I'm sorry, but it's time to talk about the Lene Nystrom album

It does have two shit slow songs on it, but you skip those and listen to the ones about sex toys, biting and boyfriends who can't keep their pants up.

What about his whole abolishing the senate thing?

tell me more..

Have horrible feeling that last comment is NOT directed at me, but I don't care.

The end of "Here We Go" sounds an awful lot like the end of "No Good Advice", and obviously that's a good thing.

That WAS directed at you! I'm intrigued by that album..

The Norwegian radio refused to playlist any of the songs on the album. After the first week the album had sold a mere 800 copies. In Scandinavia, Lene Nystrøm is currently regarded as the pop music equivalent to one of these toys that squeek really loud when you squeeze them, but nevertheless break really quick.

Okay, well, I will run wild then, Baaderist.

"Virgin Superstar" is the first song on the album, and probably the best. Massively catchy chorus, mildly sinister rumblings in the verses and some fake-sounding guitars in the bridge as Lene asks "How much do you want it?". It's about seeking fame, and Madonna really should be listening to hear it done PROPERLY for once, i.e. stupidly and not at all seriously.

"Pants Up" has this really great talkie bit!

"I guess you don't love me anymore, everytime I turn around you're getting caught with your pants down. You know, you could be a great boyfriend if only you could keep your DAMN PANTS UP!"

The pre-chorus is miles better than the chorus, which isn't that good.

Yes, I probably should get a blog for rants like this. But.. meh.

"Play With Me" has that lovely plastic-pop approximation of "rock" throughout the whole thing, Lene screeches fairly tunelessly over it until the pre-chorus, where the not-guitars change to a different meaty not-riff before the backing totally stops announcing the chorus. The chorus itself goes: "I'll bring the toys so come on, why don't you take me head on? Play with me!". Her snarl sounds a bit like Taryn Manning from Boomkat just before the final chorus too. This is probably considered a plus by exactly nine people.

This sounds cool to me Edward. Is it up on Soulseek? When's the album out?

Europe and Japan I think it's already out. It's been put back everywhere else, which is annoying. It is on Soulseek, though there are (shock!) fakes around.

i'm sorry edward but it fucking sucks. i interviewed her for the release and it is very clear that she is downplaying her intellect (she's actually pretty smart) just to get a hit. i don't have much sympathy for that.

She's not going to get a hit with this, so dumbing herself down does seem pointless. That said, I have a hugely high tolerance for this kind of suck. Either this sort of thing makes you giddy with glee, or it makes you want to hurt adorable puppies.

Only I can't seem to find that Jelena Karleusa track.. but Soulseek throws up that she did a song with... Tarkan? This is the "Kiss Kiss" Tarkan, right? If so, it's got to be the greatest thing ever, and why must there by 639 people in the queue?

I wonder where I can get a copy of this in London. I really want to hear it.

Crap. That was meant for the Europop thread.. was going to revive this one now that Tom's back on board... and it seems I already have without actually meaning to. Shit.

Well, then. I'll just wait for Nick to hear "Here We Go" and hopefully he will post something here so this thread becomes less insanely sad.

I liked "Here We Go", very bubblegummy but not quite as good as "It's Your Duty" - if the record's doing as badly as Jay suggests then that's sad, this is some marvellous pop music.

Actually, this has been a really good couple of months for pop albums.

Hmm. "Up In Smoke" is another good one. Sort of a cod-funky non-beat, some pop-click noises, an acoustic guitar (i.e. like the Britney/Madonna single, but better), a fat CRASHING synth line in the chorus, some guy going "I'm you're man" but Lene saying she doesn't need a man.

Edward, have now got "Here We Go" so feel free to take it down as I'm not sure anyone apart from me, you and Tom are *that* interested.

Re. "Here We Go" - good, but not as good as "It's Your Duty". It sounds a lot like "No Good Advice" (is she working with Xenomania?) and I wuv "NGA" to such a degree that anything that sounds like it but isn't it will be a disappointment. The chorus sounds a little, um, obvious and there's a slight Halliwell-esque air about it. That said, I still like it a lot.

The introduction of surf guitar to girl pop must rank of one the greatest ideas in the history of things.

Main reason I wanted to take it down is that I share the webspace with someone else and I wanted to make room for all the stuff I deleted to make room for HWG before they realised I'd deleted it.

I digress, it's not the best song, but No Good Advice is an obvious touchstone, and if people can post threads about indie bands I don't care about, I can post a thread about glorious bubblegum that only three other people like.

The best song is "Virgin Superstar", really, but "Pretty Young Thing" has one of those ridiculously daft, memory-ingraining choruses.

Edward, are you on the Popjustice message board at all? I lurk there, but I may start posting.

I found some of the stuff she did in Aqua kind of fun (maybe because I have always had a fascination for all things "twee", and Aqua were quite "twee" in all their childishness). Lene the solo artist is just boring, boring, boring tho, and here sex-obsessed lyrics are pathetic.

Lene Marlin remains the Norwegian Lene worth listening to.

I read it occasionally, actually haven't been there in a while. It has struck me that my last round of posts have been scarily PJ-board-like. I don't have any plans of posting there at the moment.

Have they been discussing this?

Countries other than the UK and the US often have a bit of sense of cultural inferiority in their popular media - I imagine it would be very difficult to like Lene N from Norway at the moment, so your point is taken, Geir. Lene Marlin has one or two nice songs, but she's never going to sing about screwing a stranger with a paper bag on her head. Lene Nystrom gives me a vastly needed hit of whimsy with her melodies, something the likes of Busted desperately try for but never seem convincing at. The fact that people try for it and fail indicates it's needed and worth trying for, and I can't think of too many who are doing it better than on "It's Your Duty" or "Paper Bag".

Sure, and, I mean, the Norwegian press preferring Lene Marlin to Lene Nystrøm is nothing new. Aqua's albums always had a hard time in the Norwegian press, while particularly Lene Marlin's debut got generally positive reviews.

That being said, the reviews for the latest Marlin album haven't been that much impressive either, but they definitely haven't been as hostile as the ones Marlin have received.

Commercially, I think Marlin is struggling with the fact that she waited too long to come up with new material after her international breakthrough. Also, in the meantime, Dido has appeared on the scene - an artist that is fluent in English and within basically the same genre as Marlin.

Quite true, and (I just know I'm going to name your least favourite LM track) Dido has never come up with anything as good as "Unforgivable Sinner". That's got to be annoying.

I'm just suspicious of anyone who prefers mid-tempo, floaty ballads to big, dumb pop monsters.

No, I consider "Unforgivable Sinner" the second best song Lene Marlin has ever written, only beaten by the beautiful "A Place Nearby".

Anyway, Beth Orton does of course artistically beat both Lene Marlin and Dido within this genre.

Beth Orton?

While I like more BO songs than Dido, when an artist is so bereft of ideas that they have to rope in Ryan Adams, any claims to artistic merit must be removed.

P.S. This is great! A nice discussion with Geir about musical type things without the ILM hysteria mob Springer-izing it!

What's this with Ryan Adams suddenly becoming so hated? I mean, I have never been that much of a fan of him, in 2001, when "Gold" was released, I didn't see what the fuss was all about. But these days, I don't see why he should be so universially hated.

That's been done over and over again on other threads. I dislike his music immensely and think he genre-hops to make up for a lack of melodic invention - that said, I haven't heard any of his newer stuff. Not a diversion I want this thread going down.. it's been hashed too much elsewhere.

Anyway, I don't care enough for Adams either way to really have any feelings about Beth Orton cooperating with him. But I still think that the media hasn't really giving her credit for being the obvious influence on Dido that she is.

Actually, that is true. They both fit into that post (chronologically) trip-hop sphere (i.e. the trip-hop that's more trip than hop, pretty melodies, the style that is given a bad name by Morcheeba but has thrown up quite a lot of decent stuff), but Dido has sort of escaped it somehow. Something like "Touch Me With Your Love" is what Dido could aspire to artistically, I suppose, but would require a bit more ambition than Dido has judging by her new single.

I haven't seen any LN threads on PJ, but then you do have to wade through about 10 threads a day on Cheryl Tweedy's inner psyche (something I'm more than willing to do). I might try posting something about Lene.

Geir, call it international relations; we like your shitty Scando-pop, you like our shitty Brit-rock. All's fair.

Personally, I steer clear enough from Brit-Yank singer-songwriters so I don't have to listen to the likes of Ryan Adams.

"Play Summer Of '69!"

If you go back to that URL I posted on the other thread, I put the other Xenomania-esque track, "Surprise" up. It's not one of the best, but it was a smaller file...

Cool, will do when I get home.

Neither amazon.co.uk or amazon.com stock anything by Lene Nystrom.

Right, I'm downloading the LN album off you on slsk, Edward, because fucked if I'm paying whatever they're going to charge for an import copy.

Today Popjustice have alerted the world to the altogether-more-reasonable cdwow offer of £8.99 for this elpee: see here ---> http://www3.cd-wow.com/detail_results.php?product_code=7711
(I don't know how to post links properly, btw)

I have still heard none of this really but tonight I will make it my mission to slsk as much as possible. If anyone wants to say anything else about it at all to persuade me to make a hyper-rash (and potentially but certainly hopefully NOT regrettable) purchase, do please do so presently.

don't do it.

God, I can't afford anything right now but the temptation to get the credit card out will be eating at me for the next week. "It's Your Duty" alone is superlative.

It has the best list of names for songs I've ever seen on an album;

Virgin Superstar
It's Your Duty (To Shake Your Booty)
Play With Me
Bite You
We Wanna Party
Pants Up
Scream
Paper Bag

I can't sanction spending money on it now I've downloaded it. I've bought far too many CDs recently. I might write to the record company and ask them to release "It's Your Duty" though.

OK, I got this off CD Wow and have been lovin' it like that for the past week - everything Edward has said is otm - but my copy doesn't have "Paper Bag"!!!!!! I'm going to try and download it but grrr this is annoying.

The lyrics throughout are great, in an insane sort of way. She has a very Shakira-esque turn of phrase at times.

personally,I loved the cd and any other song she ever sang!
Lene is hot and she knows what she's doin'! does ANY ONE have Any
other website about Lene???

she has a myspace: http://www.myspace.com/lenenystroslashm where you can download paper bag. (at least, you could a while ago, the player-thing-y never works on my workcomputer, so i'm not sure nów). she promised another downloadable, unreleased (or hard to get) track by the time she'd get 200 friends. she has over 300 now. i want my rare lene track!!

how unusual that an unfamiliar someone might wake up a two-year-old thread looking for information and immediately have his question answered by another unfamiliar someone who is quite obviously a TOTALLY different person! I mean, what are the odds?