’80s

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström are back with the March edition of Nordic Rox and ready to continue the Swedish ’80s countdown list that they started in the previous show. They continue with five songs occupying positions 25 to 21. Per says it’s going to be exciting.

Sven informs that he managed to catch Per just before he headed off to South Africa. Per explains he is going on a tour with Roxette, which is going to be so exciting, because they have a brand new singer, Lena Philipsson. They are in the middle of rehearsals at the moment and it’s going to be really cool. Sven is curious about how it sounds. PG thinks it sounds amazing. Lena is an outstanding singer and a great person on stage as well. So he is sure it’s going to be a success. They are doing a couple of shows in South Africa, and then they go to Australia for a couple of weeks. Ticket sales are going very well and Mr. G is very happy.

Here the guys kick off the show with a song from the north of Sweden, from the late ’90s. Boogie Woogie/Rock ‘n’ Roll by Komeda is played first. Per loves that song, he thinks it’s a crazy one. Insane pop music from 1996. It’s the sound of Northern Sweden. Umeå, to be precise, Sven adds. These guys in Komeda are interesting. Sven read somewhere that their original name was Cosma Komeda and that was from a French-Romanian composer Vladimir Cosma and Polish composer and jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda. Sven jokes that maybe the record company said two names might be too much, choose one. Haha.

Then comes Norwegian singer Emma Jensen with her brand new single Now And Then. The guys think it sounds good.

The third song on the show is Church Of Your Heart by Roxette, taken from their 1991 album Joyride. Sven asks a burning question regarding the upcoming tour in South Africa and Australia: is Church Of Your Heart going to be on the setlist? Per says they have rehearsed it and they are not sure yet. Maybe. They have done that song in so many different varieties: acoustic, unplugged and with a full band. It’s like a 12-string electric thing to begin with. So they don’t know yet.

Sven and Per get down to the ’80s list. Per says they have a wonderful little band on position No. 25, Commando M. Pigg. The year is 1982, a long time ago. Baby Doll is from their second album and it’s a very typical song for Commando M. Pigg. They had two guys from Southern Sweden and they played in a band called TT Reuter before that. They came out of the new wave scene in the late ’70s. The guitarist  was Peter Puders. He sounded like a post-punk guitar hero.

A big hit from 1987 is No. 24. Jag blir hellre jagad av vargar (I’d rather be chased by wolves) is by a guy called Orup, who came from a band Per can’t remember the name of. Orup started a solo career and he actually went on tour in 1987 as a support act to Roxette. The first tour ever for Roxette was in Sweden and they toured together with two other artists. There were three headliners and the support act was Orup on his debut tour. Sven was there. This song turned out to be a monster hit for Orup. It was all over Swedish radio that year. It’s taken from his debut album and it launched a very successful career. He is still active and still performing. The guy who produced this song, Anders Glenmark, was a very successful producer in the ’80s. He managed to make Orup’s quirkiness just right. He’s got a very special sound to all his productions, including this one.

At position 23, the guys check out one of the Swedish forefathers of modern rock music, Pugh Rogefeldt, one of Per’s big favourites. PG loved him and he always liked Pugh’s stuff. He started out in the ’60s and he was actually one of the very first ones to sing in Swedish. And he even invented Pughish, his own language. He made an album in his own language that nobody understood. But it sounded cool. He was really innovative, heavily influenced by Captain Beefheart. He had a great trio, a guitar player who also played bass and a great drummer and himself. It was so homegrown music, but it sounded really cool. He could go from the sort of weird stuff, slightly experimental, far out to the super commercial pop stuff as well. He was all over the place. Två lika är ett is from 1986 when he changed record label. This particular song became a big hit for him in 1986. It’s produced by Anders Burman, who used to produce his old stuff in the ’60s and early ’70s, but also together with Thomas Ledin, who is an artist in his own right, a very big artist in Sweden. He was also the producer of this song. It sounds like easy listening coming from Pugh Rogefeldt. A classic summer pop hit. Per thinks it’s a wonderful song.

The guys go down to Malmö in the south of Sweden. Sven says we will hear some southern Swedish language. He is not sure we are going to hear the difference, but they do. Haha. A big, big, big artist and band in the ’80s, Dan Hylander is next. With his girlfriend Py Bäckman, they formed a band called Raj Montana Band. Per says he was listening to them. They were touring all the time. Roxette producer Clarence Öfwerman was a keyboard player in Raj Montana Band and Roxette drummer Pelle Alsing also played with them. Sven says there is a Roxette connection everywhere. Per wishes there was. Haha. They had lots of friends in common. Every time they came to Per’s hometown on the west coast, he went to see them, hung out and had a lot of beers. Dan’s lyrics were very special, because he never rhymed. He just wrote lyrics, stories, poems and there was no rhyming involved. He always said that it was always the last thing he did. The music was finished, then he wrote the lyrics and it never rhymed. Per was so confused by that, being a songwriter himself. Sven says the funny thing is that you sort of got used to it. PG agrees, it fits Dan’s style. Sven laughs, he got the free non-rhyming ticket. To Sven, his music always sounded a bit like Jackson Brown-ish. Per says the whole band was very much influenced by Jackson Brown, David Lindley and all those people. Farväl till Katalonien is probably the most commercial song that Dan ever did. It was a big hit, even though it’s over five minutes long. They would have done a radio edit, if it was today. It was all over the radio in 1981.

From 1981 the guys move up to 1988, but they stick in the south of Sweden, close to Malmö. There is this university town called Lund and there is a band called The Sinners. Per thinks they always sound amazing, he loves their guitar sound. It’s just so cool. When She Lies was one of their earliest singles from the album From The Heart Down. Sven knows Michael Sellers, he had an English father, moved to Sweden and grew up there in Lund. He was a big fan of Wilko Johnson in Dr. Feelgood. Per says you could tell. Sven says there is a Roxette connection everywhere. Roxette’s name came from the Dr. Feelgood song, Roxette.

That sums up the ’80s chart in this episode. The guys are back next month with five more songs and the tension rises and the excitement and the ticket prices go up, sky high. The guys are joking.

The last two songs on the program are Lick The Bag by the Viagra Boys and Down In The Past by Mando Diao.

The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle and Sven Lindström have started a new series on Nordic Rox. Before they get down to business, they talk about their winter. Per says he was abroad for Christmas. He is not really a fan of the Swedish and Scandinavian winter season, even though he was born there. Sven agrees and says if they start talking about it, they are going to spend ten minutes complaining about the weather. To cheer things up, the guys have got a new list to go through, the top 30 songs of the ’80s.

Per thinks the ’80s was a fantastic decade. Great hairdos, great clothes and great music. Sven adds, great shoulder pads on the record covers. Haha. They will go through the first five of these songs.

Speaking of freezing cold, they first take a trip to Finland and play Matkustaja by Egotrippi. PG thinks they are a great band. He guesses Egotrippi means ego trip. That’s as far as his Finnish goes. He can’t pronounce the title, but he really loves this song. He tries to pronounce it and Sven says he can’t correct him, because his Finnish is… Haha. For two countries that are so close to each other, the Finnish language is incomprehensible for Swedes. Egotrippi is actually one of the few words that you understand immediately.

The next song is from Norway, I Used To Be A Real Piece Of Shit by Sløtface. It’s just under two minutes, which is their favourite timing for a pop song, Sven says. Per says it’s not bad.

Run To You by Roxette is next from the Crash! Boom! Bang! album that has just been released as a 30th anniversary edition, Per informs.

Before the countdown starts, Ain’t No Saint by Peg Parnevik is played.

Per loves the ’80s. It was a fantastic decade, he thinks, especially when you look back at it now. Sven asks PG what made it special compared to the ’70s. Mr. G explains that music-wise the digital revolution happened. Suddenly you started to work with click tracks and drum machines instead of the old school stuff. Music changed a lot and everything else changed. If you look back at fashion, books…, everything was different. If you look back, Sven thinks the ’50s continued until The Beatles came on the scene in ’63 or so. The ’70s started in 1968-69. Sometimes decades go like this. When Sven hears the album Station To Station by David Bowie, it’s recorded in 1976 or 1975, but that sounds almost ’80s to him as well. Sven is curious if for Per as a songwriter there is an archetypical ’80s sound. It is the synthesizer for PG. It’s Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode, Simple Minds. There are so many examples of that style. But, of course, there was a parallel industry as well. Country music went on and the rock scene as well. So basically, the guys are going to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that on the list.

At position No. 30 they kick off with a Swedish monster hit from 1980, Vill ha dig. It became the breakthrough song of a band called Freestyle. Per says this song was all over the place and his first band, Gyllene Tider and Freestyle became sort of competitors. They shared the number one spots on the charts all the time with different singles. Per thinks this is a really brilliant track for its time. It’s just really catchy and it sounds really cool. Long live the ’80s, PG says. He adds that it was a hit even in 1981. It just went on and on and on. Big song for the band, one that you couldn’t escape in the early ’80s. It was all over the radio.

A song you could escape is the next one. Öresundstwist by Torsson, a southern Swedish cult band. Per says this song doesn’t sound like the ’80s at all, it sounds rather like the ’60s. It sounds very much like Torsson. They have their own universe, Sven says. It’s very lyric-driven and it’s really fascinating to listen to them according to Per. The song is about taking the boat between southern Sweden, Helsingborg and Denmark over the Öresund strait. If you have trouble checking out the lyrics, this is basically what it’s all about, Sven informs. And while doing so, you dance some twist on the boat as well, if Sven understands the lyrics correctly. The band is still active. They are touring and they are still very popular, Sven says. PG adds „and they still sound the same”. Sven is pretty sure this is the American radio debut for Torsson.

No. 28 is Blodspengar by a great band called Japop, led by Janne Anderson on lead guitar. They made a couple of albums in the early ’80s. This is very typical of how the power pop scene sounded in Sweden in the early ’80s. Spilling over from the late ’70s new wave. This is like The Greg Kihn Band sort of style. Per thinks it’s a great, really nice pop song. Sven is curious if Per saw Japop live. He did. They were actually signed to the same record label as Gyllene Tider were in those days. Janne is a great guitar player and great singer as well. It was a trio and it’s a shame that they didn’t become bigger. They were produced by Dan Sundquist from Reeperbahn, also an incredibly cool band.

Speaking of power pop, the guys have Mikael Rickfors coming up next. Tender Turns Tuff is a great song from 1981. Mikael Rickfors became the lead singer of the English band The Hollies in the ’70s. He replaced Allan Clarke. They were pretty successful in the ’70s, then Mikael returned home to Sweden in the ’80s and made some amazing solo albums. He worked a bit with Robert Palmer. This song, the title track from the Tender Turns Tuff album, was really big. Per remembers it was all over the place. It’s also a bit new wave-ish, spilling over into the ’80s. Mikael Rickfors and his songwriting partner Hasse Huss wrote a song, Yeah, Yeah, the last track on the Cyndi Lauper album She’s So Unusual in 1983. It was one of the best selling albums in the States in 1983. They have been very successful as songwriters. They were a really good team. Hasse Huss was writing the lyrics and Mikael was writing the music. Sven says that there is a bonus version of the Tender Turns Tuff album and on that extended version there is a track called Blue Fun, which was remixed by Robert Palmer. It sounds really cool. He did a lot of interesting stuff.

The final ’80s song of the day is Ängeln i rummet by one of Sweden’s most successful female artists during the ’80s, Eva Dahlgren. She is still around and she is still amazing, Per says. This was a really big song for her, released in 1989. Wonderful vocals, really atmospheric according to Sven. It might also be the first time being played on American radio.

The list continues in the next show. On this episode the guys still play Soul Free by Atomic Swing from 1994 and Younger by Seinabo Sey from her album Pretend.

Elvis, I Love You by Albin Lee Meldau is next. Per says this is the sound of Gothenburg, Sweden. Sven thinks it’s a brilliant song and informs that PG recorded a song with Albin Lee on Per’s latest album. They did a duet together, which has been a big hit in Sweden, Per says. „Very nice! Thank you very much, Albin Lee!”

The show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Still is from the Bag Of Trix talks recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!