There is an old Swedish proverb that says: “Those who wish to sing always find a song.” But the current version in global music circles seems to be: “Those who wish for a hit song always find a Swede.”
Not since the days of Abba have Swedish songwriters dominated world music with such ruthless efficiency. The UAE will get a taste of another Swedish sensation tomorrow night when Roxette play at Dubai World Trade Centre.
However, unlike those two groups, one in retirement, the other recently reactivated for a world tour, most of the modern Swedish hitmakers are comfortably plying their trade in the studio.
As songwriters and producers for other artists, Swedes have been responsible for worldwide hits across Europe, America, Australia and Azerbaijan – yes, that’s right: Azerbaijan. On Saturday, the not-quite-in-Europe country won the Eurovision song contest in only its fourth year in the competition.
The winning entry, the romantic synth-pop of Running Scared, might have been performed well by the native duo Ell and Nikki, but the song was written by the Swedish trio Stefan Örn, Sandra Bjurman and Iain Farguhanson and defeated heavyweight countries and acts such as Germany, France and the UK boy band Blue.
While news of the victory had some Europeans consulting atlases, the Azerbaijanis were not so surprised. Unhappy with their 2008 Eurovision entry finishing a respectable eighth, Azerbaijan called upon the Swedes the following year and has never looked back. In 2009 it finished third, last year fifth and this year the trophy has crossed the Caucasus Mountains to Baku.
In the American charts, meanwhile, it's a case of Swedish songwriters competing against each other. Just this week, three of the top 10 singles had been written by songwriters with strong links to Sweden. Kate Perry's ET's, written by the Stockholm super-producer Max Martin, fell a place from its chart topping position to number two. Behind it was Jennifer Lopez's On the Floor, co-written and produced by the Grammy-winning beat-maker RedOne, Moroccan-born but musically Swedish, having begun his career and established his reputation there, before moving to New York. Not to be outdone by the up-and-comer, the veteran Martin also has another co-writing credit on the charts in the shape of Britney Spears's Till the World Ends at number six.
In fact, when it comes to success in the American charts, Martin is chalking up an almost legendary status as a hit-maker. Pretty much the only unsuccessful music venture he has been involved with was as the singer in his 1980s cheesy metal band It’s Alive which disbanded with a whimper in the mid-1990s.
Ditching the stage, Martin entered the studio and steadily made a name for himself as one the most prolific and successful songwriters and producers of modern pop. In January he scored his 10th top spot in the American charts with Spears's Hold It Against Me. Martin's Ikea-like variety of songwriting styles, which blends Eurodance, American bubble-gum pop, funk and rock, has made him the songwriter of choice for artists to herald their arrival, change an image or resuscitate a career. With his saucy Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, Spears well and truly ditched her Mickey Mouse Club image and set off down the road to pop diva-dom.
The Backstreet Boys, too, have proved themselves capable of more than just pretty chest-clutching ballads with the Martin co-written stomper Everybody (Backstreet's Back) single dominating the airwaves in 1997.
Meanwhile, after being reduced to releasing an album of re-recordings of her old material (these days called "reinterpretations"), the 1980s star Cyndi Lauper employed Martin and two other Swedes to pen the dancefloor-burning Into the Nightlife, which topped the American dance chart in 2008.
The same pattern can be seen in the American R&B scene. RedOne has been enlisted by the likes of Enrique Iglesias, Jennifer Lopez and New Kids on the Block to give them a gritty sonic makeover.
Two decades ago, though, it was different story, with Swedish groups themselves at the top of both the European and American charts. While America was in a collective gloom after the death of 1980s disco, bands such as Roxette, Europe and Ace of Base took the opportunity to dominate the charts with a winning sound incorporating pop, rock and dance.
Ulf Ekberg, one of the chief songwriters and the keyboard-player for Ace of Base, whose debut album Happy Nation sold 10 million copies, said it had taken the Swedes to remind Americans that pop music should be simple and catchy enough to be enjoyed.
“For Sweden [melody is] number one and has always been,” he says. “While the Americans, it’s the lyrics first, production second and melody last. I am not saying the lyrics are not important, but for us Swedes, for whom English is our second language, we just try to make it understood by a world audience. Because of this focus on lyrics, some of the American songs are complicated and can sometimes be not much fun. While for us, we always try to reach to as many people as we can, so we have feelgood melodies and simple lyrics so everyone can have fun.”
Ekberg says that while it was Abba’s bubblegum pop that first showcased Swedish artists’ love for an ear-warm melody, the country’s hooky songwriting culture comes from its native Schlager music scene. More of a style than a genre, Schlager music emphasises the supremacy of melody over lyrics and sound production. Since the 1930s, Schlager music has grown from its cabaret and operetta roots to accommodate folk and rock and has now become a Swedish code word for pop music. Indeed, the Swedish Melodifestival, whose winner goes on to represent Sweden in Eurovision, is commonly known as Schlagerfestivalen.
Ekberg argues that it was the free-spirited and “happy and simple” nature of Schlager music that propelled bands such as Ace of Base and Roxette and the songwriter Martin to stardom.
“Shlager is very hooky and has strong melodies,” he says.“Also Swedish is a very melodic language and it fits well with the tune and instrumentation of Shlager music.”
For Joey Tempest, frontman and main songwriter of arguably Sweden’s most successful rock band, Europe, the band’s knack for stadium-sized hooks comes from a simple desire to please audiences and themselves.
"You know, it's not just the audience who gets a rush from listening to a big hook but it's the band themselves who play it," says The Final Countdown singer. "Also, Swedish songwriters always had the goal to reach out to a bigger audience because that, I believe, is part of our culture. We are very confident and we are not scared of travelling and meeting new cultures. So as a band we always wanted to be full of great melodies because we knew that would travel to and expose us to a bigger audience."
While the likes of Lykke Li and Robyn are still flying the Swedish flag as performers, Ekberg thinks it highly unlikely that another Swedish group will make a real dent in the American charts.
"It is very hard for European and even English bands to make it big in the States," he says. "A lot of it has to do with timing and good luck. But now with the rise of American Idol and these five-minute pop stars, the music scene there is too crowded for European bands to enter."
But with the year's most eagerly awaited pop album, Lady Gaga's Born This Way (partly produced by RedOne), to be released next week and Martin working on new material with Avril Lavigne and the cast of the television musical comedy Glee, the Swedish love of melody will continue to linger in our ears for some time to come.
Roxette plays tomorrow at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Visit www.roxetteindubai.com for information.
Follow us on Twitter and keep up to date with the latest in arts and lifestyle news at twitter.com/LifeNationalUAE
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
The specs: 2018 BMW R nineT Scrambler
Price, base / as tested Dh57,000
Engine 1,170cc air/oil-cooled flat twin four-stroke engine
Transmission Six-speed gearbox
Power 110hp) @ 7,750rpm
Torque 116Nm @ 6,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 5.3L / 100km
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh650,000
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
SHAITTAN
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The Vines - In Miracle Land
Two stars
Cricket World Cup League 2 Fixtures
Saturday March 5, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy (all matches start at 9.30am)
Sunday March 6, Oman v Namibia, ICC Academy
Tuesday March 8, UAE v Namibia, ICC Academy
Wednesday March 9, UAE v Oman, ICC Academy
Friday March 11, Oman v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Saturday March 12, UAE v Namibia, Sharjah Cricket Stadium
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza (captain), Chirag Suri, Muhammad Waseem, CP Rizwan, Vriitya Aravind, Asif Khan, Basil Hameed, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Junaid Siddique, Karthik Meiyappan, Akif Raja, Rahul Bhatia
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more from Janine di Giovanni
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
UAE group fixtures
Sunday Feb 23, 9.30am, v Iran
Monday Feb 25, 1pm, v Kuwait
Tuesday Feb 26, 9.30am, v Saudi
UAE squad
Ahmed Raza, Rohan Mustafa, Alishan Sharafu, Ansh Tandon, Vriitya Aravind, Junaid Siddique, Waheed Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Basil Hameed, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Ayaz, Zahoor Khan, Chirag Suri, Sultan Ahmed
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Westminster, London
- Camden, London
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Islington, London
- Kensington and Chelsea, London
- Highlands, Scotland
- Argyll and Bute, Scotland
- Fife, Scotland
- Tower Hamlets, London
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million