Stefan Sundström

Though many regarded Stefan Sundström as too rough-hewn and limited a vocalist to attract mainstream listeners, he ranked alongside Lars Demian as the most pivotal Swedish singer/songwriter of the 1990s. His approach blended the narrative ballad lineage stretching from Evert Taube back to eighteenth-century poet Carl Michael Bellman with unadorned rock & roll, a hybrid that countless young acts adopted and that served as an unofficial benchmark for emerging talents such as Lars Winnerbäck.

Raised in Stockholm, Sundström took up guitar at fifteen. Two singles appeared with the band Trots in 1980. For the following eight years he favored inexpensive cassettes on independent, non-commercial imprints such as Sista Bussen, aiming to keep his recordings accessible. The 1989 cassette Renjägarens Visor, later viewed as his debut proper and supported by Apache, soon became scarce. En Bärs Med Nefretite remained his sole vinyl album before the compact-disc era; after signing with MNW he issued Happy Hour Viser, Hå Hå Ja Ja, and Vitabergspredikan, again backed by Apache.

For the subsequent record Sundström assembled a new ensemble built around strings and choir, yielding a markedly altered sound whose title track, “Nästan Som Reklam,” proved his most successful single. A 1997 reunion with Apache produced Babyland. By then the group’s members had formed Weeping Willows with vocalist Magnus Carlsson; although they joined Sundström for occasional dates, they soon concentrated on their own more commercially rewarding path. Babyland’s Rolling Stones-inflected style drew divided notices, as did the 2000 release Fisk I En Skål, which some reviewers dismissed as inept while others praised its unvarnished integrity amid prevailing superficiality.