Tove, Madly, Deeply: Sweden’s pop offensive in 2015
Remember Robyn? Of course you remember Robyn, probably twice given her incredible millenial paradigm shift from “whats-her-name who did that song, no, not Robin S” to the “bezzies with Snoop and Royksopp” pop juggernaut Robyn of the 21st century. Of course you remember Robyn, because she never went anywhere and took advantage of smart releases, gimmicks and alliances to root herself as a pop perrenial.
Remember Robyn’s self-titled album (it was called Robyn) and how it crept across the globe over the course of three years? You might not remember the creep quite so vividly as the album itself, because that was 2005–2008 and hype was more easily managed between territories via staggered releases, re-releases, special editions, and popping up on everyone else’s dance tracks and TV show soundtracks.
It is 2015. We are post-Beyoncé. We are post-Madonna’s-album-being-leaked-before-she-announced-it. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: leaky internet culture has birthed the secrecy of dropping an album out of nowhere, and it’s understandable why artists and labels might want to control the drip feeding of their material to more closely emulate the kind of lengthy album campaigns we used to be treated to more commonly. But there are ways to do this right, and ways to do this with maximum, weaponised irritation.
Speaking of maximum, weaponised irritation: did you know Charli XCX has a new album out? Of course you do, she released this great single, which should have prompted you to go out and purchase Sucker. Unless you live in the UK, which the shadowy cabal of pop high priestesses have put on the back burner recently (in fact, none of Europe has Sucker yet). This was slightly confusing when it happened to the brilliant Sky Ferreira album — after the wait, there wasn’t much reward for people who hadn’t already imported the album, and there wasn’t much of a fuss made to push the album. Nobody knew whether to put it on their 2013 or 2014 album of the year lists. It was complete fucking madness.
It’s even odder with the Charli XCX album given how ostentatiously British she is, a more polished and easier to digest spiritual successor to Shampoo with a heavy dose of everything that’s happened in pop since they left. Shouldn’t the UK be an easy target? If The Big Breakfast was still on she could have shown up and lip-synced any old shit with a bit of a stroppy attitude and we’d have all rushed out to buy it. She’s custom built for this market. More than that, when you have a big song on the soundtrack for one of the biggest films of the year, you drop your album immediately, everywhere. When you appear on one of the biggest singles of the year, you drop your album immediately, everywhere. You capitalise on your ubiquitousness, everywhere. It’s hard to know whether the title, Sucker, refers to us or the label. (It looks like we’ll be getting Rita Ora on ‘Doing It’, so you be the judge)
*
Which brings us to Tove Lo, and to Sweden, and to ‘the Robyn effect.’ Tove Lo also released an album in 2014 — Queen of the Clouds—unless you live in the UK. By this stage, pop releases are starting to feel like ITV in Scotland.
But does the staggering of Queen of the Clouds make an odd kind of sense where Sucker doesn’t? Are they hoping they can pull a Robyn and capitalise hugely for several years on multiple permutations of an album? Obviously the answer is “not quite”, because they’ve already released the album in the US. But Lo’s rise has been more like the steady Swedish climb of Robyn than Charli XCX’s sudden leap from the 1st division to the premier league. She’s written for others, she’s released a big song, she was picked by Lorde for a song on a young adult film soundtrack — so far so Charli XCX, but with a little less bombast and no Iggy, and with the addition of the kind of hushed reverence reserved for Scandinavian acts. “They really know pop music”, etc.
And now, ‘Talking Body’, one of the album’s best and most accessible tracks and one of the best tracks of 2014, has a video. Allowing it to be one of the best tracks of 2015. And unless somebody does something incredibly amazing, ‘Talking Body’ will end up being one of the year’s best tracks because it scratches every itch you might have: apathetic sexuality, awkward swearing, undeniable and infectious percussion (including some “HEY”s), a big middle eight that reaffirms the song’s amoral statement. The title even sounds a bit like those Robyn EPs from a few years ago (and Olivia Newton-John). And, without giving too much away, the video takes its cue from Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’ video. Great!
This is a perfect jumping on point for the start of the campaign in the UK, especially because every other single has already been released as part of an EP here — we’ve been drip-fed Truth Serum as a first course as opposed to the less edifying water biscuit method of releasing a couple of singles with no frills. The UK may not have been given the full album yet, but the campaign until now has worked to push both the EP and the album. It makes a horrible sort of sense, or at least doesn’t tease too horribly.
Because going full steam ahead with further singles from Queen of the Clouds without the UK having the album would be a horrible tease as that’s where some of the best material lies, already available elsewhere. Living in the UK, I can’t possibly have heard the album, because it’s only 2015 and it’s very difficult to procure music that a record label doesn’t want you to have. But if I had to guess, I’d guess that Queen of the Clouds will feature the likes of ‘My Gun’, which, at a guess, will feature a well-placed gunshot sample and a soaring pre-chorus that leads into some ever-dependable “ay-ay-ay”ing in the chorus. It might feature a sorry-not-sorry anthem called ‘Moments’ that could have been written by Sia. It might feature a piano-and-kitchen-sink driving pop song with some interesting cadence, which might be called ‘Timebomb’.
But who knows? It’s very hard to say, because staggered releases mean that nobody in the UK can listen to the album yet, and record labels needn’t worry about the shortening shelf life of hype in the digital age. What I can say is that with a little luck, when Queen of the Clouds does arrive in the UK it will be seamlessly integrated into the existing campaign for the EP/album here and elsewhere, and perhaps come with some new bonus tracks and a couple of nice television appearances. And, if the public has any sense (which they’ve proven time and again they don’t), Tove Lo will be embraced as one of the big pop juggernauts on 2015.
*
In other Tove news, Tove Styrke seems to be in the early stages of a similar, if not staggered, release schedule, but rather than going the route towards refined, shelf-ready pop, she’s paring down from that.
Styrke’s debut self-titled album was great pure pop. It boasted a very Scandi standout single, ‘Call My Name’, that got two videos: the darker, more self-consciously edgy (and superior) one where Styrke pouts around town at night with a kid on a bike, and a glitzier (but altogether cheaper looking) one that seemed to tout her as more of a pop star (with a sexy straitjacket).
In light of the Borderline EP then, the characterless sheen of that second video feels like a thankful anomaly as she’s pushing the bolshie underlying attitude of ‘Call My Name’ (“always remember when it’s time to flash my jawbone”) to the fore with some weirder, more liberating offerings. When ‘Even If I’m Loud It Doesn’t Mean I’m Talking To You’ appeared last summer, it was initially hard to believe it came from a former Swedish Idol contestant, but ultimately made perfect sense.
‘Even If I’m Loud’ didn’t make a huge international splash, and you’d be forgiven (just about) for dismissing it as nothing but annoying clamour. But as a mission statement from pop, and particularly from women in pop, it’s so bracing and defiant that it feels like a true repackaging of Styrke as an artist. It scowls at detractors (“I know you feel that pop doesn’t really have a clue”) as full of themselves and easily wounded (“I think I hit a nerve”), and on one level acts as a diss track to haughtier tastes, the perfect pop manifesto. Taken in a wider context, and in the context of an EP that also “laughs in the face” of “the idea of a girl who obeys”, it’s a statement to any critic, majority, or higher power that would oppress. “Even if I’m loud it doesn’t mean I’m talking to you” is about saying something not for the benefit of one’s detractors, but for the benefit of simply having a voice of one’s own without anyone to answer to, and in that respect it fulfills its promise of unapologetic pop that has a clue.
It’s a heartening thing to hear from such an assured pop act, and one that effectively teases at bolder directions, and that’s without commenting on the quality of the music. ‘Samurai Boy’ remains closest to Styrke’s debut and is a strong effort for it, but it’s on tracks like ‘Walking A Line’ where she makes an impact by moving in a slightly more bonkers direction (brassy post-choruses and mad “HA HA HA HA”s, the use of the word “mofo”).
Whether Styrke maintains this distinctive trajectory on her first US/UK album with RCA/Sony UK remains to be seen, but if she and Lo play their cards right then 2015 could be a year where Swedes more openly dominate a sizeable chunk of pop as Robyn did when she metamorphosed. Provided we don’t get bored waiting for any of the material to creep across borders, the stage is set for the typical silent invasion of two more Scandi acts who have been steadily finding footholds overseas.
