It has been an incredible year for Swedish pop with excellent efforts from BWO, Marie Serneholt, The Knife and Le Sport already and new albums from Robyn and Pay TV to come. I don't post a lot of music from the country because, as you'll no doubt be aware, Catchy Tunes Of Sweden does it much better, but here are a few songs i've been listening to a lot recently:


Jens Lekman is the kind of suave, literate and indecently talented pop star people frequently mistake Morrissey for. A much more accurate comparison would probably be Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields. Over trumpets that sound like they could well have been borrowed from the soundtrack of The Rockford Files or Cagney & Lacey, he unfurls an impossibly romantic tale of getting arrested for vandalism.

Jens Lekman - You Are The Light

Jenny Wilson has the honour of being the only other person signed to The Knife's Rabid Records. She'll be familiar to anyone who has heard their brilliant You Take My Breath Away or seen the wonderful TV duet she did with Robyn on Saul Williams' List Of Demands. Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward matches that kind of pedigree effortlessly.

Jenny Wilson - Let My Shoes Lead Me Forward

As previously mentioned, electro-pop duo Le Sport's debut album Euro Deluxe Dance Party has been one of the highlights of the year so far. Rather amazingly, you can download most of it from their official website and the CD comes with pre-ripped MP3s to make it easier to share. Tell No-one About Tonight, containing possibly the most lo-fi "woooo! in disco history, might be one of the finest pop songs of recent years.

Official site

Le Sport - Tell No-one About Tonight

To be perfectly honest, i've never been an enormous fan of Sophie Zelmani. She's pleasant enough but does little to stand out from the massed ranks of folky, female singer-songwriters competing for attention. The single Going Home is unquestionably brilliant though. The first time i heard it was in Mandarin, as a cover on the last Faye Wong studio album. This is the original version in English - and just as delicately beautiful.

Sophie Zelmani - Going Home