SVENSK POLL: Swedish Pop/Rock Artists Who Broke on Some Level Outside of Sweden in the '00s

Where is Opeth?

I know ZERO about 00s metal, sorry.

(also, Wikipedia says half their albums were released in the 90s, so they kind of don't fit the criteria)

Robyn really broke in '98 imo. voting studio.

Air France

Yeah I was going to say Air France but...

Sorry u guyz, I missed Air France. Coming up with a list of 25 was hard and I couldn't remember everybody!

Pretty tough to choose, actually.

Around 2004, a good friend of mine started a Swedish-based pop night, where she'd fly a band over to play and then she'd DJ mostly Swedish music for the next several hours. I thought it was pretty absurd at the time, but by about 2008 I realised that a vast majority of the stuff I was listening to (repeatedly, I should say) was Swedish.

So this is pretty difficult but since Studio's West Coast is my album of the decade, I gotta go with them.

Wow, flying bands over to play sounds expensive.

Well, it was Britain so it wasn't actually that far, plus it usually coincided with a tour.

I flew the excellent Pay TV out from Stockholm to London via Ryanair and somehow managed to get them to stay overnight in a youth hostel. Probably couldn't do that with The Knife, though.

The Swedish pop nights at The Social were superb.

Marit Bergman would be my pick of the list. Severely underrated in the UK - i saw her with about thirty other people in Hoxton. Her opening words were something like "hello homesick au pairs!".

Pop/Rock poll, but Angello/Ingrosso and Axwell are easily Sweden's most commercially successful exports & sought after producers at the moment, why leave them out?

Because I have no idea who they are?

This clearly isn't the poll to end all polls on the matter.

Of those I have heard, the only ones I like are Studio and The Knife. Strongly dislike Jens Lekman, don't care about Robyn or The Hives, Peter Bjorn and John had that one song right?, I saw some MTV ads with Mano Diao they sounded boring, Eric Prydz is pop house for kids?, I was surprised that I never got into Dungen, The Tough Alliance never seemed very interesting...eh that's about it.

Voted Studio.

So this is pretty difficult but since Studio's West Coast is my album of the decade, I gotta go with them.

^ (also The Knife will prob win comfortably)

Robyn. Btw. you missed a lot of Swedish acts who made it in Norway, such as Kent, Bob Hund, Håkan Hellström, Björn Rosengren etc. but I guess that doesn't really count. :)

Whole I voted for Robyn, as stated upthread she shouldn't really be in there though. Ignoring Opeth was probably correct for the same reason. They too broke in the metal world back in the 90s.

Because I have no idea who they are?

Are they Bloodshy & Avant? No.

Hmm, Wikipedia reminds me that Bloodshy & Avant are also Swedish, so maybe they should've been included too.

Oh, I now realize you're thinking about a different "One" than I was thinking about, but no...I've never heard the SHM "One".

My favourite Swedish act is easily Hello Saferide, but I suppose it's fair enough to say that she hasn't broken as much as any of the above. So my choice is between Jens Lekman and The Knife which is a tough one.

Oh yes, I love Hello Saferide/Säkert!, but that felt like pushing the boundaries of having "broken."

other glaring omissions: El Perro Del Mar, Pacific!, Young Galaxy, Fontän, The Embassy, jj

Young Galaxy is Canadian, but okay.

I capped this at 25, but maybe we can have a part 2 later.

I'm casting a write-in vote for Witchcraft.

Cor, Swedish music really is brilliant, isn't it? Asking me to choose between The Knife and Studio is like asking me which of my eyes I'd like to lose sight in, so I'm going to cast my vote for the under-rated Radio Dept instead.

I really like Marit Bergman but she can be prone to schmaltzy Lilith-Fair arrangements at times.

I heard a Jens Lekman song once and it was pretty good

that's all I really have to say about this poll, from which I will be abstaining

"Black Cab" is a great song, but I've never really been able to get into much of Lekman's stuff. He makes a nice sound, though.

jens jens jens

wow hard vote. sweden is awesome.

Swedish music really is brilliant, isn't it?

im white btw

Two of my favorite Swedes making music right now are black, but they've hardly broken outside of Sweden, so I didn't include them. (see Adam Tensta and Henok Achido)

(would also include Lazee, but his shit is WAY hit or miss)

the answer is studio. easy.

lykke li's been growing on me lately

No love for Jose Gonzalez? Well I'll rep for him then. He's lovely.

voted studio over jens, love is all

If a similar poll was to be made about Norwegian acts, which metal acts (other than Dimmu Borgir, Satyricon, Darkthrone and Ulver) would belong in the list? I believe I am aware of the rest.

ulver r oldish iirc

Darkthrone probably more so. They debuted in 1990. Took some time to reach audiences outside a small cult though.

Would've voted for Fever Ray if it'd been on the list, but I guess I'll vote for The Knife instead.

And Robyn had already broken before the 00s, "Show Me Love" was a bigh it in 1997.

"bigh it" = "big hit"

Whoops, sorry, I see Roz already mentioned that about Robyn (though the year was wrong).

I voted for the Hives because I love them.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Jens Lekman - he just hits the a perfect spot for me even though I usually don't like anything that twee. Also figured the Knife and Studio don't need any more votes.

all good to great imo:

The Concretes
Jens Lekman
The Knife
The Mary Onettes
The Radio Dept.
Robyn
Sahara Hotnights
Sambassadeur
Studio

gonna vote for the knife here but might have voted for club 8 if they'd been included.

Would've voted El Perro Del Mar had she been listed. Went for Robyn, boringly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Studio it is.

oops i thought the tough alliance weren't there. i'd have made them my underdog pick too.

I've never heard anything by Studio, what a boring artist name! What are they/he/she like?

http://soundcloud.com/futureclassic/studio-lifes-a-beach-1

What did you think of Studio, Tuomas? Everybody in the world could do with "West Coast" in their life.

So how did Waterbug do, anyway? This video is pretty cute. I get this sense that a shitload of Pixies albums landed in the nordic countries at some point in the 90's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GPWz3DphUUs