With love (and hate) from Norway :: Dina - Hater og elsker deg

In Norway, there is a certain schizophrenia when it comes to the choice of language in pop music. A large number of artists record all their material in English instead of Norwegian, some even go as far as saying they feel they can express themselves better in English than Norwegian (which is a bit dubious as hardly any Norwegian songwriters have English as a mother tongue or are bilingual). Others express the hope of an international career, even though extremely few Norwegian artists recording in English have ever had an international breakthrough - the main exceptions being a-ha and Bel Canto. The electronica band Röyksopp, which also has had some international success, hardly has any lyrics at all.

Even so, artists sometimes have to justify why they sing in Norwegian, unless they are folk musicians or make dansband music. Singing in Norwegian seems to signify that you're low on ambitions - both when it comes to career opportunities and the Norwegian audience you aim for.

Dance has never really caught on in Norway the way it has elsewhere, and for several years the few acts associated with the genre, like Infinity and the wonderfully dim hairdresser duo Diva, did all their stuff in English. The pioneer of Norwegian pmed was Merete LaVerdi, who had a radio hit with Vinger in the late 1990s, but she has stopped recording and become a music manager instead.

Then finally in 2003, Dina appeared on the scene, releasing several singles and scoring a number of radio hits with dance in Norwegian. In November the same year, she released the first complete album of Norwegian pmed with Dina - one of my favourite tracks on the album is Hater og elsker deg ("Hating and loving you").