Cecilia Vennersten

Will Göteborg's Cecilia Vennersten end up as a "One Album Wonder?"

If so, she will nonetheless be remembered. For the 1995 self named album, Cecilia Vennersten, is a perfect expression of a sound, and the sound is visceral. The connection to ABBA is indirect, but unstrained. Cecilia's album is produced, and in the main written, by One More Time. In turn, One More Time is the current pop group iteration of Benny Andersson's son Peter Grönwall.

The featured song on the album is the hugely popular Det Vackraste. [One More Time would later include the music, with different lyrics, on their own album, Living in a Dream.] The Swedish lyric suffers when directly translated, but this is of little moment for those who don't speak that language, because the voice floats perfectly as a featured instrument in a rapturous orchestral prayer. You simply don't have to know Swedish to love this song. As a single, Det Vackraste deservedly went to No. 1 in Sweden. About it, Cecilia has said:

I didn't [ever expect the song to be so big]. It was the first song I worked with [with One More Time as producers].... Det vackraste was a different song. Many people were very skeptical when it was played, but it turned out that in the end it made it, and that's the best thing that can happen to a song.
[In the first album] I did more what others had planned for me. I was completely new to [to recording] and didn't say very much. I wanted to record an album. I think the wave of Nordic music has passed now. After all it's been two years since I released that album and so much else have come out of that music, so now it's time for me to develop [musically].

On Cecilia Vennersten, One More Time's characteristic version of this "Nordic" wall of sound is fully explicated, with more power, variety, and success than in One More Time's own albums through that date. Not surprisingly, both Nanne Grönwall and Maria Rådsten (of OMT) contribute backup vocals. Nanne has also provided the Swedish lyrics for the English songs. Five of the cuts were released as singles.

The album sold over 90,000 copies in Sweden, and Det Vackraste won the 1995 Grammis (Swedish Grammy equivalent) for Best Song. Vennersten shows range: her voice is frequently husky, sometimes kittenish. She is not overwhelmed by the production.

I have played this album to Americans who speak no Swedish, and they have immediately asked for a copy, or for advice how to buy it.

The final cut, is as superb as Det Vackraste. Lämnad I Mörkret is a cover of Jim Steinman's Left in the Dark (1981).Nanne Gronwall, Benny Andersson's daughter in law and a force behind One More Time is credited with providing the Swedish lyric. In Lämnad I Mörkret, a young woman has realized that her boyfriend is cheating on her. She knows she should deal with it, and she wants the honesty of confirmation, but she cannot bring herself to demand these. It is all a bit turgid, and possibly over the top, but it certainly works for me, even in Swedish.

Although my Swedish is limited, it seems to me that the Swedish text is very close to the English lyric, although in Cecilia's version the genders of the singer and lover are, of course, transposed.

Revised November 16, 1999
My thanks to Claes Davidson for the translation of the 1998 Cecilia Vennersten interview, and to Lax for providing me the Steinman lyric to Left in the Dark; and to Cecilia Vennersten for word about her next album.

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