For once, the latest, most-hyped music star du jour is the real deal - an electropop sensation from Norway who putting the driving 'oh-oh-oh' and 'na-na-na' back into your dance step. Jim Carroll meets Annie, for whom the sun has come out today
We're lost in music. Every week, more new music than you can possibly ever listen to or know what to do with goes on release. Over 25,000 new albums saw the light of day in 2004, and the same number again can be expected this year.
You name a style or a genre and it's there in spades. You want pop, you want funk, you want punk, you want poppy-funky-punk? You got it and you can come back for seconds whenever you're ready. We're lost in music and there really seems to be no turning back.
But the good stuff - the real-gone, happy-happy, joy-joy stuff which makes you jump and shout and throw your hands in the air with wild abandon - is in short supply. When we think pop, it's music conglomerates pimping TV creations, sleazy Svengalis picking the pockets of kids with genetically modified pap, and second-rate karaoke singers singing third-rate ballads who come to mind. We think pop, we get Westlife.
Once upon a time, Jarvis Cocker asked if you remembered the first time, but we're more interested in the last time. The last time pop music sent shivers up and down your spine. The last time pop actually provided the kind of thrills it used to always promise. The last time pop music put a pep in your step, a na-na-na-na in your heart and a smile on your face. Think for a moment. Can you remember the last time?
Me, the last time was Annie. For the last few weeks, when I think pop, I think Annie.
Ten seconds after a track called Chewing Gum began, I was seeing stars. Ten seconds later and I was hearing a star. Sometimes, it really is that simple. You cross your fingers, close your eyes and hope the rest of the album is as good. After all, it was just 20 seconds, it could have been a fluke.
But, track after track, sublime "oh-oh-oh" after sublime "na-na-na", electropop nugget after electropop shimmy, Anniemal stands and delivers. From start to finish and from top to bottom, Anniemal is the most gloriously edgy, stylish, catchy, sophisticated and downright hummable electropop album you will hear this year.
You can trust me on this. Promise. Hear something better and you'll get your money back. Or a visit to your home or workplace from Harvey Norman. The choice is yours.
For Annie Lilia Berge-Strand, these are the days of good cheer and bags of crisps.When she's not at home in Bergen in Norway, she flits from one European city to the next to fulfil her press and promotion duties. When she's not talking about her album, she goes shopping for records or clothes. At night, she might DJ in a club or do some singing with her new live band.
Putting on a live show is a new experience for Annie, but she is getting used to it. She's getting used to awards and gongs, too. A few weeks ago, Annie was at the annual Norwegian music awards, the Spellemannprisen. "I had won two Alarm awards before, but the Spellemanns are the biggest awards you can win in Norway," she explains.
So Annie went along and sat in a room in Oslo's Spektrim Centre, with her domestic peers and the various men and women who make up the Norwegian music industry. They probably look a little like the men and women who make up the Irish industry, only more Norwegian.
Annie went onstage to hand out the award for best hip-hop/r 'n' b act and then she hung around to hear if she had won anything herself. "I really didn't think I would win one, but then the Spellemann for best newcomer was announced and I won it."
As Annie accepted the award, she thanked her mum. After all, it was her mum's decision to move to Bergen when Annie was 13 which set this story in motion. There was not a lot of music to occupy a young teenager in Kristiansand, but this wasn't the case in Annie's new hometown of Bergen, which today is Norway's Manchester. A city of some 220,000 people, it has two claims to fame: it's the gateway to the Norwegian fjords, and it's home to a mesmerising number of musicians. Annie, Röyksopp, Kings of Convenience, Magnet, Ralph Myers, Sondre Lerche, and Tellé Records all call Bergen home.
"There's always been a big rivalry between Bergen and Oslo," she says. "Because years ago, Bergen was the capital city. I think that's part of the motivation to be better than what's happening in Oslo and why the new generation of really good bands have mostly come from Bergen. It's better there. It's so small so there's not a scene for only one style of music. If you're just a techno fan, you're going to be bored there, so people have to be very open about music. And there are no record companies breathing down your neck."
A band called Suitcase supplied Annie with the chance to be a frontwoman when she was 15. They were an indie outfit but, remembers Annie, "the other members wanted to do trip-hop". However, Annie certainly didn't want to do trip hop.
"I grew up with pop music, people like A-Ha, Madonna and Michael Jackson. OK, yes, I was also a New Kids on the Block fan. As I got older, my tastes broadened and got weirder." But those tastes still didn't run to trip-hop.
Annie found her first true musical mate when she met producer and DJ Tore Kroknes. Tore and Annie began to write songs together and they soon became boyfriend and girlfriend. "We were the perfect match," she says. "He was a production obsessive and I was all about melodies."
In 1999, a tune called Greatest Hit was released under Annie's name. It's on Anniemal and it still shines, shimmers and fizzles like the best pop always does. It introduced Annie to the world and the world was very curious to hear more.
Another single followed, yet that would be all the partnership would produce. Tore had been born with a serious heart defect and fell very ill in late 1999. Eighteen months of major operations followed, but there was to be no happy ending. He died in April 2001, aged just 23.
"I just didn't want to do anything after that, I just couldn't think about starting anything," she says. "We had planned to make the album together, so the thought of going into a studio without him was just too depressing."
Annie spent weeks and months moping at home before forcing herself to snap out of it. "I thought OK, you're depressed and unhappy, but you have to make this record. It's what Tore would want." Work on new songs began, slowly at first. She started a club called Pop Til You Drop in Bergen, where she played old New York disco, new-wave punk, weird Japanese dance music and all manner of pop with strange edges.
"I find DJs who only play what people want to hear really boring." she says. "Sometimes you have a feeling that an unusual record will work better than a more obvious choice. If you are mixing slightly weird records that you really like, along with stuff that is easier and that everyone wants to listen to, then you'll have the perfect evening. Sometimes you have to empty the floor to fill it up again."
Annie would ring people she knew or friends of friends to ask them to DJ.Finnish musician and producer Timo Kaukolampi was one of those who said yes and travelled to Bergen. He asked Annie to contribute vocals to some tracks he was working on. She liked what he was doing. "I asked him if he'd work with me on the record and luckily, he said yes. It started out for fun and then it just got better and better."
Timo produced nine of the tracks on the album, but there was still room for some of Annie's other little helpers to lend a hand. She called her friends Röyksopp and they gave their all for three tracks.
She also got in touch with Richard X, the London producer who had wanted Annie to sing on his X-Factor Volume One album. He worked with her on two tracks, one of which is the sassy, melt-in-your-mouth pop diamond Chewing Gum. "He's an amazing producer, a wonderful fellow. I'm inspired by old disco and weird electronic music and he can see the pop angles in all of that."
All that was left to do, then, was wrap the album in a big bright bow and send it out into the world. It's dedicated to Tore, and Annie wants it to sell a million copies. "I'm very much a perfectionist and that's why it took so long," she says. "But you should be a perfectionist when you make music, because then it's good music. I know it's not cool to say I want to sell a million records, but I do want to sell a million records!
"I know what I want, and I will work hard to get it. Not many pop stars are prepared to work. It's scary to suddenly be at the centre of all this attention, but I've spent my entire life thinking about this album, and now I've made it and it's been really, really worth the wait."
Everything that happens to Annie from now on is a brand new experience. She has a band and she's preparing for live shows and the summer festival circuit. She hasn't done it before so she's nervous. The first few shows have been OK, though. Even better than OK, she admits. One of them was at a Norwegian music convention in February.
"The reaction was amazing," she says. "Really amazing. The venue was packed and there were people standing at the front screaming at me. I'm not the best yet, and it's very challenging, but I thought it was going to be a lot worse. I even did that thing where you go down and run your hands along the front, like they do on Top of the Pops!"
Annie giggles. She's lost in music, too and, thankfully, there's no turning back.
Anniemal is on 679/Warner Music. If you only buy one supersonic pop album by a Norwegian this week, make sure it's this one
