Swedish music?

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Swedish music seems to be popular in GB and slightly so (?) in the states. A swede as myself wonder what you think of the swedish bands in terms of quality (musical and lyrical). What recent bands have U heard (of)?

//Tobias

― Tobias Ankner, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Eilert Pilarm shakes it Elvis styleee. Grooveee!

― nathalie, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

pluxus are quite good, sort of halfway between plone and schlammpeitziger. abba. the hives.

― gareth, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Refused.

'Shape of Punk to come' - best punk album of the 90s.

― Mike B, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Well, The Tages are fantastic as is Bo Hansson and I'm getting into those reissues of the Parsson Sound and International Harvester. . . oh wait, you said. Nevermind.

― Alex in SF, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Recent is the missing word.

― Alex in SF, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Swede's can get away with a level of slickness in indiepop that no one else can manage. I particularly like Eggstone, Girlfrendo, Cardigans, Edson, Celeste, Bear Quartet, Waltz for Debbie, Club 8/Acid House Kings, Starlet, mostly everything on Labrador/Benno/Summersound ummmm... also Free Loan Investments and Cinnamon, or are some of these guys Danish? Not so keen on Bob Hund.

― marianna, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Ain't Cloudberry Jam from the Nordic lands? Taking a Dinosaur Jr. song ("Water") and turning into a pensive orchestral epic type thing = HUGE points in my anti-Mascis book.

― Daver, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

hmmm...i have 'providing the atmosphere' which had a nice bouncey keyboardy, sorta early stereolab feel then i made the mistake of getting the last cloudberry jam cd 'the impossible shuffle' which was all extended "jazz" workouts and was a candidate for one of the worst albums ever. my favorite swedes are red sleeping beauty/shermans and girlfrendo, the last girlfrendo cd was a huge improvement over the first.

― keith, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

My favorite Swedish indiepop group is the late Red Sleeping Beauty: "Sick and Tired", "Rocketship", "Summer Tells Stories". The members went on to form a couple of the groups Marianna mentions.

And does anybody know whether Komeda has an album coming out?

― Curt, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

OK, what about the bands that played at CBGBs last week? (Paid by the swedish export council btw!!) Soundtrack of our lives, Silverbullit and The Plan among others. All of these are somewhat more mainstream than most of the "benno type" of bands around. (Silverbullit uses the name citizen bird in the states).

― Tobias Ankner, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

the hives, of course. ceasar's palace: catchy, fun lyrics. i saw them live about a month (2?) ago. the singer (césar?) is a very shy young lad, the guitarist a hyperactive kid who ate too many red candy: great combination. fireside: elite, one of the best albums from 2000. and when i was young, a swedish friend of mine introduced me to...eddie medusa. *cough* i think you might have heard of him, tobias...

― willem, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Eddie's out I'm afraid. Died a month ago or so from liver damage I presume...well never liked the music...

― Tobias Ankner, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Sweden has been Pop Central over the last 5 years or so. Must be something to do with saunas.

― Ally C, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

girlfrendo is the best name evah!!

― mark s, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

Girlfrendo are cool, from what I've heard of them. Eggstone, dear Eggstone. "Water is good for your body..."

Now the Hives -- the International Noise Conspiracy for the Nuggets crowd?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

"and you can drink it with lime or with lemon, or drink it pure... oo oo oo oo"

how could i forget the shermans and red sleeping beauty - there was also a song i liked by honey is cool, and was popunderit (sp?) swedish? i'm looking forward to getting aerospace's new album. there was another swedish band with 'pop' in the name?

― marianna, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

My favorite Swedish bands are The Leather Nun, Pouppee Fabrikk, Cat Rapes Dog, Systema The Affliction, Ater Koma, Cultivated Bimbo, Signal, No Hotel, and One Hit Wonder. Most of my exposure to Swedish music has come from the "Dudes" soundtrack and a Swedish tribute to Depeche Mode.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

SAHARA HOTNIGHTS!

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

i liked the plan's single 'mon amour' (yeah, i would, i like the strokes.)... but it wasn't very representative of their sound, judging by the other tracks i downloaded.

― minna, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

See you all have had a pretty deep look into the swedish popmusic...lovely! Try also: Audionom, Nova Express, Broder Daniel, Kid Commando and Silverbullit. Would be very nice to hear some comments on these bands! Most can be found on audiogalaxy.

― Tobias Ankner, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

yeah, the swedes are definitely good at pop music. we can thank abba for that. then came cardigans (obviously), and now all the club8/AHK variations... there's lots of good rock too - kent, sountrack of our lives, lasse lindh, and THE LESLIES!!!

i just heard another band from sweden called "LOG". very mellow, "slowcore" (i hate that word but you get the idea) type stuff but with a little more zing. cool.

i also find that the production quality on swedish albums is exceptionally good. they must have great studios and/or producers there. i think i want to go to malmo now...

― rob, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

How could I forget the Leslies? Why aren't they huge? They're like the best band that SpinArt never signed. Brilliant powerpop.

― electric sound of jim, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

When i was in Sweden about 6/7 years ago i bought some albums from the West side Fabrication record label like the Bear Quartet (i love Headacher), Blithe, Mufflon 5 and Puffin. However, i really liked Popsical,I think they were swedish. Don't know what the current scene is like. I think there was a moment in the mid 90's when these bags looked set to make on the back of the success of the Wannadies and Cardigan, but it never really happened. They were sort of similiar to the American indie scene that happened a couple of years before.

― Alex G, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (11 years ago) Permalink

4 years pass...

El Perro Del Mar is a girl from Sweden called Sarah who went to a Spanish island in 2003 to sit on the beach and try to unlock the songs she had in her head. On the beach every momrning, she saw a dog walking past that somehow reinvigorated her and inspired her to write this collection of songs that hark back to the Brill Building era, the youthful emotions of Goffin and King. El Perro Del Mar (a tribute to the salty sea dog) is a minimal sound, an acoustic wash, a boom of tympani, some rippling chimes, kind of a lo-fi Phil Spector production. Totally beautiful and highly recommended.

El Perro Del Mar on Bleep

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 12 May 2006 15:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

2nd vote on Leather Nun. Goth-orchestrated inverse of Judas Preist?

― christoff (christoff), Friday, 12 May 2006 16:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

The Spacious Mind

― superultramega (superultramarinated), Friday, 12 May 2006 16:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

worth looking up:

the tough alliance, broder daniel, the embassy, honey is cool (the knife's karin dreijer's old band), suburban kids with biblical names, le sport.

― jonfromsweden (jonfromsweden), Friday, 12 May 2006 16:30 (7 years ago) Permalink

Love Is All

― hank (hank s), Friday, 12 May 2006 16:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

The first Union Carbide Productions record. That's the beginning and the end of it, so far as I'm concerned.

― dark Horse, Friday, 12 May 2006 17:34 (7 years ago) Permalink

I like Bedroom records and Labrador. Sambassadeur and Suburban Kids with Biblical Names are both great.

― Fynci (Fynci), Friday, 12 May 2006 18:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

Living in Norway, I have probably heard of around 1000 Swedish acts. :)

Swedish powerpop is great: Merrymakers, Trampolines, Wannadies, Brainpool, Soundtrack Of Our Lives etc. Great stuff!

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 12 May 2006 18:18 (7 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

Britta Persson
The Radio Dept.
The Embassy
Boat Club

list other good current music swedes

― Annoying Display Name (blueski), Friday, 24 October 2008 12:58 (4 years ago) Permalink

I am curious about Fredrik, an indie-pop side-project of the group, the LK (whom I like---on US indie label Kora). Fredrik are touring the US, well I know about a DC show at DC 9, on November 5th. A bunch os Swedish acts just cam through town--the Swedish embassy in DC hosts a fair amount of shows.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 24 October 2008 13:14 (4 years ago) Permalink

everyone who lives in gothenberg (it seems)

― t_g, Friday, 24 October 2008 14:02 (4 years ago) Permalink

Sambassadeur

They do seem to have something in the water in Gothenburg at the minute. From what I've gathered from Swedish friends the place has a different vibe to the rest of Sweden.

― Treblekicker, Friday, 24 October 2008 14:18 (4 years ago) Permalink

you would be crazy to live anywhere else.

― ConnieXX, Friday, 24 October 2008 21:05 (4 years ago) Permalink

love the fish!

― henry s, Friday, 24 October 2008 21:09 (4 years ago) Permalink

Recent Swedish visitors to Washington DC

House of Sweden hosted five of its country's indie-rock/pop-folk artists this week, with Hello Saferide and Firefox AK holding down the stage on Monday and Tobias Froberg, Ane Brun and Theresa Andersson combining their talents on Tuesday. From Christopher Porter's Washington Post Express piece

Andersson lives in New Orleans now. She's the youtube fave who uses her toes to manipulate effects and such while playing

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 25 October 2008 14:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

― LIL HOOSANE (PappaWheelie V), Saturday, 25 October 2008 14:55 (4 years ago) Permalink

Lykke Li - This summer's biggest hit?

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 25 October 2008 14:57 (4 years ago) Permalink

― Trackpants Tree, Sunday, 26 October 2008 19:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

That's great.

― curmudgeon, Monday, 27 October 2008 12:17 (4 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

I've been putting together a specific KROQ 80s playlist and somehow recalled this track. I was obsessed with the English version 12" in 1985 but had never heard the (even better!) Swedish version til now:

― Spencer Chow, Wednesday, 18 August 2010 21:32 (2 years ago) Permalink

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 20 August 2010 12:33 (2 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

I randomly found these guys on Spotify the other day. Video is cute and half-catchy. They remind me a little bit of Nemo (from Belgium): some intersection of Pixies/Pavement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GPWz3DphUUs

― dlp9001, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:49 (1 year ago) Permalink

(Waterbug doing "My Only Cousin" since the youtube link doesn't seem to be displaying.)

― dlp9001, Sunday, 29 April 2012 13:50 (1 year ago) Permalink

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