A New Moone...

2007 marks a very special anniversary. And one which the Schlagerboys will be doing their very best to put right!!

It will be 27 years since the one and only draw happened in Song For Europe. As Terry panicked about the 9 O'Clock News being late he had to call in the regional juries again for a show of hands to see who would get sent to The Hague. And for some reason Primadonna won...

Well, in 2007 the Schlagerboys will be campaigning to get Maggie Moone her rightful place on the Eurovision stage...


Come on BBC!

Get on to Ms Moone and offer her a place in MYMU. Even better, get the same songwriters to put together a "Happy Everything" Mark II... We're sure Maggie will still fit into that white trouser suit and we'd be quite happy to do a bit of "styling och consulting" for her...

Happy New Moone Everybody!!!

Look At That Huge Bauble!!

It's a little bit late but Magnus is wishing us a very Happy Christmas all the way from his holiday in Thailand.
We wouldn't dream of making any jokes about ladyboys or anything like that....

Isn't it Ace?

Oh My God! The Schlagerboys have been in search of schlager to get over the disappointment of the Swedish wildcards, and look what we found!

How fab. And completely schlagerific! And its from the UK!!!! Let's watch it again!

How on earth did the smug, sacharine, vomit-enducing Prima Donna beat this in the UK 1980 Song for Europe? Is this the best UK entry that never was?

Why we love Duke & the Aces:

• You know within the first five seconds its going to be a schlager stomper!
• Its got a fab singalonga chorus all about joining hands around the world. Who needs Uncle Ralph!
• Its got a fab dance routine
• Its got chime bars all the way through
• Just look at the key change - Shouting in formation, pointing, a single chime bar followed by Alcazar handclaps and a "YMCA"-esque fanfare. Perfect!
• Great satin costumes - straight out of the Crackerjack Christmas production of Aladdin...
• HEAD TURNS!!!
• The boys at the back are from the "We might be stuck at the back but we can pout, shimmy and shake our tush like nobody's business!" school of backing dancing.
• Its got a Swedish ending, complete with outstretched arms and upturned heads.
• The singer has got nice teeth and a nice smile. We quite fancy him.... well, we wouldn't say no...

Maybe we can find a few more like this in the Song for Europe back catalogue. Lets do a Schlager coutdown to MYMU 2007!

Double Dutch!

And look who's back for the Netherlands...

Edsilia's looking good and she's obviously had the hair straighteners out since 1998.

But isn't her new material boring?

Let It Swing!!

With all the "excitement" (ermmmm....) of the Swedish wildcards, it had passed us by that NRK have announced the acts for the first Norwegian semi-final...

Look who's in it!! It's a 90s Eurodance group called Infinity.

And they pretend to travel round the universe in their space ship with dodgy silver highlights in their hair...
There's a song called "Love On The Dancefloor" by Torhild Sivertsen and the Funky Family. That's got to be good. If only because she looks fab and they've got big hair...
And then there's Marika Lejon who describes her sound as "gypsy-pop" and looks fab...
but we don't think much of her last single... Someone else is writing her MGP song so there's still hope...

And there's a few others, including Marianne Solberg singing a Kirsti Carr song. If it's as good as "Misled" it'll be a classic...

Blimey! And this is only the first semi-final...

They Really Are Joking...

Who are they anyway???

We're Not Joking!!

The Schlagerboys are surviving on Rennie and Deflatine after indulging just a little too much over the past two days.

But the schlager excitement doesn't stop for Christmas...

SVT have a special "behind the scenes" programme about how the secret jury chose the Melodifestivalen songs on tonight. And they're also announcing the wildcards...

Well, just in case anyone's reading, and in case there's still time to twist someone's arm, here's the Schlagerboys' four wildcards:

• Shirley Clamp - obviously seeing the schlager light and ditching the dull ballads and violin players.

• Lotta Engberg - hopefully singing something by Lasse Holm, and maybe with a guest appearance from Kikki and Bettan.

• (Mi Amore) Annikafiore - triumphantly returning from her broken ankle with a disco schlager anthem. Preferably resurrecting the giant glitter ball and the big red hair, whilst simultaneously trouncing the solo efforts of Magnus and Andreas Alcazar.

• Linda Bengtzing - only this time with a key change.

In the meantime, have a look here at a few Swedish people discussing the design for the stage for Melodifestivalen 2007. It looks like there'll be some serious scope for strutting. Has Ms Engfors been "styling och consulting" again...?

Cheer up - its Christmas!

It's all been a bit doom and gloom around here lately, what with the first songs for 2007 being particularly un-schlagerific and then Nina and Kim bowing out.

So to cheer ourselves up and bring in some festive cheer the Schlagerboys held a schlager-gala last night to award the best Schlager song of all time!

We made up the nominations yesterday afternoon over a couple of mince pies and a box of Quality Street.

The ten songs battling it out for the title were:
"La Dolce vita"
"En gang for alla"
"Alcastar"
"Min Karlek"
"Idag och imorgon"
"Det gor ont"
"100%"
"Evighet"
"Hall om mig"
"Att alska dig"

Viewers were given three votes each once the songs had been performed. To aid voting we delivered a reprise of each key change.

There were gasps of astonishment as the songs for the super final were announced:
"La Dolce Vita"
"Alcastar"
"Idag och imorgon"

Upon realising "Evighet" hadn't made it to the superfinal, the Schlagerboys stuck it in as a wildcard. Its our party and we'll cheat if we want to.

Following another round of votes the winning song was announced. "Alcastar" won by a schlagertastic 15 votes! Its amazing what a glitter ball can do.

Congratulations to Alcazar, may each one of you continue to delight us with schlager tunes for many years to come... apart from Tess (Goddess of Success) who's gone all rock.... and where has (Mi amore) Annikafiore disappeared to? Surely a broken foot doesn't take that long to heal!

Looking forward to the "Never Ending Story"/ A-ha tune from Magnus in next year's Melodifestivalen, and looking forward to his nice hair. Also looking forward to lusting over Andreas.

Albania Chooses!!!

Some old bloke in a suit for Albania!!!

Hurrah!!! Where's the Sam Fox lookey-likey???

What were you thinking Tirana????

Any Word On Albania??

Bloody hell! This never happens...

Our favourite is in the final!

It must be a sign for the new season!

Vote here!! Vote Amarda!!

Tunes From Tirana...

It's the Albanian final tonight... just in time for Christmas!

Looks like they are putting an awful lot of effort in...

We've no idea what's going on at all. But they've had two nights of semi-finals and we've had a listen to some of the clips and we're voting for Amarda Arkaxhi because she's got great hair and gives good pout...

and her song's fab too!!

Let's hope they don't end up choosing someone who's a got backing band made up of three old geezers wearing slippers with woolly bobbles on the toes, and a bloke playing a dead sheep like they did last year...

Rubbish From Riga...

Latvian TV have put snippets of the songs for Eirodziesma 2007 on their website.

Oh dear...

The Schlagerboy favourite is "Trans-European Express" by Elli U. It'll probably come second last in the semi-final.

Even the song from Marcus Ubeda, who wrote "Never Let It Go" for The Bacofoil Girls, is pants...

Come on Latvia! Bring Ella back with Lord Thomas G:Son of Schlager...

Carola Clothes...

If only the Schlagerboys had discovered the Carola Shop a bit earlier....

We could have put a Carola hoodie at the top of our Christmas list...

Maybe it'll be in the sales in January so we can get two...

Shirley Takes a Bite of the Big Apple...

Shirley's been on a last minute shopping trip to New York. Let's hope Customs don't check her luggage, she probably took an extra suitcase for the duty free gin...

Here she is bypassing the bottled water and heading for the Kit Kats...

And look! There's a white van! Quick take a picture!

And she's busy recording her new single, which will be released in April. Does this mean that she's going to be a joker for Melodifestivalen 2007?

It Ended With A Kiss...

The Schlagerboys have been in mourning for Nina & Kim for the past few days. Our hearts broke when we saw this picture on the Aftonbladet website...
Poor Nina... still at least Kim's going on to other things. She's going to be presenting "Postcode Millionaire" on Swedish TV.

Their Universe of Love...

According to Expressen, Nina & Kim are splitting up!! They will perform their final Christmas Special concert tonight in Helsingfors...

The Schlagerboys have been through the highs and the lows with the girls... Well, mostly the lows really.

When we heard "En gång för alla" that Saturday afternoon in February 2004 on the day of the first Melodifestivalen heat we thought we'd heard the Eurovision winner... But then it came second to last. Damn Petra Nielsen and her tango, tangoing... And of course, that was pre-Shirley...

In August 2004 we went in search of schlager to a show with Bubbles and Alcazar that Nina & Kim were headlining. It was in the middle of nowhere, but at least we got to stand on the "The Day Before You Came" train platform and pretend to be Agnetha.

It seemed like it was some kind of village fete with the groups performing on the bandstand.

Strolling behind the stage, standing right there were Nina & Kim. We told them we thought they were fabulous and could we have a photo please...
Nina pretended to be interested for a while, but then Kim said "Are you gay?" Ermmm, well we probably wouldn't have come miles outside of Stockholm on the commuter train and then got a bus to some tiny village in the wilds of Sweden if we were straight... She gave us her phone number and said she would meet us later that night in Patricia for a boogy to schlager...

That evening we had the most surreal experience dancing to "En gång för alla" with Kim wearing a tea cosy on her head, while one of her sailors danced beside us...

Nina and Kim, we salute you...

Spot The Difference!!

Missing Monaco Already...

OH NO!

The Schlagerboys are devastated to hear that Monaco have pulled out of Eurovision 2007! Monaco can always be relied upon to give us a tune (unlike Moldova, Belarus, Albania, etc etc)

We loved "Coco Dance" last year, especially the bits where she sang in tune.

We loved the light bulb dress a couple of years before too... Although the shite ballad in between was a bit of a let down...

Thank you Monaco and goodbye. But before you leave the house, here are your best bits:

5. Managing to have less than 100 televotes in 2004 so that the Monegasque computer actually made up the score.

4. The video to "Coco-Dance" which was a bit "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme-Abba-in-the-studio" with Severine Mark II wearing her headphones and pretending to push a few buttons like she new what she was doing. And then being mortified when a load of fat blokes trolled up from Fiji to dance with her next to the hotel pool...

3. Not entering for 25 years - thats a bit of a long strop. What a diva!

2. "Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue" (1971) - well the key change bit anyway. And Severine Mark I coming back to support Severine Mark II in Athens. And the Schlagerboys not realising who the larger lady on stage was...
1. "Toi, la musique et moi" (1976) - it's a camp classic!

Rubbish first song announced

What a carry on! All that excitement in the Moldovan camp (bit of a contradiction in terms there), what with the favourite granny bashers doing an Agurbash and being disqualified despite coming second anyway.

All that excitement and they still choose a shite song!

Lets hope Natalia Barbu does an Agurbash too and completely changes her entry to a pop masterpiece, before performing in a golden cloak, spangly cat suit and singing like a sheep....

Meanwhile Uncle Ralph has been cruelly sacked from Switzerland having come about 73rd last year. Come to the UK, Ralph - the Schlagerboys will co-write a schlagerific stomper with you, to sweep the board at MYMU!,

La Suisse have chosen DJ Bobo to sing for them. It is to be hoped he gets over his Lou Bega fixation before May...

A Clamp Christmas...

Expressen are reporting that Shirley Clamp will be a special guest on "comedy drama" Kvarteret Skatan in a Christmas Special to be broadcast on 23rd December.

Apparently Shirley plays the pregnant sister of Jenny, one of the main characters, who is living with the pair's mother at Christmas. Shirley says she studied acting before she became a singer, but she thought it was to quiet and boring, so she started to sing!!

Here she is when she finds out the latest chart position of "Favoriter På Svenska"
Clearly her soap opera mother thinks it's hilarious...

Where's the Mandoline?

Slovenian TV has announced the songs and artists for EMA 2007.

We haven't heard of any of them...

Where's Sasa Lendero? Surely she would have won as it's just down to the Slovene public this time. No expert jury to ruin things... Clearly this is what she thinks of RTV Slo...

No Natalija Verboten...

We were looking forward to seeing what else she could bung into her performance apart from roller-skating circus acts, flowers being pulled from hats and slightly mis-timed lifts in the air...

Maybe 2008 will be Natalija's turn...

And where are The Harmoniks...? And Rebekah Dremelj...?

Obviously we don't know what the songs sound like yet but "Flower of the South" is written by the same people who wrote "Mandoline" so that's a good sign... Will Alenka Gotar and her dancers enter the stage through a giant daffodil?

We can't wait to see Steffy and Donald Trumpet... they sound fab. And let's hope no-one drops out, because Platin are first on the list of stand-in songs...

Grandma's Not Beating the Drum Anymore...

Despite earlier claims that Moldovan TV had no money, they've still asked for songs to be submitted for Eurovision 2007. 35 songs have arrived on TeleRadio Moldova's doormat and they've given us excerpts to listen to here.

Having provided one of the worst Eurovision entries in recent years, Zdob Si Zdub are back without Grandma (the one redeeming feature of their last effort). Its awful.

"Universal Cow" sounds interesting. It's not...

"Desperado" is rather fab, in an Eastern European dance tune kind of way. Starts of slow and then goes boom-bang-a-bang.

Personally we want "A Butt of Love" to win, just for the title. The European gayers will take a song with that title to their hearts... It sounds like some American soap opera theme tune from the 1990s.

And it looks like 3 Bucks were disqualified. Was this Dame Cheryl, little Shelley P and Mike Nolan's attempt to get back to Eurovision?

We haven't worked out yet how many of these will be in a Moldovan final, and even whether this makes any difference and they'll go and choose some godawful crap like "Loca".

You can vote for your favourite here. Quick, let's get "A Butt of Love" to Helsinki and get Wogan spluttering into his Irish Cream...

Happy Birthday Party!

Schlagerblog is one year old today! The birthday card from Shirley has clearly been lost in the post...

Our Schlager highlights of the past 12 months have been:

5. Schlager queen Kikki Danielsson waving at us repeatedly during "Idag Och Imorgon" at Pakhuskajen in Gothenburg, followed by Anna Book the next night posing for our camera as we got a little bit too excited at seeing someone who came 5th (or something...) in the Melodifestivalen in the mid-80s

4. Getting up close and personal with the Harmoniks... we ditched them when they came 4th in the EMA...

3. Carola winning Melodifestivalen, despite singing like a frog. And a special award to Rickard Engforrs for all his "styling och consulting". She couldn't have done it without you!

2. Getting Thomas G:Son to pose with his award for "Services to Schlager". He seemed to be a little frightened by this point...

1. Stalking Shirley Clamp, which led to her cancelling her signing in Gothenburg because we'd told her we would be there. She was still in her hotel scoffing the contents of her minibar and begging her manager not to have to go... As she left the Rix FM concert we took this picture...

Schlagerboys: Shirley! It's us! Over here!

Shirley: Oh no! If I keep my head down and talk to this comendy cushion I won't get eye contact...

Three Times (And Counting...) In A Lifetime

Oooh how fab! The Schlagerboys are very excited to hear that the writers behind Estonia's best entry are at it agin for Eurolaul 2007.

We've never quite got over the sight of a rather hunky Tanel on one side of the stage and one of our mums on the other, belting out harmonies far louder than poor Ines who squawked her way through "Once In A Lifetime" looking like she'd pood herself.

Unfortunately Tanel spoiled it all by coming back in 2001 with "Everybody". Even the Schlagerboys have a cheese threshold!

Since 2000 Estonia has re-entered "Once In A Lifetime" twice. Once in 2002 and again in 2006. With each subsequent song you can sing "The magic no-one else can fi-nd" just before the key change. This has become the Schlagerboy mark of a good Estonian entry.

Here's hoping Ines has got over her dull as ditchwater "I'm dead serious, me" Coldplay shite as demonstrated last year's Eurolaul. And while we're at it, Vanilla Ninja, drop the guitars, girls. Go back to your dance routines. We remember "Club Kung-Fu!"

Fab!

Pope-tastic!

Apparently San Marino almost entered Eurovision 2007.

We're hoping for the Vatican City in 2008. We can just imagine the Pope getting jiggy with a backing troupe of cardinals.

We've heard that the Lord digs a good key change....

What a Nice Package!

The Schlagerboys have heard there is some controversy surrounding YLE's handling of ticket allocation for the 2007 contest.

With some research we have managed to unearth a package for €956.27 offering as follows:

- 1 ticket for rehearsal on Monday afternoon
- 1 ticket for lighting rehearsal on Wednesday morning (no artists present)
- 1 cup of tea and a sausage roll from Juha's stall outside the press centre
- 1 ticket with restricted view (behind a big Israeli flag) for the semi final on Thursday
- A CD of Fredi and his Friends "Greatest Hit(s)"
- A Lordi mug and a signed photo of Christine Marchal-Ortiz

We'll be ringing up for that one come Sunday morning...

Dub-di-dub-di-dub-dub-dub!

The Danish singers and songs have been announced. There's a creaky old woman who represented Denmark in 1995 and half an Olsen Brother.

We can't wait to hear Camille featuring DJ Mary... But best of all is this lot...

We haven't seen usage of a cow like that in a pop video since Atomik Harmonik...
Me & My for Denmark 2007! Hurrah!

Where's Carola?

The nominations for Sweden's Grammis have been announced... and there's no room for Carola!!

"Invincible" doesn't get a look in! Not even for Best Use Of A Wind Machine or Most Imaginative Choreography With A Few Sheets On Sticks. Clearly the judges do not recognise professional "styling och consulting" when they see it...

"Sing For Me" and "Temple Of Love" are both nominated in the Best Song category, and BWO are nominated again for Best Pop Group and Best Album.

There's even a Best Schlager category and still no Carola. Linda Bengtzing gets nominated for her dreadful album. Let's hope the judges only listen to the singles. And Magnus Carlsson is mentioned for his new Christmas album. Bless!

Belgium Announce Crap Song!

It's the Walloons' turn in Belgium for Eurovision 2007. And they are having an internal selection...

Oh dear!

Every two years we get a fab schlagerdisco number from the Flems and then the inbetween years we get rubbish.. Even Sergio provided a bit of a comic moment by attempting a somersault and almost falling flat on is face!

Come on Wallonia - give us some pop!

100% Christmas!

Expressen is reporting on the first week of Lotta Engberg's Allsång med Lotta at Liseberg in Gothenburg.

Here is Lotta showing her appreciation to the crowd.
And here she is embarassing some poor child, who'll be having nightmares for weeks...
But somebody loves her as they've given her a couple of bunches of twigs.
Happy Christmas Lotta!

43 Countries??

Bloody hell!

The voting was boring enough last year.... we'll be there until July...

Better take a duvet...

We Are Live in the Eurohouse! Please Do Not Swear!

Angelica Agurbash has stropped off and declined to participate in the Belarussian TV Eurofest...

Oh no!

And we've collected 15 signatures on our petition. Maybe we should send it to her. It might cheer her up...

As you leave the Eurovision house, here are your best bits Angelica!!

5. Paying gazillions of Belarussian roubles to some famous American songwriters for the fab "Miracle" and then expecting to be able to enter Eurovision having performed it at the Opening Ceremony of the Gothenburg European Athletics. Silly mare!

4. Winning the Belarussian National Final in 2005 with "Boys And Girls", realising it was shite and then getting some Greeks to write "Love Me Tonight". And still not shelling out on singing lessons...

3. Holding two parties in Kyiv during Euroweek. One hosted by Belarussian TV and the other to celebrate Angelica's birthday. We didn't like to ask how old she was, but she was trolloping round the Euroclub as if she'd already won. The entertainment was three Belarussian grannies and their gay grandson singing Belarussian folk tunes to a disco stomper beat.

2. Trolling round Kyiv in a big, black limousine with blank numberplates so she wouldn't get mugged by all her Eurofans...

1. Stropping off and catching the first flight to Minsk on the Thursday night after failing to qualify for the Eurovision final in 2005. What a diva!

Come Home!

Magnus in his Barbados days having a gay disco in his lounge... Bet the rest of the Barbados boys were a bit peeved at the homo-takeover... Although one of them seems to be having a bath in popcorn with some dolly bird. That must chafe...

Magnus has even got a built-in glitter ball, and has invited a couple of drag queen friends around for a good old boogie. The look that one of them gives around the 2 minute, 5 second mark when the straights start snogging says it all..

But what's this? He's singing about a girl? Wanting her to come home? Surely not? At least she rings the doorbell on the key change!

Don't be silly! This is Sweden!! Magnus doesn't shatter our illusions. We won't spoil the end of the video, but at least he doesn't ruin it by pretending to be straight!

Dancing With Anna

Anna Book's going to be presenting the next series of Let's Dance, the Swedish version of Strictly Come Dancing.

She knows a thing or two about dancing does Anna. She came second in the last series. She was judging a dance competition in Gothenburg when we were there.

Here she is looking very serious and about to give some advice to the competitors. Anna took the supportive "Oh that was fabulous!"Sharon Osbourne role, the moustached heterosexual in the middle acted the Simon Cowell "You're shit" role, and the headteacher on the left was clearly there to make up the numbers. The competitors, bizarrely, included Caroline Wennergren. Caroline's career clearly hasn't taken off since "A Different Kind of Love".

Here she is trying to look as though she wants to be there.Caroline didn't win. We jumped on Anna on the way back to hospitality and told her she was fab and could we have a photo. She was lovely and smiled sweetly while one of us posed and the other took the shot. Unfortunately the flash didn't work so all we got was this.