He took the first steps in the indie bands Honey is Cool and Broder Daniel and in 2000 Håkan Hellström broke through as a solo artist with ”Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg”. Many loved Hellström's fragile and brittle voice, others were provoked and meant that he could not sing.
It's terribly unfair, because it's not that bad. Most of it is actually better than most impersonal schlager singers who do not express a damn thing, said Hellström in his defense in an interview with the magazine Vi 2007.
”Håkan Helstöld”
The haters rubbed their hands when Christian Krig around 2004 coined the nickname ”Håkan Helstöld” with a site dedicated to the similarities between Hellström's lyrics and role models such as Morrissey and Cornelis Vreeswijk. The criticism did not bite on the devoted fans, who thought that the loans were within the framework of artistic freedom. Hellström's lyrics about being an outsider, bittersweet party nights and existential searching took inspiration from The Smiths, Bob Dylan and other guitar heroes with an underdog perspective.
But Hellström updated his sound for each album. In 2002, he incorporated rhythms from samba and soul on the album ”Det är så jag säger det” and in 2008 the sound image was updated again to fit the more nostalgic lyrics on ”För sent för Edelweiss”.
Hellström has also changed his style of clothing often. Perhaps most well-known is the sailor suit that tied in with his hometown of Göteborg and the Swedish folk music tradition.
From indie club to arena
In the 2010s, Hellström's melancholic romance gained a foothold in the Swedish people's soul, with a rain of awards and sold-out arena concerts. Hellström consistently declined Melodifestivalen but made recurring performances in the popular ”Allsång på Skansen”.
After a few years of slower pace, and with an album together with the Göteborg Symphony Orchestra in 2018, Hellström returned after the pandemic and performed several Ullevi concerts and unexpected collaborations with younger artists. Like the Göteborg rapper Josef Slunge in 2024 and recently with the afrobeat duo Biji.
Håkan Hellström's career has been characterized more by change than demands for authenticity:
Pop music is about wanting to be someone else. I prefer dreams and lies to standing in a crumpled damn Bruce Springsteen shirt and singing about having worked somewhere, he said to Café in 2010.
It remains to be seen which Håkan will appear at Ullevi on National Day.
Kristoffer Viita/TT
Håkan Hellström
TT
Born: 2 April 1974 (51 years old)
Lives: Göteborg
Family: Partner Natalie Davet, three children.
Albums (selected): ”Känn ingen sorg för mig Göteborg” (2000), ”Det är så jag säger det” (2002), ”Ett kolikbarns bekännelser” (2005), ”Nått gammalt, nåt nytt, nåt lånat, nåt blått” (2005), ”För sent för edelweiss” (2008), ”2 steg från Paradise” (2010), ”Det kommer aldrig va över för mig" (2013), "Poetiska försök" (2023).
Current with: Three concerts at Ullevi on 6, 7 and 13 June and the remix ”Bring it on, bring it all” together with the duo Biji.
