More Than Melodifestivalen

Sometimes I wonder about the image to the world I project from this blog. Do I come across as some kind of cliched poof with a penchant for the campness associated with Swedish pop?

As much as I love Swedish pop music – with its associated campness – there’s lots of other Swedish music I like also.

In fact, I was chatting about it today with some colleagues. I mentioned the rather odd interesting/odd statistic that, just a few weeks ago, Max Martin had been responsible for 5 of the Top 10 songs in America. As part of the general chatter, I’d mentioned that Max Martin was actually the Swedish-born and Stokcholm-based Martin Karl Sandberg, and that he’d written songs for the likes of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Pink and others.

“So why do you think the Swedes are so successful at pop music?”, was the question in response. And so I replied I thought it had a lot to do with the different cultural influences – US, UK, European – over the years which had allowed the Swedes to blend a universality/internationalism in their musical style than translated well for the modern times. I’m not sure if that’s entirely right, or that it holds much water as a theory, but it’s my theory nonetheless.

Which brings me to the perception – in Australia at least- that when it comes to Swedish music, it’s all about pop music. I LOVE POP MUSIC. The brashy, the camp, the Eurovision. I love it, due to the absolute joy in the music. But there’s also something about Swedish music that touches me in many ways. I think it’s the melancholy. Sometimes I think the Swedes compose the pop in the endless daylight of summer, and the melancholy during the long months of winter. Again, a theory which probably doesn’t hold much to scrutiny, but it’s out there anyway.

So I thought I’d post a few Youtube clips to demonstrate there’s more to Svensk pop musik than Melodifestivalen. Here’s a few of my current favourites.

carl noren – the anger

Smalfilm – Johan Borgert

Veronica Maggio, Snook, Petter – Inga problem (Remix)

Säkert – Fredrik (official video)

I hope you’ve enjoyed them.

And let’s not begin to talk about Swedish jazz, folk, classical, country music and so on. There’s a massive discussion to be had there, today’s was just about pop.