Swedish~ Stereo~

Rockbjörnen-2011 candidates are revealed this year and you know what I think looking at Best male category? Seems like Swedish girls audience's getting more powerful and wilder these days, when Eric Saade, Danny, Ulrik Munther and Ola (honestly I sent my vote for Danny, yes, but...) are best male artists of Sweden seems like it shows that this category (of young pop-chaps) gets loads of commercial potential these days in Sweden, will next Melodifestivalen get pop-guy vs. pop-guy next year again?
Alright, moving to other candidates - Tove Styrke, Veronica Maggio, Takida, In Flames, Ola, Eric Saade and Ulrik Munther have gor two nominees. We're personally glad to see September, Eric Amarillo, Dead By April, Roxette, Adele and Jedward in nominees as well (Tokio Hotel again? They've won two of last year's nominees. Have they even released anything since that?). Though there's loads of commercial pop it absolutely doesn't mean it will win (m)any categories but you can affect it voting here.

It's pretty unique case when you're reading about ska release on our blog but it means something!
Hoffmaestro & Chraa is not so fresh formation in Swedish music, they debuted already in 2005 being shot in film "Stockholm Boogie" and releasing EP and debut album "The Storm" that brought them some noteable hits like "Seize the day", "Young dad", "Desperado", "Highway Man". Though the band is presented as group playing ska-music it's difficult to put some label on them as you can catch some reggae-vibes, country-touch and even listen some soul-stuff from them. Among inspiration sources of Hoffmaestro & Chraa they mention Funkadelic, Manu Chao, Dr. John, Guns N' Roses, David Ruffin and Beastie Boys.
This Spring they came back with brand new album "Skank-a-tronic Punkadelica" and again it's compilation of much more different directions than you can expect from ska-band. In the end of October they released single "Round It Goes" that turned to be radio-hit and happily we noticed them with this great track.
"Round It Goes" is positive Summerish track with expectable from this band miх of ska and raggae sound but the most important is amazing uplifting tune exploding with trumpets in chorus jumping, spreading energy, life and happiness. Below you can check studio-version and live-performance.

If you've missed Rockbjörnen-2010 Aftonbladet presents performances of Tove Styrke, The Ark, Eric Saade and Hoffmaestro & Chraa online. Best performance in my opinion was Linda Sundblad's jazz-tribute to Best Swedish song nomination, she performed Salem Al Fakir's "Keep on walking", Ola's "Unstoppable", Eric Saade "Manboy", Mando Diao "Nothing without you" and Oskar Linnros' "Från och med du" (I wonder if there were some cases before when most of songs in this nomination came from MF?). Eric Saade and The Ark showed very nice performances, Tove Styrke hadn't her best vocal day unfortunately but it was great to see her however, Hoffmaestro & Chraa turned to be not my cup of tea but probably you like them.