Once known mostly for meatballs and pornography, the Scandinavian nation of Sweden has emerged as one of the most prolific producers of profoundly proficient Pop musicians per capita on the planet. The last couple of years in particular have seen Swedish bands dominate not only the playlists of my radio show and personal listening habits, but college radio, the blogosphere and licensing for commercials & television.
For a while I thought the ubiquitousness of Swedish Indie-Pop trio Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks” might have signaled the apex of what had been a veritable “Swedish Invasion.” And as 2007 sputtered to it’s end, noting how the number of Swedish acts I was listening to had diminished, I wondered if the Swedish scene had (temporarily at least) depleted it’s stock of talent.
As 2008 has grown shorter, and my stack up new music taller, I’ve found Swedish musicians taking up spots in my rotation again. And there are more releases from some of my favorite Swedish Indie labels and artists lined up over the coming months to look forward to as well. So it’s grown more than apparent that any thoughts of Sweden’s fall from Indie-Pop grace were more than premature.
Not coincidentally, none other than Björn Yttling, singer and multi-instrumentalist for the aforementioned Peter Bjorn and John, has proved instrumental in keeping his Nordic brethren in chart-conquering shape. He recently produced Shout Out Louds‘ Our Ill Wills, which snuck in a North American release towards the tail-end of ‘07. And he’s just lent his production acumen to one of this year’s early standouts, Youth Novels, the debut full-length from Lykke Li, a 21-year-old female vocalist from Stockholm.
Though she was born and resides in Sweden, Lykke Li (full name Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson) spent her youth dancing ballet and living (according to her bio) “on a mountain top in Portugal” with only an old Madonna tape for her listening pleasure. Unsurprisingly the music on Youth Novels, while rooted in pure, saccharine Pop, effortlessly flits between diverse styles. There’s melodramatic orchestral Pop (a-la Sweden’s El Perro Del Mar), hand-clapping Indie stuff (like Peter Bjorn and John locked in a closet with Canada’s Feist), ’60s-style Chamber-Pop (complete with Beach Boys-esque harmonies), Soul-inflected lo-fi Electronic Pop (like fellow Swede’s Little Dragon, with a shade or two of old-school Madge) and more.
Watch “Little Bit”
Vocally Li sounds as young as she is, her timbre colored by both a vulnerable quiver and a precocious rasp. And while the youthful girliness of her voice is occasionally belied by playful sensuousness and experienced haughtiness it’s betrayed most by her lyricism. As a songwriter she’s occasionally idealistic, but most of her songs portray a girl who’s painfully aware that for every platitudinous Pop song about true love there are countless others concerned with heartbreak, and they’re all-too-often written out of bitter experience.
It’s such a grasp of what makes Pop music important in addition to things like melody, harmony and rhythm that marks so many Swedish acts as modern masters of an art that, for so many of us here in the country that originated it, has become corrupted to the point of irreconcilability.
- El Keter
