Previewing the Entrants of Eurovision 2019 – Part Thirty-Nine: Sweden

Hello everyone and welcome to another article on The Blogging DJ, where we will continue to look in-depth at each of the forty-one entrants competing in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. Today we are off to Stockholm, to one of the most successful countries in the past decade, Sweden. This year they are represented by John Lundvik and “Too Late for Love”. Can they win for the third time in eight years?

Selection Process

As they have done every year since the year after their debut in 1959, the Swedish broadcaster SVT picked their 2019 entry for Eurovision through their massive music competition Melodifestivalen. SVT actually scout for entries months prior to the national final, right after Eurovision has finished the previous year. The deadline for submissions is in September and a music jury narrows down the list of potential songs, before SVT pair the demos up with a performer. Twenty eight songs performed across four semi-finals, with the top eight directly moving through to the final. The next eight songs will battle head-to-head for the four remaining spots, taking the number of songs in the final to twelve. John Lundvik won semi-final four to progress, before winning both the jury and televote segments of the final to win the ticket to Tel Aviv with “Too Late for Love”. It has also been announced that Sweden will perform in the middle of the running order in semi-final two, in position number eight.

Music Video

The Blogging DJ’s Review

Sweden have taken a big step forward in my books by choosing a song that isn’t cold, calculated and obviously made for radio. Even though this is extremely radio-friendly, there is soul and feeling to this. It will obviously appeal to the juries as well, being in a similar genre to Austria’s entry last year. I do enjoy the gospel influences to this, which I’m glad made it to the live performance in the national final to make an authentic and classic staging. With all of that being said, it is still a bit static and flat in terms of performance, like the winner’s single of a big music talent show. This is going back to the top ten, better than the last few years, but still too safe to be a winner. 7.5

Live Performance Video

Odds

According to Oddschecker, you can currently (as of 23/04/19) get odds ranging from 7/1 to 12/1 on Sweden winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. This suggests that bookmakers see this song as challenging in the top five and could win if the live performance is done very well.

Record at Eurovision

Sweden have competed in the Eurovision Song Contest on a very impressive fifty-eight occasions, only missing out on the Grand Final on one occasion (in 2010). They are statistically the second most successful country in the competition, winning six times in their history, with their first coming in 1974 with one of the biggest success stories ever: a band called ABBA and their “Waterloo”. Their other wins have came courtesy of Herreys (1984), Carola (1991), Charlotte Nilsson (1999), Loreen (2012) and Måns Zelmerlöw (2015). Last year Benjamin Ingrosso gave the country their fifth consecutive top ten result, finishing in seventh place with “Dance You Off”.

So what do you make of the Swedish entry for Eurovision 2019? Can it tie the country with Ireland as the most successful country in the contest? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below and don’t forget to like, and subscribe to get notified about when new articles are published. Stay tuned for more Eurovision 2019 preview posts being published in the weeks leading up to the contest and I’ll see all of you for the next country to be previewed, Switzerland.