Swedish pop wondergirl Rosanna is on the verge of releasing a very good debut single. Click here to pre-order it at Amazon.
‘Waterfall’ is a thunderous, two-chorused chunk of desolate Swedish gloompop which Rosanna says is about letting down your guard. The song was produced and co-written in London with Jim Eliot (Kylie, Sunday Girl, Ladyhawke) and is accompanied by ‘Runaway’, another song about “not caring what the world says”. Rosanna says this: “I’ve been trying to make big pop music with heart and soul. Releasing my first single in Britain is perfect for me because that bit in the middle is what British pop fans seem to enjoy finding.”
‘Waterfall’ is the first release on Popjustice Hi-Fi, a new label specialising in above-average pop tuneage. Rosanna was featured on the Popjustice website as a solo artist at the end of 2008 at which time it was noted that she was ‘3 x amazing’, a point which still stands in the summer of 2010.
This release comes with an arms-in-the-lasers mix courtesy of dreamwave genius Fear Of Tigers.
Rosanna at a glance
★ Rosanna is twenty two years old and is brilliant at making charismatic, hot-blooded pop music. She says that the genre in which she operates is best described as “big emotional, chaotic, beautiful pop”.
★ Tommy Mottola signed Rosanna to Columbia Records when she was thirteen years old. As a member of teen girlband Play she toured with Destiny’s Child and lived in the US for four years. Play sold over a million records.
★ After era-defining pop tunes like ‘I Must Not Chase The Boys’ and a rather jolly cover of ‘Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’ Play disbanded and a 17-year-old Rosanna moved back to Sweden. Music college followed. She played in bands, toured Swedish festivals, did the whole growing up thing. “I knew then that the stage was the only place I wanted to be,” she remembers, “but next time with my own music.”
★ “Later,” Rosanna explains, “I started to work with different producers and musicians to find the true heart to my music. In the end it was the real diary of my journey growing up. My songs come from hope and a little bit of bitterness.”
★ Rosanna says that a lot of her inspiration comes from “strong music icons” like Karen O and Nina Simone.
★ ‘Waterfall’ may not achieve Play’s million-seller status but it is not without its charms: luminous synths, crashing beats and the sort of deliciously gloomfaced, slightly pensive sentimentality of which the best pop tunes are often made. “It’s a loveletter from my youth telling someone to make up his mind,” Rosanna says. She adds that ‘Waterfall’ makes her think of the colour purple while ‘Runaway’ is more of a red sort of song.
★ Rosanna’s part of a sort of party DJ collective back in Stockholm. They’re called XOXO. “We’re not very good DJs,” she admits, “but we play our favourite songs and Stevie Nicks’ ‘Edge of Seventeen’ on repeat.”
★ Rosanna decided that being a popstar and/or musician was the life for her when she was eight years old and veteran standup comic Liam Gallagher dedicated a performance of ‘Wonderwall’ to her.
★ Rosanna enjoys cookery and cycling. Re the former, risotto and cupcakes are a speciality, usually on separate plates. “People say bakery is a science,” she says, “but I just throw everything in and hope for the best. It works for cupcakes and it works for my songs, too.”
