Svensk Musik
Okay, let's start by getting it out of the way. Yes, ABBA is Swedish. So is Avicii, and so is the... Swedish House Mafia. Ah, makes sense. Apparently so is Roxette, as we learned here! Listen to your heaaaaart!
So, now we can start! And now we're on the road ! How do you discover new music on the road ?
You can start by asking people.
In Malmö, we got recommended a few popular contemporary pop singers like the internationally known Icona Pop or the Folk-Pop band First Aid Kit (great name!), and some more "local" pop artists, given that they mostly write and sing in Swedish like Veronica Maggio, Benjamin Ingrosso, Joel Alme or Darin.
We also got recommended there quite a few hip-hop and rap names/bands : Timbuktu, AKI, Tjuvjakt, Labyrint, Hov1, just to name a few.
We got different kinds of recommendations in Göteborg, the rock band Mando Diao, the jazz/pop/soul/folk band Bo Kaspers Orkester, the Bob Dylan reminiscent rock band Eldkvarn (it's probably the voice), another local rock band called Snowstorm as well, the Soul-Pop Finnish/Swedish artist Miriam Bryant, also from Göteborg.
The local artist Håkan Hellström was probably the most recommended artist during our time in Sweden, he seems to be quite huge over there, at least recently. This last one was actually part of a quite popular indie rock band in the 90's called Broder Daniel, whose song "Shoreline" apparently reached cult status for some times in Sweden.
A lot of Swedish bands seem to sing predominantly in English, for some reason. That's the case too for bands such as The Ark or The Mo. I guess it's a bigger international potential, and most Swedes speak English as well anyway.
Quite randomly, we also discovered there an indie-rock band called Bob Hund. Wikipedia says it's difficult to classify their genre. They also say it sounds a bit like The Pixies. I'd say I agree.
In Nyköping, visiting friends, we had the chance (and the privilege) of being treated by a vinyl listening party and virtual musical tour of some of Sweden's classics and other gems from the 70's and 80's (thank you Thomas!!).
There we discovered Ulf Lundell, another so-called "Swedish Bob Dylan", but definitely one of the most influential Swedish artists, who wrote the unofficial Swedish anthem, "Öppna landskap". We learned about the popstar Carola Häggkvist, that represented Sweden 3 times during the Eurovision, winning 1st place in 1991 with "Fångad av en stormvind".
Thanks to old vinyls, we learned about Dansbandsmusik, a genre quite specific to Sweden, and listened to a few prime examples like Thorleifs, Sven-Ingvars, the Hootenanny Singers (with Björn Ulvaeus, that would later play with ABBA!), the very popular Lasse Stefanz, Flamingokvintetten, Christers, oh-my-god-there-is-so-many, Tommy Bergs...
We listened to other genres too in the basement! Some ballads from Fred Åkerström, some 70's Rock from Pugh Rogefeldt (quite interesting voice!), some classic Blues from Rolf Wikström, some Folk and traditional songs from Ove Engström & Ulla Roxby.
From that evening, Libertad's favorite was a rock band with slight punk accents called Noice!
Etienne's favorite probably was Ola Magnell, a little bit more ballad-rock in style - he worked a lot with the previously mentioned Pugh Rogefeldt, small World. Hai & Topsy was also quite good, a special band blending folk songs, ballads, singing at times in Swedish, at times in German, at times in Yiddish.
In Stockholm, we also heard a popular local mishmash band - somewhat reminiscent of Gorillaz - called Teddybears. Nice.
Another band we got recommended quite a lot during our stay - and one of the biggest - is Kent. A cool indie-rock vibe to it, and they sing in Swedish too. Pretty nice.
Also, Etienne realized one artist he really liked a while back, a chiptune electronic music inspired by 8-bits videogames called Bossfight was also Swedish! His newer stuff is a bit meh, in Etienne's humble opinion, but his album "Caps on, Hats off" is amazing, if you're into this stuff. Check it out.
There seems to be a strong Folk music scene in Sweden. We discovered a few by browsing disc-stores and the music section of the Stockholm KulturHuset.
Etienne already knew Kraja, a band of 4 women that mostly sing a capella. We discovered that they collaborated on an album with Jonas Knutsson and Johan Norberg, a saxophonist and a guitarist that occasionally blend Folk music with Jazz, quite interesting.
There is the popular Folk Rock band Garmarna, that also blends genres, in a quite different way.
If we go for more traditional Folk music, we find bands like the Scandinavian mix Huldrelokkk, the super catchy Ranarim, the nyckelharpa player Emilia Amper, the violin player Päkkos Gustaf, the Folk band Hedningarna...
For what we've discovered here, there is still two persons that stand out in in Sweden.
The first one of them is so revered that he is on their 50 kronor banknote : Evert Taube, troubadour and poet from the early 20th century, singer of the beauty of Sweden's landscapes and introducer of tango to the North.
Interestingly, Taube's son - Sven-Bertil Taube - became him also a very well-established singer in Sweden, with many re-interpretations of Evert's work.
The second one is Cornelis Vreeswijk. Dutch immigrant, also often described as a troubadour, and inspired by the French artist Georges Brassens, he will become with his ballads and other folk-inspired songs one of the most well-known and respected Swedish artists in the 60's and 70's.
Both of them would influence greatly both Swedish culture as a whole, and many of the names we cited previously.