We get it– there is merely excessive. As in years past, we are offering our editors a last-minute chance to plug the books, films, albums, programs, spoofs, or any piece of cultural ephemera that didn’t rather get the attention or honor it should have. To amuse your vacation visitors, we provide all the important things you truly must understand about– along with more of our year-in-review protection–here
The crooner displaced the commedia dell’arte Pierrot on my list of (unfortunate) male archetypes this year. This is thanks mostly to 2 (unassociated) Swedish albums: Sugar World by Jonatan Leandoer96 (much better referred to as Yung Lean), produced by Frederik Valentin; and Power Ballads by Carl HS aka Carl Hjelm Sandqvist and produced by Hannes Ferm.
Both Sugar World and Power Ballads revealed a large singing power in which the unpolished vulnerabilities of the voice came forward. This rawness of Leaondor and Sandqvist’s noise feels linked to discovery or perhaps confession. Leandoer does this with humor. Leaning into the guise of the wedding event vocalist, he uses an ivory fit with his name embroidered on the back, a Colgate-white ruffled t-shirt, socks, and gloves, and a spectacular boutonniere. In the video for “Blue Light” we see him in a minute of self-questioning, eliminating his makeup, exposing his real-life-distinctive tattoos. He’s alone at the end of a celebration which is spiraling into hedonism. Kitsch set style, consisting of a Martini Rossi ashtray, mixed drink olives on a plastic spear, a red rose, talk to a vintage ’70s dissolution.
Picture: Teitur Ardal/ Courtesy of Carl Hjelm Sandqvist
Carl HS on the other hand uses a powder-blue t-shirt coat, black shoes with white socks, and pink bow tie, accented with a rictus smile. You can picture the ’70s age cars and truck, instilled with the long-term odor of stagnant cigarette smoke, that he may have increased to a location, or the dull hotel space he may go back to where he ‘d consume booze in a shade matching the wood paneling.
Why would such boys– Leandoer was born in 1996, Sandqvist 5 years– channel these antiques from another age? Why the crooner now? The music has a raw sincerity; their noises feel “unretouched” and analogue, restoratives in a world of digital slickness. I can’t assist believing that in some way this crooner concept is associated with a wave of post-war fond memories that is increasing as the world appears to splinter. Simply put succession, we’ve seen films about Marilyn Monroe Elvis Presley, and Barbie(Of course, the truth behind the exterior for a number of these figures opposed the refined exterior.) A crooner’s standard is lower to begin: His package is polyester to the stars’ satin. In a world so uncertain, it’s simple to feel displaced. Maye we are all, like the crooner, singing for our dinner.