Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.05.2019, Síða 31

Grapevine’s
Ultimate Summer
Road Trip Playlist
An Icelandic playlist to accompany you around the Ring Road this summer
Words: The Grapevine Music Dpt. Photo: Timothée Lambrecq
Playlist
Find the playlist on Spotify at gpv.is/
roadtrip19.
Summer is here, and with it comes
road trip season. Here’s our essen-
tial Icelandic playlist. Roll down the
windows, turn up the volume, and
off you go.
Buddies and beats
There’s nothing like cruisin’ in the
sun with your buddies and some
beats. On those days, you gotta set
the vibe with Joey Christ’s legend-
ary track “Joey Cypher.” It’s basi-
cally a time capsule of Iceland’s
legendary 2017 summer, back
when times were simpler, Costco
was just opening, and Iceland’s
rap explosion was in full flow. In
three short minutes, Joey cement-
ed himself into the zeitgeist of Ice-
landic pop history with a chorus
that fans and haters alike can re-
call at a moment's notice. Warning:
this is a serious earworm. If that
track wets your whistle, throw on
“Tarantúlar” by Úlfur Úlfur to fol-
low. HJC
Sofia Coppola
road-movie
There are few Icelandic songs more
summery in this life than Prins
Póló’s instant classic “Lifið, Ertu
að Grínast?” ( “Life, Are You Kid-
ding Me?” in English). Never mind
sunny—it’s positively tropical. In
fact, despite their kind of world-
wise-and-weary quality, there are a
bunch of Prins Póló songs that be-
long on your road trip list—“París
Norðursins” for the open road, and
“Niðra Strönd” for that riverside
barbecue. You’ll want to learn Ice-
landic just to sing along. I’d also
throw in the euphoric, dreamy
shoegaze of Oyama’s “The Right
Amount” for that Sofia Coppola
road-movie quality, and a couple
of tracks by Samaris, Sykur, Gus-
Gus, Hermigervill, Berndsen and
M-Band will keep the mood high.
JR
Hay on a tractor
If you ever wanted to hear liter-
ally the most Icelandic song ever
written, a strong contender for
that spot would be Bubbi Morth-
ens’ 1983 ballad “Afgan”. Driven by
acoustic guitar, har-
monica and voice, the
relaxed waltz rhythm
of this tune may evoke
imagery of being out
to sea, or bringing in
the hay on the back
of a tractor under the
summer sun. The lyr-
ics are a bleak portrait
of love lost and heart-
break, but the tune is
undeniably Icelandic.
On a more upbeat
note, there’s 200.000
naglbítar (“200,000
pliers”), who—as the
name might suggest—
are a rock band. While
“Vögguvísur fyrir skuggaprins”
(“Lullabies for the Prince of Dark-
ness”) is their second album, it
vastly overshadows the first, in-
cluding the quintessentially sum-
mery “Stopp NR. 7”. AF
Fights, crying and
‘80s vampires
If you’re going with your friends to
Flúðir or wherever Icelanders meet
to get overly drunk and beat each
other up, you need to go native. The
first track on the trip has to be “Ís-
bjarnarblús” by the legendary Ice-
landic singer Bubbi Morthens. It's
mandatory to scream your lungs
out to the line about a thousand
cod on the conveyor belt while you
burn through the raining heath.
After you arrive in Flúðir, you’ll get
into your first fight, and you’ll play
“Rómeó og Júlía,” also by Bubbi
Morthens, then everybody will be
friends again and cry in each oth-
er's arms. When it rains—it always
does—you need to
play “Mér Finnst
Rigningin Góð” (“I
Love The Rain!”),
from SSSól. But to
really get into it,
play “Hey Kanína,”
by Sálin Hans Jóns
Míns. When you
play this song on a
campsite there’s a
50/50 chance that
you’ll either attract
some aggressive
tweakers—there’s
always one group
roaming around
like a band of ‘80s
vampires—or you’ll
meet your future spouse. Either
way, drink some Gull, and leave
your tent behind. Who needs it an-
yway? VG”
We killed our parents and hit the road
“When you
play this song
on a campsite
there’s a 50/50
chance that
you’ll either
attract some
aggressive
tweakers or
meet your fu-
ture spouse.”
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