Fanny Avonne's debut album reflects the change in Swedish pop structure

Much has been said about Veronica Maggio's pervasive influence on Swedish pop. Hardly a single female album debutant in the last 15 years has sung in the mother tongue without a clear influence from there. When 25-year-old Tiktok breakthrough Fanny Avonne now releases her first full-length, she is, on the other hand, more interesting to understand from a more important structural shift in Swedish music: the erosion of cultural support, the weakening of student unions and the market's increasingly lonely role as a nursery for the artists of the future.

Molly Sandén, Molly Hammar, Ida-Lova, Viktor Leksell, Benjamin Ingrosso, Omar Rudberg, Felix Sandman and Zara Larsson. The most famous of Generation Z's Swedish pop stars have all been embedded in the music industry since childhood. One of these is precisely Fanny Avonne, who got her first recording contract as a child and moved alone to the United States in her teens to pursue a career. The debut album "What do I do now?" sounds against that background like a kind of letter to one's own, younger self.

A young, Swedish debutant appears meticulously drilled from a long background in the industry, where the person concerned has learned all the tricks

Here, Avonne appears as a wise older sister. With her soft, rich voice, she guides the listener through heartbreak and doubt, singing that "time heals all wounds". The setting has touches of jazz and wise, without for the sake of easing away from the center of gravity in contemporary, Swedish pop. In "Växtvärk" the ambitions unfold, borrowing from the coolest soul when the orchestra is allowed to raise the roof in the chorus. It is, according to all the rules of art, well-made music.

So what is the problem? Well, it happens a little too often like this nowadays. A young, Swedish debutant appears meticulously drilled from a long background in the industry, where the person concerned has learned all the tricks. Including the advanced art of coming across as emotionally sincere. The result is unassailably qualitative, but no matter how much they themselves think they are tearing up their chests, they find it difficult to deliver something that feels truly their own. Too much is cast in the same mold.

It is a development that should worry the advocates of more private capital in culture most of all. Because the irony is that just competent alignment is the death of all culture. This also applies to the market's beloved, Swedish "music wonder".