Song of the Day

Buy Song: Happy Up Here at iTunes
Buy Album: Junior at iTunes

Röyksopp, which literally means “smoke mushroom” in Norwegian and makes me sound like I’m speaking English backwards with a lisp, is a two man group which crawled out of a massive rocky snowbank in northern Europe, also known as Norway, in 1998. This song is from their 3rd album called “Junior” which released in 2009, and their latest album “Senior” came out this year. Also check out the music video to their song What Else is There?

I love the way the video for this song was produced and synced with the music and lyrics, as well as the video game if you recall from the 80′s. I hadn’t heard of this band until recently, although I had seen the music video to their song “Remind Me” at some point a few years ago. In Europe everyone has heard of them, but in the US I think they’re just starting to crack mainstream awareness. I wonder if just having a name with an umlaut vowel (a vowel with two dots above it) scares most Americans away, the same way most Americans tend to not like watching movies with subtitles. Because the name of the band has no recognizable meaning or association in English I think it’s also harder for people to remember, and when it’s told to someone like, “Hey you should check out this band Röyksopp”, I don’t think the listener is going to be able to have anything to associate it with in their mind let alone begin to know how to type the thing in a google search. I think these small heterogeneous linguistic and cultural dynamics have played against them for the last decade, but they are still building fans in the US.

So, since they probably won’t be changing their name soon, if you want to
share them with a friend I recommend just sending them a link instead of trying to tell them their name.

Band’s website: Royksopp.com

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