MP3: Håkan Hellström - Ge mig arsenik
The one artist who taught me that I should take mainstream Swedish pop seriously was Håkan Hellström. I was perusing files on Napster and just starting to get obsessive with my Scandinavian music obsession when I came across some HH tracks. All I knew was that it was Swedish, so I figured what the heck? Why not? That's the beauty of p2p after all. Well, those songs turned out to be Håkan's amazing debut album "Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg" and I was blown away. This album proves that you don't need to understand a single word of Swedish to appreciate great pop music. It wasn't long before I had a copy of the real CD in my hand and was busy hunting down bootlegs and b-sides. So here's one of those rare finds for you now - the demo version of the title track, labelled as "Ge mig arsenik". I'm not sure if this is the actual demo that got Håkan signed, but it certainly could be. I don't think that Håkan will ever again touch the brilliance of his first record, but it was such a monumental piece of work that I don't think anyone minds. It was the perfect album at the perfect time, a certified classic.
Håkan Hellström - Ge mig arsenik (demo)