Wednesday, July 6, 2011

On the Radio - oh oh - On the Swedish Radio....

As I mentioned before, we are on a road trip! And it is amazing. Who knew Sweden had so many beach towns. And what do they all do in the winter?

But while we are driving, we listen to a lot of radio. A lot of Swedish radio. And I can say it has made the journey very very interesting.

There are a few Swedish national stations - you can find them at http://www.swedishradio.se/

These stations are like NPR - interesting stories, informative, not too much of a political slant but a suggestion of one. The stories are a bit like This American Life (download it now from Itunes if you aren't listening to it already - Ira Glass is a modern day radio hero).

Today we listened to a great discussion on what is 'Being Swedish.' The other day we heard a similar discussion about multiculturalism in Sweden and what it means. But there are all kinds of discussions on these stations.

One highlight is the Summer Speakers - Swedish Celebrities host their own one hour show, complete with music and storytelling. Listening to Ingmar Bergman's hour is still one of my most memorable moments of Swedish radio.

That said, what always drives me crazy is the music. It is meant to appeal to a very broad audience, and it just feels like it always misses the mark. The stories are so interesting that we don't want to change the station during the songs (this of course doesn't apply to the Summer Speakers most of the time), but I just wish they would keep it a little more focused -like all rap, or all showtunes, because mixing the two confuses the hell out of me.

Anyways, back to relaxing - have you heard anything interesting on Swedish radio? If you have a good link, let me know.

(Posted during a 5 minute interent borrowing time at a friend's house. Please forgive any errors)

4 comments:

  1. The summer hosts play their favourite songs. I don't think its all that surprising that they like different genres and choose from them all.

    I don't like record company owner Bert Karlsson that much, but it was fun when he played this song when he was host a few years ago:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgQBFQiukGE

    Warning: not job safe lyrics

    /Mazui

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  2. REGINA REFERENCE FTW.

    Ahem.

    I am usually pretty fond of the summer hosts, but I can't say anyone has tickled me on this year's list. Last year and the year before that were epic IMO though.

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  3. @mazui - Summer hosts usually get a free pass - it's that weird mix of regular programming that baffles me. Thanks for sharing the Bert Karlsson. I tend to consider him a bit of a musical terrorist for all of the musical horror he has unleashed upon the world. I am still undecided as to if that clip fits into the horror category or not, but it was funny :)

    @ T-Anna - haha, glad someone noticed - I agree, but hopefully there are a few good ones left to go.

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  4. I love listening to NRJ when the Swede & I are out there :-)

    http://jennymayandswede.blogspot.com/

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