Tag: Lykke Li

Swedish Rock … and hej då to Stella.

4th October 2022

Ni Hao Stella ? How are you ?

Everyone allow me to introduce you to my favourite YouTuber, Stella, who has a channel dedicated to music :

As you can see from this screenshot, Stella discusses individual bands, favourite songs and genres of music, all in an educated yet very entertaining manner.

Her laugh is just about the cutest thing you will ever hear, as well.

I suggested Stella take a look at some Swedish rock and pop bands; not the global acts such as Ace of Bass, The Cardigans or Rednex (not to mention ABBA) but the lesser known bands, the indie rock of Stockholm, Gothenburg and my old stomping ground, Malmö.

KB music venue, 10 minutes walk from my old apartment in Malmö

What follows is the tip of the Nordic iceberg, a very mixed bag of styles and attitudes. I hope you find something of interest.

Tack så mycket (thank you very much)

To kick off, the first Swedish artist I heard, Thomas di Leva, and ‘Vi Har Bara Varandra.’ The title roughly translates as ‘We only have each other.’

Thomas was born in 1963, and achieved wide success in 1987, even being name-checked by David Bowie (the back blurb of a book on Di Leva). The main body of his work is from the mid 80s to the 90s, his last LP being released in 2013.

I think this song is so catchy, immediately infectious and memorable. I often sang it, along with the whole crowd, at festivals.

Next up is another band active from the mid 80s to the early 90s, Union Carbide Productions. My favourite song is the guitar-riff heavy ‘Golden Age.’ This one’s for you, Stella.

The band morphed into The Soundtrack of Our Lives in the mid 90s.

Now for one of Sweden’s biggest guitar bands, Kent. Here’s the video for ‘Dom Andra‘ from 2002:

The band, who broke up in 2016, released 12 albums. Lead singer and guitarist Joakim Berg also wrote for other artists, such as Lisa Miskovsky.

I saw Lisa at a free concert at the Malmö Festival, and she was amazing. This is a live version of ‘California Heart‘ from the 2006 ‘Changes’ album.

Staying in Malmö, Skilla is an all-girl band that I saw live on a few occasions. I once met Lisa, the guitarist, after a gig, and the lyricist Nina allowed me to interview her for a paper I was writing on linguistics. ‘Tragic Song‘ is from their debut album.

The next band, The Hives, had success outside of Sweden, an early album reaching number 7 in the UK charts. You may know this song, ‘Hate to say I Told You So,’ a great garage band thrash.

One Swedish band who apparently have quite a following in Japan is Mando Diao, and here’s the video for one of their early hits, ‘Sheepdog.’

Finally The Sounds, a band from Helsingborg, and ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll‘ from their 2002 debut album.

As mentioned, we have only scrapped the surface here, there are so many bands I omitted; Melody Club, First Aid Kit, The Mo, Alice in Videoland, Lisa Ekdahl, Weeping Willows, The Ark, Lykke Li, Veronica Maggio, Dolkows, Atomic Swing … I feel a Part Two coming on.

Hope you like this, Stella

Young Learners, Level 4: Be creative !

1st May 2019

Everybody Up 4, Unit 6, Lesson 1

By this stage, the students are able to form basic sentences, though they need constant encouragement to develop speaking skills, as well as being told to write down new words and expressions … and then USE them.

The lesson should involve all skills, and allow the students some active sections, to break the monotony of sitting for two hours. New vocabulary should be introduced and recent lessons should be revisited and revised. Today’s theme is ‘be creative’ so we’ll start with:

Warm up: Word Bomb (mind map)

Board ‘Free Time’ and ask the students what they do for fun, making them speak in sentences, not just shouting out single words. We can develop this by asking secondary questions for example, ‘I play football,’ ‘Where do you play ? With whom do you play ? Are you in a team, or play with friends ?’

Pre-teaching: New vocabulary

Today we have six flash cards, all in the present simple (e.g. sing songs, write stories). The class repeat the text and I check for pronunciation and meaning.

Activity: What do my friends do ?

Around the room, I stick six sheets of paper, each with a single word:

Fashion / Art / Music / Cinema / Models / writing

I then show a single Powerpoint Slide with six of my ‘friends’ and ask the students to match the friend to the activity. I will board the six names on two sides of the whiteboard and the students, divided into two teams, have to match them. My ‘friends’:

My friends are: Nicky, Ian, Stella, Bill, John & Frida.

After the students have guessed, I’ll show the following pictures:

Nicky likes music. He sings songs
Ian likes model trains. He makes models.
Stella likes fashion. She designs clothes
Bill likes writing. He writes stories.
John loves cinema. He makes movies.
Frida enjoys art. She paints pictures.

Next, a chance for the students to get up and mingle, so I’ve prepared a questionnaire, utilising a lot of past tense verbs:

Student Questionnaire 

NAME:

What did you do on December 31st ?


What was the last film you saw ? Was it good ? Did you enjoy it ?


Do you like painting or drawing ? Do you go to museums ?


Have you ever lost anything ? What was it ?


We can listen to some answers, and the class can correct any errors in grammar. This will also help the students speak to each other in English, so that not all communication goes through the teacher.

Next up: Student description

In a previous lesson, the class learnt about basic adjectives to describe appearance. I will therefore choose a student and describe the physical characteristics, e.g. this student has long straight hair, is not very tall, and wears black glasses. I will choose some students and give them a student to describe, while promoting the value ‘be polite‘.

Video time: listening & new vocabulary

In our first class, we watched a kids’ guide to London and I boarded the following:

I reckon / huge / a little bit / brilliant

The students were told to ALWAYS have a notebook and pen handy, and to write down new words. However, this is not a common practice in Vietnam, so they have to be told … and retold.

Today’s video will be a short clip from a kids’ parade in the USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llEAqex8qM4

We only need show the first minute, but the students can be asked to identify various creative activities that they see. Then it’s time for some action !

Board Slap

I’ll stick three of today’s six flash cards on the cards and select three students. They’ll be given a swat, and they have to run to the board and swat or slap the card they like best, saying, “I like … movies, painting etc.” This leads into:

Thay Student.

One of the top students plays the role of teacher. They come to the front and ask students, “Do you like …. songs, models etc ?” Students must answer in a sentence: “Yes, I do,” or “No, I don’t.” Thay Student will follow-up by asking why or why not …”Because it’s ….”

Here we need some good adjectives. To give them a good pool of words, we can have a quick hangman game first, so we have adjectives such as:

boring / exciting / interesting / fun / educational / creative / difficult /

Finally, I like to play a song for the students to listen to and pick out key phrases. Today’s singer is actually Swedish, but she sings in English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upnTg2GPgTM

This is Lykke Li, and we can start the video around the 1-minute mark. The title, and the key phrase is something the class should, by now, be familiar with; ‘a little bit’. It’s also a good lesson in how Standard written English differs from spoken English, as we often swallow the ‘t’ sounds. Have a listen … you don’t need to play the whole song if it’s not your cup of tea … just a little bit.