Sweden Is So Hot Right Now (the Sequel)

I have sort of sang his praises here & there, but I thought I'd make it official and devote a post to the music of Swedish sad-sack/goofy pop prince Jens Lekman. He has a new album out next month. It's called Night Falls Over Kortedala. You can probably just expect it to make its way over to the A-OK! section of the sidebar once it's released. I'll just say that now. Save us some time. You can listen to and/or download a couple of tracks ( "The Opposite of Hallelujah" & "Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo" ) from it over at the Secretly Canadian website. Or, if you're completely devoid of scruples, you can just steal it from the internets.*

Your call.

"But Dylan," you may ask, "What does this Jens Lekman sound like?" Well, dear reader. I'm glad you asked. I have prepared a visual aid for you for just this reason. As you can see below:

If you take the illegitimate black science (It's like black magic... only 100% more scienc-y-ish!) offspring of Morrissey and Jonathan Richman (whose I, Jonathan I consider a "perfect album") and feed it nothing but Swedish Fish, you will get a Jens Lekman (it's sort of like breeding Chocobo's...**).

It's lush, sad and, ultimately funny stuff. I have two of his previous releases, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog (which comes from the lyric "When I said I wanted to be your dog /
I wasn't coming on to you / I just wanted to lick your face...") and You're So Silent Jens, either of which is worthy of your time. I so wanted to work "Maple Leaves" into my Mixtapery mixtape, but it looks like the tribe has spoken and I will instead showcase my devotion to the boogie.

Next time, Jens. Next time.


* Seriously though, if you decide on the latter, I judge you not. I'm cool like that.
** Nerd reference! Yay!