Nordic Music Videos

Introduction: Nordic Sounds, Visions, and Imaginings

ANNA-ELENA PÄÄKKÖLÄ, MATHIAS BONDE KORSGAARD, AND JOHN RICHARDSON

PART I. Nordic Classics and Icons

1 Sigur Rós, Valtari #14, and Audiovisual Stirrings of Icelandicness

BIRGIT ABELS

2 Self-Disclosure and Masking Strategies in the Music Videos of Björk’s Vulnicura

JOHN RICHARDSON

3 Ambiguity in A-ha’s “Take on Me”: Analyzing Audiovisual Aesthetics through Data Visualization

ANDERS BONDE

PART II. Nordic Identities

4 Naked, Natural: Female Body Positivity and Agentic

Sexuality in Nordic Pop Music Videos 85

ANNA-ELENA PÄÄKKÖLÄ

5 Antiracist Strategies in Hkeem’s “Ghettoparasitt”

KAI ARNE HANSEN

6 BDSM Aesthetics, Capitalism, and Resistance in the Audiovisual Work of Hatari

CHRISTINE DYSERS

7 Sci-fi Hero for a Generation: Finnish Girlhood in a Music Video by Vesala

HANNA-MARI RIIHIMÄKI

8 Landscape and Cultural Heritage in Faroese Music Videos

FIROUZ GAINI, PHILIP HAYWARD AND MATT HILL

9 Ariosophic Whiteness in the Early Norwegian Black Metal Videos

KIMI KÄRKI

PART III. Creative and Industry Voices

10 Finland-Swedish Music Videos: Meaningful Products of a Non-Existent Industry for a Non-Existent Market

JOHANNES BRUSILA

11 British “Fishing” in the Nordic Music Video Waters

EMILY CASTON

12 Oulu Music Video Festival: Where Local Talent Meets Global Experiences at a Festival in Northern Finland

ROOS HEKKENS

13 Interview with Rasmus Stolberg of Efterklang

MATHIAS BONDE KORSGAARD

14 Interview with Martin de Thurah

MATHIAS BONDE KORSGAARD

15 Interview with Aurora

ANNA-ELENA PÄÄKKÖLÄ

PART IV. Boundary Issues

16 Killer Music Videos: Nordic Noir Title Sequences and Concentrated “Nordicness”

KAAPO HUTTUNEN

17 Rock and Roll Films in the Nordic Countries during the 1950s

BERTEL NYGAARD

18 Vernacular Music Video: Danish Music Videos Outside the Music Industry

MATHIAS BONDE KORSGAARD

Biography

Anna-Elena Pääkkölä is a Finnish Academy Research Fellow at Åbo Akademi University. She has published in various article collections and journals on music videos and audiovisual expression in English and Finnish on themes including performance, identity, intertextuality, and intersectional feminisms.

Mathias Bonde Korsgaard is an associate professor at the Department of Media and Journalism Studies, Aarhus University. He has published extensively on music videos and audiovisual culture, including Music Video After MTV (2017), which discusses music video in the digital era, and Traveling Music Videos (2023, with Tomáš Jirsa), which addresses music video’s travels across media, platforms, and cultural industries.

John Richardson is a professor at the University of Turku. He has published extensively on music videos and co-edited two influential handbooks, The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics and The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media. He is author of An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal, which discusses new directions in audiovisual expression.

What can we learn about the Nordic region if we pay close attention to its musical
sounds and visions? A lot, it turns out. This book elevates the conversation on
‘Nordicness’ to a new level of critical insight, and it does so by taking seriously the
audiovisual vernacular of our time: the music video, in its myriad forms. This
collection is truly a treasure trove for anyone interested in music videos and their
cultural significance in the Nordic region, from the pre-televisual rock films of the
1950s to emerging post-digital forms of the 2020s.

Tore Størvold
Associate Professor of Music
Norwegian University of Science and Technology