There's no way to explain those feelings

I'm pretty excited at the moment--after what seems like ages and really must be something like 10 months since Turnaround introduced it to me, I finally finally finally have (a non-MySpace rip of) Jonathan Fagerlund's song "Playing Me," which I've been in love with from the first listen. Back when he released his debut single, "Angeline," I made it my song of the day but didn't post it because his label had done such a fantastic job of making it easy for international customers to buy--in addition to being able to buy a physical copy of it, customers could get it from any country's iTunes stores or Klicktrack without region restrictions--and I really wanted him to do as well as possible. His brand new single "Playing Me" is still available to international customers if you want to buy the physical single, but digitally it's restricted just to Swedish customers. With that in mind, I am going to post it, but only for a short time; for people outside of Sweden, importing singles is just ridiculously cost prohibitive, but I don't want to risk hurting sales for him (though admittedly that's unlikely), since he's still trying to establish himself. Anyway, back to Jonathan, in case you missed my earlier posts on him, he's a former member of an ill advised Lou Pearlman-managed boy band, but he left (good call) and is now pursuing a solo career. He's young, younger than a usually like my popstars being, but if the songs are great enough, I'm more than willing to make an exception, and so far, his are.

Playing Me--perfect boy pop. Perfect teen pop? Mmm...better just to say perfect pop--or maybe even better to say that it's perfect pop for me. It's difficult for me to avoid getting all hyperbolic about this song because it's exactly the sort of music I adore; it does everything I could've wanted it to do without feeling by numbers at all. "Playing Me" may be made up of lots of non-"real instruments," but at the least it's supposed to sound like it isn't--not in the sense that this is guitar pop or anything, but in that it's going for a fuller, more fleshed-out sound. "Playing Me" is soaring uplifting catchy Swedish pop (yes, it may not have happy uplifting lyrics, but that's exactly the right word to describe the melody), complete with strings, and I love it with every bit of my heart. Could you tell?

To buy Jonathan Fagerlund's single "Playing Me" (he's credited just as "Jonathan" on it), go here (physical).

Next up: Melodifestivalen! Though at some point I do want to write about that national final I alluded to--which, interestingly enough, includes another former member of that boy band and a friend of Jonathan's.