Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.06.2011, Page 36

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 6 — 2011
Music | Valur Gunnarsson
With their propensity for obesity and
economic mismanagement, one could
be forgiven for thinking of the Iceland-
ers as little Americans. Conventional
wisdom would indeed suggest this.
While the Scandinavians are busy con-
structing their welfare states full of
equality and general contentment, the
Icelanders prefer giving all their money
to a select few for them to squander
away. The same can be said of culture.
We know little of what goes on in
Oslo or Stockholm or Copenhagen,
but every inane trend from the US gets
picked up and misunderstood and re-
cycled. Or does it?
The first Icelandic rock bands were
formed in the early 60s in Keflavík, in
the shadow of the US military base.
Much has been made of the influence
of Armed Forces Radio and the US
soldiers in Iceland. Just as American
sailors supposedly handed out blues
records to youngsters in Liverpool, so
the Yanks stationed here, confined to
their base, brought rock and roll to Ice-
land.
BEATLEMANIA AND PUNK
American influ-
ence was no
doubt consider-
able. Neverthe-
less, the bands
here all tried to
sound like the Beatles. American
trends, such as folk or acid rock, only
arrived in the ‘70s, if at all. The UK was
the place locals went to for their record
buying. In fact, Merseybeat was the
dominant form here almost until the
end of the ‘60s. The reasons for this are
manifold. Some point to the similarity
between Liverpool and Keflavík or even
Reykjavík as harbour towns. More im-
portantly, perhaps, Iceland lacks the
diverse underground scenes of the city
the size of New York or Los Angeles.
Essentially, people here just wanted to
dance, and this was much easier to do
to “Beatle music” than to 15 minute or-
gan solos. Quite possibly, the very prox-
imity of the base and the disputes sur-
rounding it may have led people to
want to look elsewhere.
The next major music wave to hit
Iceland also came from the UK. This
time it was punk, and instead of trying
to emulate their heroes, like the ‘60s
bands had done, the Icelandic punks
went their own way and arguably sur-
passed their role models. Icelandic
punk was inspired by events in London,
but the result was purely Icelandic.
Without it, there would be no Björk and
probably no Sigur Rós either.
THE SAMI SPRINGSTEEN
This is where
Icelandic music
differs consider-
ably from its
neighbours in
S c a n d i n a v i a .
Punk was more important here and
stretched out into the mid-Eighties.
Also, we never really discovered Bruce
Springsteen. Springsteen first toured
Scandinavia in 1981 and soon inspired
a host of imitators. The Nordics took to
heartland rock, in Norway there was
Åge Alexandersen and in Sweden there
was Björn Afzelius and a host of others,
some who had been around for a while
but now suddenly started wearing
cropped t-shirts and tight bluejeans.
Even Kim Larsen in Denmark had his
Springsteenesque elements, if not the
biceps.
This was not just imitation, though.
Americana strikes a deep chord in
the north. Drive an hour outside of
Oslo, and you can see people sporting
cowboy hats. In northern Sweden, the
raggare drive their hotrods as if per-
manently suspended in some twilight
version of Grease, and the area of Os-
trobothnia is known as Finland’s Texas.
Even the Sami have their own brand of
country or even gospel joik, as can be
heard at the annual Easter festival in
Kautokeino.
ICELANDIC COWBOYS
Despite the best
efforts of Icelan-
dic cowboy Hall-
björn Hjartar-
son, Americana
is mostly miss-
ing from the local countryside. One
might think that tales of the true West
would strike a chord with Icelandic
farmers, but perhaps the comparison
just sounds silly for men on tiny horses
rounding up docile sheep in hilly lava
fields.
In fact, this is the general Icelandic
attitude towards Americana, country &
western, as well as the ‘80s heartland
rock of Springsteen, John Mellencamp
and others, mostly looks silly to the Ice-
lander. Sure, people like Johnny Cash,
but for his last underground phase, not
his Stetson days. Rockabilly does have
its admirers, but this is largely ironic as
well as cyclical. You don’t get the die-
hards of Northern Scandinavia, bliss-
fully unaware of the latest retro trends.
Icelanders, like everyone else, are influ-
enced by America. But not so much by
Americana.
NORWAY’S WILD WEST,
SWEDEN’S HEARTLAND
In Norway, inter-
est in country
music is still
growing, with
nine major festi-
vals every sum-
mer, attracting between 10–30.000
people each. Stories from the Norwe-
gian countryside, usually sung in a
strong provincial dialect, are accompa-
nied with Americanized Western music.
Yet many complain that they do not get
the same amount of respect that jazz
and blues festivals receive. “At most
larger festivals, you see politicians at-
tending opening ceremonies, but not
so in the country ones”, says Kristin
Solli, who holds a PhD in country music,
to Aftenposten newspaper. For many,
C&W festivals are primarily associated
with drunkenness. As are most Icelan-
dic country balls, though without the
country music.
In Sweden, heartland rock lives on
in Linköping’s Lars Winnerbäck, who is
widely popular in his homeland as well
as Norway, and plays traditional rock
and roll with honest and sometimes
biting lyrics about Sweden’s small
towns as well as its cities. We never
really had that here. Bubbi certainly
went through some Springsteen-ish
phases, but honesty is not really his
strong suit, and he has long since lost
any connection with the working man.
Some of his imitators, such as Rúnar
Þór (although not taken very seriously),
probably came closer. And then there
was Bjartmar Guðlaugsson, who wrote
rock-pop tunes with sharp social com-
mentary in the ‘80s and was popular for
a while. Iceland’s finest lyricist, Megas,
although heavily influenced by Dylan,
is too much of a poet, provocateur and
satirist for mainstream rock, more an-
cient sage than working class hero.
COUNTRY BALLS AND COOLNESS
The Reykjavík
scene is cool,
sarcastic and of-
ten quite origi-
nal. It is aware of
trends in Lon-
don and even New York, but it does not
delve into New Jersey or Texas or the
vast Midwestern hinterlands of the US.
Other Icelandic towns, apart from Ke-
flavík, are mostly too small to develop
their own unique musical identity, at
least for any length of time. Aspiring
musicians make their name in Reykja-
vík.
So what do Icelandic country folk
listen to, then? Mostly, they just like
to dance, and traditionally the best
way to make a living out of playing
music in Iceland is to hire a bus and
travel around the countryside playing
top 40 hits to inebriated audiences at
balls (the infamous “sveitaball”). Some
bands, such as Stuðmenn or Sálin, be-
came big enough to be able to do both,
attract the dancing crowds but yet play
their original material. With enough
hits, the boundary between country
ball and full on concert became erased
for some, but these were rarely the cut-
ting edge bands.
So where does this all leave us? We
still have the Reykjavik underground,
where originality is highly prized but
the attention of the bar crowds can
be hard to maintain. Then we have the
country balls (you can find versions of
this in Reykjavík), where the attention
span is pretty much irrelevant.
HEARTFELT COOL?
The post-punk
emphasis on
originality has
given us some
pretty great mu-
sic, some of
which has been exported to the outside
world. In this, we have done better than
the more traditionalist Norwegians, al-
though Sweden has a vibrant music
scene largely ignored here.
The quest for something different
has saved us from countless bands
sporting Stetsons and steel guitars and
singing about the simple things. Yet,
there is a downside. In the ‘70s and
‘80s, when people first started writing
lyrics in Icelandic, some very interest-
ing stuff happened. This looked set
to develop into all sorts of directions.
Then Björk (no slouch as a lyricist her-
self) happened, world-wide success
suddenly became a possibility, and the
Icelandic lyric receded into the back-
ground.
Ironically, it is the pop bands, court-
ing local success, that tend to sing
(their mostly silly love songs) in Icelan-
dic, whereas more serious musicians
who can’t make a living domestically
tend to opt for English. In neither case
is there much emphasis on lyrical con-
tent. Now, if someone were to combine
Americana’s love of heartfelt lyrics with
Reykjavik cool and originality, it might
be a very interesting prospect indeed.

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Skólavörðustígur 21A
“The first Icelandic rock bands were formed in the
early 60s in Kef lavík, in the shadow of the US
military base”.
Are Icelanders Americanized? Really?