The Swedish belter of reason - Carola Häggkvist

Carola is one of Sweden’s best kept secrets… or maybe the only one, since I am yet to hear about a contemporary Swedish singer who can match her vocal abilities, or has any real potential for an international career (then again, normally I am not that interested in Swedish pop, so I may very well be wrong – please, feel free to correct me). However, Carola has much more to offer, since she appears to be a capable songwriter and is an engaging, vivacious performer, even if her voice seems to permanently be on the verge of irreversible damage, as it always sounds raspy and ragged. A less desirable side of her personality is that she also comes with quite a lot of baggage in the forms of Christian fundamentalism and publicly declared homophobia: two elements in her life from which she has been trying to distance herself as of late. I suppose that she’s finally realized that, when you alienate a significant part of your fan base by saying outrageously offensive things about them, they won’t be willing to keep buying your records… oh, the cleverness of this girl.

Born in 1966 in Stockholm, Carola is one of Sweden’s best-selling artists, having the honour of never having left the privileged lands of platinum sales, and having the highest sales ever for an artist’s début album in Sweden with 1983’s Främling, which she released at the tender age of 16! Her popularity and professional prestige were enough to grant her a collaboration album composed and produced by the marvellous, glorious, fantastic and semi-divine Bee Gees (my second favourite group after Fleetwood Mac! Oh, maybe this will sound absurd - forget about that, it is absurd -, but in my eyes, that’s enough to redeem anyone :-P ), The Runaway. When she finished the extremely long tour to promote the album, an exhausted Carola decided to take some time to rest in the end of 1989, which is to say that she went into a short retirement.

However, she was not to be forgotten! In 1991, she made a ‘triumphal’ (ha!) return by winning the ‘coveted’ (double ha!) first place in Satan’s Yearly Collection of Torture (also known as Eurovision Dumpster Farce) with the horrible song Fångad Av En Stormvind. From there, Carola went to indulge in her (overzealous) faith by singing exclusively Gospel music and taking lead roles in soporific family-friendly musicals such as The Sound Of Music. In fact, she was so successful at them that she even débuted in London’s West End! Which places her in the same lofty heights only trodden by the brightest luminaries of British culture, such as Shane Ritchie, Billie Piper and that beautiful hippopotamus-faced, amazing(ly) poor attempt at a bad Liza Minnelli wannabe, Martine McCutcheon. Classy.



In 2001, Carola made a truly triumphal return with the spectacular album My Show, which united her again with the Bee Gees, stemmed a collaboration with Burt Bacharach and spawned the completely delectable hit I Believe In Love (which I’ve included here for what will indubitably be your listening pleasure, since it’s a fantastic song). From there onwards, Carola has kept finding success time and time again, in spite of the fact that in 2002, in an interview for a gay magazine, she had the nerve to declare that homosexuality was unnatural, and could be cured by praying… Let’s just say that I’ll reserve my comments regarding this matter to myself…

Anyway, Carola has resorted to the eternal ‘that evil journalist deliberately misquoted me’ excuse to save face (and her career, I guess) and, after suffering the embarrassment of being shut up by members of her delegation when yet another wicked, wicked journalist asked her about her opinions on homosexuality during a press conference, she represented Sweden in Eurovision in 2006 and attained a meagre 5th place with Evighet, the only decent song in the year’s top ten besides Anna Vissi’s passable ballad Everything. Oh, Evighet also happens to be Carola’s one and only number one hit in Sweden.

Even though some of the things I have said about Carola might have put you off (it’s not as if I had dragged her name through the mud anyway – the original post I had prepared was truly caustic), I’d like to ask you to give her songs a try. She is a good singer, and her material is, for the most part, of excellent quality. Oh, and I’d also like to remind you to buy her records! Go to Amazon. Oh, also, I cannot provide translations for the song titles, since my knowledge of Swedish is limited to ‘Stockholm’, and the furthest I’ve ever gone in my understanding of it has been saying ‘pardon?’ when someone used the word ‘smorgasbord’. Again, if anyone can assist with that, I’ll be grateful. :-)

A Kiss Goodbye

This gorgeous disco song is simply pure dance bliss. It is one of the freshest, most enjoyable songs that I’ve heard in quite a long time. It has all the standard elements of a typical disco song: slow melodic start, percussion kicks in, 4/4 beat and slight shifts in tempo to suit the anthemic, fast chorus. In short, perfection. This comes from the My Show album, and it is, as you might have already heard, awesome. By the way, I shall not rest until The Goddess Donna Summer records this song – it was tailor made for her, and it would be a welcome change since, as of late, her material isn’t exactly thrilling.

I Believe In Love

This impossibly catchy song was apparently a massive hit in Sweden, and I can see why. It is simply delightful, and maybe my tendency to exaggerate is clouding my judgement, but I believe that it could have opened the doors of an international career to Carola. It combines an irresistible stacatto beat with an extremely catchy melody that’s rich in algid points, even though I must say that the delicious chorus, with its cheerful lyrics and repetitive melodic progressions, is just lovely. Video.

När Löven Faller

This simply marvellous ballad is from Carola’s superb 2003 anthology Guld, Platina Och Passion. As far as I’ve read, it was a very sizeable hit. It is an extremely sweet and memorable ballad that transmits a very profound sense of despair – at least that’s what it evoked in me, since I cannot understand a word from the lyrics. It starts very, very slowly, carefully creating a sorrowful mood that languidly flows into the spectacular bridge, which is like a thunderbolt in the middle of a mild winter rain… I can barely find the words to communicate how beautiful this song is. Just listen to it. Video of a live performance.

Stanna Eller Gå

This excellent dance song seems to have been, yet again, especially made to attain international success – which is attested by the fact that it has already become a massive hit in Greece thanks to Marianta Pieridi (find her version, under the name DJ, here). Personally, I think that Carola’s voice sounds particularly rough in here, which is surprising, given the fact that this is a studio recording. The closest I’ve been able to find to a video is this. Here, what obviously is a HEAVILY pregnant Carola (that, or she needs to pray to cure her gluttony) screeches and rasps her way through the song while accompanied by what look like four overfed Walkyries in home-made Halloween costumes. Looking at Carola gracefully bringing her lard-covered hand to her throat to justify that she sounds like a cat being strangled is quite a show, but I have to say that the Walkyries steal it with their majestic and elegant cellulite jiggling, which reminds me of the average walrus looking for a suitable partner during mating season.

Album Review Pt 2 - Marie Serneholt's Enjoy The Ride

I don’t know what has happened in Marie Serneholt’s life since A*Teens disbanded, but after listening to her début album, I deduce it must have been pretty awful, since she seems to be longing to retrocede in time to the teen craze of the year 2000, and live her adolescence once again. Maybe it is that sharing the spotlight with the group’s other three members was incredibly frustrating for the inner prototypical teen, pop-singing nymphet that she so desperately tries to unleash in this record, but the truth is that this music is incredibly dated for 2007, and not above most of the drivel that saturated the airwaves back then and propitiated the emergence of the Avril Lavignes and hip hop-filtered Beyoncés of the world. In short, this product is long past its caducity date.



The album opens with the amusing title track, which draws the listeners in with somewhat aggressive electric guitar chords that create a sense of expectation for an thunderous chorus or explosive finale that never materialize. Conversely, what we get is a cutesy chorus that tells us to enjoy the ride over a fast garage beat. The adorable melody’s subtle shifts, however, make this song enormously enjoyable, with Serneholt showing off her very pretty voice to its best effect across endless layers of vocal overdubs (which makes me wonder, how would Britney Spears’ material have sounded if someone with a little talent had sung it?). The importance of this song is considerable, given the fact that, in its little more than three minutes of length, the strengths and weaknesses of the album are revealed. Marred by an often bizarre production that aims to be innovative, but ends up being a chaotic mish mash of neurotically assembled little pieces, stupid lyrics that pretend to be adult by referring to (oh, the originality!) infidelities and sex - plus maybe far too little ambition, the album pretends to be enjoyable, but it is such a half effort that it ends up being just a guilty pleasure.



The record strives to surprise with the Cardigans-esque Wasted Love, a gorgeous song that presents us with the tragedy of teenage heartbreak over an urgent bass line and a rock-ified background that becomes effective by the cold, metallic sheen that the producers give to Marie’s vocals. Sadly, the album lacks any other experiments of this sort, and the majority of its ten tracks are little more than joyless revisions of a now obsolete formula. Take the faltering The Boy I Used To Know and the absolutely dismal I Can’t Be Loved, for example; both songs waste perfect choruses that burst out with energy (Max Martin would be proud) by forcibly cramming them into square melodies and pushing them down with frantic productions that run across a myriad of samples and vocal effects only to come out overwrought, and completely flat.

That’s The Way That My Heart Goes

Beyond Tonight



These missteps are avoided, however, in a number of tracks – most of which have, not curiously at all, been selected as singles. Lead single That’s The Way That My Heart Goes is simply delicious with its whispered, half-spoken verses and waving choruses, which bop in and out of the song with a rush of enthusiastic cheer. This trend is continued with the joyous I Need A House, which carefully straddles the line between pop/rock and dance music while naively addressing teenage homelessness. Driven forward by an infectious chorus and adorable harmonies, the song seems to be at least thirty seconds too short, and one is left with a feeling of not having gotten enough. The same could be said about the relationship anthem I Love Making Love In the Morning, which cheerfully celebrates the joys of sex from the perspective of a fifteen year old imagining how her life will be in ten years time (those who enjoyed the horrid film Thirteen Going On Thirty, will be thrilled by this). It is, nonetheless, a great slice of chocolate, jam and custard-coated cake.

I Love Making Love In The Morning

Calling All Detectives

This trend is redressed, however, when Serneholt ventures into ballad territory. In the delicate love anthem Beyond Tonight, easily the best song in the album, she is given enough time to flex her tiny, still juvenile voice into some sort of emotional expression, bringing much needed depth to the record with a feeling of uncertainty and desire to make love last that’s simply charming in its innocence. Its apparent continuation, the aptly titled Oxygen, slowly lifts the listener up to heaven between soft harmonies and longing sighs. A final highlight of the album, is the fast ballad Calling All Detectives, which combines some of the most ridiculous lyrics imaginable with a gorgeous melody and a haunting electric piano that keeps chirping over the rhythmic percussion and lovely acoustic touches.

Well, here we come to the final review of the month! I really hope it’s wasn’t too boring – I know my writing can be very dull and cryptic on occasions. I’d also like to remind you to buy this album. Go here.