Morten Thomassen is looking at semi final 4 of the Swedish 2023 Eurovision selection. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.

In semi final 4 the last seven songs in Sweden will be revealed and finally the artist that you have been looking forward to the most, 11 years after the ESC victory, many believe that Loreen has sinister plans afoot.

For the first time this year I get to see the show live and get to experience some presenters who I understand haven’t exactly been praised to the skies, well then I’ll give it a go, program management is actually a subject not everyone necessarily masters equally well.

But, luckily, it’s the songs I’m going to roll the dice on and these come here.

Melody 1 – Kiana

Cool opening to the song, not so cool vocally, it really didn’t start well. It’s a shame, because this song has potential, which is pretty well wasted. Things improve a little later in the song, but the damage has already been done and you eventually find out that the song is basically quite predictable and forgettable.

Melody 2 – Signe & Hjördis

We swing over to the folk music corner and it can be nice to be there at times. Here, too, it is not entirely vocally safe to be and the song itself seems to me to be quite predictable and more or less forgettable. Were they really the best songs they selected or do some composers have free slots?

Melody 3 – Smash Into Pieces

Finally there is real life in the hall and I really find out how much I miss rock in this competition. Intense raw voice and intense cool thundering music from someone who you realize actually has a lot of stage experience. Things rarely get better than this and you also realize how technically poor MGP was this year.

Melody 4 – Mariette

Here, they have chosen gray-pale as the overall tone in the colors and I would almost say that the song is also quite gray-pale as well. The lady tries her best and sings just fine, but the song never manages to sneak out of the pale gray shadow it started in, although so well vocally and with melancholic undertones that it doesn’t become a complete crisis after all.

Melody 5 – Emil Henrohn

It never hurts to have a bit of gay disco, it can be both fun and catchy. The song is marred by somewhat straining vocals at times, but otherwise this is probably something to live with. The song is very catchy and it puts me in a good mood. I happily overlook the fact that the word “mera” consistently has the wrong letter pressed, but what can you do to adapt the text.

Melody 6 – Axel Schylström

The most toned-down song of the evening and here it is sung with so much passion and empathy that I fall for this. As usual, I’m weak for melancholic undertones and it doesn’t hurt that there’s little to fault on the vocals here either. However, there is a little too little happening in the song for me to feel that it lasts all the way to the finish line and it gets a little too screamy towards the end as well.

Melody 7 – Loreen

Something happened so Loreen had to perform again. Thus we got to see one and a half masterpieces of a song. Everything is carried out to the last detail that you can almost feel it in your own heart. Magnificent vocals and an empathy most artists can only dream of. It is very possible that we saw this year’s winner of Eurovision tonight and our Swedish friends will probably reign at the top of the betting lists until May 13.

I have to agree with the criticism of the presenters, the Norwegians are world class compared to them.

The first song that goes to the final is particularly unsurprisingly Loreen, everything else would probably have been the mega-biggest shell of all time in this competition.

There is no saving on the intermission features. they should have that and eternally young Carola will be able to show off her vocal splendor and eternally iconic songs, they, NRK, can see and learn this.

I feel that whoever the other song goes to the final has a slightly more open competition, it ends up being Smash Into Pieces, what’s going on, my two favorites went to the final, what a good night this was.

Last, but not least, it must be mentioned that the last 2 who get a second chance for a place in the final next weekend were Kiana and Mariette, that night will probably feel a bit wasted all the time the vast majority are 99.99999% sure who will win in 2 weeks.