Ten Love Songs (Susanne Sundfør)

EN I can't explain it but, whenever I listen to this album, I feel like I'm listening to a piece of art, finding myself in a classic concert hall, full of gilded carvings and giant chandeliers. That's how I feel “Ten Love Songs”, the fourth album by Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfør, released on February 16, 2015.

The artist tried to make this album different from its predecessors, both in terms of production and in style, showing a more pop side with “repetitive” and “captivating” musical and lyrical structures, in order to instantly capture the attention of the listener. It was also the first time that the singer was involved in multiple aspects of production, including writing, recording, mixing, orchestration and audio editing. Consequently, this enormous amount of work and dedication, as well as the personal theme addressed in the themes, made the singer feel very sick: “Both physically and mentally. I was getting flu all the time. Depression, anxiety. It took a lot of time to recover. (...) And I’m still struggling with it.”, still feeling almost as “naked” when the production of the album was ending, in 2014.

"Ten Love Songs" was promoted through four singles, with the choices falling on the songs "Fade Away", "Delirious", "Kamikaze" e "Accelerate". All of them were right choices, since they are the most promising tracks on the album, however, I wanted to highlight the monumental and powerful “Memorial”, a breathtaking track, lasting ten minutes, with a brilliant production and composition, worthy of an opera room, where the singer could be surrounded by a huge orchestra, dressed in a fascinating voluminous dress. But on the whole, the album has an arc that goes from the introduction (“Darlings”, “Accelerate”) to the orchestrated epic peak (“Memorial”), passing through the statement that “nothing’s ever easy” in “Trust Me”. The final song, "Insects", sounds a little "out of place", ending up not harmonizing with the remaining piece of art, ending up being more "destroying" than finishing. But in its essence, the album proves to be an ode of gratification to the listener, providing him with vengeful pop compositions and with beautiful arrangements, but “seasoned” with some disturbing elements.

Highly acclaimed by the music critics, the album was considered one of the best of the year 2015, also being considered one of the best of all time. The album was part of several year-end lists, leading an annual list “Kritikertoppen” of the newspaper Dagsavisen, also appearing on The Guardian and Rolling Stone lists, occupying a 72nd position in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop 2015 survey. “Ten Love Songs” also won three Norwegian Grammys in the categories of Best Album, Best Producer and Best Pop Artist.

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