why is all my favourite music coming from sweden these days?

the studio, fever ray, the tough alliance, lindstrom (and prins). are air france swedish?

pretty sure lindstrom's norwegian

but yeah all those ppl are rad

Roxette are Swedish too.

some years ago a friend of mine put on a swedish-based pop night in town. it was good, but I thought it was a bit ridic to narrow yourself, especially to sweden.

last year, without realizing it, i noticed that all the albums i had been listening to save 2 over a 4 month period were from swedish artists. foolish me for not realizing.

air france, studio & tough alliance are all not only swedish but from the same city--gothenburg.

lindstrøm and prins thomas (and todd terje) are from norway

bounty killer is from uppsala afaik

I thought Bounty Killer was from Jamaica!

Slumberland is putting out something by popsters Liechtenstein in May and they will be touring the US.

You'd be better off saying Scandinavia as you cover more bases that way

You cover more aces of bases.

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Swedish music?

e.s.t. (Esbjorn Svensson Trio): Leucocyte

...because you're white?

ILM: where racial essentialism explains it all

^^^ New board description please mods.

i thought this was gonna be an unperson thread about swedish death metal

SPIN had a good article about this last year. Turns out Sweden has a national minister in charge of international pop promotion. (Word to Limbaugh: that's what real socialism looks like....) Seems like you've been (successfully) targeted.

There has been a lot of it of late, if nothing of great lasting worth. Almost infallibly pleasant, though. They could all use a few rough edges. Where's Asta Kask when you need them?

Of course, Sweden's real target is the Chinese market, which is why they spend considerable effort pitching Chinese radio. US and UK hipsters don't have deep enough pockets to replace Saab....

One thing that strikes me about a lot of the recent Scandaniavian stuff is how it mostly avoids the fairly specific kind of "electro"/80s revivalism that characterises other synthetic pop of both the mainstream and indie varieties.

There's a softness and a gentility to a lot of this stuff that stands at odds with the scraping arpeggios and sonic thematics of robo-sexuality typical of a lot of contemporary pop and dance-pop.

Instead we get shimmering keyboards (Studio, Tough Alliance, Air France, Lindstrom etc), ornate Spanish guitar (Studio, Lindstrom), early 90s sampladelica and house beats (Air France, The Tough Alliance) and aristocratic mid-eighties sound design (all of the aforementioned plus Fever Ray).

Where vocals are used, they tend to be earnest.

chatting to some swedish blokes (musicians) on holiday in berlin recently, i was surprised to find they werent familiar with any of these acts. 'they're better known outside of sweden'....

"There's a softness and a gentility to a lot of this stuff that stands at odds with the scraping arpeggios and sonic thematics of robo-sexuality typical of a lot of contemporary pop and dance-pop.

Instead we get shimmering keyboards (Studio, Tough Alliance, Air France, Lindstrom etc), ornate Spanish guitar (Studio, Lindstrom)"

"The genre is also known as Gothenburg metal,[3] a reference to the city in Sweden where it originated. Originally the genre combined the harmony style and groove melodies of heavy metal with the harsh thrashing sound and vocals of death metal. Later the genre evolved due to many different influences, a notable evolution in the genre being the addition of keyboards.[4] Melodic death metal contains more melodic guitar riffs, melodic solos, and acoustic guitar work than traditional death metal."

nobody has better beats than katatonia though. can you guys ask the studio to remix this track:

One thing that strikes me about a lot of the recent Scandaniavian stuff is how it mostly avoids the fairly specific kind of "electro"/80s revivalism that characterises other synthetic pop of both the mainstream and indie varieties.

Robyn?
The Knife?
Annie?
Bertine Zetlitz?
Kleerup?
Margaret Berger?
Röyksopp?

^ examples of the other synthetic pop of both the mainstream and indie varieties

'they're better known outside of sweden'....

― Michael B, den 11 maj 2009 17:21 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

yes there's probably a lot of truth to this. air france and studio are pretty far from what you'd call the indie crowd listens to. my guess is the amount of people on ilm into this stuff and people in sweden into it are about the same...

judging by my last.fm neighbors, the only people who listen to this stuff are swedish, or blueski

i may have linked to this on another Swedish music thread but this comp is pretty good SWINDIE
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Thank-You-For-The-Music/release/1363691

i like some of the Jay-Jay Johanson i've heard too e.g. 'Lightning Strikes'

For a while, all my favourite music came from Australia.

They had a spectacularly cheap website based there, and even considering the postage, it was cheaper to buy CDs and import them than get them at UK shops.

did that with CD-Wow for a while - all shipped from Hong Kong iirc. what damage we've done to this world.

chatting to some swedish blokes (musicians) on holiday in berlin recently, i was surprised to find they werent familiar with any of these acts. 'they're better known outside of sweden'....

That's true with a lot of Finnish stuff too. Few people here know Luomo/Vladislav Delay, and the new folk stuff on Fonal Records probably sells a helluva lot more outside Finland than on the local market. In real life I don't know anyone who listens to Islaja or Lau Nau or Paavoharju, but they seem to be quite popular among ILXors.

Then again, my German friends know absolutely nothing about German minimal electronic music either. I think metal is the most popular genre among young people both in Finland and Germany.

chatting to some swedish blokes (musicians) on holiday in berlin recently, i was surprised to find they werent familiar with any of these acts. 'they're better known outside of sweden'....

No wonder in the case of Lindström, as he is a Norwegian act.
But he is also probably more famous among music nerds all over the Western world than among the Norwegian man on the street. That solo album he did last year was truly brilliant though - one of the best electronica albums I have ever heard!

I think metal is the most popular genre among young people both in Finland and Germany.

speaking of germany: maybe not the most popular, but the most uncompromised following. on weekends you can still see 50y old lawyers and dentists dressed as metal boys at the local metal clubs. popular music in general has lost its significance in youth culture (which is not generally a bad thing).

Geir most of the acts you mentioned belong to an earlier movement, plus I'm not saying the trend I'm describing has a monopoly.

relevant question

geir likes lindstrom??