Allting har sin tid

I know blogs about the process of blogging have to be one of the less exciting things I could possibly write about, but here comes another one: I had real trouble deciding which new Shirley Clamp song to post. We've heard the studio version of Sonja Aldén's "Miracle," the English version of "Att älska dig," already as well as Shirley's live performance of the song, so I set aside "Miracle" first.

Choosing between "My Love Light," the English version of "Min kärlek," and "Det finns inga givna svar," the only completely new track on Shirley's new greatest hits album, was the real dilemma. We'd already heard Shirley sing a bit of "My Love Light" live and without musical backing, but we've been waiting years to hear an English version of this song. Sure, the Swedish lyrics of "Min kärlek" are so unbeatable than an English version probably can't beat the original, but has that made us any less interested in hearing an English version of this fantastic song, even if only as a curiosity? "Det finns inga givna svar," on the other hand, has to be the first original uptempo schlager song Shirley's given us in years. Then again, as a song, I don't really know that it can be better than "Min kärlek." Still, even if it won't be challenging my personal Shirley holy trinity of "Min kärlek," "Lever mina drömmar," and "Do They Know It's Christmas," I've been waiting for Shirley to return to this sound and "Det finns inga givna svar" is absolutely a good song--the fact that it's got a dance beat full of hits, sparkles, and swooshes underneath it, breathy "ah-ha" backing vocals, and is catchy enough to get stuck in your head after one listen means it clearly wants to endear itself to schlager fans, and that's always a good thing in my book.

My indecisiveness's result? I'm posting both songs, but only for a short time. Grab "My Love Light" here and "Det finns inga givna svar" here. "Min kärlek" is a modern classic, a schlager song with a surprising musical darkness to it that grows and grows on you until it's buried itself under your skin, so if you haven't heard it before, I strongly recommend checking it out in its original version.

Remember, though, that you can buy För den som älskar - En samling, Shirley's new greatest hits album, here (physical), here (physical), and probably here (digital) within a day or two.

Speaking of buying music, in all my excitement over Måns Zelmerlöw posting songs to his MySpace a week ago, I totally forgot about the existence of track 11 of MZW. If you want to own "Whole New World" or just want to buy the album digitally, you can purchase Måns's new album track by track or as a whole album (as mp3s) here. I was able to buy from it today even though I'm based in the U.S., so you should be able to use that store no matter where you live. Måns also provided comments on each song and the proper list of songwriters on his official website. I'll be writing a bit about the album soon, and about the Melodifestival final (and Erik Hassle...and Lily Allen...).

Next up: maybe more Swedish music with a dance beat.