Eurovision 2010 - Number 55 - Crucified Barbara - "Heaven or Hell"
Crucified Barbara are Nicki Wicked on drums, Ida Evileye on bass, Klara Force on guitar and Mia Coldheart up front on vocals and lead guitar.
What a set of names. They’d been writing and gigging together since 1998 when they were punks and had a different lead singer in Joey Nine. He left in 2003 and the remaining band members turned to hard rock, supporting Sepultura and Motörhead on tour among others. There had been two studio albums (2005’s In Distortion We Trust and 2009’s ‘Til Death Do Us Party - great names).
They weren’t what you’d think your typical Melfest entry might be. In MGP or Euroviisut - sure. Crucified Barbara would fit right in, but the only other band like this I can think of in Melfest would be E-Type, and they mixed a good deal of glam and Swedish EDM into their metal to broaden their appeal. Nevertheless on the 20th February 2010, Crucified Barbara found themselves in Gothenberg facing off against Alcazar in heat three, singing Heaven or Hell.
It was a song by a trio of songwriters Björn Lönnroos, Håkan Larsson, and Jörgen Svensson who were, and still are, relatively unknown. They don’t have any other songs in any national finals before. Nor do they appear to have written for the band before either. It’s a song that goes through several shifts of tone, from rock ballad to power metal to a dark bridge breakdown. All the time the rock guitars are sawing away and the song’s soft underbelly - and they avoid the key change. You keep expecting it, but instead, they stay true to interesting chord sequences and rhythmic change-ups. Admirable
And they beat Alcazar! The band didn’t quite make the top two automatic qualification slots for the final, but they did get to Andra Chansen and the duels. It was soooo close. They won their first duel putting them one duel away from the Melfest final, but unfortunately they lost 51.6% of the vote to 48.4%.
Although they didn’t return to Melfest, the band released another two albums and this single got into the Swedish singles charts, only their second album even. The band split up in 2016 when lead singer Mia (real name Mia Karlsson) went solo for a while. The rest of the band formed a new outfit called The Heard with metal burlesque performer Pepper Potemkin. For the record the real names of the rest of the band are Jannicke Lindström, Ida Stenbacka and Klara Rönnqvist Fors.
They reformed in 2024 and their first festival performance was at Sweden rock earlier this year, 2025. Before that they took to SVT and performed My Heart Is Black on TV show Gokväll. Melfest 2026 anyone?
