Sahlene

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Anna Cecilia Sahlin, commonly known as Sahlene, Anna Sahlin or Anna Sahlene, is a singer from Sweden. She was born in the Swedish town of Söderhamn on 11 May 1976. She began her career at the young age of eleven when she had a role in the tv-series "The Children of Noisy Village", based on a story by Astrid Lindgren. Seven years later she moved to Stockholm to start a musical career. She started to sing in a band called Rhythm Avenue.

In 1998 she left Rhythm Avenue to appear as a backing singer for Swedish stars like Eric Gadd, Carola, Robyn and Charlotte Nilsson. This included a slice of the action when Nilsson won the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem with the song Take Me to Your Heaven. Sahlene's first solo single in 2000 was called The Little Voice, as was its title track. Little Voice did not pick up enormous airplay until it was later covered by Hilary Duff in 2004 (although the lyrics are totally different and actually gives the song the totally opposite meaning. For example Anna Sahlin sings: "The little voice in my head won't get out of bed with you." Hilary Duff sings: "The little voice in my head just won't let me get with you").

Three videos were made for the album: Fifth Element; The Little Voice, landing in the top 5 of MTV Nordic’s most played list; and Fishies, filmed on location in Sardinia, Italy. Unfortunately, The Little Voice album was never released due to EMG's buyout of Roadrunner Arcade Music and its eventual fall into bankruptcy.

But this did not mean the end of Sahlene's career. Estonia had a problem: since one of their most famous singers, Ines, decided that she did not want to sing the song Runaway in the national pre-selections for the Eurovision Song Contest. Sahlene accepted the offer to sing, and won the national finals. Thus, she once again participated in the Eurovision Song Contest, this time as a principal singer, and she secured third place for Estonia. The song was very successful in the charts, not only in Estonia and Sweden but also in the other Scandinavian and Baltic countries, and even in Switzerland and France.

Most of the tracks from the Little Voice album were released on a new album in April 2003. The album of course also includes Runaway.

She participated in the first semi-final of the Swedish selection 2006, under the name Anna Sahlene, with the song This Woman. However, her fifth-place spot in the semi-final ended her chances of representing her native country.

Anna is now one of the contestants on the tv-show Lets Dance on tv4. Anna was voted off the show, losing to Lasse Brandeby .