1.
Halmstad
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Halmstad is a port, university, industrial and recreational city at the mouth of Nissan in the province of Halland on the Swedish west coast. Halmstad is the seat of Halmstad Municipality and the capital of Halland County, the city had a population of 92,797 in 2012, out of a municipal total of over 90,000. Halmstad is Swedens 20th-largest city by population and located about midway between Gothenburg and Malmö and it is Europes northernmost city with a lot of timber framing architecture. Halmstad, at the part of the Kingdom of Denmark, received its first city charter in 1307. The oldest remains of that first town are to be found at Övraby upstream on Nissan, just south of, the remains of the church can still be seen today between a defunct brick industry and a former landfill. In the 1320s the town moved to the present day town centre, at this time there were two monasteries in the town and during the 15th century the St. Nikolai church was built. Halland was the object of numerous battles, sieges and occupations by Swedish troops, during the Kalmar Union – a Nordic Union between Sweden, Norway and Denmark which lasted between 1400 and 1520 – it was in Halmstad that the Union King was to be finally selected. 1619 is an important date in the history of Halmstad, in March of that year, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden and Christian IV met at the castle. Over a period of a week they celebrated the payment in full of the Älvsborg ransom, august of the same year saw the destruction of Halmstad by fire. Halland became part of Sweden for a period of thirty years when peace was declared at the Treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 made this acquisition permanent. Sweden defeated Denmark in the Battle of Fyllebro which took place in 1676 just outside Halmstad, the first May Day demonstration in Sweden was held in Halmstad in 1897. The population grew from 48,800 in 1990 to 58,577 in 2010, in September 2007 the city hosted the Solheim Cup, which was played at the Halmstad Golfklubb. In 2011 Halmstad was the port of the Tall Ships Races. Halmstad has the south Scandinavian variety of the relatively wet climate with warm summers and cool to cold winters. Founded in 1983, Halmstad University is a higher education institution offering bachelors and masters programs in various fields of study. In addition, it conducts Ph. D. programs in three fields of research, Information Technology, Innovation Science and Health Science, Halmstad University has more than 9000 students, including 245 exchange students and 163 international programme students
2.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
3.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
4.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
5.
EMI
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EMI was a British multinational conglomerate founded in March 1931 and was based in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, it was the fourth-largest business group and its EMI Records Ltd. group of record labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records and Capitol Records. EMI also had a publishing arm, EMI Music Publishing—also based in London with offices globally. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, other members of the Sony consortium include the Estate of Michael Jackson, The Blackstone Group, and Abu Dhabi–owned investment fund Mubadala Development Company. The new vertically integrated company produced sound recordings as well as recording, the companys gramophone manufacturing led to forty years of success with larger-scale electronics and electrical engineering. He was killed in 1942 whilst conducting flight trials on an experimental H2S radar set, post-war, the company resumed its involvement in making broadcasting equipment, notably providing the BBCs second television transmitter at Sutton Coldfield. It also manufactured broadcast television cameras for British television production companies as well as for the BBC, the commercial television ITV companies also used them alongside cameras made by Pye and Marconi. Exports of this piece of equipment were low, however, the company was also for many years an internationally respected manufacturer of photomultipliers. This part of the business was transferred to Thorn as part of Thorn-EMI, in 1958 the EMIDEC1100, the UKs first commercially available all-transistor computer, was developed at Hayes under the leadership of Godfrey Hounsfield, an electrical engineer at EMI. In 1973 EMI was awarded a prestigious Queens Award for Technological Innovation for what was called the EMI scanner. After brief, but brilliant, success in the imaging field, EMIs manufacturing activities were sold off to other companies. Subsequently, development and manufacturing activities were sold off to companies and work moved to other towns such as Crawley. Emihus Electronics, based in Glenrothes, Scotland, was owned 51% by Hughes Aircraft, of California, US and it manufactured integrated circuits electrolytic capacitors and, for a short period in the mid-1970s, hand-held calculators under the Gemini name. Early in its life, the Gramophone Company established subsidiary operations in a number of countries in the British Commonwealth, including India, Australia. Over 150,000 78-rpm recordings from around the world are held in EMIs temperature-controlled archive in Hayes, in 1931, the year the company was formed, it opened the legendary recording studios at Abbey Road, London. During the 1930s and 1940s, its roster of artists included Arturo Toscanini, Sir Edward Elgar, during this time EMI appointed its first A&R managers. These included George Martin, who brought the Beatles into the EMI fold. When the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1931, at this point RCA had a majority shareholding in the new company, giving RCA chair David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board
6.
Sony BMG
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Sony BMG Music Entertainment was a record music company, which was a 50–50 joint venture between the Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG. The ventures successor, the again-active Sony Music Entertainment, is 100% owned by the Sony Corporation of America, Sony BMG Music Entertainment began in Skem as the result of a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group completed on March 4,2004. The merger affected all Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group companies worldwide except for Japan, financial analysts covering the merger anticipated that up to 2,000 jobs would be cut as a result, saving Sony BMG approximately $350 million annually. The companys chief executive officer is Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, who succeeded Andrew Lack on February 10,2006, in the first half of 2005, the companys share of new releases in the United States declined from 33% to 26% according to Nielsen SoundScan. This, and Lacks negotiation of what called a ill-conceived deal with Bruce Springsteen led to Bertelsmann informing Sony that it would not renew Lacks contract. The company signed a content deal with the video sharing community YouTube. On August 5,2008 Sony Corporation agreed to buy Bertelsmann AGs 50 percent stake in the company for $1.2 billion to get full control. The music company was renamed Sony Music Entertainment and became a unit of Sony Corporation of America, epic Records, one of their labels, was specifically cited for using fake contests in order to hide the fact that the gifts were going to disc jockeys rather than listeners. A scandal ensued over digital rights management software produced and shipped by Sony BMG that automatically installed itself on peoples computers, the scandal and attendant controversy about the practice of software auto-installation spawned several lawsuits. Sony BMG eventually recalled all of the affected CDs, uS-CERT advised, Do not install software from sources that you do not expect to contain software, such as an audio CD. In its Top Flops of 05 issue, the enterprise newsweekly eWeek had to create a new category for the Sony BMG root-kit fiasco, peter Coffee, of eWeek Labs reported, The Sony brand name was already in trouble—it lost 16 percent of its value between 2004 and 2005. Now it has taken a blow among tech-product opinion leaders, weve never done it before, and we hope well never have occasion to do it again but, for 2005, eWeek Labs awards a Stupid Tech Trick grand prize to Sony. EWeek Vol.22, No.50 In October 2007, Sony BMG, alongside other large music firms, successfully sued Jammie Thomas. Ms. Thomas – who made US$36,000 a year – was ordered to pay US$222,000 in damages for making 24 songs available for download on the Kazaa file-sharing network. Thomas had allegedly shared 1702 files in total, the court upholding the award called it a case of willful infringement. Sony did not restrict minor childrens participation in its websites, Sony paid a $1 million fine. Sony Commercial Music Group – Official Site Sony Music Entertainment, Incorporated – Company Profile on Yahoo
7.
Roxette
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Roxette is a Swedish pop rock duo, consisting of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle. Formed in 1986, the duo became an act in the late 1980s. Their third album Joyride, which was released in 1991, became just as successful as its predecessor. Roxette went on to achieve nineteen UK Top 40 hits and several US Hot 100 hits, including four US number-ones with The Look, Listen to Your Heart, It Must Have Been Love, and Joyride. Other hits include Dangerous, Fading Like a Flower, Dressed for Success, on the advice of the managing director of their record label, they came together to record Neverending Love, which became a hit single in Sweden. After the release of Dont Bore Us, Get to the Chorus, a greatest hits record, the duo took a hiatus from the mid-1990s before returning with the albums Have a Nice Day and Room Service. They continued to chart in other territories, mainly in Europe and Latin America, in 2002, the duo took a break from recording and touring when Fredriksson was diagnosed with a brain tumour. In 2011, they released Charm School, their first studio album in ten years and this was followed by Travelling a year later. Their songs It Must Have Been Love and Listen to Your Heart continue to receive radio airplay. Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson first met in Halmstad, Sweden, Gessle performed in Gyllene Tider, one of Swedens most popular bands at the time, and Fredriksson in the less successful Strul and MaMas Barn before both embarked on solo careers. In 1981, Fredriksson sang for the first time with Gyllene Tider on stage and was featured as a background vocalist for a Swedish-language album the band released in 1982. Gessle also worked with ex-ABBA singer Frida, for a song that appeared on her 1982 album Somethings Going On, while working on her first solo album, Het vind, Fredriksson performed more background vocals for Gyllene Tiders only album in English, The Heartland Café. The 11-track album was released in February 1984 and sold 45,000 copies in Sweden, According to Gessle, the groups first English-language release was in response to interest expressed by EMIs American label Capitol Records. Capitol took six of the tracks and released an extended play record in the US with a title, Heartland. Gessle and the members of Gyllene Tider chose the title of a 1975 Dr. Feelgood song. The newly named Roxette issued one near-invisible release in the US, Teaser Japanese, whose video reached MTVs studio and it, and subsequent singles, fared better in Sweden, and Gyllene Tider briefly toured the country to support the album. However, the album died soon enough and the international career died before it even started and we decided to put Gyllene Tider to rest. Gessle then turned solo work, recording his second Swedish-language solo album, Scener, released in 1985, while Fredriksson recorded her second solo album, Den sjunde vågen
8.
Gyllene Tider
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Gyllene Tider is a Swedish pop group headed by singer, guitarist and songwriter Per Gessle. Few Scandinavians would not recognize the bands most famous song Sommartider, often played on the radio during late spring, the band is well known for its catchy choruses and light-weight lyrics about summer, teenage love and life in a small town in Sweden. In 1976, Per Gessle met Mats Persson, a member of the band Audiovisuellt Angrepp, later Micke Andersson, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzon joined and the quintet was born. The groups name was changed to Gyllene Tider, alluding to Mott the Hooples song The Golden Age of Rock n Roll, in the following year, the band had become local celebrities in Halmstad for their Christmas concerts. Taking advantage of this they released their quite rare vinyl EP, Billy, in 1980, the LP Gyllene Tider was released, becoming a huge success in Sweden. Flickorna på TV2 was the albums biggest hit, the second album, released in 1981 under the name Moderna Tider, also enjoyed huge success, and was followed by a national tour. The following year Puls was released, with the hits Sommartider, the group tried to break through to the American market in 1984 with the album Heartland under the name Roxette, however, the album flopped, selling only about 8,000 copies. The name Roxette was later used by Per Gessle to name his successful collaboration with Marie Fredriksson, in 1985 Gyllene Tider officially broke up. In the following years, however, a few Greatest hits albums were released, in 2004 the band celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with the first new album in 20 years and a big summer tour in July and August. The tour, called GT25, was a success, being the biggest tour in Scandinavia ever. Gyllene Tider reunited again on August 14,2010, as an encore during Roxettes concert in Halmstad. In January 2013, the group announced a new album and summer tour in Sweden, the album was released on April 24,2013, the 19-show tour started on July 5,2013 in Halmstad and ended August 10 in Eskilstuna. Others Modern Times - Never released Heartland (special US release, containing 6 tracks from The Heartland Café, Gyllene Tider Gyllene Tider. com - Elektroniska Tider Gyllene Tider at AllMusic Gyllene Tider discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs
9.
Son of a Plumber
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Son of a Plumber is an album released by Swedish pop-rock singer and composer Per Gessle. It is the first album by Gessle to use a pseudonym artist name, the album, which was officially released on 23 November 2005, is a double CD album packed with deeply personal and highly inventive music according to Gessle. There were three singles released from the album, Son of a Plumber became a defined band, with Per Gessle, vocals and guitar, Clarence Öfwerman, keyboards, Christoffer Lundquist, guitar, Jens Jansson, drums, and Helena Josefsson, vocals. They had all participated in Pers previous solo albums, The World According to Gessle & Mazarin, except Helena Josefsson, together, they also went on to record Gessles next solo albums, En händig man and Party Crasher. They have been on the last Gessle tour too, a lot of songs have typical Per characteristics, overall it is similar to the Beatles White Album. Beatles references can be heard in the music and they have their name in a title of a song, the false solo project become a duo with Helena Josefssons leading vocals on I Have a Party in My Head and Hey Mr DJ. I Have a Party in My Head demonstrates a typical Per trait by having rhyming verses, another typical trait is some of the tracks include hooks, such as in Jo-Anna Says which has guitar riffs and lyrical repetition. In between the tracks there are some 1 minute long instrumentals that lead into the following song. Kurt - the Fastest Plumber in the West and Ronnie Lane are examples of this, the final track Making Love or Expecting Rain contained a few lines of French lyrics, Je ne suis quun enfant. Je ne suis que ton enfant, jai confiance en toi, toujours en toi. which means Im just a child. I trust you, always in you, lasting five minutes, this is the longest song on the album. There is also a track on the CD which is a reprise of Jo-Anna Says. The digital release on iTunes came with the bonus tracks,1. Plonk Son Of a Plumbers official site PerGessle. net Gyllene Tider. com The Daily Roxette Roxettes official site Son of a Plumber discography at MusicBrainz
