A Dutch Bag To Baku!

Dutch TV has announced they're having a completely open selection process for Eurovision 2012. Apparently anyone can send in a song. And to advertise this the big boss of TROS (the Dutch TV station in charge of Eurovision in the Netherlands) stood in front of a giant suitcase with a Dutch flag on it surrounded by a couple of women who had clearly nicked Caroline and Natalie Scooch's air hostess outfits and took the scissors to them to make them even skimpier.

All the rules of the 2012 Songfestival are here but they're all in Dutch so we've no idea what they actually say. We're just hoping there'll be room for a Lord Thomas of G:Son schlager stomper sung by Sieneke.

Bailamor!

Here's this year's official Stockholm Pride single...

Reasons to praise the schlager gods:

1. Lili & Susie are back, Back! BACK!!!

2. The video has got the fabulous Swedish drag act Diamond Dogs in it.

3. There are blokes dancing around in silver hotpants.

Isn't that enough?

Hera Pride!!!

The Schlagerboys are very impressed with Hera Björk's New York Gay Pride photo album. We asked her if we could share our favourites and she agreed so here are our top three.

1. It's a Schlager Subway! Hera and Paul Oscar show the New York gays how to ride the subway in schlager style. We assume this is taken just before the schlager icons perform the sideways walk bit of "Je Ne Sais Quoi" down the carriage.

2. Ooh it's Mr Gay Europe (or one of the runners-up anyway)! Was he in Düsseldorf? We think we had him in too, in Amsterdam or somewhere.... a photo we mean.

3. Loving the huge sunglasses and all the gays behind our schlager diva icon! Pride!

OMG!! Schlager Icons To Quit!!

Oh no!! Alcazar have announced that they are "taking a break"!! Obviously the Swedish schlager icons haven't been the same since Magnus left and Annikafiore (Mi Amore) fell down a fireman's pole and broke her ankle, never to return, but still the world needs Alcazar in some form or another.

Andreas, Tess and Lina performed in New York at the weekend in fabulous tinfoil outfits, and confirmed that they'll do their final performance at Stockholm Pride on 6th August.

It's the end of a schlager era!

Hera Feels The Love!

Hera Björk is back, Back! BACK!! She's released the Gay Pride Anthem, "Feel The Love Tonight". She could do without the shouty bloke spoiling it every now and then, but we like it anyway. And Hera's off to the USA to bring a bit of Icelandic diva fabulousness to the American gayers too. She's been in New York this weekend, then she's heading to LA, San Francisco, and Florida. Hera will be creating American schlager fanatics all over the place!

Eric's Opel!

Eric's looking pleased to have his face splashed across an Opel car in Sweden. Maybe the bloke in the showroom is giving it to Eric for free. Car salesman blokey is trying to shake Eric's hand but Mr Saade is far too trendy and down with the kids and goes for some kind of "high five", resulting in a bit of an embarrassing handshake stand-off situation. Hopefully this was resolved before Eric got the keys to his new car.

Mission: Slovenia!

Oooh fab! The first advert for Baku 2012! Slovenia are ditching the EMA and are doing some sort of fabulous selection show that lasts for months, probably starts in a few weeks and is called Misija: Evrovizija!

It's presented by the waily woman who sang "No-One" in Düsseldorf, who looks really quite glam in the Charlie's Angels publicity pose above. And there's a bloke co-presenting, but we've never heard of him so we can ignore him for now. We're sure he'll turn out to be hilarious when the programme starts, but in the meantime here's the advert! How exciting!

I Remember Wanting To Live My Life & Have A Great Time!

Dame Cheryl's really going for it on Popstar To Operastar. We were a bit worried when Myleene Klass said that Cheryl would be pretending to be a 14-year old and singing something from "Romeo & Juliet", and even we thought that might be pushing it a bit.

But Dame Cheryl came through and belted out "Je Veux Vivre", although she did own up to putting some made up words in while she was singing it. Mike and Jay were in the audience again, cheering Cheryl on. It seems that her biggest competition is now Claire Steps and Joe McElderry. Sunday nights on ITV just can't get any more gay!

Schlager Sieneke!

The Schlagerboys are pleased to see that despite coming 48th in Eurovision last year Sieneke continues to churn out the same old schlager, with a fab "la la la" key change just at the right moment in the song. .

The video for  "Vita Bella" seems to revolve around an incident where Sieneke's boyfriend turns up late and then nicks some of her vodka diet coke! This is outrageous behaviour and the Schlagerboys aren't surprised she gives him a dressing down before wandering off down the cobbled street in fab shoes.

Sieneke does need to work on her strutting; sort of ambling around just doesn't cut it with us although she does redeem herself with the big hair.

And finally it's reassuring to see our bubbly schlager elf hasn't gone all modern and released a single with somoene shouting all over it.

Oooh! There's A New Christer!

Well, according to Aftonbladet anyway...

Carola's ex-manager, Anders Johansson, is alledgedly going to be helping Christer in choosing the songs and artists for next year's Swedish Melodifestivalen. Hurrah! Aswell as schlager diva icon Ms Häggkvist, he's also worked with Malena Ernman.. Double hurrah!

According to Aftonbladet, Anders will be following Christer to Azerbaijan in 2012. Does this mean he's going to be taking over and Christer is going to be moving on from the schlager? Well, if Anders had anything to do with "Invincible" we approve!

Kati Goes To Paradise!

OMG!!

Kati Wolf is going to Stockholm to perform at the Paradise gay club at Slussen.

Almost makes it worth nipping over for the weekend. Especially if the Diamond Dogs drag queen who runs the club is going to do a "What About My Dreams" skit...

Got2b Big!

Kati Wolf seems to promoting the virtues of some kind of product that makes hair as big as possible. She clearly understands what a schlager diva's haircare regime should consist of and that big, Big! BIG!! is where it's at! But she really should try and muster a little bit more enthusiasm if she's going to encourage the likes of Carola to give it a go.

"Eurovision Is So Much Easier Than This"

It was with trepidation that the Schlagerboys watched Cheryl Baker on last night's "Popstar to operastar". Loving Cheryl as we do, there is no arguing she shrieked her way through "Making your mind up" in 1981. Shrill isn't the word. So when we heard she was going to put herself up for a public vote singing opera we were in turn excited and aghast.

We had to sit through Joe McElderry, Midge-Ure and someone from the Pussycat dolls who isn't Nicole Scherzinger before Cheryl sang. The anticipation was unbearable, akin to waiting for Olivia Lewis to sing "Vertigo" in Helsinki in 2007; you're rooting for her but you're certain of a car crash. The introductory clip came to an end, Cheryl stood behind a balcony and the orchestra began.... we could hardly breath...

Now, the Schlagerboys have no idea what's good in Opera terms, but to us Cheryl sounded amazing! Who knew she had it in her! Nice to see Jay and Mike clapping along in the audience immediately after the song too. They were probably as shocked as the rest of us.

We had to wait a nail-biting hour for the results. We voted for her twice; once for the song and once for the schlager. When it was announced Cheryl was through it just about made our schlager weekend! She's not singing next week, probably because she has to lie down for a week to recover. The Schlagerboys can't wait for her next performance in two weeks time. Oh my god! It's a new dawn for Schlager Cheryl! Schlagertastic!

Saade Schlager TV Special!

Swedish Schlager Sweetie Eric Saade is about to get his début TV special in the UK and the Schlagerboys are very excited. Tomorrow afternoon at 4:00pm we'll be switching over from the rugby to Chart Show TV's "Eric Saade: an introduction" to gaze adoringly at Eric and wait for the clunky key changes.

But how completely fabulous to finally get a show in the UK dedicate half an hour to fab schlagerpop courtesy of Sweden. Is this the first time a former Swedish Eurovision entrant has had a show shown in the UK since ABBA in Switzerland in 1979? We can't think of anyone else. Kikki seems to have missed the boat here.

Douze points to Chart Show TV for making this bold venture and paving the way for Sweden's schlager domination of the airwaves.  Can we have Shirley next, please.... or perhaps Jenny Silver...

Sanna In Live Vocal Schlager Shock!

The Schlagerboys listened to those supposed "live vocal" versions of Eric Saade when they came out a couple of months ago and could never really see what the fuss was about. He always sounded okay to us and anyway that song was about how cute he looked and the breaking glass on the fab clunky key change.

However, this clip of Sanna's "real vocal" on "I'm In Love" is the funniest thing we've seen all year.

Douze points to whoever made this one up. Can we have "Invincible" next, please.

Dima's New Do!

The Schlagerboys aren't huge fans of Dima Bilan, in fact Russia's win in 2008 was probably one of Eurovision's low points in recent years. But Dima's got a new album out and he's got a very nice new hairdo. No idea what any of the songs sound like though....

Birmingham Pride In Schlager Marathon!

Four Euro-celebs joined the Schlagerboys at Birmingham Pride over the weekend, including a UK winner! Hurrah!

First up on Saturday afternoon was, bless him, Josh Dubovie. who managed to get on stage for some presenting duties before coming back to sing and dad-dance his way through the gay-hands-in-the-air remix of "That Sounds Good To Me" and then sing lots of boring Michael Buble-esque songs that we can't quite remember. He did do a bit of hip swivelling at one point which deserves a mention, and he almost looked as though he meant it. However the highlight of the set was the last song which was a cover of "Fairytale"! OMG! The Schlagerboys and various schlager twinks (or almost twinks; they were twinks in 2007) duly helped out with enthusiastic backing vocals and Josh didn't jump around the stage or pretend to play a violin.

Second up in the schlager marathon were Scooch, who bounced on stage and launched in to a cover of "Forget You" which is a bit modern and trendy for the Schlagerboys but we can appreciate Scooch have artistic integrity and don't wish to stand still in their choice of live numbers. Thankfully they followed this up with "More Than I Needed To Know", which was much better and we were able to demonstrate we knew the full dance routine. After playing the Glee version of "Don't You Want Me" for some strange reason, Scooch made it all OK again by singing "Flying The Flag!". The Schlagerboys were slightly disappointed they didn't have VT on a screen at the back of the stage with the moment when Malta gave "Flying The Flag" douze points, Perhaps this is something they can rectify for future performances.

Headlining on Saturday was Katrina (formerly of the Waves), who scared us a bit with the whole leather / grumpy  / growly  look but she did say during the introduction to "Love Shine A Light" that, "It was an honour to win the Eurovision Song Contest". However she then took a mouthful of beer and tilted her head back before spitting it all out.... good grief! Is that really appropriate behaviour for a Eurovision winner? You'd never get Charlotte Perrelli behaving in such a manner!

Apparently Sonia was on Sunday but we never got round to catching a bus back in to town for that so we're unable to confirm how schlagertastic she was. Douze points to Birmingham Pride for upping the Eurovision quota for 2011. More next year, please. How about geting some over-seas Euro celebs in? We're sure Glen Vella would do it!

Sweden (And Blue) Scuppered By Juries!!

The EBU have released the separate televoting and jury votes for this year's Eurovision and Azerbaijan was still the televoting winner, but by only two points over Sweden. It was the juries that did for Eric Saade, only having him at 9th place. And poor Blue! If it was televoting alone "I Can" would have been 5th... but the juries clearly didn't think much of their Friday night performance and put them in 22nd place!! Yes, 22nd!!

Still, juries aren't all bad. If it wasn't for all those juries around Europe the tuneless racket from Greece would have come 3rd... And that really would have been a travesty!

Canta Por Slovenia!

Oh! My! God! Slovene schlager diva Manca Špik has done a version of "Canta Por Mim"! In Slovene! How completely fabulous! Although not all that surprising as the original was co-written by Andrej Babić, who has also written such Balkan schlager classics as "Mandoline", "Cvet Z Juga" and "Call Me". It looks like she performed it on the Slovene Strictly Come Dancing and made sure there was a wind-machine pointed right at her, which cements her schlager diva status. Although she needs to work on that horrendous outfit. It seems like she's wearing a pair of nappies underneath the beige pedal-pushers. Not a good look.

Despite the frock faux-pas we're hoping that Manca will be getting together with Andrej for an entry in next year's EMA!

Schlager In The Air!

Eric Saade premiered his new single "Hearts In The Air" on Sunday at the Rix FM concert in Stockholm. Here's a dodgy recording probably made by some over-enthusiastic teenage girl in the crowd.

We've no idea from that what it'll actually sound like and seeing as it's credited as "featuring" a dodgy rapper bloke Eric might be trying to go all credible after two years of Sir Fredrik of Kempe schlager fabulousity. But then again it might turn out to be utterly amazing with just a few "aaah yeahs" from the rapper bloke. Whatever, Eric's been busy filming the video, which looks like it involves an awful lot of energetic running about in and around Christer Björkman's private schlager jet.