There was ABBA in the '70s, Roxette in the '80s and Ace of Base in the '90s. The three Swedish imports were sizzling the airplay in the US and even on our own shores.
This year, it's Staffan Olsson's turn to capture the listeners' hearts. With two well received singles under his name, We Live and Where Are You, the 26-year old had even went on a springtime US tour with Britney Spears and LFO. Bosson as his friends and fans know him is clearly garnering much success in the US. He was the featured host on the Access Hollywood Grammy Awards coverage in February and performed We Live on The Jenny Jones show in late March.
Everything started in Los Angeles, when powerhouse KIIS-FM Music Director Micheal Steele decided to include We Live on the station's playlist.
The single was said to be uptempo and as bright as a searchlight, by Billboard and to the extent of saying that the single is one of the most promising new cuts we've heard. Sprouting the kind of sound that Top 40 drops to its knees for, the trade magazine continued, no doubt, this guy is on and ready to play ball.
The song took off, and it began to work its way to the rest of the stated in America. The overwhelming requests for the song working its way into the hearts and minds (and phone-in request lines) of radio listeners in L.A., soon spreading to the rest of the country. We live and we die, expresses the songs' chorus, and we learn to find the things we live and die for. With its percolating mix of pop melody, choral harmony, techno beats and solid R&B groove, We Live was a microcosm of the artiste's personality.
It's about taking care of the things that are valuable to you in life, about taking chances, he said. You need to have dreams and try to fulfill them. Life is too short to stand there and ask yourself what you did with the time you had.
Within weeks, the single was finding a widespread fan base from Detroit and Seattle to Philadelphia, Washington DC, Miami-West Palm and beyond. Those fans have eagerly embraced the second single, Where Are You, with its yearning notions of romance and longing. Billboard proclaimed, the lovely mid-tempo ballad will find instant appeal with top 40, thanks to Bosson's youthful (but not childish) vocals, chugging production and simple hook. Already a touring and recording veteran in his native Sweden, Bosson's roots are in the same Stockholm-based studio scene that spawned producer Max Martin (of 'N Sync, Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys renown).
Bosson developed his abilities as a composer, lyricist, programmer and vocalist while recording at his home apartment studio in Gothenburg, the largest city in the southwest of Sweden. When the time came to commence serious work on his forthcoming US and Capitol Records debut album, One In A, Bosson settled in Los Angeles.
We Live and Where Are You are the first tracks to make it to the airwaves from the new album. Bosson is working closely on the music with several collaborators, including Steve Kipner (who co-wrote Grammy winner Christina Aguilera's Genie In A Bottle) songwriter and producer Jack Kugell and the team of Dane Deviller and Sean Hosein, who have worked with 98 Degrees and LFO.
I've discovered how much I really love songwriting, Bosson told Gavin. I thought I could only write on inspiration before, but now it's just coming. Where does this artistic passion come from? if song production is one-half of Bosson's universe, then live performance is the other half. I love to perform onstage, he says, to get an audience, to entertain them, joke with them, it doesn't matter what I have to do to make them happy, make them feel good. The kick I get back when they sing my song, that response is worth everything.
He credits his family for the enormous support they gave him while he was growing up. He spent his childhood in a town 20km south of Gothenburg by the Kattegat Sea. Bosson-lore has it that he got the music bug at age six, performing songs during the Lucia Festival before Christmas for a small, enthusiastic audience. Early fascination with radio-friendly, melody-driven domestic Swedish pop turned into an all-out obsession with modern R&B as a teenager in the early 90s; Boyz II Men, Jodeci and Babyface. For me it's always been about the vocals and the song, Bosson says.
From the Euro-dance format (with its heavy reliance on house and techno beats) which characterized his earlier music of the '90s, Bosson has now evolved into the more worldly guitar pop of the phenomenal We Live and Where Are You.
It's been a lot of work and I've been very focused on my career, he told Network Magazine during a break in the album sessions for One In A Million. I have the chance to have a lot of people hear my music, but I am trying to take it one step at a time and not look too far ahead. If you look too far ahead and create too many expectations, you have a longer distance to fall. If you let your head get too high, it's a long way down. We'll see what happened tomorrow.
