Popular music in Sweden
Swedish popular music, or shortened as Swedish pop music, refers to music that has swept the Swedish mainstream at any given point in recent times. After World War II, Swedish pop music was heavily influenced by American jazz, and then by rock-and-roll from the U.S. and the U.K. in the 1950s and 1960s, before developing into dansband music. Since the 1970s, Swedish pop music has come to international prominence with bands singing in English, ranking high on the British, New Zealand, American, and Australian charts and making Sweden one of the world's top exporter of popular music by gross domestic product.
History
Post-war
With the influx of American G.I.s into Europe in the 1940s, styles of American music seeded themselves into Swedish culture. Many Swedish dansorkestrar played jitterbug, foxtrot, and swing music and other jazz-derived tunes for people to dance to. In the 1950s early rock and roll, as well as country music and German schlager also infused the market, influencing Swedish musicians to build upon these styles, gradually moving them away from jazz, which was turning more toward the avant garde.1960s
The jazz orchestra dancing in Scandinavia was interrupted by the counterculture of the 1960s, whose influences of left-wing politics and LSD were altering the shape of popular music around the world. In 1967 the first psychedelic and progressive rock groups emerged in Stockholm's Filips club, including Hansson & Karlsson, the Baby Grandmothers, and Mecki Mark Men. These groups were very popular in Sweden of the late 60s, with television appearances, sold-out concerts, and tours around Europe. Mecki Mark Men even spent three months in the U.S. where they played in big rock music festivals with Sly and the Family Stone, Jethro Tull, Pentangle, Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, Paul Butterfield, and The Byrds. Aside from this music that blended rock, jazz, and folk music with improvisation and experimentation, Swedish progressive rock, or "progg" as it became known, was also fiercely political. Progg bands would go on to support efforts against war and nuclear power, or protest competitive events like Eurovision, stating, "Music cannot be a contest."Due to the sheer popularity that the Beatles received in Sweden, they inspired countless other bands to form and write original compositions. Some of the most popular bands performing pop-music during this era were the Hep Stars, The Shanes, Ola & the Janglers and Tages. All of these bands, to some degree, wrote their own material, including Benny Andersson, who with the Hep Stars wrote the singles "No Response", "Sunny Girl", "Wedding" and "Consolation". Tages, despite their enormous success in Sweden, decided to try an international career. They recorded several albums in doing so, including one of the earliest psychedelic albums, Extra Extra. In 1967, the band incorporated traditional Swedish music into their performances. Their final album Studio is a prime example of this. Studio features solely original material and is considered one of the best Swedish albums of the 1960s.
1970s: Dansbandmusik and ABBA
The term "dansband" was coined around 1970, when Swedish popular music developed a signature style with brightly characterized lyrics and catchy melodies. The following decade became the golden era of dansband music, with groups like Thorleifs, Flamingokvintetten, Ingmar Nordströms, Wizex and Matz Bladhs rising to popularity in Sweden. In 1977, the song "Beatles", performed by Swedish dansband Forbes, won the Swedish Melodifestivalen 1977 and finished 18th in the Eurovision Song Contest 1977.For tax purposes, performers found a loophole in declaring "fantasy" outfits as deductibles to one's income, the reason being that it shouldn't be possible to wear the same outfit in your daily life. This led to many bands wearing highly extravagant matched outfits in their stage performances.
April 6, 1974 marks the start of a new era in Swedish pop music. First, Blue Swede reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their cover of the B. J. Thomas song "Hooked on a Feeling". The combo also covered "Half Breed", "Never My Love", and "A Song For You"; as made famous by Cher, The Association, and The Carpenters, respectively. These renditions appeared on at least one "best-of" album, though never officially offered for sale anywhere beyond Europe.
The very same day, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, England, with "Waterloo". It was a big success throughout Europe, and reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100.
Over the next few years ABBA had 18 consecutive top ten hits in the UK, nine of them reaching number one. Having sold an estimated 370 million units worldwide, ABBA became the best-selling band of the 1970s. In 1977, "Dancing Queen" became ABBA's only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. ABBA and Led Zeppelin are the only acts to have had 8 consecutive UK #1 albums.
File:ABBA Schiphol 1976.jpg|thumb|left|ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with their song "Waterloo" and soon became a world known phenomenon
Shortly after the release of their seventh album Super Trouper, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA decided to end their marriage, just as Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog had done two years prior. This event did not stop the foursome from working together. ABBA's eighth album The Visitors was released in November 1981. Feeling that the energy was running out of the group, they decided to take a break in 1982. Fältskog and Lyngstad then both pursued solo careers. In 1982, Lyngstad released her first solo album in English, the Phil Collins produced Something's Going On. This was followed with the album Shine in 1984. Fältskog recorded three English solo albums during the 1980s, Wrap Your Arms Around Me ; Eyes of a Woman, and I Stand Alone. After a 17-year hiatus, Fältskog released My Colouring Book, an album of 1960s cover versions. Her latest album A has been one of her most successful, earning her Platinum status in Sweden and Gold status in the UK, Germany and Australia.
Andersson and Ulvaeus collaborated with Tim Rice on the musical Chess which premiered in London in 1986. Two songs from the musical were hugely successful singles: "One Night in Bangkok" reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100, and "I Know Him So Well" topped the UK singles chart in February 1985.
In 1975, Harpo scored an international hit with the song Moviestar, with ABBA's Anni-Frid Lyngstad on backing vocals.
After a 35-year hiatus, it was announced in 2018 that ABBA had reunited and recorded two new songs for an upcoming "virtual" tour. In September 2021 they revealed a brand new studio album, Voyage, their first for 40 years. Released in November 2021, Voyage topped the album charts in numerous countries, including Australia, Germany and the UK.
1980s: Europe, Roxette and Neneh Cherry
In 1986, Europe, a hard rock band from Upplands Väsby, hit number one in 25 countries with the song "The Final Countdown". The album of the same name also charted around the world and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, 3 million copies in the United States alone. The single has sold 8 million copies. The following year included successful tours through Europe, Japan and the US. Their next album was Out of This World, which produced "Superstitious" as its biggest hit. This album sold about 3.5 million copies worldwide. These two multi-platinum albums placed Europe as one of the most successful hard rock bands in the world with album sales of more than 23 million records. After the release of Prisoners in Paradise, which sold only 1.2 million copies, Europe decided to take a break in 1992. They reformed in 2003 and produced four albums so far. They continue to record and tour.File:Roxette 2014-04-08 001.jpg|thumb|Between 1989 and 1991, Roxette had four number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle formed the band Roxette in 1986. Four of their songs, "The Look", "Listen To Your Heart", "It Must Have Been Love" and "Joyride", reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, while two further singles, "Dangerous" and "Fading Like a Flower", both peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Roxette's "Join The Joyride World Tour 91–92" attracted 1.7 million people around the world. In 1993, they became the first non-English speaking band ever to play at MTV Unplugged. In 1995, they became the first Western band to be allowed to perform in China since Wham! in 1985.
In 2003, Roxette was honoured with achievement medals by Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf "for appreciated achievements in Sweden and internationally". To date, their best-selling albums are Joyride and Look Sharp!. Overall, the duo has sold more than 45 million albums and 25 million singles worldwide.
Neneh Cherry released the worldwide hit single "Buffalo Stance" in 1988. The song peaked at No. 3 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. Cherry's debut album Raw Like Sushi was released in 1989, experimenting with merging hiphop and mainstream dance-pop. The album was BRIT Certified Platinum four months after release. Cherry was nominated for "Best New Artist" with Buffalo Stance at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards and the song was nominated for "International Hit of the Year" at the 1990 Ivor Novello Awards. Cherry's second single, "Manchild", peaked at No. 2 in Germany, and at No. 5 in the UK, and was a top-10 success in six more countries. The music video was nominated for "Best Video" at the 1990 Brit Awards. Her third single, "Kisses on the Wind", reached top-20 in seven countries including the US, where it peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1990 Cherry won two Brit Awards, and she was also nominated for "Best New Artist" at the 1990 Grammy Awards.
Cherry would be high on the charts again in 1994 with the single "7 Seconds", a duet with the Senegalese singer/songwriter Youssou N'Dour. The song reached top-3 on charts in 14 countries including France, where it stayed at No. 1 for a record 16 consecutive weeks on the Singles Chart. It won "Best Song" at the 1994 MTV Europe Music Awards and was nominated for "International Hit of the Year" at the 1995 Ivor Novello Awards. In 2015 Neneh Cherry was inducted into the Swedish Music Hall of Fame.