Lift your head up high, girl

Earlier in the week, I posted about some of the best girl pop emerging from the U.K. Today, ahead of the weekend, let’s jump the North Sea and explore the leading ladies dominating mainland Europe’s greatest popular music country: Norway!

Yes, Norway. While Sweden may have had its day, what with giving us ABBA, Ace of Base, and, er, the A*Teens, the future of Scandinavian pop belongs to Norway. We should have seen it coming really, I mean after all, this is the same country that brought us A-HA!

Yet the brightest northern pop lights of Norway are quite distinct from their Swedish sisters and those haircut boys who did “Take on Me.” Equally blond and no less hook-oriented, somehow they cut a darker, more menacing pose, their sugar-coated pop-melodies and lush choruses sweetening harsh tablets of romantic disappointment and revenge. Maybe it’s those long, dark Northern nights, a bad batch of smoked salmon or too much aquavit–whatever the cause, we and pop music are the better for it.

Leading the pack is singer-songwriter Bertine Zetlitz. Over the course of five albums, Zetlitz has become a specialist in dark, angst-ridden, mid-tempo electronic pop. Whether taking delight in ruining an ex-boyfriend’s life on “For Fun” or charting the twilight of her own emotional abyss in “Midnight,” Zetlitz is a quirky figure on the pop landscape, both cognizant and celebratory of her own character flaws.

The video for “Twisted Little Star”–a song title that could easily describe Zetlitz herself–sees her mapping out the self-destructive nature of her not too-healthy approach toward relationships with customary intelligence, self-deprecation and matchless pop sensibilities.

Boy bloggers fave Annie (dubbed the “Indie Kylie”) made a splash amongst the Pitchfork crowd with 2004’s Anniemal–an amazingly well-produced and startlingly emotional album full of mournful love songs and defiantly upbeat kiss-off anthems–all the more remarkable given the slight range of Annie’s rice-paper thin voice.

The video for the Richard X-produced two-ton sass bomb “Chewing Gum” finds Annie destroying her man’s ego with the now classic rejoinders “You think you’re chocolate, but you’re chewing gum” and “I’ll spit you out when the flavor’s all gone.” Perhaps because her voice is not of diva- proportions, the video finds’ Annie replicating herself, as if raising an army for the coming romantic wars ahead.

Duplication may just be a recurrent theme (or requirement) in Norwegian girl pop. Margaret Berger, a runner-up on that country’s version of American Idol, clones herself–in space–in the video for her chin-up, pep talk as nu-disco anthem, sung to a newly single friend “Samantha.” Taken from Berger’s excellent Pretty Scary Silver Fairy LP, it’s not unlike hearing comforting words from a girlfriend while moving forward on that most dangerous of battlegrounds : the dancefloor. Where old demons are laid to rest, emotional emancipation is celebrated and possibly, just possibly, new love is found. As, Berger, notes, about the decision that lies before her friend, or possibly, it’s herself: “this will make you stronger.” Cool arm bracelet in the video too.

So there you have it. Or don’t as the case may be. Zetlitz is temporarily retired raising her first child and Berger’s LPs have failed to get much notice outside her native country. But in the good news department, Annie returns this spring with a Richard X double-produced A-side featuring a sure-to-be-fucked-with (in a good way) and long overdue version of Stacey Q’s “Two of Hearts” and a new track, tipped to be amazing, called “Songs Remind Me of You.” Just like strong Scandinavian liquor, expect it to be smooth and sleek with a strong, glowing afterburn.

~ by agitpoptimist on January 12, 2008.