the thing about jan garbarek in every household is just a myth, heh.
speaking of independent music in Norway, it's veeery hard to find say, obscure
american music (british even worse).
like, you won't find a 'JOHN ZORN' tag on the CD-shelves(sp?) even tho' it
absolutely SHOULD, but there's this one shop (them with the Thrones) in Oslo
pluss one in Bergen who have obscure indie-type stuff.
also, one good second-hand store in Oslo. other than that, it's all major
labels running the show and the avarage kid in Norway today are listening to
Scooter, Anestasia, Britney Spears or hiphop. there's an explosion of hiphop
in this country. everybody and their little brother are either jumping around
to it or starting a hiphop-group themselves. american pop-culture have
definitely taken over the young generation.
we DO however have alot metal-heads in this country. i recently attended a
Napalm Death gig and the club was packed. must've been around 200 people.
ofcourse we have many many black metal people lurking around but black metal
has actually become quite 'pop' now.
apart from maybe Satyricon, black metal has driven into a dead-end street.
Satyricon have actually made it into a major label now (EMI Norway) and are
gonna release a new album. hopefully, they will take the genre further...
on the bright side, i hear more people in their 20's are into Sonic Youth
lately. also AC/DC-esque rock n' roll with a new twist. like Cadillac -
they're really worth a listen (they come from my home town, Trondheim ). a
great great liveband. also there's a huge amount of Motorpsycho hardcore fans
here.
they're maybe our most avant-garde group apart from a few artists off the
Runegramofon-label. i dunno if anyone here have heard of Supersilent or
Deathprod?? he's a longtime and regular producer for Motorpsycho. he even were
an official member in the early 90's.
so there ARE people in this country who acutally look for new music (like me)
who are sick and tired of either pop-music, hiphop or black metal.
>===== Original Message From "Remco Takken" <r.takken(a)planet.nl> =====
>> sometimes i'm amazed at what actually sells in decent quantas.
>>
>> like here in little Norway, in Oslo alone (our capital) the Thrones (an
>> ex-melvins one man band) have sold 20 copys.
>> that's pretty good for a band playing weird sloooow n' heavy
>guitar-drones.
>>
>Those 20 people might have great record collections!
>
>But there's a lot of variables going on in your short remark. Stuff that we
>non-norwegians don't know anything about. So your story remains in the air a
>bit.
>
>isn't it true that Norway is a completely strange country record wise? With
>4 million people, where most of the households own at least one Jan Garbarek
>album? or is this a myth?
>
>Norwegians, with their strong interest in their own musics (which I think is
>really cool), i haven't got the slightest idea how many non-nordic
>independent records there are there for sale in Norway anyway.
>
>If it's a wild event to actually see a 'strange' disc in Oslo, 20 might be
>quite modest for a good record that everybody talks about (OK it's a hard
>job convincing your friends to actually buy a great album, but 20 isn't an
>impossible amount if you have a strong conviction;-)
>
>Regards, Remco
