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.

Jag vet att vi kan om du bara vill

Swedish singer Paul Rein's recording career took place in the '80's, but even if you weren't following the '80's Swedish music scene, it's a safe bet you've heard at least one song he's had a hand in: Christina Aguilera's "Come On Over (All I Want Is You)" (my favorite Christina song, incidentally). You also may have heard him on Nanne's "Kom Hit," probably my favorite track from her most recent album. I've been a little obsessed with his own music (which he was mainly responsible for writing) the past few days, though; his Communicate album has some real gems, especially in its more synth-pop or Italo-disco moments (the chorus of "Hold Back Your Love" has just a tiny bit of "I Feel Love" about it, though I suppose you could say that for loads of songs given how much of a definitive song that was; if you're interested, I'd say "Lady O" and "Hold Back Your Love" are two big starting points for the album, though I've got a personal thing for "Communicate" and "Stop (Give It Up)" might be something else to check out, though I think with its more mid-tempo feel it's dated a bit). I think, though, that my favorite song from him has to be his Melodifestival 1988 entry "Bara du och jag" (yay for the return of SpeedyShare! Sorry about the cracks and pops, though). It only placed below sixth, but every time I've played it it's never failed to lift my spirits, make me smile, and bring up at least a little bit of an urge to dance around '80's style (perhaps imitating something from Footloose?). Despite being in Swedish, it's a song whose bouncy catchy melody should appeal beyond just hardcore Swedish music lovers; it's a song I can imagine slotting in nicely into the PWL era. Lyrics-wise? "Give love between us a chance," basically--you know the drill. As a song? Just perfect.

I dread the day twenty years from now, though, that my much loved spiky popstar hair is looked back on with the same reaction we have towards '80's hair now.

I have absolutely no idea where you would go about buying Melodifestival entries from 1988, so instead I'll just say that if you want Paul Rein's albums, check eBay or Discogs; be careful you don't buy something in vinyl if you can't use it, though.

Next up: maybe another male Swedish singer.