Hold on just for a while

A few notes on artist and songwriter-related subjects:

Martin Stenmarck's upcoming album, I Septemberland, features five songs from the team at Swedish music publishing and production company TEN (A*Teens, Amy Diamond, Erik Hassle). In this case, though, the songs don't seem to be by the Tysper/Grizzly/Mack team (who in addition to the aforementioned successes have also been the creators of Industry's "My Baby's Waiting" and VV Brown's "Shark In The Water") but rather by Elof Loelv and Kim Wennerström, who also worked with Erik Hassle and produced Malena Ernman's "La Voix." Kim is also a member of the band DYNO and Elof has worked with them (if you're not already a fan, now's the time to fall in love with them; they're overdue a post here, but in the meantime, check out coverage on #1 Hits From Another Planet and Don't Stop The Pop), who are now under TEN's wings. Anyway, I wouldn't expect a change in Martin's style, but hopefully this is a good sign in terms of quality meeting accessibility. The song titles TEN is involved with are:

I Septemberland
Gråa Hjärtans Sång
Happy Ending
Jag Vill, Jag Vill, Jag Vill
J, Jeff och Jesus

Kris Allen apparently wrote some songs with Eg White (Will Young's "Leave Right Now," "Who Am I," "Let It Go," "I Won't Give Up," "Tell Me The Worst," James Morrison's "You Give Me Something," Adele) for his upcoming debut major label album. The tracklisting isn't finalized yet, so it's uncertain which if any will make the cut.

(Side note: the first tastes of Adam Lambert's new music is out, but it's a non-album power ballad, "Time For Miracles," for the 2012 soundtrack and is apparently not indicative of the sound of the album. Oh, and Dr. Luke recently mentioned he was adding retro synths to a song for Adam--I'm hoping he means Van Halen's "Jump"-style synths.)

Bosson released a greatest hits collection this past summer. Did anyone else not know that? A quick glance at the tracklisting doesn't show any new songs beyond a version of "One In A Million" featuring Elizma Theron. I hope he releases new material soon...and that it's more like his older songs, not like "Wake Up." He's friends with Twentyfive Productions (Lisette Vares, Danny's "I Need To Know") on MySpace, which could mean they just produced the new version of "One In A Million" or he's working on them with new stuff.

As Paul of Fizzy Pop and PopMuse have written, the video for Will Young's new single, "Hopes & Fears," is out. It's a great song, one of those gentle mid/up-tempo hybrids that just makes you feel better about the day.

Seven of the songs on Magnus Carlsson's upcoming album Pop Galaxy are by Pitchline (Velvet's "Take My Body Close" and "Come Into The Night" and a song with Elin Lanto that I still hope to hear some day--speaking of which, Scandipop has great Elin news about a new single and possible participation in a certain music festival).

Kleerup, Natasha Bedingfield, and newcomer Jonas Myrin (you might know him best as the male mannequin in Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Get Over You" video) all worked on a song together--presumably for Natasha. It was such a surprising combination that I had to mention it.

James Morrison has a new single, "Get To You," coming out to promote the rerelease of his second album, Songs For You, Truths For Me. It's produced by Mark Taylor, the same man who produced "Broken Strings," his excellent duet with Nelly Furtado, as well as many, many other songs. It's not quite as great as that earlier single, but it's good.

Nanne's great recent single "Otacksamhet" was co-written and co-produced by '80s Swedish popstar Paul Rein. Given how much I ADORE the Epicentre-penned "Kom Hit," on which Nanne duets with Paul, I'm thinking they should collaborate more often.

I'm sure all the hardcore Agnes fans already knew this, but half of Agnes's demo version of "Say Love," the song which eventually ended up being released by Sandra, is streaming in the music section of the website of the song's cowriters, Epicentre's Anders Wikström and Fredrik Thomander.

The finest thing I've seen

Yesterday was so rainy and cold that about the only good thing to result from the weather was me being forced to turn to one of my instant pick-me-ups: Patrick Nuo's "5 Days." Don't Stop The Pop introduced me to the Swiss singer's work a while ago and it was love at first listen: I love this sort of musically upbeat, catchy male pop-(light)rock, an offspring of the teen-pop boom. In fact, the only problem with "5 Days," Patrick's 2003 debut single, is that you can't simultaneously listen to my favorite version of the song and watch the video.



Even if you don't agree, why you'd want to watch the video should be fairly self-explanatory (yes, I realize he's the generic Abercrombie & Fitch mail order model, but that's good enough for me). The video, though, includes the album version of the song, which lacks the bounce and piano riff of my preferred remix (though it's the tweaking sort of remix, not the total reworking kind). I'm not actually sure which remix it is since its length doesn't line up exactly with any of the tracklistings I can find and the quality is slightly subpar, but I still prefer it to the original.

On an unrelated note, "You," the lead single for Bosson's latest album (with the single being from 2006 and the album from 2007), still holds up as one of my favorite Swedish pop songs of this decade and probably my favorite Bosson song ever...and when a song manages to win out against "One In A Million" (both, incidentally, produced by Bassflow long before I was aware of that fact, and with the former being introduced to me by Catchy Tunes Of Sweden), you know it's got to be great. Forget the video--just switch away from it and listen to the way the song soars over that Europop beat. Please, Bosson, come back soon and come back with music like this...so that we can write off "Wake Up" as just a one-off.

#45 Bosson, "Believe In Love"

If you believe in love, then let it show
If you want someone, just let them know
If you believe in love, then let it show
If I'm not the one, just let me know

"You" is one of the best pop songs of the decade so far, let alone 2006 (the year it was released), and of course Bosson's biggest hit, 2001's "One In A Million," is absolutely fantastic as well. The Swedish singer further consolidated his pop pedigree with the uptempo "Believe In Love," which I think was the fourth single off his latest album, Future's Gone Tomorrow, Life Is Here Today. It's very poppy (one review compared it to "Stock, Aitken & Waterman 1987") and incredibly catchy; punchy electronically-created hooks are packed into every corner of the song and the "oh-oh"s that punctuate the chorus stick in your head almost far too easily.

Find it on: Future's Gone Tomorrow, Life Is Here Today

(Obviously the video above isn't a real music video--there wasn't one, as far as I know--but a YouTube user-created series of photos interspersed with the lyrics of a Whitney Houston song.)

Just tell me the truth 'cause I think that we both deserve to know

Knowing I wasn't going to be around when my copy of the Bosson album (or the Magnus album, for that matter) arrived, I did cave and decide to let myself listen to a few of the songs from it--not everything yet, though (and, much as I'm crazy to hear it, I'm going to try to wait for my actual copy of the Magnus album). If you haven't heard lead single "You" yet, I'm begging you to go buy it for your own sake--I've been completely in love with it since Catchy Tunes of Sweden posted it last summer. Followup singles "What If I" and "I Can Feel Love" were both good but, if "Believe In Love" is the next single (and it might not be--I don't see anything about it on his official site), I think it'll be the second best single off of this album so far. By way of quick background, Bosson is a Swedish singer; if you're a kid in the U.S., you probably know him for "One In A Million," used in the movie Miss Congeniality, but he's done far more than that--Future's Gone Tomorrow, Life Is Here Today, released this week, is his fourth album.

Believe In Love--as is probably well-documented at this point, there are some things I adore in pop songs. The feeling that it's designed for choreographed group dancing and handclaps are up there, but right with them is repetition of nonsense syllables. McFly are masters at this, but I think Bosson's sharp "oh-ohh"'s in this count--and I love them; they just help the song pop that extra little bit more. Even beyond them, though, this is a catchy, fairly fast, poppy song, just the sort of thing missing from the U.S. charts that I know stands no chance here but that I adore nevertheless.

To buy Bosson's album Future's Gone Tomorrow, Life Is Here Today, go here (physical). Apparently roses are in this summer in Sweden, no?

(By the way, if it turns out this is a single, I'll take it down in a few days.)

Next up: maybe something Spanish.

No tengo nada para ti

Spanish singer Merche, like so many of the artists I write about, does have a Eurovision connection: she's competed in Spain's national final, though she's never made it to Eurovision. She's released three albums so far, all of which (if Wikipedia can be trusted) have gone at least platinum, with her third album, Necesito libertad, even going double platinum. Though it was probably mainly "Eras tu," the album's lead single and a ballad, that helped push the album to such success, it's the third single off the album that I prefer.

Bombón--I know it's a huge generalization to just refer to "Latin" music and to write it off as a whole, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but generally just straight-up Latin music doesn't jump out at me. However, given me upbeat Latin pop that doesn't overdose on the Latin elements and there's a good chance I'll enjoy it. That sort of oft-mocked Ricky Martin-style music? I like it. And David Bisbal's "Ave Maria" is in contention to be one of my favorite songs ever. "Bombón" really isn't that far away from those sorts of songs, though it might have slightly more of that Latin influence. Still, it's got one of those catchy choruses designed for dancing, even if it's of the ridiculous Sarbel type, which is almost always enough to hook me in. Throw in some attitude from Merche, and you're set.

To buy Merche's third album, Necesito libertad, go here (physical) or go to iTunes; for example, if you live in the U.S., go here.

Edit: the tracklisting for Magnus Carlsson's upcoming album was released today--given that Bosson's upcoming album has a version of "Live Forever," I wonder if there's a chance that Magnus's "You" is a version of Bosson's song? Oh, and speaking of Bosson, I heard "Believe In Love" on the radio the other day and I really like it (it's got some great "oh-oh"s), so I presume it's the new single--that leaves me with a dilemma, though: I've liked or loved all four of this upcoming album's singles, but when I listen to the preview clips for the album, I have my doubts about its quality. Silly, right? I mean, if I like the first four singles, I should definitely buy it, right? I'm probably just underestimating it.

Next up: maybe a Swedish duo.

If you say it loud enough, the party gets ferocious

I was going to write about Mandoza and Danny K's collaboration album today (probably), but I was distracted by something I heard on Danny K's second solo album. In real life, I'm one of those people who can't read a trivia book without asking whoever's near me "Did you know...?" every minute. Consider this post the blog equivalent of that.

My laugh-out-loud moment of yesterday: hearing the chorus of Danny K's "Soopadoopa" which--surely deliberately--mimics (I don't think "samples" or "remixes" is the right word, since it's not actually using the original music) "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins in the service of an urban-influenced track. That music and the lyrics--oh wow. If I'd been on a chair, I would have fallen off laughing.

That said, a minute and a half into another song, I skipped back to "Soopadoopa"--I had to hear it again. Make of that what you will.

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that this maybe the most ridiculous idea ever executed in pop music...and yet, though I'm not (yet) ready to give it my "ridiculous but brilliant label," I think I'm infatuated. Everyone else in the world would probably think it's the worst idea ever, but seriously, the guy just turned "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" into a song about "dope" DJ's--how can you not love that?

In fact, for now, this is temporarily (very much so) my "greatest. thing. ever." I start to shake with repressed laughter ever time it comes on, but I love it.

On a more serious note, I'm pleased to say that J23 seems to be a big improvement over Danny K, although to be fair I haven't given his first album its due time-wise; I'll have to try revisiting it--but J23 has more songs with instant or close to it appeal for me.

While I'm being random, things I've been meaning to mention forever:

Bosson's next album is coming out June 11. "You" remains top-quality and "What If I" and "I Can Feel Love" were pretty good, too, so I'm glad we're finally getting an album.

D'NASH's second single, "Dondé estás," is a cover of a song previously sung by Swedish singer Pontus Assarsson, then called "In A Different Story," which explains why I've sometimes seen that name in parentheses after D'NASH's title for it. While we're on the topic of former Fame Factory contestants and covers, I've also got a version of "Cannonball" (sung by NKD) performed by Emma Karlsson, who--I think--released it as a single, though I'm not sure who recorded it first; given she's actually Swedish and that I think she's the same person as Emma Varga, I'd guess Emma did, but her MySpace makes it sound like it was released to radio this February...she could have recorded it earlier, though. She's also recorded "Shooting Star." Her versions are more rocked-up.

I'm really liking a lot of the songs posted over at Popsound, like the new single and b-side by Dutch singer Jim, whose song "Tell Her" Into The Groove introduced me to.

Next up: probably Mandoza and Danny K.

(Note: you may be asking "So then wasn't Jibbs's 'Chain Hang Low' a work of genius? Shouldn't you like that, too?" No--that left out any catchiness in the verses. It was pretty much rap. This song is more R&B or "urban" pop and keeps the hook going throughout. And there's a greater sense of fun around this one, while still maintaining the posing needed to sell the song.)

My mind says I'm a fool

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but I think Bosson's "You" was one of the absolute best songs of last year; if you don't have it, definitely go get it from Catchy Tunes of Sweden. Since "You" came out last summer, I've been waiting for news of an album, but I haven't heard anything yet. Apparently his newest single, "What If I," has been on radios since November, but I only now found out about it (can it really have been two months since I last checked his website?). As for Bosson himself, he's probably best known--at least in the U.S.--for his song "One In A Million," which was featured in the movie Miss Congeniality.

What If I--the sound quality here sounds subpar to me; sorry for that! This doesn't really have anything on "You," but, then again, that'd be pretty difficult to do. Also unlike "You," it's a ballad. Bosson's voice, distinctive as always (and we get some "ohh-ohh-ohh"s!), is accompanied by this big sweeping backdrop of music. It's without doubt pop (it's Bosson--would you expect anything else?), and possibly even poppy pop, but it's also dramatic.

While we're on the topic of Sweden, Erik Segerstedt (runner-up in this year's Idol contest), after releasing his first single, a cover of Bryan Rice's "Can't Say I'm Sorry" (from the clip of it, I still definitely prefer Bryan's version), is going to release his album, A Different Shade, on February 21.

To buy Bosson's single "What If I," go here (physical); it's backed with "You," so I'll probably be buying it soon--it's a great combination.

Next up: hopefully some of those songs from Denmark.