Swedish House Mafia: Rocking Out Radically

For some reason, I wanted to blog about something totally wild and different today. I don’t usually listen to Swedish House Mafia or even their genre of music and they are very radical compared to a majority of music I listen to. I would say that they most compare to what I classified as “Pump Up” songs earlier in this blog. Swedish House Mafia recently released their new album “Until Now” but it is mainly composed of a conglomeration of different things. To create this album, they pulled from a variety of artists and seemed to remix them as well as work alongside them to put together an insane album (and by insane, I don’t mean fantastic, I legitimately mean “insane”!). They pulled from and worked with artists from Usher to Coldplay. There are a lot of artists/bands that I am not familiar with on the track listing because I’m so foreign to the “progressive house” style of music.

For you all who don’t know, progressive house is a music genre composed of synthesized instruments and electronic sounds. This is borderline dub-step, basically. Don’t worry if you didn’t know that (I had to go on Wikipedia). All Swedish House Mafia does is provide the countermelody (if you can call it that) to remixes of other artists/bands that provide the main vocals. So, you can see how their songs are very hit-or-miss and can vary drastically based on the band that accompanies them.

I would venture to say that I dislike a majority of their songs on their new album. A lot of it sounds too hardcore electronic to me. After I listened to certain songs, I felt like I needed a shower just with all that dubstep grime. I generally don’t like this genre, but once again, I was feeling wild today. There are, however, several songs that I think are actually well done (while borderline). I didn’t really know what I was getting into actually when I started researching Swedish House Mafia.

This skilled trio’s most heavily exposed and best single is “Don’t You Worry Child”. I feel that a lot of what I like is the vocals of featuring artist John Martin, but he isn’t in the band so I won’t heavily focus on the vocal parts of this song. When I listened to this song, it sounded fresh and new. I think it sounded enough like everything else I was listening to, like an Imagine Dragons kind of feel, that I accepted it. At the same time, they worked in some of that progressive house style sounds into the background. I think this is one of the few songs they created that actually sounds balanced between the vocals and crazy synthesized  countermelody. It really is a good song and I can see how it topped the charts worldwide upon release. It builds slowly from a couple of beat-driving synthesized piano/organ chords at the beginning to an epic beat break in the middle of the song where Swedish House Mafia really shines.

John Martin serves excellently as the lead vocalist in this song as well. His passionate voice matches the powerful driving countermelody of this dynamic trio. The lyrics also are very moving throughout the songs and sharply contrast lyrics of other songs in this genre. For instance, go back to my “Pump Up Songs” blog. One song literally had three words. Contrasting that, this song shows a full story accompanying a pretty rocking background. Swedish House Mafia is able to match the mood throughout the whole song! It’s pretty amazing and this was the one song that pulled me in. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the beat break that is about a minute into the song. It just makes me want to get up and break dance (which wouldn’t turn out so well but you get my point). You definitely need to listen to this:

Coming off of that epic song, I was expecting music that was as high caliber. I was somewhat disappointed in the rest of their album Until Now because it didn’t match my tastes in music as much as “Don’t You Worry Child”.  There were actually few songs that I could even tolerate listening to the whole thing! But, like I said, this type of genre is very hit-or-miss on a song basis. I found two songs that I think have some high points but nothing really comes close to the above song.

“Save the World” is one of those high points. This has a VERY similar structure to the last song. It builds slowly from a soft sound to an epic climax. I feel a rush at the “instrument” break because Swedish House Mafia just rocks out with wild beats and catchy tunes. The music video is also kind of cute even though I don’t understand why they used dogs. (Wondering what I’m talking about? Check it out!)

“Greyhound” is another song that makes me lean in my chair from suspense and build-up.  While the main melody sounds like a dancing dial up modem, it somehow works, and makes me bob my head and tap my foot. It also avoids bad repetition by spicing up the music with various different sounds and beats that give an energetic vibe. I still don’t understand their obsession with dogs though in their music videos! Check it out. This is a great “instrument” based song. By the way, the music doesn't start until about a minute into the video.