If you're European, you're probably familiar with Eurovision. If not, it's an annual cross-Europe song contest that involves any country that chooses to participate selecting a song. Then, over the course of a few nights in May, the songs are performed and broadcast on TV; the songs can't be longer than three minutes, must be sung live, and are often accompanied by some sort of memorable performance staging or gimmick (like a dance routine or elaborate clothing). All the participating countries have a chance to vote for their favorites (you can't vote for your own country's entry). A country's votes are distributed as points for their favorite entries, the points for all the countries are addd up, and a winner is chosen. ABBA and "Waterloo" are one of the contest's most famous winners, but, despite the contest's connotation of cheesy pop, the past three years have been won by Finnish metal, Serbian power balladry, and Russian Timbaland ballad mimickry.
There's no one way for a country to select what its Eurovision entry will be. Some countries have a panel that makes an internal selection of the artist and song (Eurovision is technically a song contest, but understandably who performs it and how it is performed often has an effect on the results). Other countries have their residents telephone in to vote amongst numerous candidates or, like Sweden, mix phone votes with jury votes. These one country voting processes to determine Eurovision representatives are called national finals, and Melodifestivalen (literally, the Melody Festival) is Sweden's national final.
Melodifestivalen takes place on six consecutive Saturday nights. The first four consist of semifinals, with each semifinal including eight acts. The fifth night is a second chance round for acts that just missed out on qualifying to the final from their semifinal. The sixth and final night is, of course, for the final. There can be year to year variations in exactly how the qualification process works, but for introductory purposes, that's probably all you need to know.
What will you see during your typical Melodifestival semifinal? As mentioned, eight acts will perform songs, some in Swedish, some in English, and some in other languages entirely. In Sweden, Melodifestivalen is often associated with schlager (meaning "hit"), a style of music which isn't limited to Sweden but, in my opinion and that of many others, has reached its acme there. I'm still awful at describing what schlager sounds like, but it's pretty easy to get a feel for what it means by listening to examples, and one of the best examples of modern schlager was Linda Bengtzing's "Jag ljuger så bra" (see below). Schlager songs are usually instantly catchy, insistent, and include a key change after the middle 8. They're often but not necessarily sung by women.
However, songs from all genres are welcome--or at least, welcomed by SVT, the broadcaster that hosts the show. There are certain songwriters whose names frequently pop up and are associated with the contest, as is true for some artists (though it's worth noting that a songwriter can have multiple entries in Melodifestivalen but a singer can only perform one song).
Melodifestivalen has a large gay following, both inside and out of Sweden, and many of its songs have or take on a great camp appeal, but its popularity in Sweden is broad, with nearly half of the Swedish population tuning in to view the Melodifestival final.
What it all adds up to is multi-week Swedish song contest that features what I see as some of the best music being made--admittedly with a tendency towards pop with an instant appeal--with the hype, speculation, and excitement surrounding it making it even more of an overwhelming but fun experience.
(Yes, the Lena Philipsson picture is from Eurovision, but it's the best I've got and it's basically the same. I also could find any decent pictures from a "Cara Mia" performance that wasn't just a rehearsal. While I'm here in the footnotes, I might as well add that I welcome any suggestions on this--as I said earlier, there are many far more qualified people out there to write a post like this one and, if you've never heard of the contest before, you may have some big question I didn't answer.)
