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I have loved Scandinavian everything since I was kid.
I was fortunate that my local country NSW library stocked the Moomins, Agaton Sax and a host of other titles and that ABBA wakened me to the emerging power and captivating creativity of Northern European pop.
That love of all things Scandinavian has never left me and I am lucky that there are sites like the brilliant Scandipop that showcases the very best music from the Nordic countries and give us a chance to lose ourselves in some of the very best new music around.
“Abba” by Chris Holsten
(courtesy official Chris Holsten Facebook page)
What is the ultimate ABBA tribute I hear you ask?
It is not, as you might assume, an actual tribute act; rather, it now appears that, and this is especially pertinent if you are Norwegian singer-songwriter-producer Chris Holsten, you release a song called “ABBA” which invokes the legendary Swedish pop group not only in name but sound too.
This is not slavish copy though – the song’s intro may sound like the beautifully haunting echoes of a host of ABBA songs but far more than that, the song feels as joyous as song by the group, its lyrics glorying in the freedom of a woman dancing with carefree abandon on the dancefloor.
It’s “Dancing Queen” meets “Does Your Mother Know” with a deliciously melancholic sliver that evokes how temporary nights like this are and how we need to lose ourselves in the moment but also how the singer wishes someone this wondrously alive and carefree could be in his life.
It’s a joy to listen to and to play over and over …
“Prayer” by Tove Styrke
(courtesy official Tove Styrke Facebook page)
It says something about the ferocious speed of the modern digitally-driven pop cycle that an absence of three years now necessitates a “comeback single”.
But that is way of things in this age of short attention spans and snappy pop songs and one that doesn’t faze Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Styrke whose new song “Prayer” heralds her emphatic return to the musical zeitgeist.
It also ushers in keen anticipation for a forthcoming album, Afterparty, so titled, says leading Scandinavian music site Scandipop because “Tove says it feels like we’re currently living in the afterparty of our time”.
You can’t but help agreeing with the site when it notes that the full speed ahead slice of pop song, which comes complete with powerfully whispered-then-fulsomely delivered vocals and a driving melody that all but encompasses you in a danceable blizzard of sound, is “glorious”, an administrating of “last rites” as we dance through the most intensely musical of afterparties.
“Let Go, Let Love” by Janice
(courtesy official Janice Facebook page)
Hailed as a “soul icon” by Scandipop, Swedish singer, Janice Deborah Kavander Kamya, better known by her professional mononym Janice, has a gift for crafting songs that a sense of occasion and evocative powerful atmosphere.
New track, “Let go, get love” very much delivers on the singer’s gift for song that mean something and make an impact, her hushed but soulful vocals, encouraging vocals to let love do its thing, and a musical lushness adding up to a track that stays with you long after the last notes.
Scandipop calls it a joy to hear Janice’s vocals on vibrant show again and we can help but agree, with the high sheen production courtesy of Ji Nilsson and MARLENE aka Pure Shore granting the song an immersively rich beauty that captures your heart the moment you hear it.
While it’s been over three years since the singer’s last release, you can only hope that more tracks of this luminous calibre are on the way and that we can glory once again in the beauty of her incomparable artistry.
“Time Machine” by Cazzi Opeia
(courtesy official Cazzi Opeia Facebook page)
Known professionally as Cazzi Opera, Moa Anna Maria Carlebecker is looking back with real affection and a driving beat in her new song “Time Machine”.
In this driving slice of propellant pop, redolent with a caring wishfulness where she wishes she could build a titular time machine and go back to her childhood self to remind them that life has sadness and moments of pain and that “no one can escape the pain”.
She goes on to assure herself that “everything will be fine”, a beautiful reassurance if you think back to when you were a kid when everything seemed so hugely overwhelming and you wondered if everything was going to be alright.
This wondrously good song really strikes a note with me; when I was a kid, overwhelmed by bullying at school, crushing, curse expectations as a pastor’s son and struggling with a growing realisation I was gay, and I’d have loved present me to go back and say it’d be all right in the end.
“Time Machine” is a joyous gift wrapped in music so emotionally rich you easily sink into joining Cazzi Opeia on her beautifully judged trip into a wished-for past which celebrates the fact that present is just fine, thank you.
“WAKE UP” by Agnes
(courtesy official Agnes Facebook page)
Good lord but Swedish singer Agnes has PRESENCE.
Her 2021 album, Magic Still Exists, absolutely confirmed this, if you had any doubts (and why did you?) but her recent song, “WAKE UP”, and yes those capitalised letters definitely matter, emphatically makes the point again.
Drawn from her 2026 album Beautiful Madness, “WAKE UP” drives forward, ever forward, with a fearlessly musical ferocity, urging each and every listener to “wake up to all the power you’ve got”.
It’s empowering in the extreme, a song that looks at the hellscape of 2026 (yeah, it started early or did 2025 just not stop being awful as it folded into the new year?) and defies it with a necessarily militant sensibility that refuses to lay down and die and instead celebrates the power of self to make a difference.