iTunes Australia Forced Early Release of Loreen and Melodifestivalen Tracks

Swedish Television (SVT), made tonight’s contestants for the last leg of Melodifestivalen available ahead of the broadcast. Usually, only snippets of the tracks are available for pre-listening. Only hours away, we will know if Loreen has made it to the final with her track ‘Statements.’

Swedish Television (SVT), made tonight’s contestants for the last leg of Melodifestivalen available ahead of the broadcast. Usually, only snippets of the tracks are available for pre-listening. Only hours away, we will know if Loreen has made it to the final with her track ‘Statements.’

Loreen Favorite to Win Melodifestivalen Leg Tonight

Loreen’s fabulous victory back in 2012 led ‘Euphoria’ to victory.. The track sold more than 1.2m copies and earned 100m+ streams. She made her breakthrough in Idol in 2004. ‘Statements’ is written by Anton Hård af Segerstad, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb and Loreen.

To become Sweden’s choice in the Eurovision Song Contest is not an easy road to success. Over the course of a five-week period, tracks will be qualified in separate legs. The most popular votes will meet in final, while a select number gets a second chance next week. Tonight, all tracks will be available for download and streaming. And that’s how iTunes Australia comes into the picture. Warner Music’s entries (including Loreen) was scheduled for worldwide release at midnight tonight.

As Australia is ahead of Sweden with more than a few hours the tracks were made available this afternoon, which led to individual Warner tracks going viral online.

According to SVT’s rules, making a track public online is cause for disqualification. As this wasn’t brought on by the individual artists and iTunes Australia was to blame, all tracks were subsequently made available for streaming via the broadcaster’s own site.

“As it is a third party who has acted, in this case iTunes, no action will be required that affects the competition,” says Christer Björkman, the producer in a statement.

In 2014, Helena Paparizou’s track ‘Survivor’ suffered a leak. These are tonight’s contestants who aspire for a place in the Melodifestivalen final on 11^th March.

Tonight’s Melodifestivalen Contestants

1. Jon Henrik Fjällgren: En värld full av strider
2. Alice: Running with Lions
3. Les Gordons: Bound to Fall
4. Wiktoria: As I Lay Me Down
5. Axel Schyström: När ingen ser
6. Sara Varga & Juha Mulari: Du får inte ändra på mig
7. Loreen: Statements

WelcheMusic.com will continously report on the future success of Loreen and her entry.