Swedish popular music

Sweden has had a long history of music. Many Swedish artists have enjoyed success on the British and American charts and in other English speaking countries including Australia.

1970s: ABBA

In April 1974, Blue Swede went to number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 with their cover of the B. J. Thomas song "Hooked on a Feeling".

That same month, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, England, with "Waterloo". It was a big success throughout Europe, and reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100. Over the next few years ABBA had 18 consecutive top ten hits in the UK, nine of them reaching number one. Having sold an estimated 370 million units worldwide, ABBA became the best-selling band of the 1970s. In 1977, "Dancing Queen" became ABBA's only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. ABBA and Led Zeppelin are the only acts to have had 8 consecutive UK #1 albums.

Shortly after the release of their seventh album Super Trouper (1980), Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA decided to end their marriage, just as Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog had done two years prior. This event did not stop the foursome from working together. ABBA's eighth album The Visitors was released in November 1981. Feeling that the energy was running out of the group, they decided to take a break in 1982; the band members have not reunited since. Fältskog and Lyngstad then both pursued solo careers. In 1982, Lyngstad released her first solo album in English, the Phil Collins produced Something's Going On. This was followed with the album Shine in 1984. Fältskog recorded three English solo albums during the 1980s, Wrap Your Arms Around Me (1983); Eyes of a Woman (1985), and I Stand Alone (1987). After a 17-year hiatus, Fältskog released My Colouring Book (2004), an album of 1960s cover versions. Her latest album A (2013) has been one of her most successful, earning her Platinum status in Sweden and Gold status in the UK, Germany and Australia.

Sweden Rock Festival

Sweden Rock Festival is an annual rock/metal festival held in Sweden since 6 June 1992. While having a clear rock/metal focus, the festival is noted for its diversity across these genres, having featured southern rock bands such as Molly Hatchet to death metal legends like Obituary.

The first version of the festival was held in Olofström, with nine bands performing. The next five years, the festival was held in Karlshamn, but this was changed in 1998. Since then the festival has been held in Norje, outside Sölvesborg.

When the festival first began in 1992, it featured nine relatively unknown bands and it only lasted one day. The next year the festival was expanded to two days and more bands were added to the line-up. From 1993 to 2002 the festival would last two days; over those years it would also begin to feature bigger name acts. In 2000 the festival was expanded to three days but it returned to two days the following year.

From 2003 to 2006 the festival lasted three days and had by then featured some of the biggest acts in metal and rock. From 2007 the festival has been expanded to four days and will feature approximately 120 different bands/artists.

Rock festival

A rock festival, often considered synonymous with pop festival, is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts performing an often diverse range of popular music including rock, pop, folk, electronic, and related genres. As originally conceived in the mid to late 1960s, rock festivals were held outdoors, often in open rural areas or open-air sports arenas, fairgrounds and parks, typically lasted two or more days, featured long rosters of musical performers, and attracted very large crowds - sometimes numbering several hundred thousand people. A rock festival can also refer to a festival focused on a specific rock subgenre, such as a punk rock festival, gothic festival, or heavy metal festival.

History

Initially, some of the earliest rock festivals were built on the foundation of pre-existing jazz and blues festivals, but quickly evolved to reflect the rapidly changing musical tastes of the time. For example, the United Kingdom’s National Jazz Festival was launched in Richmond from August 26–27, 1961. The first three of these annual outdoor festivals featured only jazz music, but by the fourth "Jazz & Blues Festival" in 1964, a shift had begun that incorporated some blues and pop artists into the lineup. In 1965, for the first time the event included more blues, pop and rock acts than jazz, and by 1966, when the event moved to the town of Windsor, the rock and pop acts clearly dominated the jazz artists.