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By any measure you can care to mention, Sweden is a music powerhouse.
Long gone days are the days when ABBA were pilloried by the British press for being from a musically nothing country (that was never true of course since Sweden has a rich musical tradition but perception sadly said otherwise); now Sweden stands proudly as one of the great engines of musical production, having won, for instance, the Eurovision Song Contest a record seven times.
From the expansive scope of its musical talent to the way it dominates pop charts – according to Australian public broadcaster SBS, 52,100 chart entries came from Sweden between 2001 and 2007; it’s an impressive achievement from a country of just 9.6 million people – to the way the Swedish government actively supports music through the Swedish Arts Council, this is a country that values its musical tradition, successfully leveraging into a major export industry.
Thanks to last year’s Eurovision winner, Loreen, who won the contest for a second time with “Tattoo” – she previously won in 2012 with “Euphoria” – Sweden is once hosting the contest which makes this the perfect time to take a look at five music artists from the country currently receiving well-deserved attention.
(courtesy official Facebook page)
A singer, songwriter and record producer, Benjamin Ingrosso, who represented Sweden at Eurovision in 2018 with “Dance You Off” and came seventh, has been at this whole business for quite a while now. Only 26, he began nice and early as a child with leading roles in several musicals, and by teaching himself how to play the piano and the guitar. If you think that’s impressive, Ingrosso released a song at the tender age of 10, “Jag är en astronaut” (“I’m an Astronaut”) which to number 2 on the charts, and while he kept performing in musicals after that popular success, he eventually gave it up tp focus purely on his musical career, releasing his first single as an adult, “Fall in Love” in 2016. He’s participated in a couple of Melodifestivalens, which are the Swedish selection process for Eurovision, winning of course in 2018 and releasing his debut album, Identification the same year. The writer of all his own songs, he also works with a number of other artists such as Dash Berlin and Oscar Zia, releasing his second album in 2022 and a brand-new single this month, “Better Days” which authoritative Scandinavian music site Scandipop described as “lean[ing] into his ABBA-laden musical heritage, [with the song] it’s already sounding like it’ll be a future classic amongst his own rich repertoire.”
(courtesy official Facebook page)
It is fitting that on the 50 year anniversary mark of ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” in 1974, that Molly My Marianne Sandén, to use her full name, would release one of the legendary band’s mostly powerfully upbeat and emotionally resonant songs, “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight”). Performed as part of Swedish national broadcaster SVT’s recent tribute to ABBA, En fest för ABBA (A Party For ABBA), Sandén’s take on the banger of a track has been described by Scandipop as “an ice-cool electro imagining of the song [that leans] into the bombastic bassline we all know and love”. It is a captivatingly good rendition of the song which fits nicely with the singer’s recent emotively rich single “Hålla Mig” (which very much channels a very ABBA-esque melancholia meets upbeat melodic vibe). They are the latest releases by an artist who is four albums strong and who represented Sweden in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest way back in 2006, the natural end result of a musical career that has its genesis in in study at the Adolf Fredrik’s Music School when she was a child. Her career clearly has staying power, not simply because she was one of the select few to perform at the televised ABBA event, but because she has shown again and again that she has the songs and the appeal to consistently send her right to the top of the charts, a place in which she is well used to residing.
(courtesy official Facebook page)
Hailing from Stockholm, Peg Parnevik is a Swedish-American singer-songwriter-TV personality who’s major claim to fame is her appearance on a reality TV show, Parneviks in which her dad, “[professional] golfer Jesper Parnevik and his family as they welcome [Swedish] celebrity guests to stay at their mansion in Florida for a few days”. But while that got her a fearsomely good media profile, you are only ever as good as the music you make as a singer and since the release of her debut single, “Ain’t No Saint” in early 2016 (followed by “We Are (Ziggy & Carola)”) , Parnevik has proved she has the goods to more than justify her celebrity (the reality component of which continued with “Peg på turné (Point on tour)” which followed Parnevik as she toured Sweden promoting her music). Her latest release “Svett” has been described by Scandipop as “an exhilerating ride of a track that veers between serving up grunge in the verses and an exercise in super-camp ’80s synthpop for its chorus … It’s an irresistible blend, instantly becoming one of her best tunes in years”.
(courtesy official Facebook page)
Choosing to go down the Madonna mononwymous stage moniker route, Darin aka Darin Zanyar, is well used to the rarefied climes of the top of the charts. The Stockholm-born singer-songwriter has eight, count ’em, EIGHT number one albums to his credit, not much surprise when you discover he’s from a musical family which impelled him to start writing songs at just 14, his inspiration no doubt coming from his love of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston. That earlier creative output led him to appearing on Swedish Idol just two years later where he finished as runner-up which was enough to see him get signed by SonyBMG who are no doubt thrilled they got the perennially top-of-the-charts to sign on the dotted line. His strings of hugely successful songs continues with “Electric” which Scandipop observes not only brings him back to singing in English for the first time since his 2022 EP My Purple Clouds, but which also revives his “funked-up disco-pop” sound. It’s fantastically upbeat and so vivaciously listenable that sitting down and listening to it play is all but impossible. He may have a long career behind him but if nothing else, his latest single confirms there’s plenty of musical life left in Darin yet.
(courtesy official Facebook page)
You hear lots of talk about the power of one but honestly, there’s something equally as impactful about two people joined in common intent which is likely why Say Lou Lou, comprised of Swedish-Australian twin sisters Elektra and Miranda Kilbey-Jansson have done so very well for themselves. That, and the fact that dad is legendary rocker Steve Kilbey from The Church and their mum is Kilbey’s ex-romantic and singing partner, Karin, who once sang as part of Swedish group Pink Champagne. Whatever the source of their creative power, they released their first single in 2012 before forming their own record label, appropriately titled à Deux a year later and then making the longlist of the BBC Sound of 2014. Not bad for a couple of years work! With two albums to their credit so far – Lucid Dreaming (2015) and Immortelle (2018) – they are back in 2024 with EP, Dust, Pt. 1, from which is drawn the title track, “Dust”, a superlatively good track that Scandipop says “pristinely polished indie-pop that simultaneously exudes great warmth and icy cool … With an intro reminiscent of Madonna’s Mirwais era, the song soon morphs into chic disco-funk with a dramatic Scandipop melody”.