The Schlagerboys are very excited about 2011. After all, a whole new Eurovision season is almost upon us and who knows what schlager delights are in store for us over the next 5 months!
As a final farewell to 2010 we've compiled the top 5 schlager anthems of the year. There is a conspicuous lack of Swedish entries this year (apart from the fabulous Timoteij girls, of course), but we are confident that 2011 will see Sweden coming back to schlager and normal service will be resumed.
In reverse order, here are the Schlagerboys' top 5 schlager songs of 2010. Here's hoping that 2011Eurovision will be full of stuff like this! 5. "Kom" - Timoteij
It's all about the intro where the girls strut towards the camera with a wind machine on force 10. Great key change too and hunky men on drums to boot.
4. "Canta Por Mim" - Catarina Pereira
When this lost by one point to a dull ballad in Portugal it was the Schlager catastrophe of the year. When Steps reform to do Eurovision we want this kind of thing, please.
3. "Give It To Me" - Alexander Stenerud
Schlagerboys to Alexander: Is there a key change?
Alexander: Certain changes have been made
Oh My God he only went and shoved in two!!
2. "Je Ne Sais Quoi" - Hera Björk
It's all about the sideways walk in verse two. And the fab key change.
1. "Sha la lie" - Sieneke
Bless her! She delivered a flawless key change in front of a huge organ. And that's enough for us.
Honourable mention: Schlager moment of the year: The Butterfly wings from Belarus. Costume designers across Europe will have been inspired.
The Albanianschose something shouty without a tune on Christmas Day. But at least Aurela Gaçe looks like a fabulous drag queen in her glittery catsuit and black bob wig. It really is just a shame about the song...
It was the first semi-final in Albania last night and several songs qualified for the final, which takes place on Christmas Day. It seems like there were an awful lot of dull ballads, blokes over-emoting and women wailing away to themselves while the orchestra plays a different tune.
So thank heaven for Marsida Saraci and her stomper "Vetëm s'jemi në botë". The verse needs a bit more oomph but the chorus has got plenty of disco violins. We've got no idea what Marsida is on about, but she's clearly telling it like it as she jabs her finger forcefully at the camera. And what's more there's a waily key-change and she manages to bring the whole thing to an end in just over three minutes, which is unusual for an Albanian National Final song which usually go on for about half an hour.
DR have announced the presenters for the 2011 Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Felix is back again and frankly he needs to run a comb through his hair. We were hoping for Kirsten Siggaard to be on co-presenting duties after Birthe made sure Denmark chose the right schlager anthem in 2010, but instead we've got Lise Rønne, who has presented Danish X Factor.
We're sure Lise will be fabulous and she looks particularly glittery in the official press photos.And she's got some extra huge dangly earrings and a posh frock so she must be fab.
Carola is taking her Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand show on tour around Sweden in 2011. Shame it's not a Greatest Hits tour, but the ultimate Swedish schlager diva icon is clearly warming herself up to come back, Back! BACK! And anyway look at how fabulous her hair is these days!
Schlagerblog is five years old and we're feeling fabulous! We've had a schlagertastic time and in honour of our schlager journey here's the top ten highlights. In reverse order of course.
10. Nanne-gate
We were so excited to get taken backstage at Nanne's concert that we totally underestimated her reaction to meeting two enthusiastic queens from the UK ten minutes before her performance. To say she was unimpressed is a bit of an understatement. The photo we took of her holding up our certificate for "big hair and fab heels" is priceless.
9. Backstage with Queentastic, Jenny Jenssen and Birgitte on MGP night 2010.
We'd like to think all schlager dressing rooms are like this. Bet they're not!
8. Going to Claudia Faniello's after-party and getting her to sing "Caravaggio" for us.
It was the glass of wine in her hand that made this footage extra special. Love Claudia.
7. Alexander Stenerud saying he put the two key changes in "Give It To Me" for the Schlagerboys.
Having complained for two years about lack of key change in his songs, it was only fitting that Alexander Stenerud plonked two in his 2010 MGP entry, just for us. The same night Fredrik Kempe saw us and bellowed, "I'm the king of the clunky key change!" which we thought was rather fab too. He then went on to boast that "Hollow" had six key changes in it...we can't confirm this because we never got past the first minute of that particular dirge.
6. Being Hera Björk's backing dancers.
It's Eurobash 2010, Hera sings "Someday" and asks the Schlagerboys to join her on stage. We were overcome with the the schlager fabulousness of it all. So much in fact that we forgot to come in for the first half of the song.
5. Jenny Jenssen saying "Schlagerboys! Yes!" on MGP 2007
It was our first MGP and we had just returned from the legendary make up chair interview where we told Jenny she was fabulous and begged her to send an English version of "Vil Du Ha Svar" to the UK before getting chucked out of the communal dressing room for annoying the other contestants. During her live interview on the show Jenny name checked us, thereby sealing our adoration for evermore.
4. Being Interviewed live on Norwegian MGP 2009 and 2010.
We're still astonished that this happened. We're particularly pround of getting Jade Ewen mentioned on Norwegian telly and asking the public to vote for her. Jade later told us the BBC should be employing us to go round Europe doing this. We quite agree.
3. Dancing with Olivia Lewis to "Vertigo" live on Maltese TV.
OMG! Olivia Lewis and the whole "Vertigo" episode was sooo fab! Getting on live telly to dance alongside Olivia as she mimed through her Eurovision entry, and wave our T-shirts à la tea towel dance inf ront of 200 bemused holidaymakers and god knows how many TV viewers was a seminal moment in the Schlagerboys' lives.
1. Getting Malta to give douze points to the UK in 2007.
It was quite frankly the highpoint of our existence when Malta read out their scores in 2007 and gave the UK its only douze points and practically it's only points of the night. The evening was topped off nicely when we met RussScooch at the after party and told him about our week flirting with Malta and he stropped off saying "Oh, so the twelve points was because of you , was it!". Bless him, he actually thought the people of Malta voted for Scooch because they liked that kind of trash.
Latvian TV have put the songs online for Eirodziesma 2011. Obviously we're loving Kaspars Timanis and "Daylight", and seeing as it appears to be still only a demo version there's plenty of time left to turn it into a true schlager stomper and get a big-voiced diva in to sing it.
But our favourite is Lauris Reiniks' "Banjo Laura". It's got echoes of Alexander Rybak, a fab chorus and a key-change too. And Lauris needs another go after the travesty of "Hello From Mars" coming 58th in 2003.
When Jedward sang "Oops I Did It Again" on X Factor last year it was great. The performance was terrible on so many levels; it made for a fabulous bit of telly.
Sanna Nielsen is going on a proper concert tour next spring. And given she rediscovered her schlager mojo last year and is back, Back! BACK! in Melodifestivalen in 2011 with a Lord Thomas of G:Son schlager stomper it might be worth popping over to Stockholm next Easter.
Tickets for next May's Eurovision final went on sale earlier today. And all 32,000 are sold out!
Apparently more might go on sale when the final list of participating countries is published and German TV have sorted out the camera configuration. And there will no doubt be a batch available when FormerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia come 11th in one of the semi-finals and strop off back to Skopje.
We were far too busy watching an embarrassed Rihannasing with Matt Cardle on X Factor so didn't bother to tune in to Swiss TV.
"In Love For A While" is a bit dull but Anna uses the old Eurovision standby of filling the whole second verse and chorus with "na na na's". Karmen Stavec would be so proud.
OMG!! The Eurovision season starts earlier every year and the Swiss final to choose their entry for Düsseldorf takes place on Saturday. DQ didn't make it, despite have a fabulous schlager stompathon ready to represent la Suisse in Germany.
We've had a quick listen to the songs on offer and it seems as though the show will be one long guitarry ballad yawnathon, although schlager diva icon Francine Jordi, who sang "Dans le jardin de mon âme" for Switzerland in 2002, is a celebrity judge so we might get a little bit of schlager in the proceedings.
Anyway, we're keeping our fingers crossed for Sarah Burgess, who appears to have had something to do with American Idol, and who looks particularly fabulous, even if her song, "Just Me", is a bit like Lena Mark II (although that's not necessarily a bad thing).
Italy are alledgedly coming back to Eurovision next year and everyone seems to going mad like it's the Second Coming or something. The Schlagerboys had a party at the weekend and a (not very) democratic vote to decide the best Italian song over the years. The winner was a song from Switzerland.
According to ExpressenAlexander Rybak will be taking part in the next series of Let's Dance, the Swedish version of Strictly Come Dancing.
Anna Book took part a few years ago in Sweden and came second, but we're still waiting for Cheryl Baker to strut her stuff with Anton du Beke on the BBC and we know Dame Cheryl's good at a bit of co-ordinated thigh-slapping and hand-clapping so she'd probably do a mean charleston.
On Friday the London Schlager Parties are starting up again. It all looks rather fabulous as the plan is for there to be a Schlager Party every couple of months. They'll be at the Loom Bar, just off Oxford Street, and there will be lots of Swedish pear cider and Absolut vodka available all night.
DJ Dave, schlager DJ supreme, will be playing loads of 70s, 80s and 90s schlager classic before 11pm, and then after that it'll be all the modern stuff. This means that Kirsten Siggaard and Birthe Kjær should get an outing before everyone has had far too many pear ciders to recognise the general schlager fabulousness of the Danish Divas.
And to make things even more exciting there will be a tribute half hour every time dedicated to a different schlager icon. On FridaySanna Nielsen will getting all her schlager stompathons played back-to-back. That means lots of "Vågar du, vågar jag" and no "Empty Room". Hurrah! If we were going to be there we'd be demanding an extra long remix of this...
Tickets for this Friday's Schlager Party are only £8 can be bought via the website here. And £1 from every ticket sale goes to the Terrence Higgins Trust.
Carola performed an open-air concert earlier in the year at Dalhalla in Sweden, singing nothing but Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand songs. We would have been a bit disappointed not to have at least a verse, chorus and key-change of "Invincible", but Carola more than made up for it with this fabulous performance of "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)"...
How fab is that!! The whole concert has been released as a DVD and can be bought here.
