Over the last few years I’ve written a couple of blog posts about the proliferation of of “Christmas Music” on the Swedish pop charts at this time of the year.
The first post was in 2009 when I mentioned that…
One of my colleagues, half-Australian/half-Swedish, asked me today if I had any Swedish Christmas music she could borrow. “Of course I do”, I told her, promising to bring some in to work. She said she was feeling a little homesick. I don’t quite understand why “Christmas Music” is so popular in Sweden. Perhaps it’s the snow? In the same way that we so strongly associate this time of the year with summer, perhaps the Swedes, with their dramatically contrasting weather, feel as strongly as we do about the season, but for completely different climatic reasons?
And then last year, I wrote about it again, noting…
THE leading nation for Christmas music has got to be Sweden. Every year at this time their charts are dominated by Christmas albums and singles. It’s quite a phenomenon. I remember a couple of years ago when something like 6 out of the Top 10 CDs were Christmas-themed. Check out swedishcharts.com and you’ll see with words like tomten (santa) and jul (xmas) there are currently about 10 albums in the charts which are Christmas albums. Even Benny from ABBA, with his group, BAO, has a Christmas album this year.
Today I was asked to come on the 702 ABC Sydney Drive show and have a chat about this… (Scroll through to the 32 minute mark to hear Agnetha Faltskog and Magnus Carlsson, as heard on Australian radio.