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MUSIC

The Local’s top Swedish music acts for 2015

Sweden has a global reputation for exporting music for the masses, from DJ Avicii to folk group First Aid Kit. But who are the next acts showing international potential? We asked The Local's music guru Paul Connolly.

The Local's top Swedish music acts for 2015
Naomi Pilgrim in concert in Stockholm. Photo: TT

Sweden’s status as the world’s third largest pop music exporter was celebrated recently when PostNord, Sweden’s postal service, announced a new line of stamps featuring electro-dance icon Robyn, folk band First Aid Kit, DJ Avicii, soul singer Seinabo Sey and mega-producer/songwriter Max Martin (the man behind the hits of mega stars including Taylor Swift and Britney Spears).

But who will be next to break through internationally?

Last year, our main tip was Tove Lo who in 2014 began playing in tiny venues and ended the year supporting Katy Perry on her world tour and enjoying a global smash hit with Habits (first talked about on The Local back in 2013).

Lo's debut album, Queen Of The Clouds, even reached number 14 in the US album charts – similar success is expected when the album is released in the UK this month.

This year Zara Larsson and AronChupa will almost certainly emulate Lo’s success and enjoy some US chart action.

But what about further down the ladder? 

Predicting surefire success is almost impossible so what follows is a list of acts who float our boat. They may never become huge but they will release some terrific music in 2015.

1. Nadya

Born in Jönköping to Iranian parents, Nadia "Nadya" Kardar Tehran previously played in punk and hip-hop bands. Those genres’ energy and anger have certainly suffused her music as a solo artist, but there is majesty here too – Refugee may be searing but it’s also utterly magnificent. She’s been likened to the UK’s M.I.A. M.I.A. should be so lucky.

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2. AnnaMelina

AnnaMelina doesn’t like to blow her own trumpet. In fact this 21-year-old purveyor of electronica R&B probably disdains trumpets. So we will bring her to your attention instead. She writes all about the bits of love in between the dizzy beginnings and the sorry end. And she does it so very well.

3. Julia Vero 

Vero makes big-boned pop songs that probably have slimmer older brothers and sisters that were born in the 1980s. It’s not all retro, though – there’s a knowing contemporary ear at work here, as evidenced by the dirty synths. Polished but not smug.

4. The Amazing

A name like The Amazing demands that you be good. Luckily, this Stockholm band peddle the kind of dreamy but focused rustic rock that has had people slavering over the likes of My Morning Jacket and Fleet Foxes. Seriously amazing stuff.

5. Naomi Pilgrim

Pilgrim could be forgiven for thinking that she’s been somewhat left behind by the likes of Seinabo Sey and Mapei, Sweden’s premier new soul stars. She may need to add a lick of her own personality to her music and if she does 2015 can be hers.

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6. Blänk

Blänk come from the very north of the Bothnian Bay. But their music is not chilly or remote. Tears Run Dry is, instead, utterly accessible and warm electronic pop. And their imminent debut album, Only Built For The Northern Lights, is rather special.

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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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