Happy Friday everyone! Julie, my super cool friend from San Francisco who traveled with me to Iceland, is taking over today. I thought she could write about the radio stations we listened in Iceland, mainly one that seemed to be called "New Year Sure Sure" but my Icelandic is a little spotty, so take that with a grain of salt. Here's Julie's rundown of Icelandic top 40 and beyond:
Greetings everyone, this is Julie, guest blogging on GGG this week. Adele graciously asked me to write about something “cool” in music and all I could really think of is Kreayshawn’s viral single “Gucci Gucci”. Clearly I should just stick with writing about Iceland.
Besides basking in the magic that is Iceland, we spent a good chunk of our time there driving around in our rental car. Like all our past road trips, we forgot to bring our own music and had to heavily rely on the radio. You can learn a lot about a place from its local radio stations and Iceland’s radio stations were like a breath of fresh hipster air with a hint of Norwegian Death Metal.
Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons, Adele were on heavy rotation, but not much of Katy Perry or Britney and strangely enough, not a single Bieber song on the radio! That makes me wonder where those Icelandic Bieberers get their fix and why is he everywhere but the radio, I just don’t get it!
Over the course of five days of driving, we switched from our favorite station that sounded like “New Year Sure Sure” to their top 40 station with lots of Lil Wayne and Rihanna. Every once awhile we would hear the latest single from Cake. Yes, you heard me, Cake and it has nothing to do with short skirts nor going for the distance. Cake, have no fear, Iceland has not forgotten you yet, while the world has since the 90s.
Another popular band was called Awolnation, which we had never heard of before Iceland. If AFI and Bassnectar had an emo angsy dubstep lovechild, it would be them. I’m assuming they were very popular there since their single came on like a broken record. Somewhere between being wet and cold from our horseback riding and getting lost on our way to the Blue Lagoon, I saw Adele’s angry fingers fumbling to switch stations when that song came on for the fifty-millionth time.
The radio highlight? Going apeshit for Bjork. What would Icelandic roadtrip be without Bjork?! Not gonna lie, it was epic when her songs came on the radio. Something about the combination of the desolated landscape in Snæfellsjökull and her music made us realized, “holy shit, we’re in muthafuckin’ Iceland, AHHHH!” It made me want to just pull over our VW and break out running with the sheep and smallish horses! But instead Adele just filmed us going gaga with her iPhone (a much safer alternative).
Who knows what would’ve happened if Sigur Rós came on, we might have made a beeline straight for the ocean. Too much Iceland to handle!
Editor's note: We never heard Sigur Rós on the radio, so that theory wasn't tested. Instead, they played a lot of Jessie J, who just doesn't inspire the same reaction. And here's that iPhone video with Bjork playing on the radio whilst driving in the Icelandic countryside.
