If you listen to that certain kind of indie electronic music, you may already know that many of the bands you like (eg. The Knife and Fever Ray, Jens Lekman, Robyn, Miike Snow, The Sounds, etc.) are Swedish and that the country’s music industry is the third largest (after the US and the UK, respectively). I think this is amazing, considering that the country has only about 9.2 million inhabitants!
After a few late night fikas and jam sessions with my musical Swedish flatmates John and Mellon,* I learned that the Swedish government funds public music rooms, complete with basic ’rock band’ instruments (piano, guitar, drums, maybe a bass?, etc.) for anyone who wants to use them. It’s a fabulous idea, but I’m skeptical it would ever work in the US. The instruments would probably be destroyed or stolen after one day without tight security, right?
I’ve noticed that Swedes are very honest people, generally. We had a house-warming party this weekend, as all of us are new to the apartment, and nothing was stolen! Only one of my peppers suffered from a chomping, but hey, that’s what food’s for, right? Anyhow, I forgot to put my iPod away but it was right where I left it! But actually, since Spotify is so popular here, maybe no one uses iTunes (and thus iPods)…? FYI, Spotify is a Swedish music streaming program that used to be free for anyone to download. The user interface is almost exactly like iTunes, except that the background is black, and you can search and stream pretty much any kind of music you want to listen to! Granted, there are occasional commercials and now you can’t get an account for free, but it’s so great- (practically) free music!! I heard that Spotify was trying to extend operations into other countries, so keep your ears pricked.
*not their real names (Mellon actually means ”friend” in Elvish)
