Swedish~ Stereo~

I already told you about Nordman's Håkan Hemlin turning to a solo-career last year. His colleague Mats also had pretty active solo music life lately, guys were performing together as Nordman but now we have a new Håkan's single "Fri" so it seems like we're not going to get fresh Nordman's release soon.
Anyway Håkan's fans shouln't be upset as the new single has turned to be an awesome dramatic rock-song starting with beautiful piano-based verse going epic in chorus, this is like Nordman rejecting its folk-background and adopting U2's "Beautiful Day". I wouldn't refuse to see how good it could go for Håkan if he'd enter Melodifestivalen with the song like this and I hope I'll get a chance once.

Bingolotto celebrates 20 years anniversary so we've got nice music gift from TV4 gathering recent Christmas tour colleagues Elisabeth Andreassen and Marie Serneholt, Idol Robin Stjernberg with one of covers from his compilation "My Versions", Christer Sjögren with Eurovision-classic "Djingis Khan" and Håkan "Nordman" Hemlin with new solo single "När Stockholm somnar in". Nice selection for the most different tastes.

Famous folk-band Blackmore's Night has just released brand new album "Autumn's Sky" and among songs you can find cover of old Nordman's hit "Vandraren" which now is titled as "Journeyman". The song was originally written by Py Bäckman and Mats Wester (not singing half of Nordman) and has become opening track of debut Nordman's album "Nordman" released back in 1994. It has become second Top-10 hit of the band and won Rockbjörnen as Best Swedish song, the album has become #1, sold 540 000 copies of the album, reached platinum status also won Rockbjörnen as Best Swedish album spending 99 (!!!) weeks in charts. Honestly I can't say new version has become more interesting but it's always honour to be covered by such huge international band!
Speaking about what Nordman currently is about - band's touring with their last album "Korsväg" which (as all Nordman's albums) has become Top-10 and you could also see band in ICA-markets TV-ads (where advertising cooking book Nordman is symbolizing Swedish, folk and modern character of ICA-production).

UPDATE: Thanx to our reader K-A-B we've just got information that you can find another Swedish cover on Blackmore's Night's album. It's "Highland" originally performed by One more Time and written by Nanne and Peter Grönvall. Back in 1992 it was first big success of One More Time reaching #2 of Swedish chart.