How come Swedish bands become international so often? Sweden is in Scandinavia, but practically only Swedish, and not Danish or Dutch or Norwegian (save A-ha) become world known. Why is it so? What do you think, especially those who live in the countries?
Maybe the reason is that in Sweden everybody speaks English perfectly well without an accent, even little children do. I witnessed it myself. Besides, they write songs in English, which is the main condition. French, German , Spanish groups sing in their native languages, and no matter how good they are, they are not able to break through into the international arena. Moreover, the Swedish always find something original. Certainly ABBA was great, we speak about it in another thread. Now remember The Army Of Lovers. They managed to stay in the public eye for quite a time. I used to like them!
Sweden also used to have a very successful punk rock scene in the 90s. At the time it seemed like every punk rock band came either from California or Sweden. Bands like Millencolin, 59 Times The Pain, No Fun At All, Satanic Surfers, Refused were (in their genre) huge in Europe and did fairly well overseas.
The Knife, Ace of Base, The Cardigans, Roxette, Europe, The Hives, Neneh cherry, eagle eye cherry, peter bjorn and john, jose gonzalez and that other group with two blokes and two birds can't remember there name
The Cardigans was a new word in pop music. I liked them, their song I Am Losing The Game( or something). I remember that the video was even banned. And later they sang with Tom Jones.
How come Swedish bands become international so often? Sweden is in Scandinavia, but practically only Swedish, and not Danish or Dutch or Norwegian (save A-ha) become world known. Why is it so? What do you think, especially those who live in the countries?
The Netherlands are not a part of Scandinavia in the first place. However, we managed to produce some well known artists.
A few Dutch artists that were internationally successful:
George Baker Selection Shocking Blue Golden Earring 2 Unlimited Junky XL (or JXL) Focus Urban Dance Squad Within Temptation Venga Boys Vandenberg Eddie & Alex van Halen (of the band Van Halen)
Joost, thank you for the information! I happen to know some of them: Shocking Blue- always thought they were British, 2 Unlimited- no idea which country, which means they are American, Van Halen-always thought they were American. In fact, in this respect we can speak not only about Scandinavia, but about Europe on the whole. Certainly excluding Britain, because British music is the BEST. All the other European countries have but a few, very few, international bands.
Oh, Joost, you are great! What knowledge! Again well-known bands only are as follows: Bjork and..., A-ha, Aqua, Him, The Rasmus, Lordi- only because you know what. Sorry, I am speaking about international status not just European, you may know these groups but i doubt other parts of the world have any idea of them.
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Still, who presented all this? It was you! So, you are great, Joost! 
DM's Beatles forums › Other music forums › Various Artists, Lyrics, Discographies, URLs › Great Swedish bands