We finished last time around the middle of the 1990s and with The Cardigans a band from Jönköping the capital city of the so called Swedish Bible Belt Area (Bibelbältet). There is hardly anything religious about them. They made a major breakthrough in 1996 with Lovefool with a song that annoys me so much nowadays whenever I hear it on the radio. The song was on the official soundtrack of the film Rome0 and Juliet. Well, that soundtrack was really good as I can remember. Even the fascinating Stina Nordenstam had a great song on the album called Little Star. However Erase and Rewind or My favourite game were much better songs of The Cardigans.  The beats in my My favourite game still makes me want to rock at the office. The front singer Nina Persson lives in Bronx but she has also a residence in Malmö. Besides The Cardigans she has another formation called A Camp. Talking about Bible belt check these out: Stronger than Jesus, I can buy you. I wonder what kind of bible they read in Jönköping that makes Nina so creative?!  Another internationally known artist was Meja at that time with hits like It´s all about the money and Private emotion (that was a duet with Ricky Martin) Un, dos tres no…actually only dos because I don´t remember more tracks from her. Although I have heard that she was very popular in Asia and maybe still is. But the message of It´s all about the money has never been clearer. So, I would like to dedicate this song to everyone from The Lehman Brothers to Spyker (the company that bought SAAB). We hope the best. Ah, and congrats for the US for the new health care reform. Huge! It was about time.  

Indie was one of the upcoming genres in Sweden in the end of the 1990s and it shortly became one of the most significant directions in the first decade after the millennium. Blondes have done it before, but never really with a rock-punk influence that sold well internationally. I am talking about The Sounds. I was very impressed when I saw them last summer at Pitkä Kuuma Kesä festival in Helsinki (Helsingfors). What a great performance and beautiful legs Maja Ivarsson! In 2002 they came out with their first single Hit me the track was one of a controversial series of lyrics. I really don´t know the inspiration behind it some Swedish urban legends tell that it was inspired by Britney´s Hit me baby one more time. That song is rather controversial for my taste. The Sounds released a series of hit singles later on such as Song with a mission, Painted by numbers etc. Maybe the Swedish Tax Office (Skatteverket) should use this song as an anthem whenever giving away a new personal number. It would be much more fun to get into touch with them. But back to music. Another genre that was back in the beginning of the millennium was disco. There weren’t any discos in Europe that wouldn´t play Alcazar. Alcazar has made several covers like This is the world we living in, Crying at the discoteque and even some own tracks as well that topped the disco charts. They are still a well-selling Swedish pop export. Two of the band members left Alcazar in 2007 so the others decided to go on as a trio. Well, I shouldn´t leave out the band that has played concerts together with The Rolling Stones. Yes! I am talking about Howling Pelle The Hives (I just want to mention that “The somethings” is quite a popular name of choice for many Swedish bands….no idea why). Anyhow, this band plays a lot live (which is in my opinion a plus) and sold its music for many videogame projects and films. They are basically everywhere. You remember these tracks?: Walk idiot walk. Two timing touch and broken bones and more recently: Tick Tick Boom and a duet with Cindy Lauper.

For the third part of this trilogy I am planning only a list of artists. There I am going to stick to tracks from all kind of genres between 2000-2010. Soon there is coming a new grammar post as well (but we are working on something bigger for you. It´s called the WODT in Swedish…you´ll see!) so please make suggestions on grammar/language topics again.