Turns out my Stylus review of Linda Sundblad’s album has been up for a week or so already without me realising. Perhaps why I wasn’t told was because it sounds so different that when I first read it I thought someone else had stolen my subject matter and got their review posted instead of me. However, a scroll to the bottom of the page shows it is credited to me, the later paragraphs are better and I am also now the most famous reviewer of her album on the Internet, so I can’t really complain. Although I do wish they’d consulted me on the first paragraph which suggests she is gaining fame outside Sweden, when she really isn’t at all.
Here is my review in its original form:
Linda Sundblad
Oh My God
Monza – http://www.monzamusic.com
2006
B
You are unlikely to have heard of her, but Linda Sundblad is quite a remarkable young lady. In 1996, aged 15, she dropped out of school to join a rock band named Lambretta, and from their first single in 1999 until the end of the band only last year, they were a great success. Their most notable single release, and the one I recommend to anyone who asks and most who don’t, was called ‘Bimbo’ and was written by none other than Max Martin, who any self-respecting pop fan will know as the creator of most of the best pop singles of the last 10 years: ‘Baby One More Time’, ‘Since U Been Gone’ – you name it, he wrote it. It was this song that grabbed my attention and revealed Linda’s potential to be an amazing pop star, but it wasn’t until 5 years later when she at last released her debut solo album, that this potential was realised.
Scandinavia hasn’t been short on pretty young blondes releasing high quality electro-pop music of late, with Robyn and Annie leading the way and others such as Bertine Zetlitz and Margaret Berger close behind, but Linda stands out in her outright refusal to provide anything but pure, unadulterated, euphorically cheesy pop music. This was quite a shock to those familiar with Lambretta, whose last work was their rockiest yet. Oh My God! shows no trace of Linda’s past: ‘Back In Time’ may easily be mistaken for a lost Kylie classic, ‘Cheat’ is what Gwen Stefani should be doing on her new album and the first single ‘Oh Father’ (“I’ve been touching myself and I’m worried, is Heaven still open for me?”) could be a ‘Like A Virgin’ for the 21st Century.
The title Oh My God! is perfectly representative of the album’s content: melodramatic, slightly ridiculous and the voice of every teenage girl in the Western world. Linda may have grown up in the media spotlight, living the dreams of her school-bound peers, but she speaks for “the babies born in the 80s” in ‘Pretty Rebels’ and reminisces of how she “could never imagine a boy would love me”. This is an album every teenage girl can relate to – the confusion of puberty, the desire to rebel, and now grown-up Linda goes “back in time to tell her she’ll be fine”. Who needs Seventeen magazine when you’ve got Linda Sundblad?
With an album overflowing with classic pop sounds, youth on her side and that mix of stylish sophistication and girlish cuteness that is a necessity for all legendary female stars, Linda seems surely destined for great pop stardom – it may ironically only be her Swedishness, the nationality which has allowed her to work with such great writers and producers, that holds her back from her deserved worldwide domination.