Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music
Label: Labrador
Format: Compilation
WorkNameSort: Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music
Sweden knows its pop music. Without the talents of Swedish producer Max Martin, it’s quite likely that the world would have been spared most of the hits of the ’90s tween-pop craze, and the country claims the citizenship of both the members of ABBA and Peter Bjorn and John. Thus, you may be surprised that upon popping in any of the four CDs of this collection from the decade-old, Stockholm-based Labrador Records, you’ll discover you’re unfamiliar with nearly all of the artists contained within. Isn’t ‘popular musicâ?� by its very definition popular? To the crew at Labrador, this bit of nomenclature is less a case of irony overdrive than it is one of continued wishful thinking. The delicate, indie-oriented tunes of artists like Tribeca and Laurel Music may not have torn up any charts, but in the minds of label heads Bengt Rahm and Johan AngergÃ¥rd, they certainly should have. And listening to these 100 cuts, it’s hard to disagree. Spanning the gamut from flamenco-tinged singer-songwriter mope (‘Funeral Faceâ?� from Suburban Kids with Biblical Names) to giddy synth-rock (‘Punkdrömmarâ?� by Ingenting â?¦ which actually did chart â?¦ in Sweden), with loads of Sarah Records’ inspired twee-pop and hushed, electro-tinged numbers filling in the gaps, this is pop music for people who are neither stupid nor indiscriminate. Which is to say, the people least likely to listen to pop music in the first place.
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2007.