En åben snak med sangerinde Karen Rosenberg om hendes passion for musik .
En åben snak med sangerinde Karen Rosenberg om hendes passion for musik .
Welcome to Museo Lokal podcast, thank you, and how it enriches their lives. Every week, I invite a new guest to talk about their relationship to music and how they live and influence the music Insight, inspiration and, hopefully, some fun and exciting surprises. Welcome to the Museum and Locale podcast Music Meet Drug and welcome to Karen Rosenberg, thank you. Earlier just Karen, yes, or just Karen Just it didn't you have? Earlier just Karen? Yes, or just Karen Just? It didn't sound very good, peter, karen, we know each other a little yes, we do, and have met a few times.
Speaker 1:Over a long, long time.
Speaker 2:Over 24 years. Yes, can you remember the first time? No, no, I thought so. I can actually. No, I thought so. Can you? I can actually. Oh, okay, it's exactly 24 years ago. Yes, where you were just released with your first album. Yes, and you were supposed to perform on P3. Yes, in. Funktion maybe no, no, no, no, it's before that. It's the portal in Greve. Maybe, yes, until Saturday morning, something called With Jesper Bernds, yes, do you remember that? Not at all. We'll meet there.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, we'll meet there. It's a little over a year ago.
Speaker 2:It's 24 years ago, Karen. I'll tell you two things.
Speaker 1:Yes, tell me I have two other things.
Speaker 2:You're the only one who's responsible for me stealing something.
Speaker 1:Okay. Is that something I've been asked to do?
Speaker 2:No, you haven't been asked to do it but I stole it voluntarily, the only time I've stolen in my life. Okay, and then you're the only one who, apart from my mother and my wife, has comforted me so much where I was so scared.
Speaker 1:Oh, it sounds pretty wild, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, that we don't really know each other. That well, yes, well, but Karen, 24 years back, but I think that's two wild things but also in a way, it's great that I've gotten you there. You've gotten me out of where it's worst, obviously.
Speaker 1:Yes, I can feel that.
Speaker 2:Karen, 24 years ago the first album came out. It does. You became Denmark's R&B queen. I do you were nominated for three Grammys on the very first album. Yes, and you won. Yes, I won one. You won one.
Speaker 1:Yes, how did all this start? Well, it started with me wanting to make R&B in Danish, and that hadn't been done before, and that started with me finding out how I was supposed to do it in 1997 or something. Yes, I loved American R&B, but I always wanted to sing in Danish. I always wrote in Danish, and it wasn't because I had written a billion songs before, but I've written songs since I was little. So it's and I've been able to sing since I was little.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I've really gotten a huge love for this genre. Siden er jeg også for lille Og har så virkelig fået en kæmpe kærlighed til den her genre. Som rullede undergrund kan man sige, altså, det var jo ikke noget, der blev spillet på radiostationerne, som sådan Ikke endnu.
Speaker 2:Det kommer sådan lige efter Det begynner.
Speaker 1:det er sådan Lauryn Hill kommer ud med Miseducation of Lauren Hill, which was a huge, groundbreaking record, and then it started to roll all this modern soul you could call it the modern R&B the electronic part of modern soul and I wanted to do it in Danish. And all that very explicit way of expressing myself, expressed themselves, was super cool. I had listened a lot to Salt-N-Pepa and Vogue and so on.
Speaker 1:It was just in your face and I really liked it and I tried to find someone. I had lived in Singapore, had come home to Denmark and I'm not Copenhagen, had moved to Copenhagen, didn't know anyone, but I knew someone from Helsingør, where I had lived when I was younger, and tried to make some demos with them and it wasn't quite like I wanted to have it, but it was at least a set-up. And then I contacted some different record companies One of them was EMI and they said we think you have something, so we'll put you together with some different people. And one of them was him who was in White Chocolate, called Lasse, and him who's called Saki, who's a producer and also produced for Atlantis or was involved with Atlantis at that time.
Speaker 2:It was mostly at the same time. You came right. It was completely at the same time. You were actually in the same program there. It was completely the same. You were actually in the same program there.
Speaker 1:Yes, because we followed each other a lot in the beginning, because we came out on the same stage about four months in between and we also played in the same studio, sake out in Vandelys, and then we clicked with the same and they really wanted to put me together with all kinds of others, but I clicked so well with them that we said it should be us three that should make my record. And I think EMI was a bit too. It wasn't poppy enough.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And then I said, okay, then I won't sign with you. And then it ended with that. I made a whole bunch of demos and was signed to BMG and that's how the record came out. Daniel Vangsgaard yes, he was my promoter Very, very, very young.
Speaker 2:Very young AKF radio promoter. It was him we were through when we got you on the radio program.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. It was a very self-taant way to get into the music industry.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it was right when you think it's your first record you're going to make and you think you're pretty stuck on what you want to do with it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I have made demos in several Now. I'm saying I haven't written as much as I had written and I had also recorded different numbers, but some from the musical environment I knew in Helsingør and Isbergære and was offered my first record contract when I was 16.
Speaker 2:So I was still 9 years old.
Speaker 1:And that's also because there were just so many record makers in the course of my first meeting with the record industry who thought they should have a meaning about me. And that had. I mean, why would they do that? So I've always been against that, so that's why it was the right time. When that record came out, I was 25. And I was well not an adult, but I was an adult woman who knew what she wanted. We wrote it ourselves.
Speaker 2:There was no one else, and that's the first thing that comes to mind in the R&B genre not in Danish. We've, of course, had solo music from Danish, but we've never had the classic R&B we know from the USA. No, that was the first Danish-born R&B we know from the USA right.
Speaker 1:No, that was the first Danish-born R&B that came out. There have been some English editions from Danish artists, including Shirley and.
Speaker 2:Yasmin, if you remember, yes, that can be good From the late 80s, I think Some soul power things right.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right, but the first time it was in Danish.
Speaker 2:Yes, wow, yes. And where does this interest come from for music and singing and such things? Is it something you are taught? Is there music there, where you grow up?
Speaker 1:We had a piano at home and both my parents play really good piano.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I have never gone gone to it myself. I was with Helsingør, pigeard played the horn and trumpet. Yes, thank you. I didn't go to a special music school. I went to a private school that was much more civil than artistic. But I went to what was called Asperger Youth School, which meant a lot for my musical development, because there was something called Star Show, I think, once a week, where you could stand up and sing what you wanted to and then there was a band and there I got tested what I was good at and what I wasn't good at. And were you brave? I was fucking brave.
Speaker 2:Nice, that's something we've all been through our whole lives that we weren't have At least that time I think I can see that now when I look back.
Speaker 1:I'm perhaps not so brave on other points, but that just really hurt me and I can also remember that. So of course there were currents. There was a huge American wave which you could say was up through the 80's, but also the start of the 90's, where I was a teenager. Which we ate, it was too unsweet, all that American pop culture, MTV and music videos and all that it was booming at some point.
Speaker 1:And for me it was, of course, the more soulful part of it, and maybe it was also because I was good at singing and practiced a lot.
Speaker 2:And you know that early on, or do you discover that early on?
Speaker 1:I discover early on that it's something I can do and that others also think I can do and then I've just improved a lot, and that's also been to something like Whitney Houston, and even though I might not be able to sing it, it's a way to push yourself to be, better at singing, but I also loved Madonna, Janet Jackson with Rhythm Nation.
Speaker 1:I remember I heard on repeat Prince, a lot of Prince, but then I also. The older I got, the more I found out how much influence my older brother had. Yes, you could say he was three years older than me. I had this what can you say? Popped angle on music. No, we share Prince, him and I.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But he, we had relationships up against each other and he has always gone insanely high up in music and had a record player I didn't have to use because of the pick-up and all that.
Speaker 2:But you never had to with your siblings' things.
Speaker 1:I've talked about. Frankie Goes to Hollywood with. Welcome to the Pleasure Dome and. You Read, and Men Without Hats or Simple Minds. It's also from him I have my first record. Maxi Sinklin'. Hey you, the Rocksteady Crew. Yeah, that's right and he got the doors opened to something other than what I saw on MTV. Can you say yes, Also because he was older than me.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and that's what you look up to a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, even though we were like friends and I also thought it was very annoying. I can feel the openness about music and being able to hear that music is cool, even though it's from many different angles. Yes, exactly, and still to this day, if I hear Safety Dance or Relax or War or anything with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, it's just as much my youth as Like a Prayer with Madonna is.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's only a few years before.
Speaker 1:You're not a special guy. You're 7-8 years old, yes, but he played it and because he's always been so interested in music and still is, and a part of it. I don't know if you know it. It's called Bongo Rama Music no. I don't know. He has always been. I mean always knows what's going on and knows all kinds of underground music and is mega up-to-date also today. So he's been a kind of a bridge builder for me. I think. Retro-perspectively.
Speaker 2:I can say yeah, that's something you say afterwards.
Speaker 1:You could like your brother right.
Speaker 2:First when you grow up, you can like your brother.
Speaker 1:And then you can say when I started with the whole R&B because that genre was new it was a lot of what filled it. And that was also what I was. I mean, I was the first to come out with it, so it became a lot of that and it became a lot of that environment.
Speaker 2:And that's also super cool.
Speaker 1:I mean, we nerded it all the way in. Yeah, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like 10. It's ten years later. And how was it to follow up on this If you've nominated the three Grammys and won one, and it's your first album and you've been on the mark for all of it and said it's supposed to be like this, and it's me who's written it all, I've been part of it all how was it to follow up on something like that? I think you're still. We say you're grown up, but you're grown up but you're 25 years old.
Speaker 2:There's some success and something that both should be controlled, but also should be followed up on. And what? Did it create, do you think?
Speaker 1:Yes, it actually ended with me leaving BMG and I left the two songs I read because we wanted different directions and in relation to my own music, which has always been super uncompromising and been just as happy with what market forces and all sorts of things said. I should.
Speaker 2:I also think a little about the pressure that lies on oneself when you have done your best, and that's what you do when you do something. But then you make such a good record, you get so much recognition for the record. They put pressure on oneself too. I think To the next record company, don't they.
Speaker 1:I didn't feel it right. Oh, how cool I mean I felt To do to stillness. I mean like when am I now? That's what I'm supposed to do yes, and that's been my starting point Just since. So you're still very brave Within that. Yes, and that has been my starting point just recently.
Speaker 2:So you're still very brave inside of that. Yes, maybe I don't know, but I'm just thinking, because I've made music myself and I think the times where we've been close or where there have been some songs that went really well and things like that, then you'd be good, you'd be good there?
Speaker 1:anyway, I think yes, man skulle godt man ville godt lidt derhen, alligevel synes jeg.
Speaker 2:Ja altså, Selv om vi gerne ville lave det vi altså ja, det, vi brænder for det vi brænder, for så ville man alligevel også. Det er jo noget I den der erkendelse eller den der. Hvad hedder det respekt man får på det man har lavet, because?
Speaker 1:my second record came four years later and it was. It was also a big success and I also played on Roskilde with it.
Speaker 2:So it was.
Speaker 1:I think when you get such a big success from the start, it only goes up in some way.
Speaker 2:It's only later that you find out. Sometimes it goes down because it can't be that we go up.
Speaker 1:That's how it works. So it's more like what do I want to do? What kind of sound do I want to have?
Speaker 2:What kind of music do I want to have?
Speaker 1:What kind of what do I want to do myself? What kind of sound do I want to have? What do I want to convey? That's been it. And it's also that when you're both a creative and an extrovert artist at the same time, then it has to be right, or? At least that's how I feel. I have to feel my heart because it's me. That's what you have to do all the time. I agree.
Speaker 2:That's why it can be. Now it sounds like you've been insanely strong in that area compared to the place you're in, because you can be pressed insanely hard to say we lack a hit or we lack that and I think we should do more of this. But it sounds like you've been insanely strong to say I'm burning for this and I believe that what I'm doing here is right.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I've also done that and it's also something with the fact that again, to go back to someone who wants to decide over you, I really don't care. No, that's the only thing I care about, so it's with you and someone who comes and says I think you Should be in a different way, or you should sing in a different way, it should be more in this direction. Then I have it like it's me. Who knows it? It's my songs, it's me who sings? Them.
Speaker 2:So Then you don't need Some stupid record label, no.
Speaker 1:A record label man that should say no, and that's why I made my own record After that you did After the first two records After the first one After the first one yes, wow, because you make four R&B albums, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the last three, they come from you.
Speaker 1:The last or the second and third come together with Vagn, who I make music with, and also Kerstin, in that period where we have a record company together, top Hund.
Speaker 2:Yes, like that.
Speaker 1:And then I'm signed to Universal with my fourth record. Yes, and I'm there on that record.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And now I have a record company again, which I only have completely alone.
Speaker 2:Yes, because there's one or the other thing when you are making record number five. I have read about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, there is what is going on. Yes, what the hell is going on. Well, after my no, also a little before, my fourth record I have, for the first time I have also I have not only made my own records, I've also made collaborations with Svendstrup Vennelboe and Rune Erko and I spend a lot of time on that. We're really out on many discos around Denmark.
Speaker 2:A hard chance, I think.
Speaker 1:It's almost several years that we're still here every weekend and it's super funny and fun to try more years than we still have every weekend and it's super funny and fun to try. Then I start to be a top liner, that is, to write for others and thus also to write in English, and I think it's actually quite fun Because I get to run for something other than something that is me, where it's all so centered and needle nagel-piller-y, then I can put that away and say now I just have to write something.
Speaker 1:And I've actually also been to England, korea and out to write. And then I get a son and that can't be accompanied by the top-line and world heavy life.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And then I just sit and write, as I've always done. I sit in the music program called Pro Tools, which I've done for many years, and write my demos. I've written some different things in English which are my own feelings and my own texts. And then I was like shit man, that's fucking jazz what I've written. And then I was like shit man, it's good as jazz what I've written. Okay. And then I was like, okay, well then I'll go with it. Wow, and then yeah, then I contacted some jazz musicians and asked them if they wanted to be part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and breaks completely out of R&B and breaks completely out of all that and goes from being called Karen to being called Karen Rosenberg.
Speaker 1:Simply, I'm going to take after the name yes, you should Also, because it's in English. So all of a sudden there's also a larger audience you could say, and that's a whole other way than I've been used to playing. Where I've been with my previous editions I've been very studio-like. It's there also that the music has been created because it's electronic and so on. So this is a completely different way of going to the studio, because it's we practice until we're in the studio, then we go to the studio and then we record the numbers all together in the room, live on tape three or four times, take the best and that's it Okay wow.
Speaker 1:And that's another way.
Speaker 2:That's another way than sitting and clipping and clipping.
Speaker 1:he said and also in relation to how I sing. I'm not going to do some crazy phrasing and all that stuff, but I just keep it down. The text is recited in the music. So, it's, and that's also me.
Speaker 2:But is it the grown-up Karen that comes there?
Speaker 1:for 11 years.
Speaker 2:No, but I've heard the jazz record. Actually it's from 1922, if that's okay and it's very personal in a way.
Speaker 1:It's all a diary.
Speaker 2:Yes, about separation, about sharing children about.
Speaker 1:What do you call it now the?
Speaker 2:children are sleeping. Now we about? What do you call it?
Speaker 1:now the children sleep now we can, and what do I know? That's how I've heard them in any case, yes, that was it Okay good.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking is it also because you get your sons and something else comes into your life than can you say Arne Biendahl, I know you sing about sing your own personal lyrics in them, but it's a different output when you've had children and you become a different person.
Speaker 1:I simply don't know. But the starting point for me as a creative artist it's always been a gut feeling Just go with it, with what I have inside, and then follow it.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's very cool.
Speaker 1:And that has both done that. But I'm not afraid of changing genres and so on. There hasn't been any conscious action about it. No, I just went with it.
Speaker 2:But what you wanted instead, and have you infected your old audience and gotten a new one? I know that actually.
Speaker 1:But it's nice that there are many who listen to it, and that's nice, of course.
Speaker 2:Do you play with it too?
Speaker 1:Yes, I have, but not very much, and I would like to play a lot more.
Speaker 2:Have you played with DR Speakplane?
Speaker 1:No not with this one, but I have played with them. But I have played for a few arrangements afterwards, but I haven't been on tour yet. No, why? Well, to be honest, it's because, yes, I'm like I'm standing for everything myself now. Because, I'm also a playwright.
Speaker 2:A playwright and a woman and also both a writer and A coordinator and a player and a booker, if necessary, and so on.
Speaker 1:I have one who is like on my team called Henrik Fuglsang, and it's him who sits and like puts it out on the different streaming services. He's totally crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's him you should go to if you're going to put something on Spotify.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad he wants me in his bag.
Speaker 2:Because that's him you use right now, if you don't? Because before that you had a record company that distributes your stuff and stuff like that. I think that might have been difficult before he, for example, came up with streaming channels, Isn't that? Because the first two records you make at your own company, do you have to go out and distribute them yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we have. We have a distribution agreement with Playground at that time.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So we're not standing, but we're standing for printing in Germany, as we were then, and all that cover art and all that which has become a lot cheaper.
Speaker 2:It's become a little different and Henrik is really good at translating it into the right playlists and things like that.
Speaker 1:But to book myself there's, maybe I'm not brave enough.
Speaker 2:There is a lack of that, yes, where I'm maybe brave enough on my feelings and my musical direction.
Speaker 1:So it's about me having to book myself. That's the hard part. So I have to find a booker.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can understand that. But I think you're brave enough that the choices you've made by saying I want this, I can understand that. But I think you're brave in that the choices you've made to say I want this, I don't want to be on the first record because you don't want what I want, I want the next and now I want to make it myself and I don't want to be with those you actually made the first record with. You really make some hard choices, I think. As a 26-year-old, I think that's quite impressive. But I can understand that it can be difficult to call and say that they want to book you.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's completely on you. So there are some things where I feel like I'm coming to a dead end and it's okay that. I don't know everything.
Speaker 2:Yes that's how it is. Are there any family restrictions? You told me before that your girlfriend, who you have been with For seven years now.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have some children that we have made together. You have some children.
Speaker 2:Both on the cross and across. There is also some that needs to be coordinated.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's how it is.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I have been a musician All my life, yes, so it's just a part of my life. Yes, and then we find out when it or you of my life, and then we find out when it culminates, or you know it doesn't culminate. That's a wrong word but when I'm out playing or something, then you find out.
Speaker 2:Yes, and how do you try to impress the children with music?
Speaker 1:Well, I try to play everything I can like, yes, but I would also say that they have a lot of their own music taste.
Speaker 2:Yes, on TikTok or something.
Speaker 1:No, no, they're not old enough yet. But for example, my son, he loves, for example, pt Enya with Sail Away. Wow, and it's not because it's one that I've played for him, no, no, he heard it somewhere and just thought it was weird. Yes, no, no. I also think you should give your children freedom. I would never force him to go to something or get him. Should you be a musician?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I could never think of that. No, that's not what I'm thinking about. It's more about discovering the music and the love that both you and I have for music. I haven't tried to praise my children, but I've tried that there was music and it was the actual things instead of it, som både du og jeg har til musik, har jeg da prøvet?
Speaker 1:jeg har ikke prøvet at præge mine børn, men jeg har da prøvet, at der var musik og det var tilgængeligt, tingene I stedet for. Altså, vi hører meget forskellig musik derhjemme Og min kæreste, han er virkelig sådan en altså 70'er rock folk, så det er noget rock folk. So it's something completely different, right? Yes, where it's well, he's not alone, he's all kinds of people.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of music.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I think also, at some point it's a bit of a difference and as I can also feel from my older brother, that You've been deprived of your older brother. There's something coming in right.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you had parents who played. You get into something. Yes, and you had parents who played as well, so you have also been deprived of a certain degree of freedom.
Speaker 1:But they have never said that I should have tried to press myself in a musical direction.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And I think that in reality, in relation to children and to be a musician, where you can say there is a big difference in the idea of what it is to be on a stage, skulle være musiker hvor man kan sige der er stor forskel på ideen om hvad det er at stå på en scene og så rent faktisk leve det liv som der følger med og skulle stå på den scene. Og det skal simpelthen komme indenfra.
Speaker 2:Og det skal jo være lyst.
Speaker 1:Det kan man ikke sige nu skal du. Altså, jeg får helt kriller hvis det er. I get goosebumps when someone says you have to be a star.
Speaker 2:Stop, stop, stop.
Speaker 1:They have to grow up to find out If they want to be on a stage.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree, I have never pressed my children to do anything. I have tried to help them if I could when they were interested and then give them access. For example, if you were interested in a drum set, then it would be nice to have a drum set in the house. Absolutely, that's what I think is very, very funny.
Speaker 1:You also have to say, hey, try this one, my old trumpet. It's funny, but I could never find a way to force it. No, it's great. And just like you say that there also has to be a painting thing or all sorts of other things so you can develop yourself. My son, he also sits and finds small songs.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1:But I could never find a way to press him to that.
Speaker 2:We have to finish this so we can send it in to someone. Yes, we have to go to Melodik og Brik tomorrow.
Speaker 1:It has to come from yourself. But in reality, I think with that and I think that's also because it's something I've had a lot of joy in is that you hear a lot of different music and that still inspires me in every way. I can remember, when I was in high school, my world was opened to soundtracks, and that has been. You may not be able to hear it in my music, but it has really been a great source of inspiration for me without singing. Yes, I think it started with Hans Zimmer.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then I got a huge love for Thomas Newman and that very emotional way to convey feelings. It's been a huge inspiration for me.
Speaker 2:Yes, have you used it more in jazz?
Speaker 1:than in R&B. No, but I've also used it, maybe for when you're out for a walk to listen to something because it's very emotional, but without being told what I should feel through text.
Speaker 2:It opens up some things your head when you walk, I think that's also special with instrumental music. It can do something.
Speaker 1:And it also applies to classical music. It has, maybe not directly, but inspired many of my chords which I'm finding on Some French romanticists like Satie and Debussy and such piano accords som jeg sidder og finder på, altså sådan nogle franske romantikere som Satie, debussy og sådan nogle klavermennesker tilbage fra over 100 år siden.
Speaker 2:Er det fra forældrene her?
Speaker 1:Ja, det er også fra mine forældre, men så den der med ligesom at åbne op og ikke være lukket, det er I hvert fald noget so that thing about opening up and not being closed. That's something that Closed about one genre that's what I like, so I don't hear anything else, I try to pass that on.
Speaker 2:I can understand that you should. How is it, karen, with the old songs, show Me You're my man and all those things Do they play when you go around and play jazz?
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. It's clear. You know the artists they have. You have to go around and play jazz too. No, I don't think so. It's clear. You know artists, right? No, no, they've sampled Show me you're a man to one of their songs.
Speaker 2:No, I've never heard that. Oh how cool.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean, I had it like this when I was 20 years old. Yes, I had a 20-year anniversary on my debut album some alarm around you. And then Corona came, and then nothing happened. It was the one who got me to steal something.
Speaker 2:Can you remember that?
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 2:steal it? No, I didn't steal it. I stole it on B3, where you had done it live once. Can you remember that? With Funk Show?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that version I can remember. It was a version where we got the chain together with. Dansorkester and it came back to me A fucking cool version when we had made Hold Der Langt Væk fra mig instead of. So it was really pointing fingers up in your face, but Dansorkester didn't want it to come out, so I think it became a bootleg CD that was played all over Denmark.
Speaker 2:It was in B3's archive while I was at B3. I thought, ah, it was in Funkshow, so I stole it.
Speaker 1:I can remember that we would like to give it away, but the Danish orchestra wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I can remember sending it to you.
Speaker 1:It's many years ago, so it's your fault.
Speaker 2:I have stolen the only time I have stolen.
Speaker 1:You have given.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I want to take that with me, but they should not be used anymore. The songs Are you taking a distance from them today?
Speaker 1:I am mega proud of everything. I have done, I am not taking a distance from mega proud of everything I've done.
Speaker 2:I'm not at all away from it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not at all away from it but I I have it mega good with these songs but is it because they're done, when they're done and come out and I mean it is in a way, I have a lot of trouble not giving up on the song and it's a little weird when I sometimes hear something slip på sangen Og det er lidt mærkeligt når jeg nogle gange hører noget. Altså, der kan jo gå mange, mange år imellem at jeg hører noget af det jeg har lavet, hvor jeg, når jeg så hører det, så tænker jeg Gud, har jeg også skrevet det der?
Speaker 2:Man kan godt bli overrasket over det.
Speaker 1:Altså hvor jeg slet ikke kan huske det Eller et eller andet. Nej, men jeg tror mere, at det er jo en anden tid. På en eller anden måde, Jeg er også 24 år yngre.
Speaker 1:Men det er jo en del af din historie, det er totalt meget en del af min historie som jeg også er rigtig stolt af, Og så har jeg jo også skrevet rigtig meget musik der ikke er kommet ud, Det kan man sige a lot of music that hasn't come out, and that can be said. It's one of the things where the music industry really has changed, and that is that there was an enormous strategy in when things came out, how it came out, who you featured on or not featured on, and I said like no to everything. The first year Okay, there was, I got offers from A lot of rappers.
Speaker 1:To say when it came out If I didn't want to sing a song when I said I don't want to. I only sing what I sing. I don't want to sing your feelings, I want to sing my feelings.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be your lady who's standing at the side. No, I'm standing here alone and I'm fine with that. Yeah, but I've also written a lot of things that have been held, because it would fit with the next album, where today, you just send out everything single. And sometimes I can be a little sad that there are some songs that were really good but didn't come out.
Speaker 2:That never got finished or didn't come out at least.
Speaker 1:There's actually a special song that I made with Rune RK. There's actually a special song I made with Rune RK it must have been 10-11 songs when we knew this was the bomb and he wanted to put it on his record and I was like I want to save it for my next record. And I was also offered when they heard it Can we make it into a duet? I can sing. You know I had it like that's my number. We all know we're sitting here with some gold and when I came out with the record, which was probably in 2014 or something, we couldn't get it to fit in because it was a four to the bottom.
Speaker 1:We tried to make it fit in, but it lost its soul man ikke få den til at passe ind på, fordi den havde, altså det var et fire til gulvet. Ja, ja, Og vi prøvede at lave det om så det passede mere ind, men så tabte det liksom sin sjel, og så er det aldrig kommet ud, og det, hvis det havde været I dag. Så er man jo bare sindssygt.
Speaker 2:Jeg skulle også sige er sted med det ikke, it's a bit like a control and it annoys me a little now. So it's actually both a strength and a weakness. Yes, in relation to that number.
Speaker 1:Yes, in relation to that number when I might have been a little more equal.
Speaker 2:But isn't that something you discover when you get a little older?
Speaker 1:Yes, but it has also changed a lot how you express music.
Speaker 2:And quite crazy. There has to be something constant and it has to be all the time and you have to have 16 different features on. It's crazy. My big brother is making R&B today, hip-hop R&B. They're collabing across and sending something out constantly. There's something out all the time and then they use that. Now you're saying were it unknown artists that did it? They use it to take their songs from 20 years ago. It's pretty insane to hear. At that age you think what the hell is going on now.
Speaker 1:It just came out three days ago.
Speaker 2:It's all new you have what the hell is going on now? It just came out three days ago. It was brand new. Now you have to stop. Yes, time goes by a little too fast. Yes, but it's pretty crazy, I think.
Speaker 1:So you could say it made more sense that time that when you came out with an album there were huge rebounds and it was completely thought through because it was so insanely expensive to give.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also because you bought an album To listen to the whole album, and that's not what you do today. Now you have a playlist with the best songs. That's also what Henrik Fuglesang is doing. When you have a song, then it has to fit on this playlist or on this playlist. So it's much more. It's a completely different way To release music today, but of course it's a whole other way of producing music today, but it's of course also become easier.
Speaker 1:It's become a lot easier, and that's cool.
Speaker 2:But has it become harder to promote?
Speaker 1:You don't have a big company behind you no, but there have been other ways. You could say and that's cool, that things can live their own lives. Sometimes it can also wonder me if you see a name you've never seen before, that they're playing in Copenhagen, but it's sold out, so they're playing extra concerts, Even though it hasn't been promoted and doesn't have a huge marketing apparatus behind it, then it's obviously found its way out to a lot of listeners, and I assume that it must be via social media or a streaming service, right?
Speaker 2:I think it is, I mean, absolutely insane, because I've been to several concerts now because my son is playing with me where I've never heard about artists, but there's a full Vega and there are two concerts sold out. I mean, you just think it must be the way people listen to music today via Spotify, tiktok, and how you follow the artists.
Speaker 1:There's one thing, because, apart from being an outstanding and sharp artist, I'm also a radio host. I've been on P8 Jazz and was on P3, which started in 2001. You made Hip Hop R&B with Shirley right, yes, I did, karna Shirley Honey Crook.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right On.
Speaker 1:P3. The first program of that kind on P3. Yes, but now I'm on P8 Jazz and make a solo program called Shell once a month, and before that I did regular jazz radio. And it was like when I started doing solprogram som hedder Sjæl en gang om ugen, og før det lavede jeg almindelig jazzradio. Og det var jo kvæg at jeg begyndte at lave jazz. Så havde det sådan okay, lad mig finde ud af hvad det her det går ud på, og blev ligesom forelsket. Den genre, og det var det jeg lavede der and keep being curious. I mean, can the streaming services both help you with? But at the same time it also comes to a short term, because sometimes I get a little irritated because I use streaming services so much. So it would like to give me something of what I've already heard.
Speaker 2:There's some artificial intelligence that comes to tell you what your interest is.
Speaker 1:And that's cool enough, but it just looks like each other.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:And there you can say it's all that with radio and it's dead and there's no one listening to it. But one of the things that's cool about producing music in that way is that it's curated by a person, so there's something that can come behind you.
Speaker 1:So that's why I get a lot of my I mean half of the new music I experience. I experience it through not only Danish radio stations but also foreign radio stations, where there's someone who says listen to this. It sounds completely crazy, it's different Spotify or iTunes or whoever it is. You listen to Tidal? Never once have they suggested it, no, exactly. But now you're experiencing it here, because there are people who are saying it yes, but that's the problem.
Speaker 2:When I listen to music and have to buy music. There's a website I buy records on today, but it suggests other høremusik og skal købe musik. Det er jo at så er der en side jeg køber plader på I dag, men den foreslår så nogle andre ting. Jeg skal virkelig sætte mig meget ind I det for at finde musikken, hvor man I gamle dage kom I en pladeforretning eller et eller andet og sagde hvad er der? Og så blev du spillet for noget og så wow, hvad?
Speaker 1:er det der.
Speaker 2:I've been looking a lot to find music that sounds great.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I can also see everything. It's because I both use music. My son listens to music on my profiles. I listen to music myself. I also use it when I make radio and so on. So it's enormously different music You're being proposed. Yes, but at the same time, because I also use it to find all kinds of soul numbers. Because I also use it to find all kinds of soul numbers, then it becomes, as I can see it's a lot of what.
Speaker 1:I've liked or put in a playlist or something I should remember or something like that and you have to use some time, you have to study, because an algorithm can never do that for you.
Speaker 2:No, and it doesn't take away the feelings that maybe a song has made that has chosen another song. It's not necessarily the same feelings that it brings to you.
Speaker 1:So it's a difficult challenge, or whatever you want to say because, it's also super cool that it's so accessible.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what you have to say. I'm totally crazy about how accessible it music. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:So I had actually considered if I simply should delete it all to start over. So the algorithm. But I just have so many playlists that would be a little sad.
Speaker 2:Can't you make a new playlist, a new profile?
Speaker 1:I'm just going to investigate a little.
Speaker 2:I had considered it.
Speaker 1:What's going? Going to investigate a little, but I had to consider it. What's going to happen in the future?
Speaker 2:Karen.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to make my next record. Yeah, and that's jazz.
Speaker 2:And are you starting to write?
Speaker 1:I'm starting to write. Yeah, and hopefully soon I'll be recording. Yeah, I'm just going to have to gather those jazz musicians.
Speaker 2:That could be a bit. Yes, we can, and of course, as you said before, it's a different way of making music than sitting alone.
Speaker 1:We should all do it at the same time and we should also practice.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a big process, right.
Speaker 1:But it's also a lot of. It's a lot of. What can I say? There's a lot of preparation, but when you're in the studio. As I've also been out of it before. It's a long process where you sit in the studio where you both record and write the music in the same place, where you've made more electronic music, where this is, it's now that it's happening, so we really have to be well prepared when we get in.
Speaker 2:There's some practice behind it. It's not like you just slip and clip when you're there. It's the same way as when you've spent half a year in a studio where you've been playing with things. Every time slætter og klipper det er når det er. Altså på samme måde som når du har brugt et halvår I et studio hvor man har siddet and leit med ting hver gang, ja, og kan gå ind og ta verset om eller lægge noget kor eller sådan noget.
Speaker 2:Sådan fungerer den måde at inspille Og sidder du og skriver det hele, men får musikerne noget at sige. I det her Are you used to being on the stage and producing?
Speaker 1:It's because I'm not a jazz pianist. So you could say that I produce a demo from the fact that I'm not a pianist.
Speaker 2:So you're still making that on the computer.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm still making that on the computer and then I pass it on to some and they're really good at it. The jazz musicians are insane also because they're so full of music. I think it's the ones who make the most money of all the musicians, because they're just so crazy at what they can do and they practice and there's so much improvisation in the jazz. It's just they're so good in jazz, which is just so good.
Speaker 1:So of course I go there and my pianist says I've written this and then he can follow it out, and then we sit and talk about the chords and so on. No, that shouldn't be it. It should be something else.
Speaker 2:So you're still in the process.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I would never ever be able to get rid of that. No.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sound like that in any case, no, in all your history. No, I think it's very nice that you've been so decisive in everything. I really like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's also the only way to live.
Speaker 2:I think, yes, you're right, but I think it's just so often you can get I think it's easy to go along with something when you're in it, and especially with the success you've had. Then it can be easy to say we're going to go this way again because there's more to it, yeah, yeah, no it's. Or have you taken some proper sprints there? I?
Speaker 1:think I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great Thanks. That's a Thanks. That's really cool. And you said before you went out to play, now when a record comes out, you have to go out and present this record right.
Speaker 1:I have to. I have to have found a booker for that, but I'm also in doubt if it should be a Danish booker in reality.
Speaker 2:Yes, Because it could well be something foreign Helle.
Speaker 1:Yes, it could be. So I'm a little in limbo. So if there are some listeners who have some good ideas, then If there's a good booker who can book something in the whole world. A cool jazz booker who can book in the whole world.
Speaker 2:Yes, then it's now yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's it, and how far are? You, I'm like halfway. I always find songs, so I also have to separate the words from the books, because otherwise it would be up to 100 songs.
Speaker 2:So you have a lot of songs when you choose to sing. No, I just have ideas. I get ideas every single day.
Speaker 1:I get ideas for a melody stump or a piano hall or an intro or something.
Speaker 2:I have to.
Speaker 1:And that's something I've practiced all my life, and that's focusing instead of letting myself be driven by something I've just found.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you have a master plan. Well, not quite yet, but no, no, it sounds like you've had it all the time because you've been so focused on what you want. I'm not, can't compromise. No, that I can't either. That's very cool that I can't do that actually I can't. But I also mean it's hard to pull a place. You don't want, yes, but I don't want to no. No, I don't want to.
Speaker 1:No, I don't, course. Also, I have been. Now there has also been talk about there has been a lot with women in the music industry and so on. Blah, blah, blah, female producers or not, blah, blah, blah. It's wildly important. Yeah, it's super important and all that and all that part I have also been a part of and also put under for, under, for, can you say? In the form of that. There were really many who thought that I couldn't do anything other than to shake my ass.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that and that, what I can and what I can't. It has always been important to me because the music industry is not a place you lean back into and say now it's just running and the pension order it just rolls.
Speaker 1:It's just another lifestyle. So if you don't have yourself with you and you have to, that's what I wanted to say before. There are a lot of people who would tell me what they think I should do and how I should look and how I should sound and all sorts of things. But it's not because of the money, it's not because of fame, it's one's self that's standing back to the end. It's a compromise, not only for artists but also for everything else in the music industry.
Speaker 2:That it's just as happy If you don't have yourself with you all the way, then you don't have anything.
Speaker 1:So therefore it has always been very important for me that as long as it feels right, then I just shouldn't be there. No, Because then I wouldn't have anything left?
Speaker 2:No, no, exactly that I can understand. I think so. Is it because you're 25 years old when you get in? Often it's yes, you get caught a little younger in it and then it can be a little difficult to think, ah, now I'll do this because I really want to do this.
Speaker 1:I was involved with the record industry when I was 16 years old and I said no that time. And I'm sure that if it was that I had said yes to signing that time, then I would have been more modellable. So that's why I'm really happy to be able to look back and say that was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:And I said no.
Speaker 1:And there was also a bad feeling in my stomach, and that was also because there was someone who said that he thought I would be a pain in the ass with long hair. I was like I'm going out of here.
Speaker 2:Did your parents help you at that time or were you all alone with it? Yes, had you helped your parents at the time or were you all alone?
Speaker 1:with it. Yes, they backed me up in fulfilling my dreams. But I would say, before I came out with my debut album, I had really worked hard to find the right partners and all that, but I was in Miss Saigon, at Østergatsvær. All that, yes, but I was in Miss Saigon. Prøster Gasvægt Theater.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And there were my parents in and saw me and knew well that there was a circus in the way.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was the way it went.
Speaker 1:But it was actually first, when I won my first DMA, that my father stopped me from saying when are you going to go to university? When are you going to have the right job when I first got my first DMA, my father stopped saying when are you going to university, when are you going to have a real job? And I come from one where both my siblings I have a little sister and my parents, who are theologians, both of them are priests.
Speaker 2:I come from that kind of family where you've gotten a university degree, where you've done something right instead of it being music, but they've never ever criticized it or been pushed in some places.
Speaker 1:I think the most important thing has been that you're happy with what you're doing, and then it was also great for them going from seeing that I actually succeeded with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I just think that seeing your children succeed and be happy, that's what we all go after, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And I think that's what our parents have tried, yes, so no matter what you find out, because you can see your children thrive and that they are recognized, no matter what they do, for what they can.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree, I always say just because my children are happy, then they must do it, they must behave. Yes, I agree, I always say that my children are happy, so they have to do what they want. The important thing is that they are happy for it. Last time I asked everyone what they going to happen to their funeral and the reason I just said at the start it was actually a funeral. You comforted me to yes.
Speaker 1:And I can actually remember that.
Speaker 2:I was completely excited and it's insane. These days it's first in the car on the way home, you and me driving, that it goes up for me that it's you who's sitting there. So bad, I have it.
Speaker 1:I'm so sad about it.
Speaker 2:I just thought it's actually funny because you were so cute to hold me in your hand. I sat between you and Le. I remember I was so proud of the team we were in. It was awful. I just thought it's the first time I get out of the car and we're talking and you're sitting in front of me and I'm looking in the back window. It's just the car. I'm sitting next to the whole funeral. So thank you for comforting me that day.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. You're welcome. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope it doesn't happen. No, I hope not.
Speaker 2:Are you going to play music for your funeral, and have you ever thought about what it could possibly?
Speaker 1:be, I will undoubtedly play music. It's hard for me to say, despite the fact that I'm a priestess and have been to church a lot, when both of your parents are priests. You've been sitting a lot on their weekends.
Speaker 2:That's what you've used your weekends for, and then on a disco tour? Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I have, of course, some psalms which I think are extra beautiful and also dramatic. Some of them I can very well like Cielo. Yes, I would think it would be beautiful if there was something Cielo I can do that too, and I don't want to have. It would be fantastic to have a whole string quartet, but I would rather have live music and it's not something that's recorded. That's played in some speakers. Yes, because I think that's the best, and it's quite special with graves. I've sung to several graves. Yes, how is that?
Speaker 2:Well, it's.
Speaker 1:It's wild to do that, and I would say, the times I've sung there haven't been anyone I've known. It's someone who's asked me about it, okay, so that's why I can, of course, get it at a certain distance. You're, of course, always wildly touched by the reaction.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if. I know people or not. I can't just sit there.
Speaker 1:But just because if there's been someone who really liked what I did or had a special childhood song or something, then it just gives so much good meaning. I mean, it's not many times I've done it right?
Speaker 2:No, no but.
Speaker 1:I can also remember that I was in Afghanistan and singing for the troops. That time I was in a DR program where I sang a song down there, mad World yes, and afterwards there were several of the soldiers who were down there who asked if they could write me in their I don't know what it's called. They have some papers. What will happen if?
Speaker 2:I die yes.
Speaker 1:And I just had to say yes, of course I would like to come, and sing that song, so it's risky.
Speaker 2:There's a real tour here in the next year. I really hope so. No, I really hope so either.
Speaker 1:But there's something I mean. It's really sad, but when people have asked me about it it's not often, but it has given meaning and of course it's not because I'm just going to sing to a thousand millions of people. No, no, there has, of course been some form of personal relationship, but it's just given meaning, so that's why I think it should be. I don't think I want anyone to come and sing a song, but I would love it to be.
Speaker 2:Live that there were some who played something. Yes, that gave meaning.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Fantastic Karen. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Thank you for letting me come here and be part of your program.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was so nice. Thank you for listening to this week's Museo Lokale podcast Music my drug. I hope you have enjoyed the music's fascinating universe and found inspiration for your own musical journey. If you want to listen to today's guest list over youth songs, you can find the list on Museo Lokalt's Spotify list on Spotify. I look forward to exploring more aspects of the music's legacy in the coming episodes. That can all be found on Spotify and Podimo. So until next time, let the music continue to be your faithful guide. If you don't want to hear good music and good sound in the real world, you can find Museo Lokal right under Natlub Museum in Lille Kongensgade in the inner part of Copenhagen.