It's all up to you

All I know about Greek-born but now Swedish-based singer Nikolina comes from the one press blurb that anything about her online seems to use...which means I really don't know anything more than what I just mentioned in that sentence, except that this is her debut single; even her MySpace site offers up no biography or information about her music. All I can really add is that, if her debut single is any indication of her musical direction, I'm definitely interested to hear more from her.

Naked (Why Did You Leave Me Stranded)--written and produced by people who have connections to Da Buzz, Antique, Caracola, and Michel Fuentes (speaking of writers, one of them is Claes Funke, and his MySpace is playing an earlier version of the song, more dance-sounding and less pop-oriented), which I think gives you an idea of what to expect from the backing music here. That said, though you get that that electronic dance beat underneath you'd expect, the approach they've taken towards the chorus is an interesting--and great--one: it's strong, but in this smooth, multi-layered, mysterious-sounding, string-including way and with lines that finish off (to be clichéd) like a cry in the dark. Speaking of strings, boy, do I love them in dance music (even if they're not real), so you can imagine you thrilled I am that they're used here, and that they even make up the middle 8. I have to admit, I was pretty excited when I heard this song for the first time--I really hope this doesn't end up as a one-off.

As far as I know, there's nowhere where you can buy this song outside of Sweden-only digital music stores (in news that already has me upset, my favorite Danish-but-so-much-more digital music store has seemingly stopped selling to international customers, or else I'd link you to it), but the Swedish iTunes store is selling this song here if that's any good to you.

Next up: a Dutch song I just recently wrote about, I think.