All my music credibility is gone, isn't it? Oh well.

I'm going to look like a massive loser, but one of my favorite shows is back for the year - Swedish Idol. I've been watching Swedish Idol since it began in 2004, before I understood a single word of Swedish, and I've grown to really love the series - finding it much more interesting than the American counterpart. Now in 2009, I'm still not completely fluent in the language just yet, but I appreciate the show even more after living in the country, and have loved revisiting all the places I traveled to whilst I was there in the audition episodes (and will certainly return to).

The show switched juries in 2008, and replaced an older jury with Andreas Carlsson, Anders Bagge and Leila Bagge, who have produced some of the biggest worldwide pop hits of the past century and discovered many of the voices that went on to sing these songs - having these three on the jury is extremely interesting, and they know what they're talking about. While the funny auditions certainly are entertaining, there is more of a focus on the actual talent being discovered in these auditions.

I love watching the three of them together, they've worked together for years and know each other very well (Anders and Leila even being married at one point). They have a lot of fun, offer up some harsh criticism (but in a way that doesn't seem particularly mean as we see on American Idol so much) and overall succeed in sending on people that will be both be interesting to watch grow as musicians and great to listen to weekly.

One of my favourite singers from last year was 18 year Robin Bengtsson - who I wrote off when I first saw him enter the audition room, but changed my completely once he sang Sam Cooke's "Bring it on home to me" and offered up one of the best voices I've heard in quite some time. Maybe I'll find another Robin this year? With judges like this, it's likely.