2. Being Swedish

If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to be involved in a discussion that leads off into an ugly patriotic ramble, then you’ll know how stereotypes and opinions can be induced and created, almost always to no beneficial conclusion. There may well be no smoke without fire in some cases, but in many instances these formerly strong views can be completely reversed if you look a little bit harder.

It is true that in Sweden the dull, repetitive tones of bottom league pop karaoke type music is a massive hit, as it is to an extent in every country these days. I have always in the back of my mind wrongly associated people in this part of the world as followers and admirers of music that only really compares to the advert jingle in terms of quality and sense, the type of sounds that only make you smile due to memories of years passed on, being able to label a time and a place with a tune. There of course is no immediate or obvious harm with any of this, but for sometime here I did wonder whether there was anything else on offer??

My original opinions were enhanced one evening when I got invited round a friends place to have small gathering for the traditional watching of the “melodifest”. Ask any Swede about this event, it’s big, very big. The melodifest is a song contest, a pop karaoke style song contest; that simply likes to stew in its own pool of tack. This is low quality in every sense of the phrase, and of course it’s a real money spinner too, as people are encouraged to phone and text in votes for their favourite “artist”. The most unfortunate thing about melodifest as far as being Swedish is concerned is how popular it is, it may all once again appear to be harmless, but to the Swede who doesn’t dig this scene, it is an event not to advertise to any foreigner.

It was a cold October afternoon when I found something different, something that was new and great to me. I always try and keep an eye out for something different, unpredictable, and inventive, and I found it. I queued up with a couple of friends to go into a small room called “the lab” and watch an act called Midaircondo. We were lucky to get some good central seats, but even filled to capacity the audience was no more than a hundred or so, and everyone had a good view. Three pretty girls, all dressed in colourful outfits that were individual and feminine, stepped out onto the stage amongst a mass of electronics and various instruments. The three of them sat with their legs over the front edge of the stage, all holding a microphone and a control box, full of electronics used to sample, playback and repeat whatever sounds they were about to make. I really didn’t know what was about to happen, are they going to sing together? Is someone going to get up and do something else..?...pick up an instrument or go to the laptop or something? I think most of the audience were thinking like me, and we all didn’t want to make a sound, all concentrating on the performance that was about to unfold. It started off slowly, the three of them all making short strange sounds into their microphones, and playing with the electronic box, it was strange at first, but intriguing, and you wanted to hear more. It all built up, continued on, until you could follow a path, almost hear a melody, but it was always far away, they were in control here, steering us somewhere, the whole audience were following, enjoying the journey to wherever it was we were heading.

One of their songs, “Serenade” I recalled the most, mainly for an addictive and haunting piano part, although off the web when I got home I could only find a 3-4 minute version, nothing on the ~20 minute version I had seen them perform, but of course a performance is simply that, and when its good, it can’t really be re-lived or heard to the same level.

The nullifying tones of melodifest may be ever present in Sweden, but it’s so pleasing to see and know that there is something very different and available to those who are either lucky, or look carefully.