Report from Popaganda

So, another edition of Popaganda has come to an end. And overall, I must say it was not as good as I expected it to be. I don´t want to say it was bad festival, it never is, but this year it did not reach the high expectations. This due to a few disappointments regarding certain acts.

A few selected concert reviews (grades on a scale from 1-5)

First Aid Kit 3+

A country-inspred girl-duo from Stockholm brought us a great concert with songs that made me think a lot of New York-based group The Essex Green. A few unexpected and creative thougt out covers, including "When I grow up" by fever Ray gives the group the plus sign.

This is head 3-

Swedish group This is head has a lot of cool songs and great energy on stage, but it feels like they could have done more with their material. it fet as if they didn´t change their songs a lot from the original recordings, and a concert with no surprises is nothing that gives an extra point in my book.

Jonathan Johansson 2+

I watched him earlier this year and that concert was much better than this one. A plus side to Jonathan Johansson is his sense of humour which I think some people interpret as him bragging and being nonchalant. But I do believe that is a misunderstanding.

Belle and Sebastian 2-

The hugh disappointment of the festival. The concert never really took off and with their brilliant material they could have done much more with the songs. But they failed and it became on the verge of a boring experience. It felt as if they just had decided to play their songs as a duty and sound exactly like on their records. No, this was certainly not one of the more positive concert experiences of my life.

Shout out louds 4

The by far best concert I attended (I didn´t watch all so i can´t speak for every act). Great energy on stage, an enthusiastic crowd topped with singer Adam Olenius really charactaristic and energetic voice. Trully a brilliant concert!

Magic numbers 4-

A couple of songs which it´s hard not to dance to with lead singer Romeo Stodart always communicating and makesa sure the crowd tags along with their songs, making the crowd feel like a part of the concert. Really good concert!

I also watched the first half of the Hot Chip concert which ended the festival and it seemed promising. I felt tired though and went home, but that had nothing to do with Hot Chip.

Beautiful Swedish music

Finally Im back after more than a week with a new blog post, but this time stronger than ever (or something like that...).

Just wanted to recommend a few Swedish artists with beautiful tunes on their resume.
Those are Holy Madre and Black Holy, both releasing new albums this spring. As a bonus I recommend you to check out this video with Jonathan Johansson.

/The Drumming Cat

The Swedish tongue

Swedish pop has raised much attention outside the countrie´s borders for some time now, but these songs are of course most often sung in English. Infact there is also a lot of great music with Swedish lyrics. No news to Swedes, but maybe for residents outside Sweden, are these artists which I have collected in a Spotify-playlist. All the songs are performed by artists who uses their Swedish mother tongue to create great music. Maybe its impossible for a foreigner to listen to these wonderful tunes and appreciate it the same way as I do. For example, one time when I was visiting Italy and i asked someone how it sounded for that person when I spoke Swedish, the answer was not that flathering: "Like drugdealers" was the answer. Hopefully the rest of the world dont share that view and instead think that it sounds that Scandinavianpeople sing (which I have also heard), which would suit the purpose of this blog post a lot better...

For those of you that dont have Spotify,I must specifically recommend these artists: Jonathan Johansson , Markus Krunegård, Anna Järvinen and (Ingenting).

Perhaps the most spectacular is the group Movits!. Listen and understand for yourself why...

here you can also watch Movits talking to Stephen Colbert and perform live on his show: Colbert talking to Movits, Movits performing .

Hoppas ni uppskattar detta! (Hope you appreciate this!)

/The Drumming Cat