Six times Norwegian artists stole the show on American television
Reels & Riffs: Scandi Soundtracks & Stories.
Over the past 10-12 years, there have been some memorable live performances by Norwegian artists on American television. I thought it would be fun to recap some of those.
Bernhoft.
I’ve always been a sucker for a great voice. Someone who can really sing.
Jarle Bernhoft, professionally known as just ‘Bernhoft,’ can sing. And he can write great songs. And he can play guitar, and keys, and do the whole loop-thingy that he does so well (as you will see in the video).
Bernhoft comes from a small town called Nittedal outside of Oslo, famous for their Nitedal matches (and for Bernhoft), where about 26,000 people reside. After a couple of band projects, Bernhoft went solo in 2008. He broke through with his second solo album, ‘Solidarity Breaks,’ which generated a number of singles, including ‘C’mon Talk,’ “Choices’ and the beautiful “Stay with Me.’
In 2011, he made his U.S. television debut on the Ellen Degeneres Show. The story is that Ellen’s team scoured the Internet looking for unusual and cool things to feature on the show, and they stumbled upon a performance by Bernhoft that blew them away to the point that they flew him over to LA to play live on the show. He performed ‘C’mon Talk’ while Ellen and her audience were mightily impressed:
Bernhoft has toured the U.S. several times. He was here in LA earlier this year and played the iconic Troubadour in West Hollywood, the same venue where Elton John had his U.S. debut back in the day. I was there for Bernhoft and he rocked the house, as would be expected.
Most notable, Bernhoft’s album ‘Islander’ was nominated for Best R&B Album at the 2015 Grammy Awards. Bernhoft is one of very few Norwegian performers who has ever been Grammy-nominated, so that’s definitely worth a mention. And in the R&B category, nonetheless. Very impressive.
Sondre Lerche.
Born and raised in Bergen, Norway, singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche released his first album, ‘Faces Down,’ in 2001, for the most part produced by HP Gundersen. In 2002, Sondre won a Norwegian Grammy award (Spellemannsprisen) for Best Newcomer. Rolling Stone Magazine also placed the album in its list of the Top 50 Albums of 2002 and praised him as remarkable. I personally think that him being from Bergen makes him remarkable no matter what Rolling Stone says, but hey…sure, he knows how to write great songs, too - and perform!
I didn’t get to see Sondre perform live until in 2019 when I organized an event for the Norwegian chamber in Los Angeles called ‘Strategies and Tactics of an Oscar Campaign’ (a topic for a future Reels & Riffs) and I invited Sondre to sing a couple of his soundtrack songs. Why? Because Sondre knows how to write music for film and to bring those songs to life on stage. Not only did he write and perform the entire score for the Steve Carell classic ‘Dan In Real Life’ (2007), he also wrote and performed the beautiful and Beatlesque ‘Dear Laughing Doubters’ from the soundtrack to another Steve Carell film, ‘Dinner for Schmucks’ (2010).
Sondre performed in LA last month to a sold-out crowd. He’s a great performer and knows how to entertain his audience with his songs, and in-between the songs. Sondre lived in New York for over 10 years before moving to LA, and then he moved back to Norway as the pandemic hit. Perfect timing and execution, if you ask me, as he was able to captivate a Norwegian audience stuck at home with several TV performances and the release of a great album called ‘Patience.’ If you haven’t listened to the song ‘Why Would I Let You Go’ from that album, you need to listen to the Spotify playlist further below. That song is in my humble opinion in the category we call masterpieces.
Here is Sondre on the Late Show with David Letterman back in 2011:
AURORA.
In August 2013, I was in Bergen, Norway to see family and also happened to set up a meeting with a Norwegian “group” I really liked called The Owens. This band consisted of one person, Ove Svendsen. It was one year into having started my own company, and I was eager to find talent I could bring to the States. (After you’re done reading this, make sure to listen to the two Owens songs I’ve included in the Spotify playlist further below.)
Ove invited me to a wine bar that he ran, and he also invited a music producer-turned-manager named Geir Luedy. This was my first time meeting Geir, who was already a well-established music person in Bergen.
We had a good meeting, and afterwards Geir said to me; “Hey, I am working on some new songs with a teenager I think has a lot of potential. Do you want to come by the studio and check out the songs?”
A few days later, I was in the studio, and Geir started playing me her songs. I don’t know what it was, if it was something I had eaten or something that distracted me, but I listened - and thought it was only okay. I definitely felt like I can’t hear what you’re hearing, Geir, without saying that out loud. We said goodnight and that was that. Perhaps it was that I had never seen her perform live or met her in person. I didn’t quite get it.
Fast forward two years and AURORA is already breaking through in Norway and beyond. Geir brings her with a full band to Los Angeles for a showcase at a club in a rather questionable area of Downtown LA. Geir had invited me, and I showed up. He brought me backstage before the show.
As I’m sitting backstage, AURORA walks up to me. We haven’t met yet. She comes up to me, and the first thing she says, is: “How often do you shave your head"?
I’m thinking jokingly “nice to meet you, too,” but I can’t stop laughing. “Every two-three days,” I answer with a surprised grin. Nobody has used that question as a conversation starter with me before, or after. Then she leaves to get me a Hawaiian-style lei and puts it around my neck. I am now in this moment slowly starting to understand what makes this young woman so unique as a person and as an artist. I also immediately think this is a great time for a selfie:
Part of the story is that American artist Katy Perry came to that particular show to watch AURORA live, and she also came backstage after the show to praise the young Norwegian. Pretty cool to have a worldwide superstar come check your showcase out, I think:
AURORA went on to become one of the most popular Norwegian artists of our time, with tons of fans around the world. Here she is from just one year later, performing her song “Conqueror” off her debut album ‘All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend’ on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, an album that produced the massive hit “Runaway”:
Sigrid.
Sigrid Solbakk Raabe comes from a beautiful town on the west coast of Norway called Ålesund. She signed her first record deal at age 18, and two years later, in 2016, she wrote her first hit ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’ together with songwriter and producer Martin Sjølie. In 2018, she won the Norwegian Grammy for Best Newcomer and also won BBC Music Sound. She’s toured around the world and was listed in Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ for European Entertainment.
I saw Sigrid perform live in LA in 2019, and she did a fantastic job. Together with a great band, she has tons of charisma on stage and knows how to entertain. She definitely appeals to a wide demographic of true fans.
Here she is on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2017 where she got the whole studio, and the host, vibing:
Angelina Jordan.
Norwegian TV viewers met Angelina Jordan when she was only 7 years old. Her performance of Billie Holiday’s ‘Gloomy Sunday’ on ‘Norway’s Got Talent’ blew everyone away; so much that she went on to win the entire competition.
This didn’t go unnoticed in America, where she made her TV debut in 2014 on the talk show ‘The View,’ singing ‘Fly Me To The Moon.’ Her beautiful performance, only accompanied by an acoustic guitar, is definitely worth enjoying, including the cute interview with host Rosie O’Donnell:
In 2018, Angelina, her mom Sara Astar and her family made the move to LA where she’s been developing her artistry with a number of great songwriters and producers. She signed a major record deal in 2020 following this fantastic performance on ‘America’s Got Talent: The Champions’:
Angelina is a unique talent that Norway should be very proud of, and having been a professional singer for 10 years now and still only 18 years old, is not normal back in the old country!
Her newfound collaborator, 3-time Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Toby Gad, co-wrote her latest single, ‘Bad Valentine,’ which was released in September of this year.
I think it’s just a matter of time before she breaks through worldwide, but she needs that undeniable hit song to break onto American radio, which still is essential for breaking a new artist in the U.S.. I am confident it will happen.
Ylvis.
Yes, I saved the most fun for last, clearly.
Ylvis is a comedy duo consisting of two brothers, Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker, who spent their early years in Angola and Mozambique where their father worked as an engineer. The family moved to Bergen, Norway after a couple of years in Africa, and they grew up there. They both learned to play different instruments and always had a comedic streak in them growing up.
They began their careers as variety artists in 2000. They hosted their own late night talk show called “Tonight with Ylvis” on the Norwegian network TV Norge from 2011 to 2016, and in 2013 their YouTube video ‘What Does The Fox Say?,’ made for their own talk show, went viral.
On October 11, 2013, they performed the song live outside the studio of NBC’s the ‘Today Show’ - take a look:
The song, and their original music video of the song, went crazy on YouTube and was the most watched video worldwide on the platform in 2013. Their original music video has over 1.1BB YouTube views to date:
At the time of the incredible worldwide attention they were getting, some were asking what their next moves should be. However, both of them had already settled down with families in Norway and didn’t have an interest in dropping everything and pursuing an international career that would take them away from their families for long periods of time.
I felt back then that they could have had a real shot in the U.S. with their style of comedy, but it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes there are other things in life that’s more important than chasing fame (said nobody in 2024!).
An honorable mention has to go to Norway’s indie pop star Girl In Red, who performed her song “Too Much” on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon earlier this year. Girl In Red is a big artist with a massive international following. Unfortunately, the video of her performance appears to have been taken down. So that makes seven videos only six. Although technically, I have included a total of seven videos of live performances of Norwegians on American TV because I snuck in two with Angelina Jordan... I digress.
And - there you have it.
Leave a comment if I missed any performances you think should be on this list!
Don’t forget to follow and listen to the ‘Reels & Riffs’ playlist on Spotify to find songs mentioned above and in previous editions: