In 2011 the nation of 9.5m produced music exports worth more than $150m (according to Swedish industry estimates) – the largest per capita in the world. Now the rest of the Nordic region is catching up.
Indie bands spill out of Reykjavik. Heavy metallers headbang in Finland. Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel tops album charts across Europe. Oslo’s answer to “Gangnam Style”, Ylvis’s “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)”, is a YouTube hit.
Sweden stands apart from its Nordic neighbours in having the most sophisticated pop music infrastructure, a tradition that continues in the digital age: the song-streaming service Spotify was dreamt up in Stockholm. The country’s music revenues were up 12 per cent in the first half of 2013. Yet the domestic market remains small compared with more populous countries. Bands have an incentive to look abroad for audiences.
