Pop Is Not The Enemy: (this should be more) POPular #10

You know that thing when you hear a song and you can't believe it hasn't been a massive hit? Yeah, that...

For this week's under appreciated track we're going back to Sweden, the homeland of perfect 21st century pop. We're featuring a great singer, Ace Wilder, with her new track 'Stupid'.

Ace Wilder burst onto the Scandipop scene with the pretty special 'Do It', a buzzy synth-inflected shout along which really set a precedent for her attitude and sound. The sound in question combines perfect pop hooks and lyrics with the aforementioned synths, driving drums and crunchy pop guitar riffs. She really hit her stride in 2014 when she entered Melodifestivalen (the Swedish qualifier for the Eurovision Song Contest) with the abso-bloody-lutlely amazing 'Busy Doing Nothin'. Now this how you write a pop song, tight, simple lyrics with a schizophrenic sound that shouldn't work, acoustic guitar and folk-style drums in the verses then an acoustic dropout of a pre-chorus then a MASSIVE dancepop explosion of a chorus. This won the public vote in Sweden and went on to become a huge number 1 single for her. She followed it up with 'Riot', another masterclass in pop that does bear some resemblance to Icona Pop - but my God, those handclaps and the brass in the chorus are amazing!

So that brings us up to speed with the release of her latest single 'Stupid'. A sitar and eastern-style drums usher in the chanting verses which talk about starting a revolution to get drunk and high - it may not be the most lyrically deep of tracks but you try getting it out of your head! Then we get the solid gold of the chorus, silly and throwaway yet catchy as all kinds of hell.

"Stupid girls and stupid boys,

We're stupid just because.

We're free to be what we wanna be,

And smart we never was.

Let's get stupid!"

Her second album, 'The Wild Card', is scheduled for release later this year and I for one am very interested in hearing what other gems might be on this offering. Sweden may not need to produce any more world-conquering pop music but I'm pretty sure it would be a better place if more people had a little Ace Wilder in their lives.