Nordic Rox

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are counting down the Top5 songs on their Swedish best of the ’80s list on the August episode of Nordic Rox. The guys recorded this show in Halmstad on a sunny day.

The first song they present is Girl Of My Dreams, a somewhat unique Swedish recording of a power pop classic. Per thinks it must be the last recording ever made by Dwight Twilley who unfortunately passed away not long ago. He was singing on a track by a Swedish band called Helikoptern, which means the helicopter. It’s a great track, and Dwight Twilley has always been one of Per’s big favourites. Sven thinks he was a fantastic songwriter and his ’70s and early ’80s stuff are amazing. Per agrees. It was a song by Bram Tchaikovsky from 1979. They are one of those forgotten heroes from the power pop age in England.

Iconic by Maja Ivarsson is next. It’s her latest single from her solo project. She is the lead singer of The Sounds, a great band that is out touring now in Sweden. Paint A Picture by The Hives comes next. It’s their latest single. They have a new album coming out in the fall and there are a few tasters from that. This song sounds excellent.

You Can’t Hurry Love by The Concretes is played next. Then comes Midnight Prayer by Bad Cash Quartet from Gothenburg, a song from 2003. Per loves this track.

After that, the guys play Fancy by Svenne & Lotta. It’s from one of Per’s favourite albums. He loves this song that was written by Bobbie Gentry. There are so many versions of it out there, but this is actually one of Per’s favourites. Lotta was born in the States, and you can hear that she really loved this style of music. She was a great singer in that era and she is still a great singer. This song is from 1970 when they made this cover. When PG was a kid, he had this song and he still loves it today. It made Sven think a little bit of Dusty Springfield’s Son Of A Preacher Man. It’s the same vibe. It’s a great track with great lyrics, and Per is really happy that they found it to play it on Nordic Rox. Sven says Svenne Hedlund was the singer and the godlike pop star in the Swedish ’60s, in the same group that saw Benny Andersson from ABBA on keyboards. That band was The Hep Stars. PG’s favourite band when he was 6 years old.

Getting down to the countdown, Sven and Per start with one of the biggest bands to come out of the Swedish punk rock movement: Ebba Grön. They made an album in 1981, Kärlek och uppror. It means love and revolution. It was a big album, which made them sort of mainstream. The opening track, 800°C is at a well-deserved fifth position on the ’80s countdown. Per thinks this track is really wonderful.

Magnus Lindberg was one of Per’s label mates back in the days when he had his power pop group, Gyllene Tider. Magnus started out in the ’70s playing in a Swedish band called Landslaget, and then he turned into a singer-songwriter in the late ’70s and made a couple of albums that were really nice. Then it got sort of electrified, more energized on this album. He was really affected by the new wave scene and suddenly in 1981 he released this sort of new wave-ish style album called Röda läppar, which translates into red lips. It’s still a great album. He is a great writer, a great singer and he had a great band as well. Per says, unfortunately, he is not with us anymore, but we can still listen to his music, thank God. Sven wouldn’t say that it’s 100%, but he would assume that this might be the US premiere for Magnus Lindberg. They play Röda läppar in position number four. A wonderful song that stood the test of time pretty well.

After a solo artist, the guys are moving into the band territory. There is a great band from Stockholm in the third position. Reeperbahn had a couple of great tracks in the early ’80s. The single, Lycklig (happy) is from 1980. It was just a single, it’s not on any album. The band was really influenced by the band Television. They even looked like Television. Per likes them a lot and thinks they were really strong. 1980 was just when they got started with Gyllene Tider, and Reeperbahn was a great competition. Sven remembers Per once said that he thought their albums sounded really great, their early ’80s stuff. PG wanted to sound better on the recordings. Mr. G says that was always the issue with his band, that they didn’t sound good enough on the records. Never satisfied, haha. In the analog days, before the whole digital thing happened in the ’80s, you could really tell the difference between recordings made in Sweden versus recordings made in London or LA or New York. They didn’t really have the same equipment, or the knowledge for that matter. Sven says, except for a certain group in Stockholm, starting with A and ending with A. Per says ABBA sounded great, but if you listen to their early stuff from the mid-70s, it sounds very Swedish. After the digital revolution happened in the mid-80s, they played on equal terms. But Reeperbahn always sounded great and this song sounds fantastic even today, Per thinks. A song that definitely makes you happy.

Another band from Stockholm from 1980 is Docent Död (Dr. Death) on position two. Sven says, when he heard that group’s name, he thought they were an unlistenable punk band, judging the name. They had bands like Grisen Skriker and he thought that Dr. Death was in the same league. But it wasn’t. Per says they were a power pop thing and they made their debut in 1980 with an EP. Solglasögon (sunglasses) is one of the tracks, and it’s still one of Per’s favourite tracks ever coming out of Sweden, it doesn’t matter which decade you are talking about. A great lyric, a great band and a great attitude. Sven agrees. The song has a really funny lyric about this guy who keeps wearing his sunglasses everywhere. A lyric of the kind that is worth taking the effort to learn Swedish. Haha.

The guys are at the rightly honorable number one position. Sven says Per looks very embarrassed and explains that Per has got red cheeks now and he just wants to go out of the room and disappear somewhere. Per says it’s because Sven talked him into this and put a Roxette song, Roxette’s breakthrough song on the number one position. PG says he is much more modest than that. Sven laughs and says he leaves that uncommented. Haha. Regarding The Look, Sven thinks it’s hard to find a song that did a pop job as good as that song. It was Roxette’s breakthrough in the States without even being released there. It’s an amazing thing. It paved the way for four US number one songs. Per says it became the first number one in 1989. All the record labels turned Roxette down, including EMI. So this was brought to America through an exchange student who was in Sweden and picked up the Look Sharp! album that Roxette just had released. He became a big Roxette fan and when he went back to Minneapolis, there was a radio station, KDWB, with a show where the listeners could bring their own records and get them played on the air. So he brought the Look Sharp! album to the radio station and they of course didn’t play it. So he went back after a week to bring it home. Then fate came in and just when he was going to take the record back at the reception, the program director was there as well. He became interested in the record sleeve that looks like a newspaper. So the program director asked the exchange student what’s that and the exchange student said, it’s a Swedish band and he left the record there to put it on the air, but they didn’t play it. The program director thought they should listen to it, because it looked really cool. So they started to listen to the first song off the album and that was The Look. The program director loved the song immediately and said, let’s put it on the air. So they started playing it and the phone started to ring all the time. People wanted to know what song it was. They wanted to hear it again. That’s how Roxette got its first thing going in the States.

That is an amazing story, Sven thinks. Roxette had four US number one singles in the coming years. It was in Billboard magazine that there are 18 persons in history who have written more than three American number ones on their own. And out of those 18, only four people are from Europe. It’s Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, George Michael and Per Gessle. Per says he is in good company.

The funny thing as well with the track The Look is that most of the lyrics Per wrote down just to keep the melody going and he didn’t ever improve on it. Per explains that he had bought a new synthesizer and he tried to learn how to program it. He started working on very simple things and he came up with this idea. To remember the rhythm of what he was doing, he just made up lyrics. Walking like a man, hitting like a hammer, she’s a juvenile scam. Just to remember the rhythm. He recorded it and then when he checked it out, it sounded really cool. Then he did the second verse in the same style. It was in a sort of I Am The Walrus gobbledygook style, which is fun. The idea with Roxette was that Per was a writer and Marie was the singer, so it was really weird that Per was singing on the breakthrough song. That changed of course over the years, because Marie was an amazing singer. So that song broke every rule in every way. That’s how it works in life, isn’t it?

Tin Foil Hat by The Men is played, then Big Girl by Peg Parnevik and The Next Place by Weeping Willows.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and the show ends with Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom, as usual.

Pics are from PG’s archives

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are counting down from 10 to 6 on their Swedish best of the ’80s list on the June episode of Nordic Rox. Before that, the guys kick off the show with a bang and play By The Grace Of God by The Hellacopters from 2002.

The next song is Blue Ruin by Say Lou Lou from their latest album called Dust, which came out half a year ago.

Then comes Nothing Out There by Alberta Cross. Per doesn’t know anything about Alberta Cross, so he asks Sven to tell something about them. Sven explains that the creative force behind the band is a guy from Sweden, Petter Ericson Stakee. He moved to London some 20 years ago and he’d been having London as his base, and he formed Alberta Cross there. They are mostly British musicians, Sven thinks. They made some changes in the lineup, but they have been touring and releasing albums ever since. PG thinks it’s a good song. Sven agrees that it’s a cool track.

The guys move on with more good-looking music in the shape of You’re Breaking My Heart by NONONO.

Before getting down to the ’80s countdown, Sven and Per look back on the ’80s in Roxette history. Sven says the listeners will hear a track that they both know and still don’t, because they haven’t heard this version really that much. PG explains they are talking about Roxette’s The Look and Per’s demo from 30th March 1988, Halmstad. He wrote the song for the Look Sharp! album and it was actually written for Marie to sing. So the lyric Per is singing is „he’s got the look”, because it was supposed to be sung by Marie. It sounds a little bit different. And also the classic famous guitar riff of The Look isn’t there on the demo. It’s something that they made up in the studio while recording the song. This is how it started out. Per wrote it because he had bought a new synthesizer, an Ensoniq ESQ-1. Sven loves that synthesizer sound. Mr. G says, to learn how to program the synthesizer, he wrote two songs and The Look was one of them. Sven wants to know which the other one was. It was Don’t Believe In Accidents. That one is on Spotify, but it didn’t make any album. But The Look made it all over the world. Sven says that it was the song that in 1989 would open up the world for Roxette. Per confirms. It became their first US number one, and it became number one in so many countries he can’t even remember.  Those were the days.

The guys are now entering the ’80s top 10 countdown. Spela under hot (Play Under Threat) by a southern Swedish band, Wilmer X is No. 10. Per thinks it’s an amazing band. They have been around for a very long time, and they are so special also because they sing in a very southern dialect. According to Per, it sometimes restricted them a bit, because a lot of people in Sweden don’t understand what they are saying, because the dialect is so heavy. But it’s a great band, and they are still around, and they just sound amazing. They have a harmonica player, Jalle Lorensson. He is really good, Sven thinks. This album, Under hot was recorded more or less live in the studio. Wilmer X broke through a couple of albums before this, but this one sort of cemented their position and gave them the reputation of being one of Sweden’s best rock bands. Per agrees.

The Final Countdown by Europe is No. 9 from 1986. Per thinks it’s a great track. It’s a US top 10 record that peaked at number eight. Europe had quite a few hits during this era. They were a great band, influenced by the times, the Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and that kind of stuff. Melodic metal. Joey Tempest wrote really good songs, and this is at their prime. It still sounds like a hit record today. It might be a little long, but Per is sure there was a radio edit. Haha. Sven says they might have a look at the ending here and fade it out a bit earlier on Nordic Rox. Haha.

At position No. 8 there is a Swedish classic artist, Ulf Lundell, who debuted in 1975. In the late ’70s and early ’80s he became like a household name in Sweden. He was very influenced by Springsteen and Bob Dylan. He had lyric-oriented stuff and he was also an amazing performer. He had a great band too. This album, Kär och galen came out in 1982. It was his commercial peak. Sven and Per picked the song Aldrig nånsin din clown, which translates to never ever your clown. Per loves Sven’s translations and he thinks it’s a really cool song. They don’t think they ever played it on Nordic Rox before, so it’s an American radio debut here. It also has a wonderful guitar solo by Ulf’s sidekick, Janne Bark. Janne was also a great performer. Per worked with him a bit as well. Mr. G thinks he is a great guitar player, but he really came to his prime when he worked with Ulf.

After the song is played, Sven says they are still grooving here with Per. Haha. Then they are moving up to No. 7 on their chart. Sarah by Mauro Scocco is played. Mauro was the lead singer of a duo in the ’80s called Ratata. It was a great band, very influenced by Scritti Politti, Michael McDonald, that kind of style. Mauro made his debut album in 1988, and this was the first single. It became a monster. Sven says that some would probably call it yacht rock, but they don’t. PG thinks it’s a great track and Mauro is a great singer.

No. 6 is a beautiful Swedish artist called Monica Törnell and her Vintersaga. She had a breakthrough in the early ’70s. Per thinks she is a brilliant singer who has always had a standout voice. Mr. G had the privilege of writing a couple of songs for her in the ’80s as well. This song was written by a guy called Ted Ström, who was a member of a band called Contact. It’s a bleak picture of Sweden in the wintertime. It became a massive hit on Swedish radio, because a lot of people recognize the feeling of that sort of bleak sadness. It’s got a really strong melody, and the production is wonderful. It’s got this warm, analog synthesizer sound. For Per, it’s one of the greatest tracks in the ’80s.

The last 2 songs on the show are Dow Jones Syndrome by The Soundtrack Of Our Lives and Notes by Dominique. Sven thinks Dominique is a great artist. Per agrees and adds that she has a fantastic voice. Sven says we will probably hear a lot more from her in the future.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and 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!

Sven Lindström and Per Gessle are back on Nordic Rox with another trip down memory lane with the Swedish best of the ’80s list and they are going to check out positions No. 15 to 11. But before that, they have some friends back in action. The Hives just presented their first single Enough Is Enough from their upcoming album The Hives Forever Forever The Hives and Per thinks it’s a killer.

Mercy by Goldielocks from Finland (nowadays based in Berlin) comes after The Hives. Then the next song is Mon Amour by Swedish band The Plan. It’s from their debut album from 2001, only 24 years ago.

The following track is a song that Per discovered on an old LP from 1970 or so. PG had this in his record collection when he was a kid. This is a Swedish cover of an old Bobbie Gentry song called Fancy. Per doesn’t know if lots of people have heard this one, but it was quite a big country hit for Reba McEntire. This version has always been very dear to Per. He thinks it’s a fantastic vocal performance by Lotta Hedlund. Sven adds, Charlotte Butler came from the States and fell in love with the Swedish pop singer Sven Hedlund. Per says they became a duo and this is from their debut album. The album is called Compromise. Mr. G thinks there are some American session players playing on it, as well as some Swedish guys, because it doesn’t really sound Swedish. It’s a really wonderful record. Here they play Fancy by Svenne & Lotta.

Killer, the new single from Danish duo The Raveonettes comes next. Per thinks it has a great sound and they always sound really interesting. Sven thinks there are wonderful harmony vocals there as well.

Before getting down to the ’80s list, the guys play a song that made Roxette a brand new action name in Sweden. The first single was Neverending Love. It came out in 1986, almost 40 years ago. Per wrote a song in Swedish for another Swedish artist. Her record label turned it down, so someone at Per’s record label asked him why he doesn’t write an English lyric to it and make a record with Marie Fredriksson. Per had been talking about Marie for many, many years, he wanted to work with her, of course. So he did. They recorded a demo and people loved it. Then they made a proper recording of it and it became a big hit for them in the summer of ’86. It eventually became the lead single of Roxette’s debut album. It all went very fast. The first album they made consisted of tracks Per wrote in Swedish. He basically just translated them into English, because he didn’t have any time to write new songs. Those were intended for a solo album. Sven says he doesn’t think this song is played that much on American radio. Per says, no, thank God. Haha. Sven adds this is the origin of the Roxette career, the kickoff that made everything else possible.

Don’t Go Away by The Creeps is No. 15 on the ’80s list.

At No. 14 they have a Swedish band from Norrköping called Eldkvarn. They were really big in the early ’80s. They were one of those bands that tried to sound a little bit like Springsteen and Dylan, influenced by the new wave and they listened to Costello as well. It’s actually hard to find someone they didn’t listen to. The guys play one of their most famous tracks from the early years, 3:ans spårvagn genom ljuva livet. It’s a bit hard to translate. It’s like Tram No. 3 goes through la dolce vita, the good life. It’s a beautiful sound from 1981. Sven thinks it’s a great track and a great band. They ended up on EMI, later produced by producer Kjell Andersson who discovered Per’s band, Gyllene Tider. Per says it’s a small world in Sweden.

The next band discovered a bigger world than most Swedish bands. The track is called Lay All Your Love On Me, a great track from the album called Super Trooper. And it’s, of course, ABBA the guys are talking about at No. 13. There are several chapters in the ABBA history. When they started out, it was more like a europop thing and then it became Voulez-Vous, and Super Trooper became a little bit more danceable and disco. So this is like the later part. Super Trooper is a wonderful album, PG thinks and ABBA is a fantastic little group.

No. 12 is a power pop band from the city of Halmstad on the west coast in Sweden. The band was formed by a guy called Per Gessle. Per says he knows that guy. Haha. The song is from 1981. Moderna Tider (Modern Times) was a big album for them, PG adds. The song was picked by Sven. It was not a single, it’s an album track, but it’s a song that has been with the band ever since. They play it a lot when they are doing their shows, which is not that often. Haha. Sven says Gyllene Tider has announced that they are packing up and retiring a couple of times only to come back when you least expect it. Haha. Per says they are like a ghost. What Sven likes about Det hjärta som brinner (The heart that burns) is that it’s wonderfully new wave-ish, power pop-ish and it has some elements of early Tom Petty. That’s probably because he knows they listened to a lot of Tom Petty. PG thinks the early Gyllene Tider stuff is pretty nice. It’s a little soft for his taste. They didn’t really know how to make it rough enough in those days, and their producer didn’t know it either. So this song became a little bit soft, but it’s got a good heart. Sven says it’s a cute track.

At position No. 11, there is a wonderful artist called Jakob Hellman. He released his debut album in 1989 and then he won all the Grammys in Sweden. It was such a big success, a sensation. Then he took a 32-year break, and then he came back. The writer’s block lasted 32 years. That’s heavy, but he probably had his reasons. His debut album is really wonderful, and it’s really hard to pick a song from there. But the guys have chosen their favourite track called Hon har ett sätt (She’s got a way). It’s not just the melody, it’s also the way he is twisting the lyrics, which at the time felt really fresh and innovative, and it still does. It has a great sound and a great production by Dan Sundquist.

In the last section of Nordic Rox, Whistleblower by The Men and I Used To Be A Real Piece Of Shit by Sløtface are played. All Day by Noak Hellsing is wrapping up this episode.

Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and 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!