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55 albums · 1946–2021

Music of Norway, from Prøysen and Garbarek to a-ha, Bergen's metal and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Morten Harket and Magne Furuholmen of a-ha on stage in Nottingham
Jan Garbarek playing the tenor saxophoneMari Boine singing on stage with her band
Morten Harket and Magne Furuholmen of a-ha in Nottingham on the farewell tour of 2010. Photo: Helen Dearnley, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Jan Garbarek at the Lycabettus theatre in Athens, 2007. Photo: Dimitris Papazimouris, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Mari Boine in Ravnedalen, Kristiansand, 2017. Photo: Jørund Føreland Pedersen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Norway's popular music begins for most listeners with a visa, the songs Alf Prøysen and Lillebjørn Nilsen sang to a guitar, and beside them the jazz Oslo gave the world, Jan Garbarek's Afric Pepperbird and Dis, Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Nils Petter Molvær's Khmer; the eighties brought a-ha's Hunting High and Low, deLillos and DumDum Boys, the nineties the black metal of Mayhem, Darkthrone and Emperor around Oslo and of Immortal in Bergen, Motorpsycho from Trondheim, Mari Boine's joik and Annbjørg Lien's Hardanger fiddle, and after them Röyksopp's Melody A.M., Kings of Convenience, Todd Terje, Susanne Sundfør, Aurora, Sigrid, Karpe and girl in red, with Leif Ove Andsnes playing Grieg's Lyric Pieces. The list has 55 records from 1946 to 2021, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Prøysen is here as the collection Deezer has of his own recordings, and Grieg and most of the classical tradition, the dansband halls, the Sámi joik beyond Mari Boine and the choirs would each need a list of their own. About 45 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Pop 13%Rock 11%Folk & Country 10%Other 66%
  • Pop 13%
  • Rock 11%
  • Folk & Country 10%
  • Other 66%

The genres named most: norwegian, pop, rock, folk, electronic, black metal.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Norway 55. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1940s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.