Music of Sweden

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The music of Sweden shares roots with its neighboring countries in

Sweden's most famous classic troubadour was Carl Michael Bellman (1740–1795). Later examples include Evert Taube, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Fred Åkerström, and Povel Ramel.

Traditional

Swedish folk songs are dominated by ballads and

The

In the 1960s, Swedish jazz musicians like Jan Johansson used folk influences in their work, resulting in an early 1970s series of music festivals in Stockholm. The Swedish Music Movement reflected a popular trend towards jazz- and rock-oriented folk music, featuring many performers who brought a new vitality to Swedish folk.

Classical

The father of Swedish classical music is often claimed to be

Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871–1927) was one of the later national romantic composers. He owned a reputation as one of the finest pianists of his time. He studied for some years in Berlin, where he came in contact with German high romanticism, such as Bruckner and Wagner, which influenced him a lot when he wrote his two symphonies. He also wrote six string quartets, a respectable amount of piano music and one opera, Tyrfing, treating a Norse mythological subject. Another national romantic composer who was also a conductor and violinist, was Hugo Alfvén (1872–1960). His orchestration is bright and colorful, reminiscent of that of Richard Strauss, although the harmonic language differs a lot. Some of his works, such as the Swedish rhapsodies, are program music, which means music with an underlying program that is meant to be evoked in the listener's mind. Alfvén appears as a character in the film The Passion of Marie.

Important composers in the early 1900s are

Sweden is one of the world's biggest exporters of music relative to the size of its economy. The most famous Swedish popular music act of all time is ABBA, composed of members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. After winning the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, ABBA grew to become the dominant pop band of the 70s and early 80s. Their sales figures are disputed but claims have been made of 380 million records around the world, making them the second-most successful group ever after The Beatles. ABBA continues to sell around one million records a year worldwide. ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus have been very successful in musical theatre, with their international hit Mamma Mia!, as well as Chess, and Kristina från Duvemåla, which was a huge success in Sweden. The female members also pursued solo careers after the breakup. Agnetha Fältskog has scored various hits as a solo artist, with her 2013 album A selling up to 1.5 million copies worldwide.

ABBA marked the beginning of an era in which Swedish pop music gained international prominence, a position it still maintains today. Excluding the UK, Sweden is the European nation with the most number-one hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100: as of 2019, seven songs have reached the #1 position. The first one was a 1974 cover version of "Hooked on a Feeling", performed by Blue Swede, followed by ABBA's "Dancing Queen" in 1977. Roxette had no less than four number-one hits between 1989 and 1991: "The Look", "Listen to Your Heart", "It Must Have Been Love" and "Joyride", and in 1994 Ace of Base reached the top with their hit "The Sign".

Since the 1990s, Sweden's influence on the international pop music scene has been most evident via a number of its heavyweight songwriters and producers. Cheiron Studios, spearheaded by Denniz Pop and his protégé Max Martin, helped Ace of Base become an international success, and then went on to create some of the biggest hits of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Westlife, and later Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd, to name just a few. Denniz Pop died from cancer in 1998 and Cheiron Studios was closed two years later, but Martin remains a superstar in the industry - only Paul McCartney and John Lennon have written more #1 Billboard hits than Max Martin. Other prominent producers who were part of Cheiron include Carl Falk, Rami Yacoub, Kristian Lundin, Per Magnusson and Andreas Carlsson. In Cheiron's and Max Martin's wake a number of successful producers have also emerged in later years, including Shellback, Bloodshy & Avant, and RedOne.

The success of Swedish popular music is also evident in the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest attracts great interest and the Swedish contestant is selected through Melodifestivalen, a series of qualifiers which is Sweden's most popular TV show. Since ABBA's win in 1974, Sweden has won the Eurovision Song Contest six more times: in 1984 with Herreys, in 1991 with Carola Häggkvist, in 1999 with Charlotte Nilsson, in 2012 with Loreen, in 2015 with Måns Zelmerlöw, and most recently in 2023 again with Loreen. With these seven wins, Sweden is the country with the most number of Eurovision victories, tied with Ireland.

Some of the most successful post-ABBA popular music artists from Sweden are

Hip hop

While

While rock is not as widespread in Sweden as pop or metal are, there are some very interesting acts. In the 1980s, Swedish rock band Europe reached international success. The 1990s saw the rise of Kent, who became the most popular Swedish rock band in Scandinavia until they disbanded in 2016.

Punk rock

The most prominent and important Swedish punk rock band is

Sweden is also home to several influential

Sweden (along with Scandinavia at large) is known for its large number of heavy metal bands, so much so that this phenomenon has attracted scholarly analysis.^[5] Sweden is second only to neighboring Finland in heavy metal bands per capita.^{[citation needed]}

Swedish musicians were instrumental in the creation of

Some of the prominent metal acts are:

Successful progressive/psychedelic acts are for example

During the 1970s, the progg (not to be confused with progressive rock) movement gained popularity. Progg, originally an abbreviation of "progressiv musik" ("progressive music"), was an umbrella term for much of the alternative music of this era. Some of those artists were progressive in a musical sense, such as

Reggae is also a major part of modern Swedish music. An early pioneer of Swedish reggae was Peps Persson, who Bob Marley once said was the only white man with reggae in his blood.^{[citation needed]} Since then, more has happened. The Uppsala group Labyrint is widely spread with their musical mix of rap and reggae called förortsreggae. Swedish music producers Soundism are behind Swedish reggae artists Kapten Röd, Papa Dee, Million Stylez, and Chilly & Leafy (and more), also records with international artist such as Junior Ketlly, Lady Saw, and Buju Banton.^[6]

Electronic music

Electronic music in Sweden has been heavily influenced by

In addition, Sweden is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to chiptunes, or bitpop. Chip music is music made to run on old game consoles and specialized PCs, like the Amiga, Commodore 64, or Game Boy.

Other notable acts include Slagsmålsklubben, Crazy Q, Coma, Covox, Goto80, Maktone, Random, Wintergatan, Zabutom, The Knife, Zeigeist and Machinae Supremacy.

Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), formerly known as Electroacoustic Music in Sweden, is the Swedish national centre for electronic music and sound art. The research organisation started in 1964 and is based in Stockholm.

See also

• List of Swedes in music
• Royal Swedish Academy of Music
• Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
• Swedish Federation of Young Musicians
• Culture of Sweden
• Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest

References