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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3961 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 3, 2023

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147 Dungen – Tio Bitar (2007)

Psychedelia may have seemed like a fad during its brief heyday in the late 1960s, but it was a fad that would have significant impacts on rock music going forward. It’s not surprise, then, that no matter how far the music fell out of fashion, there would always be occasional revivals and a steady stream of underground artists keeping the flame alive. Dungen is among the most uncompromising of these keepers of the flame. The music is straight-up psychedelic rock (not merely psychedelic influenced), and the lyrics are defiantly sung in the band’s native Swedish. This is probably their heaviest release musically, but it still retains a strong dose of the Swedish folk influence that is a hallmark of the band’s sound that it keeps the music interesting.

I gotta say this amused me a little bit. It's a Swedish band, there's a lot of Swedish bands singing in Swedish! It's not a particularly defiant act! There's a wealth of Finnish bands singing in Finnish, likewise, that I listen - foreigners, of course, don't know about them, and nobody would expect them to.

foreigners, of course, don't know about them, and nobody would expect them to.

Well, that says it all right there. Most Americans would give you a look like they had to ingest cod liver oil if you put on music at a party or something that wasn't sung in English, or, in certain rare circumstances, Spanish. Hence, every band from Sweden or elsewhere that has ever had a chance to capture an international market has sung mostly, if not exclusively, in English. After Dungen found cult success in the States, I imagine there was pressure to expand the audience by singing in English. Dungen side project The Amazing sings in English, and while they aren't exactly well-known, I have heard their music played in grocery stores and on the radio, even if the grocery store in question was Trader Joe's and the radio station was public, it's still not nothing. Dungen was never going to be a huge commercial force, but they could've been at least as well known as their countrymen, Peter Bjorn and John, and joined the indie A-list. Instead they remained a cult band that made great albums that no one wanted to listen to because of some weird allergy about music sung in foreign languages. I'd call such a decision at least a bit defiant.

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