Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (2:28)

Yes, thanks for having me.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (2:31)

Could you please start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book? Is there an Icelandic music phenomenon to investigate?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (2:41)

Yeah, well, I'm a music scholar and a critic and would you like me to tell you a little bit about myself?

Dr. Miranda Melcher (2:51)

Please. Yes.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (2:53)

Yes. And then I'll go into why I wrote the book.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (2:57)

Sounds good.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (2:57)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm a sociologist by Trade. But I'm also a music critic, a music scholar. I did my PhD in the university of Edinburgh. And when we were thinking about what I should do for my thesis, we decided on doing something on Icelandic music. And so it's like. Well, it's just like a result of being a part of the music scene here in Iceland as a partaker, an audience member. Yeah, a musician as well. You know, I was in an experimental rock music in the 90s and so on. And we just needed a book to go, you know, get a little bit, little bit of depth into why Iceland is talked about in the media and in the, in the unis. Because when I was in the, in the Edinburgh University, people or my co students were very curious about the Icelandic music phenomenon as they always called it.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (4:13)

So I think that's actually a very good starting point. Is there an Icelandic music phenomenon from your perspective, so much within the understanding, not just looking from the outside?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (4:25)

Yeah. When I got the call from the editor, he used this word. Could you explain the phenomenon, Avner? And when I did my PhD research, we, when I say we, I'm talking about my supervisor, Simon Frith. We found that ICELAND, we have 400,000 people circa as inhabitants here. So in like macro sociological terms, this is a micro nation. And Iceland has been punching above its weight with, you know, known musicians like Bjork and Siguros and today of Monsters a Man and Loewe, our new international star. And people are always asking, how is this possible? Why does a small nation produce relatively high numbers of known famous musicians? And the answer is to be found in part in how the society here is constructed. So I go a little bit into that in my book. But the book is also like a general history of Icelandic pop music running from 1950 to 2020.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (5:51)

Yes, that's definitely helpful to understand the kind of two things that the book is doing and hopefully that we can do in our conversation too. And I think the history really helps us start to make sense of this idea of a phenomenon. So if we go back in time, I'm joining today's call from Liverpool where very often we talk about kind of pop and rock music here being very much influenced by the US military and World War II. And that's of course relevant to Iceland as well. In fact, is it as simple to say that popular music came to Iceland because of the US military?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (6:31)

Well, that's, that's an absolutely parallel thing to like Liverpool, which you had your harbor and sailors imported the blues and rock records from the US and it's kind of similar because if you take Scandinavia, the Nordic countries, Iceland has geographically a unique standing. We're closest to America geographically. But Iceland has also always been Americanized and we had a US base here from 1941 to 2006. And especially in the rock and roll years in the 1950s, this had an influence on the development of Icelandic popular music because the US they import radio stations, TV stations, bowling alleys and so forth and the signal was strong from the radio station. So the Icelanders picked up the new sounds from America relatively easily. So yes, this influenced at the beginning the development of Icelandic popular music for sure.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (7:53)

Yeah, that's really interesting to learn about. Especially the idea that the radio signals maybe weren't intended to go out across all of Iceland. If I remember correctly from the book, there was even a local town that tried to block them. Is that right?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (8:06)

Yeah, well, the town which is the Liverpool of Iceland, Keplavik, which is near the airport, there were some crazy experiments trying to block the signals which didn't really work and you know, trying to stave off this unwanted cultural influences. But the, but Keflavik, as I say, is the Liverpool of Iceland because that was the capital of the beet boom. That's where the Icelandic Beatles group were operating. Not in the capital, but in Kepler. Just like in the uk, the hotspot was not Lonton, it was rather Liverpool or the birthplace list of the Beatles and all of that.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (9:02)

Yeah, and I'm glad you've mentioned Iceland's Beatles because that's definitely quite an intriguing direct parallel. Can you tell us more about the Beatles in Iceland?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (9:13)

Yes. So here in Iceland, like we could say anywhere in the western world at least, people were eager to emulate what they were hearing both from the U.S. and, and, and the U.K. and the emphasis was on the U.S. you know, in the late 50s, early 60s maybe. But then the U.K. takes over and everybody are, you know, are, are, are really excited about the Beatles. So just like in Denmark, Sweden, we get like a co copycut groups of the Beatles and our band was called the Chords or in Icelandic and they were from Keflavik. They played music in the style of the Beatles but the songwriters and the songwriter could not hold us on. He was quite good. So the songs are good. They sound maybe like a Beatles truck, but you know, you know he has, he has the gift. I. I could say so they were just became very popular and let the beat boom. But as I say, we're in Iceland so they. That there weren't that many Bands. So they were the absolute kings of, of, of this development. And always developments here in popular music tend to. It's. It's like a phone call which is lacking a little bit. You know, we're sometimes one year or one and a half year behind, you know. So when they were doing their, you know, their first album was released in, you know, 65 or 66, you know, when the Beatles were already doing their rubber sole and revolver kind of thing.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (11:13)

Yeah. And this sort of lag of time, I think is going to come up further on in the history as well. So in fact, speaking of time, Obviously in the UK we talk about the 1960s as being a really key time for pop and rock music. You discuss in the book that 1969 and the 1970s in general were really important for Iceland. Why this time period?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (11:39)

In 1969 we finally got an album by a band called Truprot, which means breach of faith. So we close down that decade with a proper experimental progressive album, which I find kind of cute, that we try to sweep up what's been going on for the last three or four years in the foreign countries. So it's a weird blend of progressive stuff and not so progressive stuff, cover songs and so on. But it was a very important album, this album, which was released, as I say, in 1969. And then we move on into the 70s which. And we continue to emulate, you know. Is there Prok rock in the uk Then we try to do a little bit of a Prok Rock and the Prok rock history in Iceland is quite interesting. But I think we don't have time to go into depth in those matters. But we go into the 70s and as I say, we were always trying to tag along.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (12:57)

I mean, if you like, we do have a few minutes to go into prog rock, if you want to tell us a bit about that.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (13:02)

It's just it never properly arrived to Iceland and as societies get smaller, there are just things that simply don't arrive. Like in the Faroe islands, they have 50,000 people there. A hip hop scene is non existent. You know, we have hip hop scene in Iceland, but it's all. Of course it's smaller than the US and the UK and we never got this big proc rock bands like Genesis or Amazon, Leg and Palmer. It was always more kind of a psychedelic, folky, whimsical 70s rock. Somehow we never got to the, to the 20 minute drum solo epics until. Thank you for the laughter. You know, that didn't happen until much later when, when the second wave of the proc rock was. Was away in the UK around 76 or 77. So it's just interesting to see what can be done and what cannot be done in small societies.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (14:13)

Yeah, no, it's definitely interesting. The other, of course, genre we haven't mentioned yet, but also sort of follows this trajectory is punk. Right. That also came later to Iceland.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (14:24)

Yes, very late. And I'm just realizing now, just so we won't forget, there's a very important development in the seventies concerning Icelandic pop music. Would you like me to talk about that now or would you?

Dr. Miranda Melcher (14:43)

Yeah, yeah, no, tell us about that and then we'll go back to punk.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (14:46)

Yes, yes, yes. Just wanna put that in here. That, you know, 50s and 60s is emulating. In the 70s we finally get the birth of what we could call Icelandic popular music. Icelandic popular music with Icelandic characteristic. One of the reasons for that is we tried our hand trying to export things in the 60s it was not happening. So people kind of gave up and thought, well, as no one is listening, let's just do our stuff. And that gave way to, I would say, better music, more exciting music, and people singing with Icelandic lyrics which they thought would not be appropriate if they would. Would like to be famous abroad. But now they were just doing their stuff within the confines of Icelandic society. So there are four things that were developing in the 70s. We got in the music, we got Icelandic humor, singing about Icelandic heritage, singing about social realism, Icelandic social realism and Icelandic folk music put into a proc rock context. And the bands that are doing this, they were from high school college, which is like a breeding ground for progressive arts. And so this was happening also in 1975. We got our very first professional recording studio. So, you know, the brain drain was stopped. We could do these things in Iceland. All of this was. Was happening in the 70s and more of like homegrown Icelandic bands which became very popular, but singing about Icelandic stuff, Icelandic realities. So I think this is a pinnacle a decade and a very important decade for everything that was to follow to kind of hold on to. Okay, we're trying to emulate the Beatles, but we're still Icelanders, you know.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (17:02)

Yeah, this is really key that it's not just emulation that's happening. Is this maybe part of why then later things take longer to get to Iceland because they're sort of. We're making our own music, we don't need yours. Right. Or is that not the case?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (17:19)

Wow, thank you for this. This is a good point. I've not thought squarely about this point. I'm going to put this point in my back pocket because we're also trying to understand this lack. Why does it happen? And what confuses things is sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes we're absolutely parallel with what's happening, you know, in, in international waters. But this is a very good point, you know, hey, we don't really need. And we're making our own stuff. And I'm just thinking now in, in. I'm thinking out loud now that this new mindset would have maybe influenced the punk music. Because the punk music was very different from this music I was describing. This was like more like a normal folky singer songwriter stuff. But the Icelandic punk scene is quite interesting because we're talking about 76 and 77 in the UK and the US. It explodes in Iceland in 1981, which is four years behind. And one of the reasons which I'm going to table here is Iceland was not in like economical turmoil. The kids were not angry, not as angry as the UK teenagers. And so punk being like being born out of economical frustrations and generational divides, it wasn't as strong in Iceland. So the Icelanders really mainly picked the music up as, you know, hey, the music is cool, let's do it. Not, you know, inner psychological turmoil, just hey, cool music from the uk. Let's try our hand at that.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (19:27)

Yeah, that's definitely a different motivation and I think probably worth sort of staying on this for a moment. You mentioned the music coming out of high schools, of colleges. Obviously that's where all sorts of artistic experimentation happens in many countries. But what's kind of the ecosystem, I suppose for musicians in Iceland, like why do young people want to be artists? Is it hard to be a musician? I guess. Why isn't there this anger? And it is more sort of playful.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (19:59)

Yeah, one of the reason is just the micronation. But you know, Icelanders deal a lot with, you know, there's a lack of bureaucracy here. Everybody are friends and neighbors and nephews. So it's relatively easy to form a band and make it happen somehow. Icelanders tend to not think about any, you know, difficulties in executions, you know. You know, and something will come out of it. It's the famous ferta red dust sentence. You know, let's just dive into it and something will happen. It will not be perfect, but it will be something. And you know, the, the big bureaucratic nations are still scratching their head over this, you know, crazy, you know, a crazy way of thinking about how, how things should be done.

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Dr. Miranda Melcher (23:40)

Yeah the bureaucracy is definitely a key aspect to mention, but also kind of creates this sort of experimental space of like it doesn't have to be perfect in order to get somewhere.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (23:50)

The most difficult thing for me when I was living in the UK was this. Should we meet? Yeah, let's meet. Meet after four weeks at 13:30. You know, we don't understand this here. So. So this somehow shapes how, how people go about their things. But trying to focus now on how was the punk scene here in Iceland. You know, people doing kids doing music in their garages for sure. Trying to put it out for sure. And I'm not. It's, it's, it's a simplification to say it was. Everything was easy, but you know, somehow it was doabush. And of course there were also some connections to the UK, people going abroad for studies and bringing home LPs, you know, and stuff like that.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (24:46)

Yeah, that's definitely obviously a key aspect of transmission for many countries at this point. The last genre I think I want to kind of add to this transmission discussion is heavy metal and understanding where that fits in on the timeline and why that was also a genre that seemed to had have some lag before getting to Iceland.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (25:08)

Yeah, that's, that's probably the, the most crazy development because especially looking at how healthy the heavy metal scene is today, it simply wasn't happening for a very long time here in Iceland because we have Black Sapphot releasing their debut album in 1970. There was nothing of that kind in the 70s we had hard rock. That was the, that was the top in the 80s. Still we're not getting proper heavy metal. It's not until 1985 that there's an Iron Maiden inspired album released. And understand then, you know, Iron Maiden have released a few albums. All these bands are happening. Iron Maiden, Tutor's Priest, even thrust metal like Metallica. Metallica have released two albums. When we finally get, you know, a bit innocent Iron Maiden inspired album, then, you know, after late 80s, we get some more, more thrash. But then we have an explosion in Death Metal in 1990. A parallel scene to what's happening in Sweden and the us and then we kind of, you know, then we can kind of start the heavy metal. It starts in the 1990s, but then it grows and grows. And now the black metal scene, the death metal scene, the general extreme metal scene is very healthy here in Iceland. I would say it's the biggest, you know, juvenile youth music scene here now. And of course they benefit from, you know, the Internet. They can Sell their merch through band campsites and so on. But as you can see, a lot of happening now, but for a very long time, curiously, that somehow.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (27:12)

Yeah, this was really interesting for me to read about because given where we're at now with this genre in Iceland, I had assumed it was older than your investigation has revealed. So thank you for telling us about that aspect. One other piece we haven't mentioned yet is of course, that a music scene very rarely operates sort of only with music. Other arts are often heavily involved. And that's very, very much the case in Iceland. So can you tell us about the impact of film, especially on the Icelandic music scene?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (27:47)

Good question. Of course, there's one film, one documentary that was really influential. That's a documentary about the Icelandic punk scene. The director started out, the idea was to make a documentary about the B, which is like our Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg rolled into one and. And a dash of Bob Dylan. This, you know, King bb He was to be the main character in the film. But it. It kind of developed into this general documentary about the Icelandic punk scene. This was filmed, this was shown in cinema halls and then it was put on VHS video cassette. This video cassette was, you know, going the rounds in the video machines, whatever it's called around the country. And this simple fact really influenced like the arrival of, you know, our underground rock in the 90s. The alt rock movement in the 90s was quite, quite influenced by this video cassette. So this film was highly influential then. We have had. I don't know where you. When where you want to take this, because we've had some documentaries about Icelandic music and then we've had some strong film composers as well.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (29:25)

Either. Both. I mean, it all sounds interesting.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (29:30)

Well, we. We had a couple of more general documentaries about. About the Icelandic music scene at large. Ziguro's Meta film called Hema and all of that jazz. But I really want to mention this flowering of film composers in Iceland that took place around 2015, where we had a guy which is now deceased, Johan Johansson. Johan Johansson, he became quite big and respected. And then we have Hildurgunatottir, which made the Joker soundtrack and got an Oscar for it, and Oliver Arnold as well. These are big names in the. The film composing world. So it was, for me and us, interesting to see. And as you can maybe hear in my tone, we're always like parents rooting for our kids at the sideline of a football match or something. You know, it's. It's cute. It's like it's like gathering of the family. We, we, we, we follow what's happening and we cheer our people on. It doesn't matter what music people are playing, it's just, are the Icelanders doing good? And I was at the music festival in Oslo and there was an Icelandic black metal band playing and there were some hip hoppers, Icelandic hip hoppers, which I know in the hall. And I said, what are you doing here? And they said, we're just checking on the Icelanders. I thought it was beautiful, you know.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (31:15)

Yeah, there's definitely a big communal element there. And you talk about that in the book as well, that the industry, the music industry in Iceland is also sort of organized in that kind of way. Can you tell us more about sort of what kind of support young acts get or how bands go from being in a garage to being signed and having their music distributed?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (31:36)

Yeah, we're always trying to be like the big nations, you know, we admire you, you know, we admire the bureaucracy, you know, but at the same time we don't like it. And so we're always like, we sense that we're like kids in a candy store in a sense. And it's always like a little bit less developed, we think. But we try to have, you know, we have music export offices, we have an Iceland music center, we have a battle of the bands competition. And so we try to nurture all of this and also through media, having talk shows which have musical acts. So also Iceland is also quite a developed western country, but it's all in micro doses. That's what makes it always a bit special and a bit, you know, everybody are, you know, I have, I have all the Icelandic musics in my cell phone. And so these bureaucratic hurdles somehow make things happen more quickly. But as I say, I'm maybe painting too much of a Moominwali picture. We also have hard cold systems.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (33:04)

Yeah, can you tell us a bit about those?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (33:07)

Yeah, it's. Well, what do you want to know.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (33:10)

Like structurally, how does it work? Are there training opportunities? How does funding work? Are there scouts that go around to the garages? How do you get from say a bunch of 17 year olds in someone's bedroom to their music being available to someone in the uk?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (33:29)

The simple answer is it's. It's the same system as in the uk, just smaller. You know, we have these scouts, we have talent agencies, we have sync firms, we have these, what's it called, managers and all of that. And it's done in quite the same way as we would See in the uk or we would see in a town like Coventry or something like that. You know, we have these workshops, girls rock camps. This is, you know, this is being run all year round. An artist is releasing an album, they get a spot on the national radio, they get a spot on a television station and so on. So just this basic macro structure that we can see in every nation.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (34:35)

Okay, that's helpful to understand.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (34:37)

Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing weird about it. It's just. Yeah, it's just like. It's just smaller. That's the thing.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (34:48)

And then in terms of what sort of quote unquote success means, right? Obviously in the US or the uk, success often means sort of the most famous artist. You know, everyone wants to be Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Lady Gaga. Obviously with Iceland, the kind of key name is Bjork. Is the goal the way the music scene is constructed, does everyone want to be Bjork?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (35:12)

No, this has changed. And this is an interesting question, and this is an interesting factor because for a very long time the most famous music experts from Iceland were Siguros and Bjr, both artists that are, you know, making music which is, you know, left off mainstream. And so I think that, you know, people from abroad, the press, they were kind of, or not even kind of, they were expecting a bit weird music from Iceland. That became like the template and that's what people kind of seek when they go to the Iceland Airways festival. They expect weird music from Iceland. I wouldn't say it was the goal with the Icelanders, but this was like. This was like an example set that you could be really famous by doing again your own stuff. Because it's kind of incredible that you can be that famous with that weird music, especially in the case of Bjork. But today, and I would say that's the reason for that is just the global village, the Internet and just better run music industry at large in the world that we have normal bands like Of Monsters and Man, Kaleo and let's say Loewe, normal artists and Ausker, all of them normal that all of them from Iceland, but they're making waves in the international scene. And some of them like Of Monsters and Men, they are not playing the Icelandic card. They many people don't know that Of Monsters and Men are an Icelandic band. So that gives way to or shows that now you can just be a famous band and you happen to be from Iceland. And that's a very interesting development.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (37:29)

Yeah, that's actually something I wanted to ask about. Obviously the fact that we're talking about kind of Icelandic music as the subject of a book sort of puts a category there. And the example you gave us earlier of being at the music festival in Oslo and sort of different genres still going to check each other out because, hey, we're from Iceland. But is that idea of we are Icelandic musicians, is that a thing or is that kind of just being put on by the outsiders going, oh, you're all from here, you must all know each other and be related somehow and kind of have some sort of similarity? Does that make sense in Iceland? Do people see themselves in the scene as we are Icelandic musicians?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (38:10)

Yeah, yeah, I think I would have to say that, you know, yeah, that's somehow high in the mind, you know, that, you know, people identify as such, they acknowledge it, they use it and so on, but it's maybe not a determining factor. And that's another thing. How much are you going to use the Icelandic thing as kind of a trump card or not? You know, like with. Of Monsters of Men, which are, as I say, they never played the cards and, you know, they went straight into the Billboard charts and are doing this, as I say, a music that is not experimental, it's just a finely wrought, nice pop music and, you know, very good in that sense. But, yeah, something like that.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (39:14)

Yeah, of course. I mean, I think it makes sense that the answer is it's more complicated than people will often say, which is the case in so many ways.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (39:24)

And people also sometimes get tired of being an Icelander in that sense.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (39:30)

Yeah. If it's sort of being thrown at you all the time, it's.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (39:32)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, it's thrown at you all the time and you know, wow, isn't it great to live in a nation where there are volcanoes and snow and avalanches and you just, hey, relax. I'm just going into a bakery to get some, you know, bread.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (39:47)

Yeah. Why don't you focus on my music and not on the volcanoes? Yeah, exactly. So where then are we at now with music in Iceland? Right. It's no longer kind of a phenomenon. The first ever famous Icelandic music, you know, we're well past that now. So where are we sort of at in this 2025 moment with music in Iceland? Are there any artists you want to mention for people who maybe have only paid attention to the most famous ones from earlier?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (40:16)

Good question. And I was getting worried when I was writing the book that this phenomenon thing happened, been had passed, but it seems to not be so. And for us sociologists, musicologists, it's just a very interesting example of, you know, micronation workings of, of music scenes. But I'm, I'm absolutely done with, you know, knowing or guessing or, or guessing into what's the next big thing. It's, it seems to be unknowable in the case of Iceland, but what's happening now is Loewe, or as the English say, Laufey, and she's doing great and she's a great example of, she's really playing this well and she's getting quite big as an international star, you know, working with Nora Jones and she's released three albums, you know, delivering this post war jazz into, into modern households. The, the only example I, I've thought of and if I remember correctly, I think I put it in my book that is, is wow. Know, you know, back to black Amy Winehouse, you know, Amy Winehouse who did this 60s thing for modern audiences. And Loewe is doing 1940s jazz for modern audiences in kind of the same way. So as you can hear, we're very proud of her achievements. So that's the big news at the moment.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (42:03)

That definitely sounds intriguing. Is there anything else further than you want listeners to take away about this idea of the Icelandic music phenomenon? Any final words of how they should next react when they hear that phrase?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (42:19)

I would, you know, buy the book and read it. It's relatively short. And do check into the select discography because what we always want to do when people are talking to us about Icelandic music is you have to hear it and you know, after time of streaming services, there's never been an easier way to listen to music than now. That's the positive thing about the streaming sites and all of that. So please, you know, pick up the names. You know, don't listen to cigaros for the 20th time. You know, try something new, you know, check out the 70s proc rockers, check out the punk music and you know, that's what I want people to do. I think this book, okay, the text and you can get some information, but please, it's all about the music at the end.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (43:19)

I think that's a great place to end our discussion with that plea for the importance of music. So as just a final question, is there anything you're working on now that this book is done that you want to give us a brief shout out for?

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (43:36)

There's nothing I can mention at this moment, but I can tell you that there's more to be done, there are more books to be written and there's more stuff to do. Absolutely. But I just need some funding so if you know about any, if you have any money Miranta, please let me know.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (43:56)

Well, unfortunately that is not something I can solve for you. But I can of course encourage people to read the book titled Icelandic Pop then today, tomorrow, next week published by reaction in 2025 RR. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Dr. Arnar Eggert Tordsson (44:12)

Thank you.

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