This year’s host country, Sweden, chose the…Norwegian(?) twins Marcus and Martinus to represent them in Malmö with their song “Unforgettable” in one of our favorite national finals: Melodifestivalen. 

As performers representing the host country, Marcus and Martinus automatically advance to the final. Like the countries from the Big 5, for the first time this year, the host country’s act will also perform (but not compete) during the semifinals. Marcus and Martinus will perform after Moldova in the first semifinal (making them 11.5th in the running order) before advancing to the final.

Melodifestivalen (the aforementioned Swedish national song contest) always provides a number of high quality options for their eventual Eurovision entry, and this year was no exception. Among our favorites was Cazzi Opeia’s campy, colorful stage for her song “Give My Heart A Break.” Cazzi Opeia was one of the songwriters on Loreen’s Eurovision winning song last year and has also co-written songs for K-pop stars such as Red Velvet, TXT, NCT and more. 

We also enjoyed 2nd place finisher Medina’s “Que Sera” because what would be more Eurovision than a hip-hop duo singing an absolute banger in Swedish, French, Spanish and Italian? Honestly, Medina would be up there as potential Eurovision winners with this song. The arena came ALIVE for this performance. We hope that Medina will get their shot at Eurovision some time soon!

Lastly, as a surprise closing act for this year’s Melodifestivalen, we had “Still The One” by Björnzone (a group made up of 10 well-known Swedish men of varying professions from singers to comedians, all wearing white à la Backstreet Boys). We sincerely don’t know enough Swedish culture to be able to tell you who any of these guys are (except we do know Måns Zelmerlöw, the winner of Eurovision 2015) or why they’re here, BUT this song was thoroughly entertaining.

Now finally, on to the ACTUAL first place winners this year: Marcus and Martinus. Occasionally known as M&M, these are two identical twins from Norway (we don’t know why they’re here in Sweden, that is a complete mystery to us) who have been singing together professionally since the age of 10. They released their first album, “Hei” at age 17, and it reached #1 on the Norwegian albums chart. They were strong favorites to win Melodifestivalen this year after their second place finish last year behind Eurovision two-time winner, Loreen. While we like “Unforgettable,” we do kinda think that they won the national final this year partly because their entry last year, Air, was so good.

Their song this year, Unforgettable, is pure pop with a fun dance beat drop. The stage with its slowly expanding walls and Matrix-vibe is giving sci-fi in the best way. In classic Swedish stage production, their performance is very polished and sleek. Unfortunately, this year we aren’t sure Marcus and Martinus are able to bring the energy and emotion that would put this polished number over the top, and the performance ends up feeling a bit flat and over-produced. In a less strong year, this entry would probably rank higher, but up against the other contenders this year, their song ends up being…a bit forgettable :/