This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.
They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.
They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.
Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci
Loke
This might be a strange pick for this series, because I’m going to recommend a Swedish artist who only sings in Swedish as far as I know.
He is a modern bard and goes by the artist name Loke.
I call him a modern bard, because his songs are more about the lyrics which reflect both timely topics and universal experiences in our modern time.
Listening to his music and not understanding the words… I think it loses a lot from that. But at the same time I can’t help but recommend him.
He’s that good.
I love the song “Aldrig Mera Rädd” (roughly “Never Again Afraid”) about being about to be assaulted for being different (different ethnicity, sexuality, etc.) and then deciding to take a stand and be every kind of different those people hates.
“Andas” (“Breathe”) is about a loving man trying to keep his depressed/suicidal girlfriend from hurting herself.
The way he sings, sometimes fast as in the song “ADHD” or soft or slow, is the way he makes music; together with the words he uses.
One of his most impactful and longest songs, which I can’t help but cry every time I listen to it, is “Flykten från Sverige” (“The Escape From Sweden” or “Fleeing from Sweden”). In Sweden, we have a lot of refugees. This song takes those refugee stories and flips them; a Swedish boy and his family have to flee from Sweden which have been invaded.
Every time I listen to that song, my feet lifts out of my own shoes of having been born in safe Sweden, and puts me in the shoes of what it would be like if Sweden wasn’t safe, if Sweden was a place you had to flee from to keep your life.
That is the power of story. In this case, a song telling a story.
Loke have many more great songs telling serious, fun, insightful, and silly stories.
During summer vacation, we’d often go somewhere by car, visiting my much older half-brother or driving over to Denmark to vacation at the beach and visit Legoland.