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Remember Roxette? Ace of Base? How about the Cardigans? Avicii? Robyn? Or maybe y’know… freakin’ ABBA?! What do they have in common? They’re all from Sweden. So are Icona Pop, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Peter Bjorn & John, Swedish House Mafia, AND this week’s spotlight band & my favorite Swedish export, the Hives.

We here in the USA don’t usually make a point of exploring music from other countries. It has to come to us. Face it, we’d remember the Beatles if at all as a minor British sensation if they hadn’t broken major ground on our shores. It’s how it’s always been and still is to a large degree. Music listening is getting more multi-cultural, but by and large an artist has to break through to the US for anyone to know who they are.

America is built on winner-takes-all competition. You get paid well if you already make money. You succeed if you’re already successful. And it's only occasionally merit based. We have a lot of great music, but it’s not because this country actually supports the arts. Other than a handful of generous benefactors and non-profit organizations, if you’re an artist in the USA odds are you're poor & struggling & will continue down that path for years.

That’s not the case everywhere. No country is perfect. Poverty, racism & disease are everywhere. But it’s a fact that some countries do some things way better than we do. We’re so America-centric in all ways that we don’t explore how other countries do what they do well. Like health care. Maternity & paternity leave. Respect & support for elders, children & teachers. ACTUAL support for veterans. AND support for the arts.

Sweden is known for supporting & promoting their artists. Not just benefactors or organizations. The freakin’ Swedish government. If you’re an artist deemed worthy, the government gives you the ability to live while you do your work. You don’t have to hold down three jobs, or one massively exhausting day job, or live with your parents, or not be able to afford anything. You can live a sustainable life while you’re developing your art & your career.

I don’t know all the particulars. I’m sure there are caveats & pitfalls & discriminations. But it’s starting from a place of believing that art & struggle don’t have to be packaged together. That creating art is a profession as valuable & respectful as any other. We like to glamorize struggle because it makes us feel like martyrs for the cause AND because we want to believe there’s a good reason for it. We’re not martyrs. There’s no good reason other than the same one that rules the rest of this country: the haves want to keep what they have & the have-nots can go suck it.

This is how we got the Hives. They started in the 1990s, released their debut album, Barely Legal, in 1997, and broke big internationally in 2000 with their second album, Veni Vidi Vicious. Which is how I discovered them – lumped together as part of the early 2000s garage rock revival. They’ve kept it going ever since. They make music that sounds like completely unhinged punk, yet it all holds together. The Hives manage to capture their incredible live sound & spirit on recorded tracks better than almost any other punk rock band. They woke my ass up better than any American garage rock band & infused many of my subsequent songs with that same controlled punk energy. Including these two:

REC – “Three More Minutes”

REC – “Beautiful Love”

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