Agnes Obel
While Denmark may be most famous for its bacon and children’s stories, there’s a whole lot more to the little nation than Han Christian Andersen and Lego.
The first of our rogues’ gallery is an artist making a name for herself on the big stage. Oh Land has dispensed with all the niceties all together and gone straight for the US market. Now living in New York, the former ballet student’s been on US late night chat shows and opening some select dates on Katy Perry’s latest tour in the US and here in the UK.
After little success with her debut album back in 2008, it was her self-titled follow up that broke her into the public conscious back home (hitting to the top five in Denmark and getting her into the top 200 in the US charts).
Her bouncy mix of electro pop and sugar-sweet vocal that sound like they’ve just been ripped from a giant music box are the perfect up-beat medicine for a dreary day.
Next up we have another entrant into Europe’s growing army of electro wonders that continue to outstrip their UK and US counterparts.
Winner of the MTV awards for Best Danish Act in both 2009 and 2011, Medina has become one of Denmark’s dominant forces.
With a look at breaking out of her home country though, Medina has decided to record all her tracks in both Danish and English. The end result has left her collecting number ones for fun on the domestic front, and growing her fan-base all over Europe.
With a deep, pounding bass base, crisp synth drenched dance beats coursing throughout and boasting soaring vocals Medina feels as fresh and cool as the very best from Scandinavia. That her second album released back in 2009 went quad-platinum speaks for itself about what the Danes think about Medina.
Changing track completely, we’ve got A Friend In London. This quartet of indie-rockers may have the most Euro-pop background imaginable after competing in the Eurovision song contest back in 2011, but are looking very good to build on that this year.
While only an EP has been released by the group so far, their infectious slant on the guitar-pop genre gives more than enough reason for optimism.
While they not be doing anything particularly landmark and ground-breaking, it’s nice to hear a group come along with so much sheer energy on show.
With super catchy, sing-along inducing choruses and, a nicely confident swagger to it all, it’s very hard to bear anything except good feelings about A Friend In London, who’ll make a wonderful addition to you collection when their debut album hits later this year.
Closing off our adventures in Denmark is Agnes Obel, an absolutely gorgeous singer/songwriter who couldn’t be any further away from the hyper-produced electro offerings covered earlier.
Writing, singing, producing and recording all by herself, Agnes is a model of solitude, with just her haunting vocal and piano a beautifully Spartan backbone to a stunning debut.
An enormous success both commercially (it went quad platinum in Denmark and platinum in both Belgium and France) and critically, swooping up the awards for Best Album, Best Debut, Best Female Artist, Best Pop Release and Best Song writing at last year’s Danish Music Awards, Philharmonics is a must for all lovers of tender, mellow singers.
With these four only being a soupçon of the Danish music scene, it’s clear to see that the tiny nation of only 5.5 million people has a thriving music scene that’s ripe for the picking.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith