Music of Denmark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Denmark is a Nordic country that has long been a center of cultural innovation. Its capital, Copenhagen, and its multiple outlying islands have a wide range of folk traditions, while an extensive recording industry has produced pop stars and a host of performers from a multitude of genres.
Contents |
[edit] Rock
The Danish bands that have had the most impact outside of Denmark itself, are probably pop group Aqua, even though the vocalist, Lene Nystrøm, is Norwegian. Aqua had a number of hits around Europe including "Barbie Girl" and "Doctor Jones" as part of the Europop scene. Another band popular outside of Denmark are rockers D-A-D (formerly Disneyland After Dark) who had a hit with Sleeping My Day Away in the early 1990s.
The current Danish rock scene is dominated by indie influences in bands such as garage rockers The Raveonettes, melodic Mew (band) and genre-defying Kashmir. Other popular Danish rock groups include Sort Sol (Black sun), Saybia, Kira and the Kindred Spirits, and Mercyful Fate.
Every year in the summer, the annual Roskilde Festival is held in Danish city Roskilde. The festival is the second-largest in Europe with ticket sales normally going in between 70,000 and 100,000. The festival has, over time, featured many prominent artists (mainly rock), such as Nirvana, Guns N' Roses, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath and Green Day, there has also been an emphasis on world music, alternative genres and Danish music at the festival. In 2000 the festival suffered a terrible accident during a Pearl Jam concert where 9 people were crushed by the wild crowds, making security a primary issue of the following festivals. There have been no further incidents of that kind at Roskilde.
[edit] Pop
The most famous Danish pop-artist through time is definitely Aqua, with their worldwide hits Barbie Girl, Doctor Jones etc. Other Danish exporting pop-artist in the last 10 years are: Infernal, Toy-Box, Safri Duo & Outlandish.
Another Interesting band that attained international popularity is Michael Learns To Rock (MLTR)
Perhaps the most popular and longest-standing Danish musicians locally are Kim Larsen and Shu-Bi-Dua.
Denmark also participates in the annual Eurovision song contest, and holds its own Danish Melodi Grand Prix competition to select the song that will represent Denmark in the Eurovision contest. Denmark has won the Eurovision song contest twice: first with Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann's Dansevisen in 1963, and more recently with Brødrene Olsen's (Olsen Brothers) "Fly On The Wings Of Love" (from the Danish Smuk Som Et Stjerneskud, literally "Beautiful as a shooting star") in 2000.
The group Junior Senior is also from Denmark.
[edit] Folk
Danish folk music has long been dominated by a fiddle and accordion duo, much like its northern neighbors in Scandinavia. An important difference, however, is that Danish fiddlers almost always play in groups, and so there is no tradition of virtuoso fiddle players capable of solo performance; Danish bands also tend to feature the guitar more prominently than the other Nordic countries, especially in recent years.
Fiddle and accordion duos play generally rhythmic dance music, local versions of the Nordic folk dance music. The oldest variety is called pols, and it is now mostly found on Fanø and includes even smaller variety likes sønderhoning from Sønderho. Sønderho has produced a family of widely-respected musicians in Søren Lassen Brinch and his descendents. Another dance from Fanø is called fanik, while Danish dance music included its own versions of polka, waltz, schottisch, trekanter, firtur, tretur and rheinlænder, displaying its multicultural influences from Germany, Poland, Austria, Bohemia, Sweden, England and Norway.
The first Danish popular songs were printed ballads called skillingstryk, which grew popular in the 16th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, a wave of roots revivals swept across Europe and soon mixed with American rock 'n' roll, blues and jazz to make new forms of popular music. Denmark remained largely unaffected by this trend, which hit all of its neighbors, including Finland, Sweden, Norway and Germany. Instead, Denmark hosted numerous music festivals celebrating Scottish, Irish and American folk musicians. Danish folk music was still alive, though, recorded by folklorists like Thorkild Knudsen. Knudsen's most important find was Himmerland fiddler Evald Thomsen. The oldest known Danish folk melody is entitled Drømte mig en drøm (lit. "Dreamt a dream"), and dates from the 14th century.
The first Danish folk revival occurred in the 1970s, when young groups like Lang Linken discovered the old sounds and began playing and revitalising the tunes and the songs. Any small success proved short-lived, however, and the folk scene remained at a very low level until the 1990s.
Musicians continued to play, and the regional traditions in particular remained robust but very local, with performers including Fanø'sJæ' Sweevers and East Jutland's Mølposen and The Rasmus. The formation of the Danish Folk Council to actively promote the music both at home and abroad helped raise the profile. Curiously, Danish folk music received its biggest boost from the home chart success of Sorten Muld, who used acoustic and electric instruments and electronica on old songs to create something very contemporary on its best-selling albums.
By then a number of groups, such as Phønix were already in existence. The creation of a folk music program at the Carl Nielsen Academy under fiddle player Harald Haugaard has brought forth a number of talented, highly trained and skilled young musicians, such as singer Helene Blum and members of the group Zar. They’ve taken their place alongside established talents like Baltinget, Instinkt, and the duo Haugaard and Høirup, as well as the now old guard of Lang Linken.
[edit] See also
| Nordic music |
|---|
|
Denmark - Faroe Islands - Estonia - Finland (Karelia - Sami) - Greenland - Iceland - Latvia - Lithuania - Norway - Sweden |
[edit] References
- Cronshaw, Andrew. "A New Pulse for the Pols". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 58-63. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
