Release Me (HQ & Stereo Sound)

Agnes Carlsson

Description

Agnes Carlsson (born March 6, 1988 in Vänersborg), best known mononymously as Agnes, is a Swedish pop singer who rose to fame as the winner of the Idol 2005. She has since gone on to be one of Sweden's most popular and best-selling female singers, selling over 180,000 albums in her home country alone.

In the spring of 2005, a 17-year-old Carlsson auditioned for the second series of popular Swedish singing competition Idol 2005 in Göteborg, singing "Varje Gång Jag Ser Dig" by Lisa Nilsson. The four judges were all hugely impressed by the strong power of her voice and she successfully passed through to the theatre rounds of the contest. Her vocals continued to impress, and she made it to the semi-finals. To the dismay of the judges, Carlsson did not get a place in the final eleven contestants, and when she again failed to grab a place through the special 'wildcard' round, they decided to pass her through to the finals as the judges' choice contestant. Despite this setback, Carlsson wowed both the judges and the public during every week of the finals, and as a result made into into the grand finale without ever falling into the bottom 2 or 3 contestants. With 57% of the one million public votes, she defeated runner-up Sebastian Karlsson and was crowned as the second Swedish Idol. Carlsson is currently one of only 4 wildcard contestants to win an Idol competition anywhere in the world. Agnes was preceded in 2004 by Canada's Ryan Malcolm and Kazakhstan's Almas Kishkenbayev, and followed in 2007 by Australia's Natalie Gauci.