SWEDEN (PRESS RELEASE) – Every year since 1959 a contest has been held to find the Swedish Song for Europe, except for 3 years when Sweden did not enter the Eurovision Song Contest. Melodifestivalen was at first known as ”Say it with music: the Grand Schlager Contest”.
“It wasn’t as easy as you might think,” says Peter Baston, the club’s vice president. “It depends on how you count ’59 and ’60 when the semi-finals were heard on the radio months before the final. But a team of the club’s most ardent fans and a number of outside experts have independently come to the same conclusion.”
We can confirm that the 1000th entry will be heard this week.
Until 2002 when Melodifestivalen took on its present format there had been just over 400 entries in total. Since then the pace has quickened. Disqualified songs have been excluded from the final count, and so has Sweden’s first Eurovision song from 1958 as both artist Alice Babs and ”Lilla Stjärna” were selected internally.
So who has the honour of performing Song Number 1000? It will be Stockholm duo WAHL featuring Sami with ”90-talet” (The Nineties). They go out as number 3 on Saturday.
The winner of this year’s final (13 March) will represent Sweden in Rotterdam 18-22 May.
