Last night’s episode of Så Mycket Bättre saw Magnus Uggla have his songs interpreted by the artists in the show. And our boy Darin took on, what we’re told, is an Uggla classic – ‘Astrologen’.
Well we don’t know about the Uggla original (sorry, Swedish pop purists of old), but Christ alive, the song was certainly Darin’s best performance of the season so far. And that’s no faint praise, given what’s gone before. Even Petra Marklund and Lena Philipsson got it very wrong a couple of times in their respective seasons of Så Mycket Bättre, but Darin is yet to fuck up. All of his output has been top notch.
He turned ‘Astrologen’ into an electro synth ballad that builds and builds into a big key change (oh yes!) of a crescendo. It’s a stunner. Beautifully melodic, both in his vocal, plus within the music that accompanies him. And the whole thing has got a fantastic production too (it’s a given at this stage that he sounds good). We also love that it manages to sound both moody/atmospheric AND uplifting/anthemic.
Unfortunately however, the absolute *insert the plural of a rude word here* at TV4 have not only made the video of the performance territory restrictive, but the *insert the plural of an even ruder word here* have also been trawling YouTube, DailyMotion, and SoundCloud all day long, and tearing down any audio plays of the song too. What fuckery!
So everyone outside of Sweden must make do with the 90 second preview that streams on the iTunes store. Swedes, you can Spotify it below.
[audio:https://www.scandipop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Astrologen-preview.mp3|titles=Astrologen preview]Amazing, right?
Naturally, the song has made it to number 1 on Swedish iTunes today.
