This Saturday’s second semi-final of Melodifestivalen will see the 1000th song performed in the history of the competition.

Speaking on the latest episode of the new Melfest Monday podcast, SVT’s Melodifestivalen expert Gustav Dahlander confirmed that landmark will be reached when WAHL feat. SAMI take to the stage with their song “90-talet”.

Gustav is responsible for The Contest Bible each year, and explained how he confirmed the news.

“This is the official interpretation, of course you can count in a number of different ways… I did a calculation and I checked with five different groups of other experts, and everyone agreed that it makes sense to say this is song number 1000.”

The 1000th song figure doesn’t take into account Sweden’s internally selected entry in 1958, Alice Babs with the song “Lilla stjärna”.

Melodifestivalen began in 1959, and has been staged almost every year since. Only in 1964, 1970 and 1976 did the competition not take place.

Saturday’s second semi-final is also historic with five debutants competing for a place in the final, with only Anton Ewald, Eva Rydberg (performing with Ewa Roos) and Dotter having competed previously in the contest.

An additional podcast from the team behind The Euro Trip, ‘Melfest Monday’ will release episodes each week covering the competition, with the second episode available now.

Image Credit: SVT