This is just one of those silly nostalgia thingies for me. I guess.
Brødrene (the brothers) Olsen was and is one of those bands in Denmark who continue decade after decade with a solid fan base and business, playing in small venues, without ever really hitting it big. The closest thing to that I think was this song, which came this close to getting them into the Eurovision song contest. There was general agreement later that it really ought to have.
English version, perhaps the best one, or at least it's different:
English lyrics
Original (Danish) version:
Danish lyrics
Original TV contest version. (Gold and silver, it was the seventies!!)
Below a much later live version, with big orchestra. And a bigger venue than the time I saw them live in the habor festivities in the small town I lived, the audience must have been 40 people. I don't know, I feel a little sad for them, but I can imagine they would tell me to fuck off with that sentiment! They have the fans, and if they can pay the bills and like their work, good for them!
Denmark is an odd market, artistically, because it's so small. 6M people. It means you can be well known by everybody, and still only earn a half-decent wage. I heard of a newspaper report some years ago that Kim Larsen, of the top names in pop music in DK for decades, only had a net worth of about a million dollars! This of course, in typical (Danish) newspaper style, was made to sound like a lot (Danes love to peck at successful people), but in international terms, it's a pittance. I just heard that Charley Sheen got paid 1.6 Million per episode in the last couple of years he was in 2.5 Men. (BTW, how come he looked 40 in 2.5, and 50 in Anger Management? Is his lifestyle finally catching up to him?)
Every country has it's range of musicians from pop to heavy metal that all perform reasonably that survive by performing. For most of them there isn't anything special that would differentiate them from similar groups overseas, so they never have an international career, unless they get lucky.
ReplyDeleteDenmark is a small pond, 6 million people. The only band coming to mind from DK which *really* made it is Aqua ("Barbie Girl", big hit in late nineties). Sweden, for some reason, has had many more (Ace of Base, Abba, Roxette...
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