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Top Swedish songs of the month: December

The Local's resident music guru Paul Connolly is back with a selection of his favourite Swedish tracks to see you through December and into 2015. No Christmas songs. No Swedish Idol pop tracks. Enjoy!

Published: 2 December 2014 09:35 CET

Top Swedish songs of the month: December

Linnea Olsson. Photo: Marco Saavala/TT

1. Nicky – Wake Up

Woah, where did that voice come from? Wee Nicky is only 19 but that creaky baritone could be compared to Johnny Cash. Keep an eye (and an ear) out for this chap.

2. IIIII (Lines) – People (featuring Adele Kosman)

A brilliant debut single from a brand new Stockholm band.

3. Linnea Olsson – Breaking and Shaking

Linnea was asked to support Peter Gabriel on his current tour. This gorgeous, deceptively infectious, slice of orchestral pop suggests why she caught the veteran electro star's ear.

4. Tove Lo – Talking Body

Ms Lo is back with a fantastically filthy but deeply romantic single from her debut Queen of The Clouds album, which has reached a remarkable no.14 in the US, as well as performing well in Scandinavia.

5. Hurricane Love – Nowhere To Go

Galloping folk-rock with hints of Ed Sheeran and Mumford and Sons – but don’t let that put you off if that sounds too mainstream. This is unique.

The Local’s best songs of November YouTube playlist in full

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New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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