Joakim Thåström, formally identified as Joakim Thåström, ranks among Sweden’s most successful rock singer-songwriters, having launched his professional path during the punk explosion of the 1970s. Beyond the solo albums he began releasing in 1989, he served as frontman for the punk band Ebba Grön from 1977 to 1983, the post-punk band Imperiet from 1983 to 1988, and the industrial rock band Peace Love & Pitbulls from 1992 to 1997. Born Sven Joachim Eriksson Thåström on March 20, 1957, he spent his formative years in Stockholm’s working-class suburbs.
He helped establish Ebba Grön in 1977, and the group issued its first album, We’re Only in It for the Drugs, in 1979. The next two records, Kärlek & Uppror (1981) and Ebba Grön (1982), reached numbers five and one on the Swedish albums chart, while several standalone singles also became major hits. At the height of the band’s popularity in 1983, Ebba Grön disbanded, leading Thåström to form Imperiet, a group whose roster shifted repeatedly throughout its existence. Functioning as a post-punk extension of Ebba Grön that had originated as the side project Rymdimperiet in 1981, Imperiet debuted with the 1983 album Rasera. Over the ensuing five years the band delivered further Top Ten albums—Blå Himlen Blues (1985), 2:a Augusti 1985 (1985), Synd (1986), and Tiggarens Tal (1998)—along with multiple charting singles.
Once Imperiet dissolved in 1988, Thåström pursued a solo career marked by stylistic shifts from one release to the next. His self-titled debut appeared in 1989, followed by Xplodera Mig 2000 in 1991; the two albums peaked at numbers four and six, respectively. He then set solo work aside to create the industrial rock project Peace Love & Pitbulls, which operated from 1992 to 1997 and issued three commercially successful albums: Peace Love & Pitbulls (1992), Red Sonic Underwear (1994), and 3 (1997). Returning to solo activity, Thåström scored his first number-one album with Det Är Ni Som E Dom Konstiga, Det Är Jag Som E Normal (1999), the strongest-selling full-length of his career to date. Subsequent releases Mannen Som Blev En Gris (2002), Skebokvarnsv. 209 (2005), and Kärlek Är For Dom (2009) likewise performed strongly and generated hit singles such as “Fanfanfan.”
