Book Review: "Songs from Sweden": Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry by Ola Johannson (2020)

This is the accepted version of an original book review for Songs from Sweden: Shaping Pop Culture in a Globalized Music Industry by Ola Johannson (xvii and 169 pp.; maps, ills., notes, index. Singapore: Palgrave Pivot, 2020. $59.99 (cloth), isbn 9789811527357.). The book review is published in the peer-reviewed journal Geographical Review and is currently available online ahead-of-print (see Resource DOI).

This book provides a comprehensive history of Swedish popular music and its successes and describes how this country’s music industry gained widespread prestige as it was/is interwoven into a global network through circulation, reputation, and hybridity (three theories that Johannson fully defines and contextualizes). In this review, I provide a summary of the book and discuss appropriate settings in which this book can be used for educational and/or recreational reading purposes.

Overall, the book presents an incredibly important contribution to the subfields of music geography and economic geography, helping provide a case study in which we can better understand the impact of globalization and cultural circulation on popular culture.

This book review was written in context to my background as a music geography and cultural geography researcher. I present no ethical or legal conflicts of interest in writing this book review.