January means snow. Snow means memories of Sweden.
Sweden, of course, means Kent.
I discovered Kent in university, a couple of years before I went to Sweden to get my Master’s Degree. Their songs had perfect basslines for a beginner—complex enough to be enjoyable while playing with your cover-band, yet simple enough to not mess up live.
Music Non Stop started as a fun song to learn to play, and stayed in our party-background-playlists for some time. After a while, other (slower) songs of theirs also started to take prominence, with emerging relationships and heartbreaks.
But from a musical background, Kent was never a band that I looked into. Never knew their origin, their other albums, their other songs.
In Sweden, some things changed. Small, intimate “house parties” did not. The guests were more diverse, obviously, and the spoken language changed, but the background music was the same.
One of those parties came with a revelation that “Oh sh*t, Kent is Swedish?!”
Not only that, but the “most popular song” we knew of them? Was barely a blip, compared to the original Swedish version.
Fun fact: About 10 years ago, if you had said that you liked “Music Non Stop” in Sweden, you would’ve been treated as a heathen. The backlash is real—“Oh the Swedish version is much better.”
You don’t actually have to go far to see that sentiment in effect. Click on either one of the videos on this page, and read the comments—they both have remarks regarding the superiority of the original Swedish version. Also, the Swedish version has 4⨉ more views, so there’s that.
I don’t listen to Kent as much anymore. However, another song of theirs found its way into my “learn to play trumpet” playlist, which I think is marvelous. Feels like there might be a Kent song to learn any instrument to play pop-rock songs!