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WHAT'S ON IN SWEDEN

MUSIC

What’s on in Sweden: January 15th – 22nd

What do Swedish sin, indie rock and international jazz all have in common? They're some of The Local's top picks of things to check out in Sweden this week.

What's on in Sweden: January 15th - 22nd
Swedish indie rock/pop band Moccasin. Photo: Private

Here's a final call to check out the Swedish Sin Exhibition, which began last spring. If you haven't already got your dose of Swedish sex and sin, January 18th is your last chance to stop by. 

Tagged "Sweden – more pornography, more suicides, more alcoholism and more gonorrhoea every year”, the exhibition has plenty to provoke. In collaboration with Swedish artist Peter Johansson, it aims to expose ”Swedish sin”, both the "myth and the phenomenon." You can find your favourite sin at the Spirit Museum in Stockholm where the exhibition is held, on the western edge of Djugården.

Further down south, Sweden's charming student city Lund hosts the International Jazz Party on January 17th. It takes place in popular student house AF-Borgen, and will feature 10 bands on six stages, in an eight-hour music marathon beginning at 6pm and ending at 2am.

Back in Stockholm, indie band Moccasin will put on their very first gig as part of Emergenza, as part of an international series of events for unsigned bands, originally created in the US. The easily-digested Swedish pop/rock band play at Fryshuset in Södermalm on January 16th. The band consists of three childhood friends who began playing music together as a band two and a half years ago, and another two who'd played with separate bands before.

"For a time, it looked like we might stay in the rehearsal studio for ever," band member Jimmy Fällström told The Local. "But then Emergenza turned up. If anyone is interested to see what happens in the world of unsigned bands in Stockholm, Emergenza gigs is the best way to go." 

In west Sweden more mainstream Swedish music will be played at this year's Gothenburg's P3 Guld event. Indeed, the "tribute to Swedish music and artists" is back this year celebrating artists across nine musical categories. Big names are set to take the stage on January 17th including Linnea Henriksson, Lorentz, Timbuktu, Tove Lo and Zara Larsson. The top Swedish artists who have been nominated with help from the public will perform live at Scandinavium, with prizes set to go to the year's best live performances. 

Click below for more ideas of things to see and do around Sweden in the coming week. Enjoy!

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CULTURE

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

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

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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