Last night, Benjamin Ingrosso became the latest artist to win Sweden’s Melodifestivalen after his performance of “Dance You Off”. Benjamin will, therefore, be off to Lisbon in May to compete in the second semi-final of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. “Dance You Off” has such a catchy beat and this, along with the staging in last nights performance makes this entry memorable. The song was written by Benjamin himself, alongside MAG, K Nita and Louis Schoorl.
Melodifestivalen 2018 was organised by the broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) and received 2,772 entries. The contest consisted of six shows in total, four semi-finals, a second chance round and the grand final. In each of the semi-finals, the two artists with the most votes went through to the final, with the artists finishing in third and fourth place competing again in the second chance round. The top four from the second chance round then advanced to the grand final. In the final, both an international jury and the public voted for their favourite with Benjamin Ingrosso coming out on top with both, therefore, winning the contest.
You can watch Benjamin Ingrosso perform “Dance You Off” below:
Sweden made their debut at the Eurovision Song Contest back in 1958 and have gone on to become one of the most successful countries in the contest’s history. They have six wins to their name, falling only behind Ireland who has won the contest a record seven times. ABBA was the first act to grab Eurovision glory for Sweden back in 1974 with their hit song Waterloo. As well as this Herreys won in 1984, Carola in 1991 and Charlotte Nilsson rounded off the 20th century with a fifth win for Sweden. In the 21st century, Sweden has been the most successful country in the contest, finishing in the top ten on ten occasions, with two of these being winning entries. Loreen’s “Euphoria” took the contest back to Sweden for the first time in over a decade, before Måns Zelmerlöw repeated the feat only three years later with “Heroes”.
It’s now been three years since their last win, so will Sweden be able to win the contest again this year? We will have to wait until May to find out, however, they already have some tough competition. Other acts that have been announced so far are Sennek for Belgium, Saara Aalto for Finland, Waylon for the Netherlands, AISEL for Azerbaijan, Cesar Sampson for Austria, Jessica Mauboy for Australia, Eugent Bushpepa for Albania, Iriao for Georgia, Madame Monsieur for France, Julia Samoylova for Russia, Alfred & Amaia for Spain, Mikolas Josef for the Czech Republic, Ryan O’Shaughnessy for Ireland, Eleni Foureira for Cyprus, Christabelle for Malta, Zibbz for Switzerland, SuRie for the United Kingdom, Rasmussen for Denmark, Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro for Italy, Eye Cue for F.Y.R Macedonia, Franka for Croatia, Netta Barzilai for Israel, Gianna Terzi for Greece, Alekseev for Belarus, Vanja Radovanovic for Montenegro, Sanja Ilic and Balkanika for Serbia, Michael Schulte for Germany, DoReDos for Moldova, AWS for Hungary, Mélovin for Ukraine, Laura Rizzotto for Latvia, Lea Sirk for Slovenia, The Humans for Romania, Sevak Khanagyan for Armenia, Ari Ólafsson for Iceland, Elina Nechayeva for Estonia, Gromee featuring Lukas Meijer for Poland, Jessike featuring Jenifer Brening for San Marino, Claudia Pascoal for Portugal, and Alexander Rybak for Norway.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be hosted at the Altice Arena, Lisbon, Portugal; with the two Semi-Finals taking place on 8 May and 10 May and the Grand Final taking place on 12 May. A total of 43 countries will compete in the contest.