Jonathan Johansson

All I have been able to listen to lately is Swedish music. Something amazing/terrible happened to my brain when María, Melissa, and I went to see Asobi Seksu with Anna Ternheim and Loney, Dear at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday night, and ever since then I feel incomplete if there is not Swedish music in the background of my life. I am not even exaggerating, I stayed up until after three last night just because I didn't want to have to be asleep and not be able to consciously listen to Swedish music anymore.

I blame this on the fact that while we were trying to buy time at Honey's before going back out in the freezing rain to walk the ten-ish blocks to the show, I drank three full cups of coffee and caffeine does really weird things to me, especially when I haven't had it in a long time. But it is also due to the fact that Swedish pop is the sweetest, most perfect and precious and heartbreakingly adorable music to ever exist!


A really great example of this is Jonathan Johansson. For now, I've been able to listen to his album En hand i himlen for free, but I'm pretty sure that Last.fm only lets you listen to things for free so many times, and I've already listened to the album three times today. It is just so perfect that I can't stop! I think that this one review of some Swedish band I read put it perfectly when they said that the melodies and music in Swedish pop all fit together so perfectly, but the songs also sound so delicate that even if you only changed one note, you feel like the song would just break like a tiny little glass figurine.

Even though I can't understand anything he is saying, Jonathan Johansson's songs make me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy and heartbreaking feelings! En hand i himlen even made me laugh when I first realized that "Alla vil ha hela världen" is definitely a cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." "Sent för oss" is dance-y and perfect and even though the whole album makes me feel warm and fuzzy and cuddly and happy, "Innan vi faller" makes me feel that way even more. "Du sa" is just so perfect that I can't even put it into words.


In a way, I think that it is a good thing that I don't understand Swedish, because if the songs sound this precious and perfect to me now, I would probably just be completely debilitated by the adorableness of what he is actually saying, and I would probably never be able to leave my room again because I would be too busy not sleeping and listening to Jonathan Johansson all the time while crying because of all of the perfect, sad, precious, happy, adorable things it makes me think about. I guess that giant sentence just shows you how extra-insane caffeine makes me--I had coffee last night and again just now.

Love, Jillian