It’s been a couple of months now since the end of Dansbandskampen 2010. And what an ending we got! Schlagerific new dansband, Elisa’s, triumphed after a whole series of delighting us with scandipoptastic performances. And a bright new star was born in the form of the band’s charismatic lead singer, Elisa Lindström.
Those that followed our weekly coverage of the series will remember that we were totally enamored with Elisa’s throughout. We identified two clear types of dansband music – the very good, and the very bad – and Elisa’s thankfully straddled the ‘very good’ sort every week. Be it with their covers of dansband and schlager classics, or the new and specially composed songs that they were given to perform. So their win was a rightful one in our eyes. But naturally, once the contest was over, we looked forward to the next step in their career – their debut album.
And it’s here!
It’s called ‘Det Här Är Bara Början’ and it’s released next week in Sweden, on Wednesday February 9th. And amazingly, Elisa’s have given scandipop.co.uk an exclusive teaser of the album. They’ve given us clips of each of the songs to stream exclusively ahead of the album’s release. And you can have a listen below.
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01. Om Du Säger Att Du Älskar Mig
Their first single pre-Dansbandskampen last year. A bright and bubbly up-tempo affair, with a sweet melody. More dansband than schlager, but good dansband!
02. Utan Dina Andetag
One of the most well known and well loved dansband songs. A classic ballad.
[audio:http://lowculture.co.uk/scandi/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/02-utan-dina-andetag.mp3|titles=02-utan-dina-andetag]
03. För Det Här Är Bara Början
This was the single they released after the show as the ‘winner’s single’. Another up-tempo example of the type of dansband music that’s made us fall in love with the genre so much.
04. Gråt Inga Tårar
A cover of a famous dansband number again. This is one of our favourite ‘old-skool’ songs. It’s a beauty!
05. Varenda Veranda
This is one of the original songs that they performed on Dansbandskampen. It was composed by Måns Zelmerlöw and Pontus Wennerberg. And it’s very ‘Ring Ring’ by Abba. And so we love it, naturally!
06. Human
This was probably their most famous cover from Dansbandskampen – their inspired version of the song originally by The Killers. Who’d have thought that a song by The Killers could work so well as a dansband song?! ‘Mr Brightside’ next, please.
07. Säg Inte Nej
Another original song from the series, this one was written by Sarah Dawn Finer and Peter Hallström. One of the cheesier ballads on here, but in no way is that a bad thing!
08. Lovar Och Svär
Time for schlager!
09. Vågar Också Du Tro På Kärleken
On first listen we weren’t sure. And we’re still not sure. But we think it’s the type of grower that will eventually become one of our favourites.
10. Leende Guldbruna Ögon
One of our favourite dansband songs, CC & Lee have also covered this. Brilliantly up beat, and infectiously joyous, we’re delighted to have a version by Elisa’s.
11. Jag Väntar Här
Mid-tempo dansband sweetness. Perfectly find on its own, but it gets lost a bit amongst the other corkers on here.
12. När Du Vaknar Är Jag Hos Dig
We wrote about this song a lot last year. It was another original song composed for Dansbandskampen, and actually our favourite song of the entrie series. It’s full-on, unrelenting, perfect schlager. And it’s fantastic with it too. Definitely one of the finest schlager songs to come out of Sweden over the last few years. And the best track on here.
13. En Stjärna Föll För Oss
This is an original ballad composition. But it might just be a bit TOO cheesy, even for us!
14. Tusen Och En Natt
And lastly a cover of the famous Charlotte Nilsson Eurovision winner. And we realise that we’ll probably be strung up and shot dead for what we’re about to say here, but we’ve been listening to it a lot over the last few weeks (it’s on the Dansbandskampen compilation album), and it’s so merry and jovial, that we THINK that we MIGHT actually even prefer it to the original! *gasp*
All in all, this album is the perfect example of why we’ve wandered so far into dansband music over the last year. When it’s good, it’s very good. And if you’ve been tempted to delve into the genre yourself after our words about it recently, then this is the ideal album to do it with. The starter’s friend, if you will!
Here are the full performances of the two standout tracks on the album. Original composition ‘När Du Vaknar Är Jag Hos Dig’, and their version of ‘Tusen Och En Natt’.
