» In other news..

The new Melody Club "Calling Destiny" single is available as a download on the amazing #1 Hits From Another Planet. Download it now! You won't be dissapointed.

Also, Robyn and Teddybears new single (in Sweden) "Girliestyle" is up on Don't Stop The Pop! And the slightly alternative video for the amazing song "Nöjd?" by Veronica Maggio is up on YouTube. She's kind of the Swedish Lily Allen image-wise, too, isn't she?

posted by Chrille @ 9/29/2006 3 comments

» Something for the autumn

Anna Ternheim – Girl Laying Down
My best friend’s favourite artist is Anna Ternheim, a Swedish singer/songwriter who is about to release her second album this month. Her first one wasn’t really my cup of tea, but she caught my attention when she did a cover of a song from one of my favourite albums of all time (Broder Daniel’s “Cruel Town”) called ‘Shoreline’, last year. It was a big hit here in Sweden, going top five, and was also featured on Enthusiastic But Mediocre’s singles of 2005 top 100 list last year, so that should be proof enough it’s a really, really good song. But! ‘Girl Laying Down’, which is her new single, beats that song by miles. It’s euphorically good. Amazing lyrics, and a killer melody, completed with an amazing production with beautiful piano-verses, Bertine Zetlitz-ish sounds between the verses, and a very powerful chorus with violins and other amazing instruments. It’s better than ‘Will My Arms Be Strong Enough’ and ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ and all other great 'slow numbers' which have been released this year. I mean it. It should be number one forever and ever.

Here is the beautiful promo video.



Frida Hyvönen – You Never Got Me Right
Don’t think I’ve gone all ‘singer/songwriter’, but there are some quite interesting things coming out of that genre in Sweden at the moment. I first mentioned Frida this winter, when I posted the really rather good song ‘The Modern’, which I’m sure you remember had brilliant lyrics about a male pregnancy. This is the last(?) single release from her album, and it’s nearly as good as ‘The Modern’. It seems like there’s something hypnotic about Frida’s music. It’s not the kind of music I listen to, yet I can’t stop listening to it. So seductive. So addictive. So beautiful. So interesting. And it still amazes me how Frida only uses a piano and still manages to sound innovative.

Other good singer/songwriter music from Sweden at the moment: The new albums by Lisa Miskovsky and Katie Goes To Tokyo. I might do something on them in the near future. And Hello Saferide's & Firefox AK's amazing duet "Long Lost Penpal", which you can download here.

posted by Chrille @ 9/29/2006 0 comments

» It’s not too serious, it’s not the end of the world

Yesterday was a sad day. Firstly, I forgot my newly bought Marit Bergman CD in a café, and when I went back to look for it, it was gone. Second of all, one of my favourite pop groups Le Sport announced on their website that they’ve split up! How terrible – they were absolutely brilliant! I do hope they get back together someday; the Swedish pop scene needs them. Let’s look at some facts why:

· Out of all the electro-duos they were always the poppiest.
· They were the Swedish t.A.T.u. in the sense that they were faux homosexuals.
· “Tell No One About Tonight” was the second best pop single of 2005, behind Robyn’s “Who’s That Girl?”.
· In one song they speculated about how it what it would be like to be Neil Tennant’s lover, and in another they demanded someone to show his penis. Both of them made us feel dirty.
· They were never ashamed of being euro-pop. They even admitted, to a cool indie magazine, that they liked Aqua when they were around.
· If they had ever released “Your Brother Is My Only Hope” as a single, it would probably have been the best single of whatever year released.
· They did a duet with Cat5 called “Sporty Boy”. Unfortunately it remains unreleased, though.
· Their official web site linked this very blog!

Now let’s watch one of their music videos.



So gay. So eurotastic. So pink. So cheap. And oh so lovely. They were quite handsome too, don’t you think? If you want to watch another one of their videos, click here. And here is one of them performing live on Swedish television!

Lovetrain In King’s Cross (by DJ C) – New song which doesn’t sound like Le Sport but is good anyway. Right-click and save target as!
If Neil Tennant Was My Lover – Only an amazing pop group would make a song about what Neil Tennant, singer in Pet Shop Boys for those who don't know that, is like in bed. My favourite line is “It Neil Tennant was my lover, would he stand on his knees or tilt his head back and leave me to please?”. It's a bit slow in the beginning, but don’t turn it off immediately, it’s the second half of the song that is the best.
Business Girls - 100% poptastic! This was the boys' second "real" single, but unfortunately it went by quite unnoticed. The song is a bit too hetero, but there's a line where they say the girl looks like Brett from Suede, which saves it all.
I Comes Before U - This was just a bonus track on the album, which suprises me since it's one of the best songs they've done! The chorus is dangerously catchy.
Show Me Your Penis – Title says it all. Sublime.

Fredrik & Örjan - you will be missed. And I didn’t even get to see you live. How come you always ignored Norrland? And if you ever read this – please leak “Sporty Boy”. The world needs to hear it. I mean, Le Sport + Cat5 = definitive perfection.

posted by Chrille @ 9/28/2006 2 comments

» The new A*Teens?

Ehm. More like the new Ch!pz, don't you think? They're called Se:side (see what they did there? SE are the initials of Sweden) and are currently being launched in Germany with this cringeworthy song called "Kamboleo". I first heard of Se:side almost two years ago, then they were called The Attention and made fun dance-pop. I got to hear two of the songs they did back then, "Wanna Be Your Lover" and "Boys 'N Girls", and they were really good. But seriously - this is awful.

And speaking of Germany, does anyone recognize this debut single from the new German boyband PartSix?

posted by Chrille @ 9/21/2006 5 comments

» Father I've been touching myself

First of all, click here to watch the video for the last The Knife-single in a while :(. The song is fairly good (personally I had picked ‘Neverland’ or ‘Na Na Na’ as the last single, though) but the video is their weirdest one to date. Hurray!

Sally Shapiro – I’ll Be By Your Side
I first heard of this song when it got an amazingly good review at Pitchpork (a site which by the way often gives Swedish pop good reviews), so I decided to check it out, and was far from disappointed. In fact, it’s my favourite song at the moment! You could Sally describe it as a more commercial version of Otur, making sweet electro-pop, though I’d rather compare her to Kylie and Kate Ryan in their slower moments than, as in Otur’s case, heavier electro like Goldfrapp or Cat5. But the perfect description for the song would be italo-disco, since it's pure italo. I couldn’t find any information on Sally at all since she’s still really ‘fresh’, but I did find an interview with the produced where he said she’s really shy, and wouldn’t even perform the song at its release party!

Linda Sundblad – Oh Father
Remember when I tried to get you all excited about the solo project of Lambretta’s amazing front person Linda Sundblad, after hearing it’ll be all ‘80’s danceable electro-pop’? Well, her debut single has arrived now, and has already been hitwarning of the week on Rix FM. It’s nothing like I expected though. It’s not very electro and 80’s at all, I’d rather describe it as guitar based cute-pop (or something). I expected something with attitude, in the lines of “What You Waiting For?” by Gwen Stefani or “Who’s That Girl?” by Robyn, since she’s been absolutely mad in the videos she did with Lambretta (just watch this and this!). I didn’t quite want her to calm down. And the lyrics are confusing. It’s about God, and about coming to heaven. But in the chorus she sings “Oh father I’ve been touching myself and I’m worried, is heaven still open for me?”, which makes me think the whole song is ironic? Or? I can’t tell! I know she’s sung that she doesn’t believe in God in previous material, but has she converted? Even the album is called “Oh My God”. Or could it be so that she’s just being a faux-Christian to piss people off? That’d be brilliant! Anyway, it’s still a rather nice song, and even though it’s not what I expected, I still have high hopes for the album (I mean, Nåid and Max Martin have both written songs on it).

posted by Chrille @ 9/15/2006 8 comments

» It's like they know what I'm thinking!

Teddybears feat. Annie - Yours To Keep
The first leaked remix. With Annie ONLY on vocals. Hell yeah!

posted by Chrille @ 9/13/2006 3 comments

» Everybody wanna be somebody like me

Pay TV feat. Don King – Work Your Body
Finally. After over a year of waiting, the new single from the greatest popgroup ever (kind of) has released a new single in Sweden. And I for one can say that I’m not disappointed for one second – it’s frigging fantastic! Lyrically it’s everything you’d expect from Pay TV. The extreme irony about the rich and famous is still there, and this time they’re, like the title suggests, singing about getting the perfect body. Or, actually they’re singing about having the perfect body. Just listen to the following lines from the song; “Natural curves are not so hot”, “I got to stop eat, to complete, and be a piece of perfect meat” and “I build my muscles hard as steal, steroids make sex appeal”. Absolutely brilliant, eh!? With the production the girls have taken a step away from the electro-clash style they’ve had before to pure pop music. This is even radio friendly! While their previous singles has had as much of a chance of getting played on Swedish pop radio as 50 Cent (ie null), I could totally see Rix FM playing this. Though they probably won’t, but they should. Bring on the album now girls!! I don’t think I can wait anymore. It will be the album of the year. I know it. Ah, I love this group too much! (To the left are pictures of Pay TV looking fabulous at this year's Stockholm Pride.

Above is the sleeve for the new American Teddybears (STHLM) album “Soft Machine”. It’s quite brilliant, isn’t it? I hope it goes well for the Teddybears in the States. They’ve been quite hyped on different American MP3 blogs so if that’s anything to go by it will. The following songs are my favourites on the album (for some reason they decided not to include ‘Hey Boy’):

Teddybears feat. Neneh Cherry & Annie – Yours To Keep
A few months ago I posted the Iggy Pop version of Punkrocker, and another old song that has been reworked with new vocalists is “Yours To Keep”, previously sung by the amazing Paola. I can’t say I like the new version more than the original one, because Paola’s voice is one of the loveliest I’ve heard, but Neneh has an edgy voice which makes the song nice in a new way. The result would probably have been pop perfection if they’d let the acetastic Annie sing the entire song, though, don’t you think?

Teddybears – Little Stereo
This is one of the songs on “Soft Machine” that didn’t get much of a make over compared to the original version. I can’t believe they made this track back in 2000. The Teddybears were such ahead of their time. ‘Little Stereo’ still an amazing pop song which doesn’t sound dated for one second, despite being so old.

By the way, I found this on YouTube. Seems to be some kind of promotional video or something, featuring different tracks from the album. And click here for the new video for 'Cobra Style'.

posted by Chrille @ 9/02/2006 7 comments