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Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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For while there still exists Bulgarian, Finnish, and Portugese musicians, their reach is limited to their own countries, and even there US artists are more popular.

No, not really. The top 5 singles and albums for the last week in records in Finland, at least, were entirely Finnish artists (I don't know most of them but then again I'm almost 40), and this list of best-selling music artists is also in great majority Finnish. Taylor Swift is actually pretty invisible here, it's only due to the massive media attention in America making her a thing in the US that I've recently seen some mentions of her by locals.

Same thing in Sweden. Only one artist in the top 10 was non-swedish in 2023.

Top 10 2023:

  1. Ikväll Igen – Bolaget
  2. Kan Inte Gå – Bolaget
  3. Tattoo – Loreen
  4. Flowers – Miley Cyrus
  5. Rid Mig Som En Dalahäst – Rasmus Gozzi, Fröken Snusk
  6. Har Dig – Yasin
  7. Can't Tame Her – Zara Larsson
  8. Banan Melon Kiwi & Citron – Hooja
  9. Josefin – Albin Lee Meldau
  10. Hälsa Gud – Miss Li

Wait, are both #1 and #2 songs about liquor stores?

That's the artist. Both the songs are about being extremely drunk though..

To be clear though, I've not listened to any of the songs of the list even once until now except for the Loreen song during Eurovision.