Nordic popular music
music scene
Nordic popular music, also referred to as Scandinavian popular music, includes pop and rock music of the Nordic countries. The musical scene is known for its biggest bands like ABBA, Roxette, A-ha, Michael Learns to Rock, Ace of Base, and Aqua. These are by far the biggest non-metal acts to come out of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
The popular music of the Nordic countries exhibits great diversity. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have all had successful domestic record industries for many years. Because the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were under Soviet control for much of the 20th century, when recording technology and popular music spread around the world, those three countries have a more tenuous connection with the popular industries of Finland, Sweden and the rest. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, Western popular music in general has gained audiences in the Baltic states; this includes popular music from the other Nordic nations, as well as the United Kingdom, United States and elsewhere.
The Nordic metal scene is highly visible compared to other genres from the region. Many big names such as Dimmu Borgir, Lordi, Mercyful Fate, Blind Channel, Skálmöld, Hamferð, Mnemic, Opeth, Meshuggah, Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Lamori from Åland and to an extent Estonia's Metsatöll—if considering Estonia as Nordic, hail from Nordic nations. Nordic or Scandinavian metal bands have had a long and lasting influence on the metal subculture alongside their counterparts in Great Britain and The United States.
The public source identifies “Nordic popular music” as music scene. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nordic, popular and music.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nordic popular music” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.