darling, but I've never been overly impressed with her live singing, and she's up against the pros. Granted, she's only 15 and her voice hasn't fully developed yet, but you can't send someone to Eurovision just because they're cute... can you?

BWO comes into the competition with a lot of fan support, a solid song that would give Sweden a decent (though, probably not fantastic) placing in Belgrade, Martin riding up in the elevator during the key change, those collars... They're to Gay Drama what Char is to Tranny Drama, I guess. Regardless, this is a mid-placing song at best; no matter how many people might love Lay Your Love, they're the same people who're gonna be voting like crazy for Charlotte.

As for the frontrunners, I've discussed Sibel already, and I'll just add that she seems to be the breakout talent of this year which is gonna help her at this point. From blogs I've read, from the impressions I've gotten, from my own pre-contest standpoint, she was supposed to be one of the filler songs in the Linda/Char heat. And then she got on stage and proved exactly why she deserved to be there, and from her first performance in Karlskrona to her last one against Ola, she's only gotten better and better. I actually think that, as much as Sanna needs to be careful in the Battle of the Ballads, Amy Diamond might also need to worry about being replaced as the Voters' Darling of the competition.

Linda... Now, come on, next to Char, Linda's was the name on everyone's lips. And the added drama of putting them both in the same round as sort of a pre-Diva matchup was delicious on SVT's part. That act right there forced all their fans to rally, and they both had to deliver, which Linda did in spades. Hur Svårt is a fun song; it's quick, it's catchy, after three tries in the Contest she's finally managed to nail a key change, and her performance is infectious. It's fun, it's exciting, it's corny, it's obvious she's having a blast on that stage... That will count for a lot. Enough to beat out Char for the top spot? No, not likely. But could she beat her own record and sing her way to a completely respectable second place? Yes, she can.

And Charlotte... What needs to be said? Hero is pop brilliance; Kempedisco in the best possible way... It's slick, it's got a fantastic hook, Char gives you serious drama, and we all know how I feel about that microphone. That alone would be enough to get my vote (shut up, I'm easy sometimes!). The public is behind her, they love that Charlotte Is Back and all that hooplah... She's really the one to beat.

But she won't win. No sirree, she won't.

She won't win.

Tune in this weekend, to see once again that I'm wrong about everything.