Ingemar Olsson is a very prolific and
still active artist, and one of the better mainstream
singer/songwriters to come out of the Swedish Xian movement in the
70s. ”Livs levande” was his debut and sports a slew of studio
pros including Janne Schaffer, jazz flautist Tommy Koverhult and
drummer Ola Brunkert. Claes af Geijerstam provides percussion and
backing vocals, and also produced the album which explains why ”Livs
levande” shares some characteristics with Geijerstam's own 1970
solo debut "Out Of My Hair".
The songs are split between English and Swedish tracks with some fairly witty lyrics. Not all of them are good with the country parody ”Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley” being the worst, and the Simon & Garfunkel cover ”Mrs. Robinson” feeling very redundant 40+ years later. But there are some nice moments here, such as ”Somebody's Knocking On My Door”, a is mellow and catchy post-60's pop song, and the pleasantly breezy ”En typisk medmänniska” with a swirling Leslie guitar emphasizing the light feel. The entire album's a lighthearted and good-natured effort, retaining much of the hopeful air of the 60's.
Musically and generally speaking, it may not be the
classic some claim it to be, but you have to acknowledge it for being
a pioneering work being one of the first albums, if not the
first, to blend Xian concerns with a real mainstream appeal. Also,
coming only one year behind Pugh Rogefeldt's ”Ja dä ä dä”,
it's one of the earliest proper pop albums to feature Swedish lyrics.
In 2019, Olsson overdubbed new Swedish vocals to the originally English speaking tracks, and while it might have looked like a good idea at first given that Olsson's English pronounciation wouldn't quite get the Queen's approval, the update sounds like any attempt of that kind, with the young Olsson and the mature Olsson anachronistically trading vocals. If you want the album, make sure to get the original vinyl version or the original CD release from 2005 ('wrong' version has brighter sleeve colours so it's easy to distinguish from the old CD).
Full album playlist
No comments:
Post a Comment