Swedish broadcaster (SVT) has revealed the three remaining wildcards for Melodifestivalen 2006. All have previous international successes; they are… Magnus Carlsson, (Alcazar and Barbados); Rednex ; and singer/songwriter Andreas Johnson. Esctoday.com are proud to be at the press conference to bring you the news first. We will bring you further information later today.
Magnus Carlsson
Well known as one of the members of the enormously popular group Alcazar, twice participants in Melodifestivalen finishing third twice with the song Alcastarin 2005 and in 2003 with Not a sinner nor a saint. Before becoming a member of Alcazar, Magnus Carlsson was the lead singer of group Barbados that also participated several times in Melodifestivalen.
Magnus begins a solo career this year, starting with what will be his sixth attempt at Melodifestivalen. Magnus' former partner in Alcazar, Andreas Lundstedt, has joined up as a member of Ralph Siegels project Six4One, to represent Switzerland this year in Eurovision Song Contest in Athens.
Magnus participates with the song Lev livet written by Anders Glenmark and Niklas Strömstedt on February 25th in the Karlstad semifinal.
Rednex
A group that has been quite silent about for a couple of years now. Rednex, with lead singer Annika Ljungberg are firmly back in the spotlight with their wildcard participation in Melodifestivalen. They have had a worldwide hit with Cotton Eye Joe in the 1990s, hitting number one in many countries including the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Rednex will sing Mama take me home in the Gothenburg semifinal of Melodifestivalen on 11th March.
Andreas Johnson
A successful singer songwriter. After a couple of years of silence he is back. Last year he released a new album, that proved that he still has a lot to offer in his music career. His songs Liebling and Glorius gave him international hits, the later song hit the number three spot in the chart in United Kingdom for example.
Andreas participates in the Leksand semifinal of Melodifestivalen on 18th February with the song Sing for me a song he has written himelf.
The previously announced wildcard entry, by Bodies Without Organs participates in the Karlskrona semifinal on 4th March.
Christer Björkman, responsible for selecting the artist�s for Melodifestivalen concludes: Having in mind that this Eurovision Song Contest will be very different for Sweden from what we are used to since we have to go through the semifinal. We have therefore especially been searching for wildcard entries that have had a history of international successes outside Sweden. And we are very satisfied that we now have managed to bring forward this strong line-up.
