Desire Avenue

Hi all of you.
I havn't written here for a while, but seems Nordenstams silence continues. (All these roumors about a monastary was quite fascinating though)

But right now I study in Bergen, listening to "Greetings from the old world", and today randomly searched for Stina in the internetcatalogue and found an interesting thing, a Masterthesis from 2007 from Oslo Univ. in Musictheory/history, called "That's why I do what I do" by Ingvill Mundal, half of it concerns Stinas work.
I just find this interesting since some swedish journalist, a couple of years ago, said that All dissertations about swedish music in the future will rather interpret an Artist like Nordenstam etc.

Maybe anyone of you steady supporters have seen this already? If, tell me what you think about it. (otherwise ignore this post)
Here you can download it as PDF: http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=58275

I havn't read it yet, but since I have no problem with norwegian I can translate some parts if there is need.
Hope there is anything of interest in this.

take care

Good find!!
Now if I could only read Norwegian.....anyone able to translate?? or can you precis the gist of the Stina bits, bigmouth?? I for one would be extremely interested.

Musical analysis!! Bring it on! it's great to see somebody else doing it with Stina, about time, she deserves it.

And, were she a bit better known in the right circles, yes, she deserves more thesis-type work. If people can waffle on learnedly about Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen etc at huge length, why not Stina, who is a more interesting musician let alone anything else.

Ok, I’ve been reading half of it now and can contribute with some.

Background: the beginning is kind of an explanation concerning why these two artists where her choice, with focus on gender-, ethnical-, and cultural aspects.
Apparently the author (herself a singer) was fascinated by Stinas "little and fragile" voice with all its unique expressions (which isn't strange at all), which reminded her of Björk, but still in a whole new aesthetic way.
The thesis theme is about whether its possible to find traces of musical culture and tradition in the two artists voices, how this have developed or changed their style and if it can be seen as innovative.
Then there is a lot of theory and method (some Barthes, Mukarovsky and Kristeva etc.), which is interesting, but probably not relevant for this forum.

First chapter after introduction, a bit down (page19): Stinas own thoughts and visions about her music, which is (as we know) all written and performed by the artist alone. "Crime" is the only song that is given an complete analysis later on, with which the author tries to question whether or not we can take Stinas own claims seriously, interpret if it is "authentic".
About the lyrics in general: "The question will therefor not only concern what is said - the words content, but also how it is said - what kind of language one uses, and in which tone it is said." (p. 22)

Then, about cultural context, that is the swedish music scene ”if it is national or international”, adding the ”problems” which can occur when using english instead of the native language (that is, the artists identity, and the author has an interesting aspect that since sweden havn’t been in war for 200 years, we don’t tend to focus on the national aspects of the artist)

Chapter 2. Biographical stories about her music.
About 1994, second album, stop giving concerts, don’t want to be a public person, being sceptical against the musicvideoconcept, the artexhibitions of 2005.

Then an analysis of the ”And she closed her eyes”-cover (I don't know why):
”The picture of SNs cover is in different grey tones with small parts of blue. The background is a bit ’industrial’, with gravel, stones, asphalt and iron as central elements. SN is also placed outside, but in a much ’colder’ and more urban environment. Many of the pictures is unclear, taken in backlight or from a distance, something that gave a lot of them a dreamlike characteristic. SN drop down her gaze, or have the black hair hanging over her face.”(p.46)
She looks “vulnerable”. Maybe because her bad upbringing, the author says, but also this could be and artistic construction, to represent herself in a specific way, that Nordenstam is rather playing with peoples impression of the artistic-role.
”SN doesn’t understand the common interpretation of her as fragile and melancholic. Her intention is to create intimacy and closeness.” (p.47)

A small bonus: “Even though she (Stina) has avoided the most of promoting, she has still gained a devoted fanbase” (p.42)

[There are some biographical remarks on Stinas teendepressions, familyissues etc. which I will not translate since you seem to have that specific respect at this forum.]
I’ll continue to read the end soon.

(Be patient with my translation since I am an arthistorian and don’t really know a lot about the musical terminology )

Quite an elaborated analysis of the voice in "Crime"

”The voice of SN is lying in the front of the sound throughout the track. It is almost as if she had her own room there, while the other elements is held in a second room around and back of this. SN uses the function neutral with air [trans. wierd voice-term that I havn’t got a grip of yet]. In the equalizer of the voice or through the processor she has increased the top middletune in the voice, something that probably result in a brighter sound than it really is. The air which is in the voice also become clearer […] The expression therefor becomes very naked, close and vulnerable, she whispers through the ear with what she wants to tell, as if it was something secret, and at least very personal.” (p.72)
Nordenstams voice appears with a ”openess”,”presence”, ”as genuine”.

”What kind of words SN actually is singing is not always easy to hear, and I have myself sometimes misunderstood the content and actions in ’Crime’. But still the soundshapes that appear seems to me as an aware choice of SN. For even though the words is unclear, the pronouncement are not. The phrases has a lot of energy trough the aware usage of sounds, maybe in particular the words consonants. Maybe the unclear words also have something to do with how she wants the listener to interpret the song. In many ways is the pronouncement together with the voice, a combination which gives a feeling that this is a story or a history that isn’t easy to give away.” (p.73)

”After I checked the cover I understood that this is about a person whom have got hurt. Phrase 31: ‘cause you’ve been seen with another girl’, told me something of why. Still, it didn’t change my focus, which was that there is a helplessness and a melancholic theme in the song which the voice contributes to. Then, this is being done in a way that almost makes the printed lyrics unnecessary. But in the lyrics one also finds an anger, as the song is called ‘Crime’. There is an anger towards the person which have hurt her. But maybe even more, an anger directed at herself, as one can trace in the words of the b-part.” (p.73)

“In the arrangement there is loud, sharp, hard sounds and an aggressive rhythm which one is likely to connect to the anger, irritation, or despair. This contributes to the melancholic and tired expression.”(p.75)

(at page 81 now )

Great!, thanks for your work so far, Bigmouth.
An art historian, cool.

many thanks bigmouth for your translation and for taking the trouble to post it all up.

Bigmouth, great find! I'm gonna throw the whole piece on Google Translate. I happen to be very fond of Erykah Badu also, so I'm really interested on what the writer has to say about her too.

Thanks for posting it here.