Per Gessle and Sven Lindström count down from 10 to 6 on Sirius XM in the third part of their ’70s countdown in the September episode of Nordic Rox.
Per asks Sven how he is doing. Sven is fine. He asks Per how his summer was and PG says it was excellent. No touring for him this year, so he has been really lazy in the sun. Sven is joking that it is Per’s favourite position. Mr. G confirms, that’s where he belongs.
The guys are up to play music that defined the Swedish ’70s, goodies that have never been played on American radio before.
Sven and Per kick off the show Only Summer by Green & Granstrom. Sven informs that it’s a rather interesting cooperation between a guy from Malmö, Sweden, called Lars Brundin, songwriter, also photographer and a friend in the States called Jimmy Granstrom, who has been working with one of Lars’ tracks and written an English lyric to that. So that’s Only Summer and it was recorded in the States. So it’s a bit of a Swedish-American partnership there.
Late To The Party by Anna Lille is next, a new song from Norway by a 20-year-old singer. It’s a good track.
Shimmy Shimmy Style by Teddybears comes next. The guys are guessing it was released maybe 10 years ago. [It was released in 2018. /PP] Per loves the Teddybears. They have done some great songs. They are a pretty cool band, Sven thinks. They should produce more music, new music. He is always eager to hear more music from them. So if this message reaches them, back to the studio. Per says they are probably lazy in the sun. Haha. Sven says summer is over, boys. Get back to work! Haha.
The guys take another trip to Norway. and play Tired Old Dog by Sløtface.
Then comes Sällskapssjuk featuring Per Gessle and singer Lena Philipsson. Per says it’s an impossible word to say in English. He has some English friends and he tried to translate that phrase for them, but that word doesn’t exist in English. Sven says it means that you are really longing to be with someone. You are longing for company, Per says. It’s a great phrase in Sweden. Sven says that the immediate translation would be company sick, but that would take the focus away. This single was released a month or two ago and it’s also the title for the upcoming album. Per has recorded an album with lots of duets, and Lena is one of them. She is a great singer, and she is also going to be lead singer on the upcoming Roxette tour, starting in South Africa and Australia next year. Sven thinks that must be terribly interesting and exciting. Per confirms it is. He brought together the old Roxette band. They unfortunately lost Marie and also Pelle, the drummer, but the rest of them are coming with PG, and Lena is doing the vocals. They are going to play the old Roxette catalogue. It’s going to be cool, Mr. G thinks.
The guys get down to the mission of this episode, to dig deep into the Swedish ’70s, to songs that they think define that decade. At No. 10 there is an amazing song called Livet är en fest (Life is a party) by Nationalteatern. It was a big hit in 1974. Sven thinks it’s a fantastic album, very unusual also for the time, because they were like a prog band, a progressive leftist band. They didn’t sound like any other band. Per agrees. They were like a theatre. They went to schools, played performances. They had some really wonderful songs. This soundtrack to this particular show became a big thing. Per thinks it was a No. 1 album in Sweden. Sven confirms. It became a classic. They had a bit of a punk ethos to them. They started out like actors and then they learned to play to reach out to teenagers. Then they became better and better, but still had that sort of half amateurish thing, which is making them unique. According to PG, it sounds great. The sound of this record is really cool. It still is.
No. 9 is a classic Swedish artist. The song they play is from his debut album released in 1975. He is called Ulf Lundell, a big artist in Sweden. He is still around and touring once in a while. He was really big in the ’80s, especially. His debut album sounds like the mid-70s a lot. Sven agrees. The track is called Då kommer jag och värmer dej (I’ll come and keep you warm) and it is sort of a blues pop song. Quite cool. Ulf Lundell made a major breakthrough on the Swedish scene, both musically and culturally in general. He published his first book, Jack, about growing up in the ’60s. It was a big success. He came from nowhere and just boom, entered like that.
No. 8 is a song from 1977, so there is a bit of a punk influence here as well. The guys are talking about Magnus Uggla, who had his big breakthrough with this album and this song. He came from the glam rock scene. It was a sucker for Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter and Bowie and that kind of stuff. He moved into the scene with one foot in glam rock and the other one in punk, the new wave scene. The title for this album, his third album, was Va ska man ta livet av sig för när man ändå inte får höra snacket efteråt (What’s the use of committing suicide when you can’t hear the talk afterwards). Haha. It’s a great one, Per thinks. The song they play was really big. It was everywhere in the late of ’77 and it was super controversial as well, because he was singing about going out, getting girls and trying to get girls laid. He wrote about it in a way that was really to the point with no further ado. There were a lot of controversial debates about if one can really write such songs. Per remembers that. He was a punk guy, but he was from a nobility family, so that was also a question mark, if you can really be a punk if you are upper class. Varning på stan is played.
The guys are ready to move forward to something completely different, as they say in Monty Python. Ted Gärdestad, who was a very young singer-songwriter in the early ’70s, had a big breakthrough when he was 15, in 1972. His first two albums were produced by Björn and Benny from ABBA and they were really wonderful songs. His brother wrote the lyrics and Ted himself wrote the music. You can still hear his songs all the time, even today. His music has just transferred over generations. It still moves a lot of people. The song they play is Per’s favourite song on this. It’s called Come Give Me Love. The girl singers you hear are Agnetha and Frida from ABBA, singing the chorus. Despite the English title, the Swedish lessons continue. It’s a taste of Ted Gärdestad at his best in 1973. Per thinks this amazing song has a wonderful sound.
The final song from the ’70s on this show is from the end of the decade, autumn of 1979. It’s a band that Per is totally in control over, everything that happened, because it’s Gyllene Tider, Mr. G’s power pop group. Per says this is a song from their first album recorded in 1979 and it became their first No. 1 single in the early months of 1980. It kicked the doors open for the major breakthrough and changed everything for all of them. It was a double A side single. The record label wasn’t really sure about which song they should promote. It was also the era of all this dance stuff that was typical of the late ’70s. The other song was more of a dance record and this was like a homemade sort of reggae style. Sven says they were heavily influenced by the new wave movement. Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Ramones. PG adds Tom Petty. They loved the new wave and really loved proper songs and going back to the ’60s and ’70s as well. The whole attitude they had… they were like 18, 19, 20 years old. Sven says the 20-year-old Per Gessle sat down writing a lyric that made this one stand out, definitely on the radio. PG says it’s about checking out the girls on TV. The ones who present the show. You had the hostess those days in between the programs. It’s TV2. Sweden at that time had two channels. Sven explains the double meaning of part of the lyrics. What Per says basically is to put on TV2 and put on the girls on TV2. Per says it was a little game with the words. A little bit of innuendo, Sven says. And it made it happen, PG says. Sven says now the listeners are totally aware of what this song is all about and they play Flickorna på TV2 (The girls on TV2).
Next month the guys are back with the top five. Per promises it’s going to be sensational.
The next song on the show is a track about Elvis by Albin Lee Meldau. PG says he is a great guy and a fantastic singer. He is like a troubadour, singer-songwriter. Per has seen shows with him, just him and an acoustic guitar, which are amazing. He is actually touring in Europe right now and Mr. G is sure he is going to be big. Elvis, I Love You is a taster of an upcoming album in English, something to look out for. He is also Per’s partner in his duet album project. Per has made a single with him as well. He is wonderful, PG thinks.
Sweet Jackie by Sugarplum Fairy is wrapping up this Nordic Rox episode. Per thinks it’s a great song. Sven thinks the chorus is beautiful.
Sven and Per thank the listeners for joining them and Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.
Photo by Anders Roos, 2019
Thanks for your support, Sven!
The album would sell more than five million copies and was followed by their second World Tour, which saw them perform for over a million people, including the second performance ever by an international act in China.
