(no subject)
Nov. 9th, 2015 09:51 pmI've never been much for TV, though at times I follow a show or two. Right now that show is Så mycket bättre ("So Much Better"), a musical celebrity show, that I think is tailor-made for filkers.
About half of the show is the standard celebrity show stuff, with each participant having their "day" when they decide on activities (often goofy, but sometimes fun or extremely nerdy - in one episode they even made a punk fanzine). But the real meat of the show is their lunches and dinners, where each artist interpret and perform a song that the host is associated with. Since the artists are varied in age and musical background, the results can be interesting. Most end up being decent but forgettable, but sometimes an old song gains new legs, and there have been one or two really great versions most seasons.
Last Saturday, the host was Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base. First, there were no less than four translations of the songs into Swedish, and all of them totally reworking the lyrics of the songs - not only the rappers. Sven-Bertil Taube made "C'est la vie" into a banal song about the sea, but with a fantastically singalongy chorus. Ison & Fille, the rap duo, transformed "All That She Wants" with huge amounts of slang from the Swedish ghettoised suburbs. Lisa Nilsson was the closest, but made the lyrics about breaking up much more explicit, and the performance was set all-out to reinforce them.
And then there was Niklas Strömstedt, one of the most mellow pop artists ever to grace Swedish music. Sure, he is a talented writer, melody-maker, and musician, but just about everything he has made has been middle-of-the-road, conventional, and unobjectionable. Not so this time.
He took Ace of Base's feel-good lyrics about some abstract ideal of being happy and helping each other and made it brutally concrete, singling out various far-right and neo-fascist groups in Sweden for their behaviour, calling for an inclusive and broad view of Swedishness, and calling for solidarity with the refugees around the Mediterranean. On prime-time, at the most popular Swedish TV show right now. When these issues have only become larger and larger since the show was recorded in June.
I think this was exactly what Swedish music, and Swedish culture, needed right now. And it came right out of the left field.
About half of the show is the standard celebrity show stuff, with each participant having their "day" when they decide on activities (often goofy, but sometimes fun or extremely nerdy - in one episode they even made a punk fanzine). But the real meat of the show is their lunches and dinners, where each artist interpret and perform a song that the host is associated with. Since the artists are varied in age and musical background, the results can be interesting. Most end up being decent but forgettable, but sometimes an old song gains new legs, and there have been one or two really great versions most seasons.
Last Saturday, the host was Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base. First, there were no less than four translations of the songs into Swedish, and all of them totally reworking the lyrics of the songs - not only the rappers. Sven-Bertil Taube made "C'est la vie" into a banal song about the sea, but with a fantastically singalongy chorus. Ison & Fille, the rap duo, transformed "All That She Wants" with huge amounts of slang from the Swedish ghettoised suburbs. Lisa Nilsson was the closest, but made the lyrics about breaking up much more explicit, and the performance was set all-out to reinforce them.
And then there was Niklas Strömstedt, one of the most mellow pop artists ever to grace Swedish music. Sure, he is a talented writer, melody-maker, and musician, but just about everything he has made has been middle-of-the-road, conventional, and unobjectionable. Not so this time.
He took Ace of Base's feel-good lyrics about some abstract ideal of being happy and helping each other and made it brutally concrete, singling out various far-right and neo-fascist groups in Sweden for their behaviour, calling for an inclusive and broad view of Swedishness, and calling for solidarity with the refugees around the Mediterranean. On prime-time, at the most popular Swedish TV show right now. When these issues have only become larger and larger since the show was recorded in June.
I think this was exactly what Swedish music, and Swedish culture, needed right now. And it came right out of the left field.
