Today I'd like to bang on, if I may, about what is quite possibly my favourite compilation album: Popnation - Best of Blekingska Nationen 1994 - 96.
Blekingska Nationen is a student club in Lund, the largest university city in Sweden, which since 1994 has run its own Friday club night, Indigo. Loads of up-and-coming and already established bands have played Indigo down the years, and Popnation, released in 1996, features 21 of these acts - all of them Swedish, and many of them extremely good indeed.
For someone, like yours truly, living in the UK and eager to hear as much contemporary Swedish indie pop as possible in those pre-mp3, pre-broadband days of 1996, this album really was a fantastic boon. It introduced me to lots of Swedish artists who I'd never previously been aware of: Honey Is Cool, Brainpool, The Bear Quartet, Chevy, Rottingdean, Yvonne, Mutts, Cloudberry Jam, S.P.O.C.K. and Lustans Lakejer, to name but quite a few. In fact, the Cardigans would have been pretty much the only band present who I'd already have known.
And do you know what the best thing of all is about this classic compilation? It's still available to buy, if you know where to look! (see link at the end of this entry for details.)
Here are three of my favourite Popnation moments anyway - although I could just as easily have chosen a completely different trio of tracks. (there are at least a dozen on this album that are officially great.)
Lustans Lakejer - Segerns Sötma mp3 (everything else on this album is student-friendly mid-90s fare, but this track is different in that it's a synth pop classic from 1981!)
Chevy - My Girlfriend Says mp3
Honey Is Cool - Zanzibar mp3 (featuring Karin Dreijer Andersson, now one half of The Knife.)
(mp3s available for 7 days)
Buy Popnation - The Best of Blekingska Nationen 1994 - 1996 here.
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