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Three Albums That Changed My Life: Olsson

Stockholm artist Olsson recently released his debut single Hold On featuring Mapei, described as “a battle song about when you’re struggling to find purpose and meaning when the world around you is falling apart. It’s about when you thought you lost the fight, but you find a new way out.”

It’s not that often we find ourselves so enamoured with the very first song of a new project, but perhaps Olsson isn’t your average artist. Before kicking off his solo project, Olsson had collaborated with other producers and artists including Lionel Richie, Icona Pop and Charli XCX, and he shares a studio with INGRID, a Swedish powerhouse artist collective, which also includes Lykke Li, Peter Bjorn and John and Miike Snow.

Olsson is set to release an EP, Hold On on August 17, ahead of which we wanted to learn a bit more about the music that influenced him.

Donavan, Hurdy Gurdy Man

My dad (who’s also a boogie-woogie piano player) introduced this album to me when I was a kid. This is probably the album I listened to the most in my entire life. It was always on in our house, in the car and my mom used to hum the saxophone hook on Get Thy Bearings when she made dinner. And there’s still not a day that goes by when I don’t hum that saxophone hook.  


That vibrato!

Primal Scream, Screamadelica

If I point out one album that started the spark of OLSSON, it’s without a doubt Screamadalica. I was 14 when it got out and got my mind blown away, went to Reading festival (my first festival), got robbed by a gunman and had my first acid trip. All to the soundtrack of this magic piece of work. The album introduced me to the whole Manchester scene in the 90s which pretty much changed my musical direction in life.

Sonic Youth, Dirty

From being mad about tennis and having John McEnroe as my biggest idol, I got my head blown away after seeing 100% on MTV (at a friend’s place, we had no cable). I bought a bass guitar, a distortion pedal, started wearing t-shirts over long sleeves, fell in love with Kim Gordon and started my first band. Easy.

Image: Supplied