Why are Swedes so good at pop music?

Apropos of the ongoing Melodifestival, that's a good question; many have given this subject much thought. Marcia sent me an interesting article from the Atlantic magazine that looks at Swedish pop dominance in some depth. It's worth a full read.

The summary quote is: "no other small country has the right combination of language skills, cultural values, tight-knit industry, and supportive public policy to transform itself into the music-exporting phenomenon that Sweden has become."

And it's not just ABBA (despite my cheesy photo here); Swedish influence is still all over today's pop charts. The Washington Post has a good summary of recent Swedish acts. I'm a big follower of the Swedesplease music blog.

Although I have nearly 40,000 songs on my iPod Classic, we often end up listening to the radio when we're on Aspö. Despite its being almost comically middle-of-the-road, we love Skärgårds Radio as they mix in local hits with the Shania Twain. Sooz has many Swedish songs on her own iPod's playlist. We've spent many a hot Texas night, listening to our little island radio station over the internet, wishing we were back in Sweden!