240 How to Win Melfest === [00:00:00] Ben: Anyways, does this work? No. Just, lol, no Hello, and welcome to the Eurowhat, episode number 240, dropping on August 27th, 2024. We are a pair of Americans trying to make sense of the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm Ben Smith, and I'm here with my co host, Mike McComb. Hey, Mike! [00:00:31] Mike: Hey Ben. [00:00:32] Ben: In this episode, we'll be strategizing about how to win Melfest. How's it going, Mike? [00:00:37] Mike: Good. Do I want to win Melfest? [00:00:40] Ben: Yeah, like, that was sort of the question. Yeah, like, do we want to? Also, are we the people you should talk to if you want to win Melfest? I'm not sure. [00:00:48] Mike: Yeah, I mean, definitely not me, but maybe that's why you're leading this episode. [00:00:51] Ben: That's why I'm leading. Yeah, but like, I feel like listening to this show over the years is watching my I hesitate to call it affection, but just sort of my interest in Melfest just sort of curdle in real time over the course of five years. this one sort of emerged out of, well, we're closing our coverage of Momo 2024. we are putting it to bed, burying it in the ground, salting the earth, etc. we had started out, this season with my galaxy brained idea that Sweden isn't actually quote unquote good at Eurovision. and now that I'm taking down all the red string from my bulletin board for that, and removing all the hat pins, all this little doll that looks weirdly similar to Martin Usterdahl, I wanted to go back to something I had set aside and look a little bit more closely at, at Melfest. this is less how to win, and more noticing some trends, or, ultimately just sort of paraphrasing, songwriter Andersson as sung by Gunilla Persson, engaging in talking trash behind closed doors. [00:01:46] Mike: And we are opening those doors for our delightful listeners. [00:01:51] Ben: Exactly. As closed as the doors can be, given our listener rate, so. You know, not everybody's hearing this, but the right people are. [00:01:58] Mike: Yeah, it can't be all bad if we're bringing Ganilla into the conversation, so. [00:02:02] Ben: Exactly. circling back to Melfest, Melfest has been Sweden's selection method since 1959. It's changed here and there over the years, but the biggest switch was in 2002. That's when it went from being a 10 act final to a multi week process with, at that time, 32 acts competing for slots in a final. I wanted to dig into sort of what that did, so, uh, I grabbed the last 25 years, ending in a 5, pew pew pew, and looked at every individual performer, so either, both in groups and as a whole, and songwriter to see what I could find and crack the secret to Melfest's success. [00:02:38] Who has written the most songs for Melfest? --- [00:02:38] Ben: so let's start with songwriters, since I think at least on some level, there's like a certain number of entries every year where it feels like, This song is good, let's find somebody to pair it with. in the last few years, I've just been like, How many songs did Jimmy Joker write? Cause it just feels omnipresent, it's just him and Thomas Juhson running from little table to little table whenever they show, like, the green room. [00:02:58] Mike: They should get, some sort of Lazy Susan set up so that, the stage rotates around them rather than them having to move around. I don't know. [00:03:04] Ben: Yes, yeah, just like, yeah, just leave the camera person there. make everybody else who's on the song have to swap out, not them. Anyways, I don't think it's going to surprise you to learn that Thomas G. Son has written or co written a full 10 percent of all Melfest entries in the last 25 years. [00:03:22] Mike: Wow. [00:03:23] Ben: Yeah. [00:03:24] Mike: Wow. That, that, that's a lot. Wow. [00:03:27] Ben: Twenty five years. for whatever reason, I was confident when I started, like, going through the various, uh, Melfest 2000 whatever Wikipedia pages, like, I'm not gonna see this name for a while. It was on the first year. that is a full seventy four songs over twenty five years. [00:03:44] Mike: Wow. 74, like that's, I mean,have you ever written a song? [00:03:50] Ben: No, [00:03:51] Mike: yeah, like I've not either and like the idea of doing 74 and you know that these aren't the only ones [00:03:58] Ben: No, these are the ones that made it to Melfest. Yeah Goodness, these are the ones that made to Melfest and not like Malta or other nations because he's doing that too. [00:04:08] Mike: True [00:04:09] Ben: cutting it down to just the last 10 years, 12 percent of entries. That's 38 of them. Cutting it down to the last 5 years, uh, he's toned it down, it's only 11 percent of the last 5 years. Wow. Uh, 18 songs. Yeah, just a lot. [00:04:22] Mike: 18 songs. That is crazy. Okay. Alright. [00:04:25] Ben: Across those 25 years, there are 4 wins in there. looking more recently, his tattoo co writer, Jimmy Janssen, uh, has written or co written 12 percent of the entries in the last five years. And also one with Tattoo. [00:04:38] Mike: So I'm, I'm guessing those numbers are overlap. So it's not like they are quartering 23 percent of the market, correct? [00:04:43] Ben: Correct. yeah, with the songwriters in particular, the Swedish model is you have a room full of people and that is probably happening on both the production side and the writing side. So yeah, it's like, there's, there's probably a lot of overlaps. Yeah. It's not like these like five or six songwriters I'm going to mention have the entire pie. the Venn diagram is very complicated. Jimmy Joker Thornfield, has written 10 percent of entries in the last five years. and had three wins, which is very impressive. Yeah! [00:05:11] Mike: Wow, that, that is a really high win rate. Okay. [00:05:14] Ben: also rounding out the, the top five, Andrzej Retshov, who was a co writer on Voices and Too Late for Love, so two wins, has co written 11 percent of the entries in the last ten years, and the last five years. [00:05:25] Mike: Interesting. I do not immediately recognize that name, which is surprising given the amount of output it has produced. [00:05:31] Ben: Yeah, yeah, it's like, I've been focusing all my energy on, like, Thomas G. Sun's long flowing hair and not noticing this other guy in the background at all the tables. Yes. Uh, but then, Joy and Linnea Deb are the most prolific women, with 30 entries in the last 10 years. That's about 10%. And 15 entries in the last five. if it feels like the same people are showing up, yes, you are correct. They are. [00:05:53] Mike: Yeah, and, as you mentioned, they are showing up in other countries as well, like, Austria, Malta, San Marino, [00:06:00] Ben: step one for success, get them in the co writing room. [00:06:02] Do non-English songs do well at Melfest? --- [00:06:02] Ben: the other main question I had had, just, As, as a watcher of this is it advisable to sing in the language other than English at Mel Fest? it's not just English or Swedish. over the years there has been one constructed language. Bosnian has shown up once. Squeakly has shown up. Once, French has popped up, Italians popped up a few times. But generally, if it's not English or Swedish, it's a lot of quote unquote Spanish. there are songs that are fully in Spanish, which, Go Sweden, heck yeah, but a lot of times it's just very, sort of, high school Spanish. [00:06:35] Mike: I'm working through Spanish on Duolingo, so, uh, I sympathize, so, yeah. [00:06:41] Ben: Yeah, it's just a lot of Baila Baila, a lot of, uh, yeah, a lot of things like that. Although one fun side effect of having gone through A lot of entries trying to validate what languages things are in because like just from us from like from the title having to go to a song that's called Baila Baila and go okay is this actually Spanish or are these the only two words in the song that appear as Spanish when trying to like classify these things. [00:07:06] Mike: Right. [00:07:07] Ben: there is consistently a YouTube comment from three years ago on every entry that's just like love it this one and it's always the worst song you've ever heard. a song for everybody. the rise of Spanish as a language showing up at Melfest does sort of nicely time to the rise of the two Latin explosions in pop. there's like a nice little outcropping of them in the early 2000s, so right around the time of like Ricky Martin and all that. And then another one coming after 27, 2018,when Despacito really started to pop up. what was very funny to me is that one of the artists in both of those waves was Mendes. the first Mendez entry is from 2003. Uh, and if I can find the chat window, there it is. you only need to listen to like the first 30 seconds, but this is what Melfest Spanish sounded like in 2003. JG [00:08:18] Mike: Okay, I have some thoughts. Uh, number one, uh, I, I think back to when, Glenn Weldon was on the show and, we were talking about slo mo and, one of his criterias for any song that is in Spanish is how long until you hear the word Corazón. Uh, this one, it was like three seconds. Uh, number two, uh, Why was this? [00:08:36] Ben: Yeah, you know, like there was like, earlier when when I was doing the second wave of data crunching I was sending you my stream of consciousness thoughts. And this was around the time of like, we need to bury all these in the ground and salt the earth. [00:08:46] Mike: Oh, goodness. This was Yeah, like this. Like, I think even at the time, I just would have like, it's just so cringe. It is very cringe. It is all the cringe. [00:08:55] Ben: It is just like coming at it from 2024. This is just live in La Vida Loca with the serial numbers filed off. [00:09:02] Mike: Yeah, yeah, slow down a little bit but it feels very 2003, so I could see, like, why it would have been popular, why it may have worked. How did this one do? [00:09:11] Ben: It made it to second chance. It did not proceed past second chance, but it made it to second chance round. [00:09:17] Mike: Okay. That seems correct. [00:09:19] Ben: Yes. I would agree. Good job, Swedish audience. but in general, how do things that are not in English or Swedish do? If it's not something with Spanish, not well. You are not La Voix. La Voix is the one success story of not in English or Swedish. [00:09:36] Mike: Okay. Interesting. Yeah, I'm also very curious about the, like, Bosnian. Like, how did that get in there? Was it like a word in Bosnian or was it a song that was in Bosnian? [00:09:48] Ben: Uh, let's see. I have that one just listed as Bosnian in my spreadsheet. So like, there was no English in the mix. Huh. Yeah. in terms of how it did, uh, it did not qualify to the final. Did not qualify to second chance. And in general a lot of the not in English or Spanish or Swedish, do not generally qualify. [00:10:07] Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. [00:10:07] Ben: Although, I would say, one act to watch here is Medina. Medina has popped up in the last couple years, and they came second and they came third, and I think they would be an interesting choice for Sweden. but in general, if you are trying to identify what language to sing in, maybe keep it to just English and Swedish, although with the Swedish, that was the other question, like does Swedish do well? And let me just queue up clip number two, this one just needs like 5 seconds, Just a big resounding nay. [00:10:38] Ben: I think that there is probably some level of, like, a Swedish version of, like, how on Canadian television there's, like, a CanCon requirement. especially in, like, the last five to ten years, there are generally eight to ten entries that are in Swedish. so I think that there is some level of, we need to have Swedish content on our Swedish television program, which, good, but in the last five years, at least 60 percent and generally more than 80 percent of the songs that are entirely in Swedish have not qualified to second chance or the final. in the last ten years, six of those years have had over 80 percent fail to qualify. And it's kind of a shame given how many, how, like, songs in a country's native language have generally been flourishing in the contest. that Jacob Carlberg song is kind of a bop. It's like the, the ones where it doesn't feel like it's, well we have this song, let's pair it with this person from like 14 years ago. Like there's energy to them, it's, and like there are Swedish language artists that are doing interesting things. [00:11:30] Mike: this song, it feels familiar? What year was it from? [00:11:34] Ben: this was 2020. [00:11:35] Mike: Oh, 2020. Okay, yeah. That, that seems about right. I think, like, it probably would have done well if it were part of this year's contest. Um, yeah, it's not, not really my style, but, like, it, it feels like it is current. [00:11:48] Ben: Yeah. there's fun stuff in the mix. But, Sweden tends to prioritize the stuff that's entirely in English. [00:11:53] Should Melfest's Andra Chansen be given a second chance? --- [00:11:53] Ben: let's chat about Melfest as a format, since it loves to give songs multiple chances, and just talk about second chance. was trying to figure out, like, okay, how has that changed over the years? appears for the first time in 2002. 2002 has a winner's choice round, where it was a panel of nine previous Swedish Eurovision entrants plus an impartial chair, watching the performances and picking two to go through. and that panel included Charlotte Pirelli, Nanna Grundvall, and Roger Pontare. making the choice of who gets a second chance. from 2003 to 2006, that turns into a viewer's choice. eight acts perform, there are either one or two rounds of voting, and the top two move on. That gets renamed Second Chance in 2004. 2007 [00:12:33] Mike: to [00:12:34] Ben: 2012, that's when we have the first wave of duels. Which, just kind of a mess as a format, because like, you don't want to have things rematch, but it's kind of arbitrary. The winner of each duel moves on to of two duels, and the winner of each of those moves to the final. They complicate this in 2009 with a thing called the International Jury Pick. that they try once and then never again, and I find it fascinating. I love when Sweden just like immediately is like, this is not working. So in addition to the normal heats and the second chance round, there was also an international jury picking one song from each heat that they thought was most suitable for Eurovision, which, what does that mean? Most suitable. They could not pick songs that had already made it to the final, and anything that they picked that made it through second would also become ineligible. So, of the four songs chosen, only two of them end up being potentially the international jury pick because the other two make it through second chance. [00:13:31] Mike: Okay, so, okay, I'm trying to make sense of this. So it's kind of a wildcard pick, but they're doing the pick before they need the wildcard? Is that a good way of describing it? [00:13:44] Ben: Yes. Yes. It's, it is very confusing. [00:13:46] Mike: Okay, I can see why they don't continue doing that. [00:13:49] Ben: Yes, well, especially because the song that got picked, finished 10th out of 11 songs in the final. my notes after this. Good grief, this seems way too complicated, it's never used again. Yeah. Uh, so 2013 2014, we go back to all eight songs are performing, there are two rounds of voting, so the top four go to a second vote round, the top two from that go to the final. 2015 2021, they're like, we're gonna do duels again, and this time They don't do the weird, complicated second round that just feels weirdly weighted in favor of whatever the crowd likes the most. Just, the duels are randomly assigned. Whoever wins goes to the now 12 entry final. Uh, and then 2022, we're like, no more duels! the two top vote getters from each block of these four entries move. 2023, we try the semi final. All eight entries are performed again. The top four go to the final. And in 2024, we get everybody's favorite second chance to win. Method. Recency bias. Yes. . it was an absolute mess. Clean that up immediately. Sweden. This is just like a weird second level of weirdly complicated. Doesn't work. the big question behind all of this though, these very, all of these very complicated methods of like getting a couple more songs into the final, Does this do anything good for your chances of winning Mel Fest? No. No, it does not. Uh, there have been 74 second chance entries that have made the final across 25 years. 18 percent of the second chance entries across those 25 years ended up in the top 3. In the last 5 years, no second chance entries have ended up in the top 3 of the Melfest final. on average, they finish in 7th or 8th place. 7 of them have finished last! I think it's great that they're giving things a second chance, because again, you do have, Robin Steenburg's YOU. won, and was a second chance entry, but like, that is the exception, not the rule. songs are not the only thing Melfest gives second chances to, [00:15:32] If you already won Melfest, should you come back? --- [00:15:32] Ben: many times, they give a lot of chances to a lot of performers. they love to invite performers back, whether they've won Melfest, represented another nation, hello Krista Siegfried, Victor Krohn, and Helena Paparizou, or, or just like to do Melfest! does any of that ultimately work in your favor? Specifically, let's start with, if you've already won Melfest, should you come back? Across 25 years, 32 acts have returned after their initial Melfest win to perform 57 entries. There are four winners who have won Melfest a subsequent time. You have Corolla, who won having previously won in 83 and [00:16:06] Mike: 91. Okay. [00:16:07] Ben: Uh, Roger Pontare represented them in 2000, he had previously won in 1994, Charlotte Pirelli won in both 1999 and 2008, and of course, Laureen won in 2012 and 2023. interesting to note, all four of those acts have also performed an entry in the last 25 years that either did not qualify or failed to make it out of second chance. [00:16:26] Mike: Oh, interesting. [00:16:27] Ben: Yeah, all of them. Uh, in general, returning winners had an average placement of 13th, which is the value I was putting in my spreadsheet to Register acts that had made it out of their heat, but didn't get outta the second chance run. So if there's like 12 entries, you came 13th. that feels about right if you're a previous winner. 'cause like, it's not a guarantee for the finale, but you generally have enough brand recognition to make it to second chance at best. [00:16:51] Mike: Mm-Hmm. . [00:16:51] Ben: my, my final note here. Robin Bankson, you already won. Why are you here again? No, . He and like he's come back multiple times since he [00:16:59] Mike: won. Yeah. that was fairly recent, too. Like, 2017 was not that long ago, [00:17:03] Ben: one of the tricky parts with, the artists is that there are many cases where their first appearance was as part of a band, or a, or a preformed pop group, but then they will show up as a solo artist later. so as part of counting appearances, I had to do a lot of checking for places where individual members of a group had gone as things solo. anywhere where a group remained a group and, like, no individual members had popped up later, I just left in my spreadsheet as a group. and then I had, a real, real bad headache from just staring at the Dolly Style membership chart over the last however many years and just going, Okay, so I need to check if the blue one from this entry from like 2016, but the blue one from this entry from 2019 on. Anyways, I don't understand that group. It's like, it's like the weird like live show tie in to like a cartoon or a toy line that does not exist. [00:17:51] Mike: Okay. Like it never [00:17:53] Ben: existed or? No, no, no. It's just like, it just exists as a group and it feels like the sort of thing that is like, you know, let's go see the Wiggles live. Okay. Or just like the tie in to like Bluey, but there's no Bluey. There is no cartoon. They're just like a group of three of them. Wait, no, there's no, wait, no, there's now four of them. There's a fourth one now. [00:18:16] Mike: But it's the fourth one canon. That's the question. Oh, I love that. [00:18:19] Ben: Well, like, the fourth one used to be a different one. And they came back. Okay. I spent too much time on this Wikipedia page. I hate it. Yeah, I hate it here. Um, Anyways, does going solo if Melfest is like, hey, we have a song, we need a singer, we love you, do you want to come back? there are 16 performers who have separated from the band they first appeared at, at Melfest to either perform as a soloist, or as, in one case, there is a duo that split off from them. The group Friends, who had listened to your Heartbeat, two of them a couple years later show up as Nina and Kim. [00:18:53] --- [00:18:53] Ben: Anyways, does this work? No. Just, lol, no. The only artist who has done better as a soloist than as a member of an existing group is Felix Sandman. Uh, apologies to the other members of FO and O. Only one boy gets to have emotions. of those, three acts failed to get past second chance. 12. Solo performers have just straight up not qualified at least once. in general, if Mel Fest calls, and you were part of a group, just tell 'em you're busy washing your hair. Nope. Sorry, I have to take the, you know, just make up an excuse. Yeah. does it benefit you to come back to Mel Fest again and again? Like, as was joked at this year's Eurovision, like, Alcazar will appear at the opening of an envelope. looking at the membership, Lena Hedlund, Tess Merkle, Andreas Ludenstedt, and Magnus Carlsen. definitely like coming back to Melfest. all of them have at least six appearances. Wow. Yeah! Uh, Lena is at seven. Magnus is at eight appearances at Melfest, but he was also previously a member of a different group called Barbados. [00:19:50] Mike: Okay. [00:19:51] Ben: So various combinations over the years, the spread sheet got very complicated. Yeah. also at eight appearances, Jessica Anderson, who was a member of the duo FAME, who showed up a couple times, and then now she just pops up, you know, Solo to sing things like Party Voice. I [00:20:04] Mike: was gonna ask if that was her. Okay. that. Yep, yep, [00:20:07] Ben: yep. Linda Sing has performed seven times, but has not made the final or qualified since 2011. [00:20:14] Mike: Okay. [00:20:14] Ben: Saana Nielsen has also competed seven times. she has not appeared since 2014. She's living her best life. she did the thing that I think you should do. It's like, once you win Melfest, you did it. You're free. Uh, I, I was, like, looking at you, like, what has she been doing? she's done commentary for a couple different Eurovisions as part of the Swedish broadcast team. She's done some musical theater, like she was in a version of Funny Girl in like the last few years. and then she's also been a guest vocalist who shows up to like, a summer concert series, or just like performing with a choir. she tried so many times, and then she did it, and now she's done. across all performers who have performed more than once, uh, the average difference in how your performance does compared to previously is generally dropping 3. 8 positions. [00:20:58] Mike: Okay. [00:20:59] Ben: The more times you come back, the more likely you are to not qualify. there are some cases where, like, a performer has either done better or, like, smashed into pieces who I do not like, but who do pop up and do represent, like, a genre that I think deserves coverage at Melfest, uh, have come in third both times they've been there, so, like, very consistent. I threw all this together of just sort of like, did you get the second chance but not make it out? Did you just completely fail to qualify? to try to figure out, okay, who is invited back to 2025? So, just sort of applied a method that really goes along with Melfest baseball, uh, and was just like, okay, three strikes and you're out. So if you don't qualify for the final or make it a second chance, that is a strike. Okay. also to sort of weight things, your overall average of how you perform also factors into how high up you are on the list. And then just to try and cut out, because there are a lot of things that have come back like twice, but like, they were both in the early 2000s and they just like, made their peace and left and never darkened Melfest's door again. If you haven't shown up in over a decade, I'm just like, we're not gonna call you. Just like, you're good, you're doing the Sanaa Nielsen lifestyle, you're just like, showing up to like, the opening of a mall and that's fine. top of my list for who is invited back, Sanaa Nielsen, as a host. As the host. [00:22:16] Mike: Oh [00:22:16] Ben: yeah. [00:22:17] Mike: That's actually surprised she hasn't come back to do that. [00:22:20] Ben: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'cause like there are so many other people who have participated in a few Mel fests and then just showed up as the host we're like, talk to her. Yeah. Like she, [00:22:28] Mike: she'd be good. Yeah. [00:22:29] Ben: Thinking about our chat with Ellie earlier in the season and just thinking about it is, it is like Taylor Swift season. So just like, let's get a pop country female in there. I would love to see Victoria come back. Anna Bergendahl seems real hungry for a second appearance at Eurovision and she does fit that really well. some seasoned veterans who, haven't gone to, Eurovision. Uh, The Mamas. I mean, The Mamas have as like, backing singers, but like, they were denied the chance to actually do a song, and like, when they are a trio, they do very well. Lululamot also went solo, did not qualify, so again, keep the group together. Yeah. Mariette, definitely call her back. she has no strikes. she always [00:23:07] Mike: makes the final. Yep. And yeah, she has one of the, like, uh, I, I think, uh, A Million Years is one of the top ranking songs on the poll that, OzzyVision runs of, best songs to not make it to Eurovision. And, uh, yeah, that is near the top of my list as well. [00:23:23] Ben: Yes. I, I figured you would be, you'd be in favor of that one. And like, also, she seems to really like Eurovision, she's definitely been on the jury vote side of things at Eurovision a few times. she's welcome to come back to the party, she's doing great. Uh, Jan Henrik Fjallgren, he keeps bringing Joik, and in interesting combinations, I think we should keep inviting him, he does well. In the category I've just sort of defined as, they seem nice, where they've maybe had an entry that didn't qualify, but just in general, Clara's Kling. Strom and Strom. [00:23:52] Mike: Mm-Hmm. . [00:23:53] Ben: Uh, and then Tone SIUs. delightful. See, didn't love her last song, but it, it made it to the final. Yeah. I think that they should invite Eric Sback, but they're probably not gonna invite Eric Sback for reasons. [00:24:03] Mike: maybe a host. [00:24:05] Ben: Yeah. Maybe, maybe as a host. he's another one who every time he's been in the final, he's been top five. On the Swedish language side of things, as previously mentioned, Medina. I would like to see Jacob Karlberg come back, even though it's not everybody's thing, but it's contemporary. Uh, Theoz the last couple years. Has been doing very good Swedish language pop, this one is also fits in under like the seasoned veterans but they have gone to ESC and they do feel like the, like they fill the The Donsband criteria nicely. Arvind Garna. [00:24:35] Mike: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they feel like a reliable I don't see them ever saying no, [00:24:41] Ben: But they also do a good job. they've only failed to make the final once. [00:24:45] Mike: Oh, really? [00:24:45] Ben: Yeah, they take their craft seriously. And then the three acts I have is sort of on the precipice. they all have two strikes. So make sure they have a good song this time. Ava and Awa. I love them. Make them the host if SANA is busy. but if you're going to have them compete, they need to have a good song. they feel like the, Oh, we have like kind of a kooky song for an older singer, let's call these two. I don't like it. Give them a good song. Nanogrundval. Another one where she's generally on the writing side of things these days and like she does good work So like if she's the performer, I don't want her doing another carpool karaoke She deserves better. I saw her at the Euro club and she was real nice. [00:25:23] Mike: Okay [00:25:26] Ben: And then Malou Pritz, I still listen to I do me That's a great song. Yeah, [00:25:31] Mike: that one is a total bop. Yeah. [00:25:33] Ben: Yes. Uh, and her follow up songs have not been as good. So again, I would love to see her again, but give her a good song. Uh, and then just to close things out, Dolly Style is not invited back. They have either failed to make it out of the second chance round, or just straight up failed to make it, to the second chance round, so they are no longer invited. It's too complicated. No thank you. [00:25:54] Mike: Well, wait, okay, so not, not, not to throw your rubric into, disarray, but is it a particular combination of Dolly Style, or just Dolly Style, uh, ink? I, I think any of the, [00:26:06] Ben: I think any of the members are welcome just as like a solo vocalist. I feel like we have tried to make Dolly Style a thing. And, they seem to have some level of fanbase in Sweden, but Melfest does not seem to respond warmly to them. [00:26:20] Mike: What if they showed up at a different, we don't have to get into that now. [00:26:25] Ben: We'll take that one offline. I would love to see them on, like, the Swedish program that is, like, The Masked Singer, but for, you can see the singers, they're just doing different genres every week. I would love to see them have to deal with Metal Week. [00:26:35] Mike: Okay. Ooh. Alright, yeah, let's do that. Yeah, it's like, [00:26:38] Ben: absolutely, like, put them through the paces of StarCamp. Yes. Of just, like, make them sing different genres, because I think that would be very fun.I think that as a pop group they are fine. But they are a bad Mel Fest entry. They're a novelty entry. And it's a novelty that just does not seem to click with the audience. Mm-Hmm. and the voting public. Yeah. [00:26:57] Mike: Well, I mean, if you read as novelty, off the bat, that's really putting yourself, at a disadvantage. [00:27:03] Ben: any other questions, any other acts you want to know if, if, if they are on my invite list? [00:27:07] Mike: Oh, um, no. [00:27:12] Ben: That is also fair. [00:27:13] Mike: I think this list makes sense, and I think that if they were to show up in the 2025 list, I might be more enthusiastic about Melfest. [00:27:20] Ben: looking at the trends and overall, like, what is Melfest really responding to? Songs in English! Songs written by one of these five writers. that's gonna do it for this episode of The Eurowhat. Thanks for listening. The Eurowhat Podcast is hosted by Ben Smith, that's me, and Mike McComb. [00:27:37] Mike: That's me! If you would like to help support the show and access a ton of bonus content, head on over to patreon. com slash eurowhat. [00:27:44] Ben: Free access to our full archive of more than 200 episodes going all the way back to the 2018 contest can be found on our website, eurowhat. com. [00:27:52] Mike: Next time on the Eurowhat, we'll know the answer to host city where, and we'll learn more about Eurovision 2025 host nation, Switzerland.