The 2000's
So how did this decade turn out? Maybe it’s little too soon to tell. It only just ended, after all. There are bad times all over the world. War, terrorism and scary infections going around, and to top it all off an economic crisis. Which makes it even more necessary for us to have good music, movies and books.
Avril Lavigne. Anastacia. Samantha Mumba. These are some of the performers we’ve seen in the 00’s. Many performers who were great in the 90’s were still as good in the 00’s. Pet Shop Boys is a great example of the latter. In Sweden we have Martin Stenmarck. That guy is a marvel. Hot, sexy, nice, and a good singer too. Andreas Johnson is another good Swedish singer. So is Niclas Wahlgren. Towards the end of the decade we got the very young but talented Johan Palm with his hit song EmmaLee. That’s the first good song I’ve heard for ages.
So what about the music? The boy bands were still going strong. Some girls who wrote their own music appeared. That’s good work. But we straight females need some eye candy too. And popular music in general is in bad shape. The copyright disagreements are causing trouble everywhere. Will pop- and rock music die after celebrating its 50th anniversary? Only the future will tell.
If that happens, there’s even more reason to appreciate the classical music. Though the copyright troubles might spread there too. If you have the talent, make your own music and stay away from the major music companies. No, they don’t live under your bed, but they do seem to be just about everywhere else.
What about the fashion? Well, look around. Check out one of the ubiquitous fashion blogs (yawn!). The hair… What do I know? Short, long, ugly, pretty – wear it any way you like. I’m not really good at fashion.
The Lord of the Ring- series, Pirates of the Caribbean, Chocolat, Italian for beginners, The two Narnia movies and towards the very end of the decade, Sherlock Holmes are some of the great movies we’ve seen so far this decade. State of Play is a really great tv series made in the UK and so is Being Human. Young Lions from Australia is fantastic too. The US can still produce some good tv series, like American Dreams, Cold Case, Veronica Mars and Heroes. Actors include Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, Simon Rex, Jamie Bamber and Johnny Depp (who actually started out in the 80’s, but is really enjoying a time of greatness right now). Others I can mention are John Simm, James McAvoy, Aidan Turner, Milo Ventimiglia, Sendhil Ramamurthy, William Moseley and the younger Noah Gray-Cabey and Georgie Henley. Also, let’s not forget Emma Thompson, Geena Davis and Michelle Williams.
Movies we’ve seen so far here in Sweden include Den Bästa Sommaren, Jalla Jalla, Livet är en schlager, Tillsammans, Kattbreven, Kyrkogårdsön, Stormen (a really good movie). On tv we were watching Kommissarie Winter, Cleo, De Drabbade, The Grave, Laura Trenter’s mysteries for kids and Tusenbröder. One actor I’d like to mention is Niclas Wahlgren (though we’ve seen far too little of him) but also Eric Ericson, Eva Röse, Vanna Rosenberg, Eagle Eye Cherry and the much younger Embla Hjulström.
