When I was in Sweden the first time, my host family took me from Nyhamnsläge, their village on the southern coast near Copenhagen, to Stockholm, the capital. Stockholm is an incredible city—rich history, gorgeous architecture, urban cleanliness beyond my grasp of my American mind. And it’s home to my favorite attraction in the whole country: the ABBA museum.
ABBA is perhaps the first “Swedish music miracle.” The term refers to the phenomenon of a comparatively minuscule country producing such a wealth of musical material. In 2014, a quarter of the American Billboard Number 1 hits were written by Swedes. Ranked by chart toppers, nations most impactful to the pop music landscape are the United States (population 328 million), the UK (population 66 million), and Sweden (population 10 million). Sweden has the highest number of recording studios per capita. Soundcloud and Spotify are both Swedish exports. Max Martin, godhead of the Swedish pop industrial complex, wrote third-most number-one singles, behind only Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
And ABBA started it all; their meteoric rise to fame via the 1973 Eurovision contest put Sweden on the map, musically speaking. They are one of the best-selling groups of all time at an estimated 200 million records worldwide. The ABBA museum features not only extensive information about their bittersweet journey to stardom (the group, originally comprised of two couples, broke up after the collapse of both marriages), but is permanent home to many of their fantastic outfits worn across multiple tours. Their outrageous style was apparently a form of tax evasion, but it was iconic, trend-setting tax evasion.
Between the releases of Arrival (1976) and Voulez-Vous (1978), nineteen year old Kate Bush made history as the first female artist to top the UK charts with a self-written song. “Wuthering Heights”, her debut single, stayed at number one for four weeks, and its effects are still reverberating. Kate Bush is the reigning matriarch of art-pop; her willowy vocal style, lone wolf persona, and piano-based songwriting influenced a myriad of artists like Lorde, Fiona Apple, Outkast, Imogen Heap, and Lady Gaga. She never wanted to be a superstar, or even famous; she wanted to “try and create something interesting.” I’m inspired by her commitment to her privacy and process.
“First Day of My Life” is by far Bright Eyes’ most popular song. It falls into the same category as “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie or the “Such Great Heights” cover by Iron and Wine: Songs That Made Me Cry When I Was Twelve. I love that this song is earnest, pure.
Yours was the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
And I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been
But I know where I want to go
Love is embarrassing, but it’s also deeply freeing; it’s so impossible to control that it seems easier not to try, to be sincere against all social conditioning. “First Day of My Life” speaks to how love rewrites you, or at least puts your life in a new context. This song implies that it happens to you. Conor Oberst perfectly captures that pleasant helplessness:
But I realized that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home