I thought about giving you some insight on Swedish culture.
Many of you might be familiar with the European song contest that takes place every year: Eurovision.
In this contest all countries send an artist to represent them. The previous winner of a local contest. Our local festival to find the winner is called Melodifestivalen.
It is a big deal here in Sweden. For around six weeks everyone is locked on Saturday nights watching it, and there are even “Schlager parties” going on, where people gather to watch, vote, discuss and dance all night.
World known group ABBA was a Melodifestivalen/Eurovision winner, so expectation on Swedish candidates is generally high.
One year ago they decided to include a selection of external voters, a European jury formed by people from the music industry who would give points to the different songs, to then be added to the votes from the Swedish Audience.
It went well in 2012, both the international jury and the Swedish people agreed for Loreen to be the winner, and Sweden rise with the price at Eurovision.

This year…things didn’t work as well.
Sweden’s favourite, young rocker Yohio, got the far majority of the votes. 22%, making him a clear winner among Swedes.

But when the votes where added to the ones from the “International jury,” they were not enough to get to the top. Just a few points behind, Yohio was left out from Eurovision by Robin Stjernberg who only got a 15% of the audience votes.

The international jury gave Robin 91 points, against only 30 for Yohio.

To make things more controversial, Robin wasn’t even the audience favourite the day he sang for the first time, and he had to give it a second try among the ones left for “a second chance.”

So how does this work? Swedish people spend their money voting for nothing?
Some say that the introduction of the jury gives an insight to Europe and therefore will help Sweden win Eurovision, but is it the win the only thing that matters? Isn’t Eurovision a moment for countries to show their artists and their favourites should go no matter what?
I personally think that Yohio was ripped off. He is the winner of Melodifestivalen, he should be representing us on stage this year. Robin will represent an international jury, not Sweden. Even if he wins, I don’t really see the point of Melodifestivalen taking place any longer.
He has a long career ahead. He shouldn’t be dissapointed by this. He has A REAL career ahead.

What do you think?