Irreplaceable Pop

I don’t know where exactly I found out about this cool Swedish pop band Popsicle, but it’s a good thing I did. So far I’ve only checked out their first album Lacquer (1992) but man.. It’s good. Popsicle was a part of the great Swedish indie wave of the 90s. Popsicle came from Piteå and was active from 1991 to 1999. The group released a total of four albums, one mini-album, and a 2-disc best-of collection called The Good Side of Popsicle was also released in 2005.

The group’s sound seems to be based on basic Posies-pop with an addition of jangle guitars and noisy shoegaze elements. The result is interesting and sounds brilliant - some songs on Lacquer are, in fact, very loud and fast, resulting in totally manic, hyper-energetic feel. The mania is balanced nicely by Andreas Mattsson’s calm, whispering TFC-esque vocals that, on the other hand, enhance the hypnotic feel of songs like Undulate (what a beautiful song!) and Pale Honey. The band’s two lead singers have quite different voices which makes the music more interesting. I enjoy both Mattsson’s and Fredrik Norberg’s vocals. Norberg sounds quite a lot like Sloan’s Jay Ferguson, I think.

It took a while before I was able to listen from track 2 (Popcorn) forwards – I just loved the song so much! Hey Princess is one of the group’s most famous songs, and it surely is good. Norberg sings generally more melancholic and bittersweet songs than Mattsson. She and Irreplaceable, in addition to Popcorn, are very nice songs. Everything on this album is good. It’s such a joy to listen to this kind of albums.

A quick check at YouTube revealed that Andreas Mattsson now has a solo career. There are some songs and videos there to be seen. Popsicle samples are also best found at YouTube.

Popsicle videos at YouTube