The Swedish King of the Melancholy Drama is Emil Svanängen, AKA Loney Dear. Here’s my favourite track from his latest album, A Lantern and a Bell: “Trifles”:

And this is one of the best tracks from his previous album:

Of course, it has nothing to do with reading more – except when it sometimes does…I read three books simultaniously because I enjoy having three different stories to skip between, I find it stimulating and less […]

A friend of mine decided that she should take advantage of having a TV producer for a father and started collecting autographs when we were around thirteen or so; as she was too scared to approach famous people on […]

My goal in each of these swaps is to bury the British swappers in an avalanche of odd Swedish tracks that will confuse them – but having lived here, Moose, you’d probably just sing along! 😀 I definitely don’t […]

I tend to have three books on the go at all times. One that I keep in my bag and only read on my commutes, and if I’m in some other situation where I have to wait around. I don’t own a mobile phone to distract me […]

I went straight to work after the jab, felt fine all day, just got a bit sore at the point where the needle had been stuck later in the evening, but gave it a massage and it got better after a few hours. Worked […]

Read:

Began the month by finally finishing Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics by Dylan Jones, which I’d been reading on the side for a while. I didn’t like it very much (but to explain why would take […]

As much as I love doing these, I’ll have to bow out this time. Too many projects with hard deadlines coming up, and not enough time. I’ll join in again next time!

Yes, don’t expect it to be as brilliant, and you’ll probably enjoy it more. It’s good, but parts of it feels a bit forced, like he’s actively trying very hard to capture the same lightning in the same bottle. I’d […]

I’ve never read the NME, so perhaps I should have said all Swedish journalists. Although I’m sure that if we wait a while, someone will come along and tell me how some Swedish music mag enthused about Ms Jones […]

Converts, however late, are forgiven… 🙂

One of my all-time musical heroes. Back in the day it used to enrage me how every male music journalist would only have two things to say about Grace Jones: “she looks like a man and she can’t sing!” Blind and […]

Indeed – some of his finest work (yet)… 😉

I’m guessing you’ve never listened to Andrew Bird then?

You seem to have a lot of interesting neighbours, @Kaisfatdad. Wasn’t drummer Bosse Skoglund (RIP) a neighbour of yours as well? Or did I dream that?

I have never knowingly heard a single track by Bay City Rollers. I don’t think they were that huge in Sweden.
The only thing I know about them (unless I’m getting senile and is getting them mixed up with some […]

Well, @Kaisfatdad, I guess that most of those things I get to mention on the wonderfully odd and enjoyable threads that you’ll start by asking about some very specific and rather strange topic – perhaps you don’t […]

I love this series of reviews, Dave, keep’em coming, please. This particular Bowie album is one of my favourites, but it’s still interesting to hear your thoughts on hearing it for the first time, and very […]

Thanks Tigger, that’s nice to hear (especially coming from the King of Reviews).
I guess one of the reasons I haven’t posted reviews for a long while is that I find it difficult to listen to music when I’m […]

Lately I’ve been mostly lurking, being too tired to get involved most of the time, and way too tired to be funny. But on the original Word site I pretty much jumped in both feet first almost as soon as I found it, […]