Schlager palaver...

Yes, on Saturday night the Swedish Melodifestivalen began. It's a huge palaver to select their Eurovision entry. There are 4 heats, each including 8 songs. Two of these songs will go directly to a final. Two more will go to a second chance round from which two more will go to the final. So 32 becomes 10 which finally becomes 1.

Unbeknown to most, Sweden is home to much of the world's great pop music. Not just Abba or Ace of Base or the Cardigans. Sweden's got it all. Presently there is an invasion of Swedish indie music in the UK (I'm From Barcelona, El Perro Del Mar, Peter, Bjorn and John, Jose Feliciano to name a few). There's also the electro pop that they excel at (The Knife, The Similou, Robyn, again naming but a few). But these aren't big names. Not household names. The biggest names are American stars. having their hits with Swedish songs. Britney, the BackStreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson. Their biggest hits were written in Sweden by Max Martin and the late Denniz Pop.

So you'd think Sweden would be a shoe-in for the Eurovision, that they'd win every year. But no. Sweden always does well, but they're always accused of entering the same song. An Abba sound-alike that thumps away with joy. What we know as the Abba style is a northern European style of music called Schlager. Indeed, Schlager took over much of the world in the late 1990s as British groups sold lots of records on the back of well crafted melodic pop.

So although they won in 1999 with a Schlager stormer (Charlotte Nilsson's "Take me to your heaven"- click here for the slightly incongruous, slightly Japanese video), this year they're taking no chances. Saturday's selection took in Country and Western, folk-pop and finally Dansband, an even older Swedish style that harks back to the 50s and 60s. And what a song. Despite being called "Samba Samero", Anna Book's song isn't particularly latin and requires no brain cells for its enjoyment. And it has a key change. This went direct to the final, while my other favourites, Uno and Irma took a pretty duet to the second chance round. Believe me, THIS ARE NEWS. 70% of Sweden was watching on Saturday. And here's Anna Book and her Dansband spectacular.