Erik Grönwall = the next Swedish Idol.

He is 21 years old (although looks younger) but already has the voice of a rock legend, and he has made it to the final of this year's Swedish Idol. Not by singing the dreary Whitney/Mariah-type ballads which make our own X Factor sooooo tedious....but Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills" instead!

Yes....Erik is in the final!!

After Mariette Hansson's departure last week in the first arena show in Malmo (I didn't see last week's show as I was unwell) there were three contestants left in the competition and this week they were totally at the mercy of the judges because this week's theme was: Judges' Choice. This week's show took place in the Scandinavium in Gothenburg.

Some interesting and, it could be argued, totally inappropriate song choices this week. For example - Calle Kristiansson singing Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"....well the answer to that is probably.....no, unless you're into that 'Hairy Bikers' look. I'm surprised that Calle has got this far and it's still my view that he would be more suited to fronting a band as he lacks the necessary charisma for a solo performer, although he does have a good strong rock voice and he excelled on "Walking In Memphis".


Tove Ostman Styrke, who at one point was being touted as the favourite to win (I definitely had her as a finalist) was given two songs to show off different sides of her personality - "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and "The Greatest Love Of All". The first one was pretty disappointing, whilst the second was more suited to an older singer (she is only 16 after all). Although Tove has charisma and great potential, with an interesting vocal style, I still feel she was too young for the contest and should maybe have waited a couple of years, which could have made all the difference.


Since the beginning of this year's Swedish Idol contest, Erik Grönwall has given us consistently great vocal performances week after week. This week was no different. His "Heaven" was the usual effortless performance, and if the judges thought they were finally going to trip him up on "Run To The Hills" then they couldn't be more wrong! This was absolutely amazing. Erik is a charismatic and outstanding young singer: I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that he is probably the best all-round singer there has ever been in Swedish Idol.

So Tove fell at the semi-final hurdle, leaving Erik and Calle - two male 'rock' singers - to contest next week's Swedish Idol final which, as ever, will take place at Globen in Stockholm. May the best man win (as long as it's Erik)

(All above pictures courtesy of www.tv4.se/idol)