This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.
pop
Adam Olenius
“4 lives”
(archetype)
It’s a bit like Adam Olenius has been hiding in Shout Out Louds all these years. Probably because they’ve done a lot of miserable indie rock, but it’s never sounded so naked and unclothed. Shout Out Louds had quite a bit of success in the early 2000s, gaining traction on the teen series OC, going on countless US tours, and appearing on both Letterman and Leno. The latest album – fine “House” – was released four years ago and now, at the age of 48, Adam Olenius is making his debut under his own name, in Swedish. In recent years he has practiced the genre as a songwriter for Miriam Bryant, Kerstin Ljungström and Thomas Stenström, among others.
In a way it is It’s a very predictable outcome. Olenius has enlisted the help of Anders Stenberg from Deportees and it really shows. This production is also somehow fluffy, soft and big, as if it wanted to embed male sensibility in the voice and the lyrics. Jazz drummer Lars Skoglund plays beautifully and purposefully, Jonas Kullhammar and Goran Kajfes – also from jazz – help where necessary. But the production is still classic Swedish pop music, reflecting Ratata, Eldkvarn and Freda’. It feels a bit like accidentally receiving a P4 transmission from the past. He took the album title “4 Life” from a mixtape he recorded for a girl he was in love with in high school.
The texts are also set in a very vulnerable time in the Middle Ages. It is always unclear whether the relationships and conditions he sings about take place in the present or in the youth that the music reminds us of. As if he had woken up, an almost fifty-year-old father who had lost his life and was wondering what happened.
Sure, it’s banal. But Olenius achieves what everyone dreams of: he creates an identification that is not necessarily about shared experiences, but rather about the power of a pop song.
Best track: “Change My Mind”
Read more CD reviews and other writing by Po Tidholm.
