Good news for your Monday – ALPHABEAT ARE BACK! Yay! They release a new single today Vacation – go and download it NOW on iTunes. It’s dead good promise and the perfect bouncy, Spring pop injection to your working week.
It’s nice to have them back. They always make an effort. Look how good they look. Look at their nice suits and hair:
Alphabeat hail from Denmark, currently the coolest country in the world thanks to fancy restaurants and tv shows about detectives in quality knitwear, and are stars of the Scandi pop scene. In light of this, let us pay homage to some Nordic singing stars.
First, some facts: Scandinavia, land of snow, pickled fish and a smorgasbord of beautiful blondes is made up of the three kingdoms of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Finland and Iceland are not strictly in the gang. Soz guys. It’s a top pop haven producing consistently good pop acts that have impacted upon the charts worldwide for all the right reasons. It’s like a modern days hits factory, or Motown, except it’s spread over several countries and quite a lot of ice and a lot of the acts are white. So not like Motown. Motown in negative maybe. Perhaps more like S/A/W/ without Sonia. No bad thing.
Here are our current Scandi pop crushes from then and now.
This is Oh Land. Say hello.
Danish ethereal beauty. She’s not released anything in the UK (why not please Oh Land?) sticking to native Denmark and a bit of the old US for now, although she did support Katy Perry on her recent tour over here, but no chart threaten as yet. Going off her latest video, she seems to like sloshing around in a white frock in an indoor pond generally looking better than we ever would. Damn that fresh glacial air and outdoors lifestyle. If our nation didn’t survive on Quavers and sitting down we’d ALL look like this you know.
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Manhattan Buspass
Not the only Scandi pop star making a comeback are Alphabeat, although it’s not really a comeback, it’s not like they’re been away for ten years. Unlike this guy. Swoon-a-rama girls – it’s MORTEN HARKET!
Here he is:
And here he is then in his A-ha glory:
And here he is with the lads larking. Nice ass!
He looks good doesn’t he? Clearly no one from that neck of the woods is challenged facially. His new single is here, well sort of. It’s ripped from a Norwegian radio station so has the bonus thoughts of the track from the radio presenter at the end. Well, we’re guessing that’s what he’s saying as we don’t speak Norwegian. Can anyone confirm either way? Oh, the single sounds promising too. And we’re not swayed by his dreamy face to say that. Honest.
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This is Robyn. But you probably know this anyway.
Robyn is generally amazing. At 18 years old she had her first hit with Show Me Love. No, not the rave on, it’s this one. Also, she’s Robyn with a y and more importantly not Robin S. Anyway, after displeasing her record label with her change of musical direction towards a more electronic feel – where indeed she resides today – she dumped them and set up her own label and has done pretty well since. Bet those guys at her old label are thrilled with their savvy A&R knowledge. She makes exceptionally good pop. Like no rubbish. At all. Why she isn’t held in greater esteem one will never know. Maybe it’s something to do with her severe hair and the fact she doesn’t parp on about herself like all these other popstars des nos jours. We’ll parp on her behalf: ROBYN RULES.
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Abba. Them dungarees aren’t hiding much are they Bjorn?
Often derided as “naff” (possibly because of an enthusiasm for sateen pants and tidy beards) Abba wrote stupidly good music with really difficult harmonies that only come to light when you realise your screeching along is making the cat cry. Ok, the lyrics were a bit ropey at times – “I figured it made sense / Building me a fence” – but English isn’t their first language and how are YOUR rhyming couplets in Swedish, hmm?
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Annie. Further example of the NO ONE IS UNATTRACTIVE IN SCANDI POP WORLD theory in practice
For those of you who haven’t met, this is Annie. She has a green belt in karate and a black belt in EXCELLENT. She also has every reason for jealous girls to hate on her – stupidly pretty, nice hair, not fat, probably quite happy, is a pop star etc – but you can’t because her songs are so good. See how pop conquers all, SEE?