Swedish~ Stereo~

Frida Öhrn is one busy woman this year, right after presenting the newest album of her latest project Cookies N Beans "Go Tell The World" that has entered Top-20 of Swedish chart she turns to the project that has made her famous faraway outside of Sweden.
Oh Laura, the band you absolutely should know by their 2007 hit "Release Me", has prepared a wonderful gift for their fans releasing double CD "The Mess We Left Behind" that will incude not just brand new songs but also collection of rarities - demo-records, live-versions and previously unreleased stuff. You'll be able to also find UK version of "Release Me" on it.
Band has unleashed a small album sampler where you can get a taste of everything out of this pack and it's definitely gonna be a beautiful record represented by the first single "California" - utterly pleasant summerish country song performed by Frida's special touching vocal.

Urban Cone who have presented their previous single "We Should Go To France" around month ago recently have made another shot with a single "Kings and Queens" included into their second EP "Our Youth Pt.2".
Along with both singles EP has two more tracks - "Deja Vu" and "Black Ocean" showing band's switch to acoustic live sound very well, Urban Cone's relaxed and beautiful melodics are still there and here we get a new high level video for "Black Ocean".

Agnes' video for just released single "One Last Time" was unleashed pretty fast and we love how the girl keeps growing looking gorgeous. It's black and white and all about the drama and Agnes' big hair. And while I'm thinking was it the right choise for the single it's flowing around Top-5 of iTunes. I can be sure only in one thing - this Agnes' era is promising to be something unexpected and exciting.

Young Swedish singer Amanda Mair who was praised by a high international blogging attention last year presents the video for her latest single "House".
It's a beautiful track starting with piano "My Immortal"-inspired intro blossoming in a running tempo choruses nicely decorated with synths and minimalistic but very fresh and summerish mood.

New Agnes' single "One Last Time" is out, unexpected and long-awated at the same time.
If you think this is another dance-anthem you'll be completely wrong as it's a soft electronic ballad that I basically can't compare with anything Agnes released before. It sounds fresh, anything but classic and relaxed. Probably too relaxed for single choice? We'll see but it's already in Top-10 on iTunes. And though "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" hasn't charted in official chart it had success digitally and on the radio though it will be interesting to see what radio will be thinking about this track. But we wish Agnes luck anyway and below you can check a teaser of upcoming video.

Moa Lignell's debut single "When I Held Ya" has become a huge success and has got a double platinum status, girl definitely deserved it since she has become Idol's wonder with this song during auditions.
Will Moa's hit get a worthy follow-up? The girl reveals a piece of her second single "Live Your Life" to be released tomorrow, in acoustic version it's quite recognizable country-inspired track with Moa's special vocals. Looking forward to hear studio-version!

Coming back from Eurovision like the happiest man in the world because of Loreen's win and feeling like in a vacuum after 2 weeks fest is over. Like the new Fanny Hamlin's (or Faye now) track she has made a video for.
I told you about beautiful Faye's solo-track "Water Against The Rocks" she has presenred last year and here comes the video for it. It's chill-out and mystic, absolutely loveable.

Remember Pavlov's debut with a single "Du Kommer Aldrig" earlier this year? We've got a worthy follow-up - new track "Kan Du Dansa"! Previous single was quite well noticed by Swedish audience and felt quite well in iTunes-chart and "Kan Du Dansa" is already in Top-20 too.
While "Du Kommer Aldrig" sounded closer to Oscar Linnros-area "Kan Du Dansa" moves to another Swedish pop-direction. This is light melodic synth-based pop explored by artists like Salem al Fakir and "Kan Du Dansa" is really worthy representative of this genre!

New Dada Life's club monster "Kick Out The Epic Motherf**ker" that guys have teased us with recently has got a vocal version giving it a proper pop-flesh to its wild club-spirit. We've also got a great video but we've got used to interesting videos from guys.
Swedish Stereo moves to Baku to support Swedish Eurovision-pride Loreen and to see loads of Swedish songwriters involved in loads of other entries. So my posts won't be regular and quite short close two weeks. I'm not gonna leave you completely though!

Waiting for a series of new post-MF albums from Timoteij, David Lindgren and Molly Sandén coming very soon I'd like to turn your head to another worth mentioning work of this Spring, the one you probably even got tired of. Or probably you're going to play it till the very end of this year, or years more... However Charlotte Perrelli's "The Girl" hasn't failed to meet the expectations, the album has become a proper pop-treatment and has peaked at #7 of Swedish chart which is Charlotte's second best result after "Hero" (#3).
While "Little Braveheart" starts spreading in Europe, I'd like to mention another great dance track - "In The Sun". Starting with a slow growing intro as all good schlagers are supposed to it surprisingly turns to a big dance summerish anthem, poptastic and happy. As dubstep becomes a trend in Swedish pop this song also includes dubstep middle-eight. The song was written by the same team behind "The Girl" and "Little Braveheart" - Fredrik Kempe and Alexander Jonsson with producing help of Elias Kapari and the lyrics from Sharon Vaughn.

Le Kid are back into the spotlight! Though their debut album was released last September and after that they've released another brilliant single "Human Behaviour" we already miss their new stuff. Swedish TV doesn't forget about the band and guys have appeared on a recent Gokväll show to perform one of their album tracks "We Are The Drums". No place for Le Happiness this time but loads of Le Coolness!

One of this year's schlager-fans goodies - new Timoteij's album "Tabu" has arrived! Ot to be exact will arrive on May 16th.
You can listen to samples of the album already now and convince yourself it's gonna be a huge premiere.
Comparing with the first album "Tabu" is more mature, modern, dancier and less folk, big schlager-tunes are still there as expected but properly updated for a wonderful girls comeback in 2 years.
One of remarkable things about the album is that it includes Melodifestivalen-reject "Högre" previously released by Therése Neaimé in English version as "Lovers Lulluby".

Da Buzz have prepared a brand new single "Got This Feeling" to be released very soon and offer a sneak peek of it!
Though previous single "U Gotta Dance" felt mostly like an attempt (worthy attempt, I should say!) of Swedish pop-heroes from mid 00s what is modern dance sound is about this time they strike for real.
"Got This Feeling" is a big dance-track with Kate Rynesque way of growth, tasty production and (always) wonderfully sounding Annika's voice, it's still old good Da Buzz but right that Da Buzz we had to expect in 2012.

Collaboration of Swedish club-titans Sebastian Ingrosso and Alesso with OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder "Calling (Lose My Mind)" has got a brand new video.
There's no so much to say, it's a documentary cut of touring, clubbing, recording and everything famous DJs life is filled with but it's still entertaining and we're happy that this track gets a promotion like this.

Eurovision rehearsals start already this week in Baku and very soon Loreen will leave Sweden to take part in a big Eurovision carousel. Currently she is the biggest favorite by odds and different polls, she has managed to enter tops of many iTunes charts around Europe so Sweden definitely has the biggest winning chance in years.
I'd like to share very beautiful acoustic gig Loreen has made at Mix Megapol Unplugged, she has performed acoustic versions of "Jöga", "She's The One", "My heart Is Refusing Me" and "Euphoria". You've heard the most of these versions previously but they haven't become any less enjoyable.

Haven't you forgotten that one of the craziest discoveries in Swedish music lately Niki & The Dove release the album "Instinct" on May 14th?
The album will include three bonus tracks and one of them is "All This Youth" - very light electropop cousin of The Knife's "Heartbeats" that the band has presented today on their Soundcloud channel, you can check it right below.

World's best Alex Saidac presents a fresh video for the latest single "Stay In This Moment" which is another party video but completely different if you'll compare it with "We Shine".
This one is more summerish, warm and Alex looks gorgeous in her image of wild party-indian.
We've got mixes, we've got a video, soon there'll also gonna be an acoustic version of "Stay In This Moment". Alex loves to provide full packs and we love Alex!

Do you remember last year's collaboration of Rye Rye and Robyn turning Swedish pop-gem "Be Mine" to a hip-hop area (which wasn't a fantastic experience to our taste) but still giving it a proper highlight abroad?
This time we've got a simillar case. American hip-hop band Chiddy Bang has released a new single "Mind Your Manners" including sample of Icona Pop's wonderful song "Manners", fullfilling it with forgivable (for pop-fans) portion of hip-hop and shooting video which is not bad at all. The result is almost twice bigger amount of views on youtube comparing with original song so we don't mind this great promotion of girls.

We've been waiting for Daisy for ages and finally she's back with something sounding like a smash directly!
For those who didn't hear about this singer, Daisy has started career in a project Starclub around 2006 making wonderful summerish Arash-breathing pop that has got a pretty positive response abroad after release of singles "Chiki Chiki" and "All The Boys".
Quite soon Daisy has come up with a solo-project and has delivered a big Swedish pop explosion "Everytime" that unfortunately hasn't got follow-up but we could listen to some other nice pieces of Daisy's music on her Myspace page and the singer was working on a new music all the latest time.
Here's the first result of her work in studio "Girl is Me" - brand new track which is not a dance as you could expect but it's a pure pop with an excellent production and massive attitude. Daisy takes part in Metro On Stage contest with this song so don't hesitate to listen to the song and support it here.

Not so long ago some of pretty recognizable names of Swedish music - Miike Snow, Lykke Li, Peter Bjorn and John and some other less recognizable ones have set up their own lable Ingrid which has already got releasing plan for this summer and one of the first releases to come out is a compilation "Ingrid Volym 1" including songs of Lykke Li, Little Majorette and Karlsson & Winnberg (guys behind Miike Snow).
Mostly we were interested in Lykke Li's song "Come Near" which was already performed live at concerts last year and probably has just become a leftover from "Wounded Rhymes". Finally it has leaked. In studio version of the track you can really feel atmosphere of "Wounded Rhymes", right that sort of paranoid pop in all its epic and depressive atmosphere. Fans of "Wounded Rhymes" will be absolutely pleased with it.

Linnea Henriksson is on the way to her debut album "Till Mina Älskade Och Älskare" to be out on May 30th, after two singles released she has visited Nyhetsmorgon to perform two more songs to be included in upcoming album, both in Swedish (as the whole album, you can watch tracklisting here).
"Mitt rum i ditt hjärta" is utterly deep melancholic synth ballad changing tempo few times and feeling experimental, maybe even as an improvisation in the end. "Lyckligare nu" is on the other hand starts with haunting rock'n'roll verse switching to a big melodic chorus. Linnea has alreadyso performed her latest single "Alice".

Icona Pop girls are back with a new single "I Love It", not directly anything comparable with some of their previous singles.
And I also can't say if it's my cup of tea but I'm too interested in them not to write about this track.
It's shouty, pop-punk, based on a heavy electronic sound and have a nice party-feeling anyway so there will be a lot who'll like it.

Tonight's Humorgalan has gathered two of Sweden's most wonderful pop-singers on the stage to take part in the concert drawing attention to children in need. It was Loreen who has performed "Euphoria" (I've re-watched it around 5 times now and going to do once again) and amazing cover of Björk's "Jöga" (she already did it at Earth Hour) and Sanna Nielsen singing Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love Of All". The Soundtrack Of Our Lives were also among guests of the show, you can watch their performance here.