Blog by Elinda

A Happy Year has passed. And my god it sure has been happy in so many ways, just like I wished for. I want to start by thanking all my friends and fans for all your support throughout this whole journey! You have made my day so many times and always given me new strength to keep it up. From the bottom of my heart: Thank you!! <3
What an exciting year! My first single was released and it got picked up by Spotify playlist - New Music Friday, in two countries. I released 5 songs including the last Christmas song ”O holy night” and two remixes of ”Superwoman”. We managed to make two music videos that turned out really well considering the small budgets and one more is coming up shortly. I have been doing 15 live performances including a big music festival in New York and a big event for Empowered women. It's been amazing to find out that friends, fans and radio stations around the world have added my music to their playlists. I have also been fortunate to work with extremely talented and devoted people and always with the support and love of my partner in marriage and music. The most creative music producer I have ever worked with. Together we do everything. We are raising five kids together but almost every night we stay up late, working on strategies and building my socials. We have been traveling by car, bus, train, tube, helicopter and plane to different corners of the world to sing, network, record videos and meet people to collaborate with like publishers, managers, labels, music licensing, PR agents and co-writers. Next year will show what comes out of all of that.

Overall it really has been a very Happy Year! I’ve had so much fun and learned so much. So now I’m going to wish for one more, and then one more, and one more. But I’m not just going to sit around and wait for happiness to come. I’m going to make sure it does by doing everything possible to make it happen.
But my family have also been fortunate enough to stay healthy this year, and that makes everything easier. Even though I think that even health is a choice to some extent. At least there are many things you can do to improve it and help our bodies to stay well.

The year has also been a roller coaster. Like life always is. A lot of dark and selfish forces that takes us all back to the horrible times of World war II are rising around our Globe. People who are pretty well off, suddenly get scared of losing it and starts to act irrationally. 
Also, the obsessed struggle for wealth and fortune by some, are driving others to suicide. RIP Avicii! I don’t know when I will get over the sadness of such a young and talented young man with all the possibilities in the world suddenly decides that he has none. It’s just sad beyond comprehension.
And politics has been total chaos to the extent that the whole country is losing faith in the system. I wonder what will come out of that crazy ordeal. Exciting!! ;-)
  
Sometimes I have been wondering what the F I’m doing, trying to make people find my music in this digital jungle of songs. And I still have doubt a lot of the times. But so what? Does it really matter in the end? I’m not going to be happier for a Grammy award then I am for just doing this. A Grammy would, of course, be nice ;-) but the next day the struggle continues. The happiness of success is short! The happiness of a job well done lasts forever!

If you visualise hard enough, work hard and if you are ready to invest time and money towards your goal, you will make it. I’ve been performing in the US before, doing various shows and productions and since I started my solo career, I’ve been performing quite a few times already, singing my own music, which is fantastic. But up till now its only been like a maximum of four songs. On Thursday, for the first time, on the famous venue PianosNYC, I will be doing a full-time show, performing nine songs and having time to talk between the songs and really do my thing! For the first time, and it’s in New York! That’s just amazing to me.

We are now in New York, working at the hotel, making sure everything is set up for the show. We’ve been out having a nice big breakfast and passed by the recording set of Daredevil season 3! They were packing up but gosh there were a lot of trucks and stuff, catering and everything. Mikeal went bananas.
Tonight, there are a few opening parties going on and we look forward to meeting a lot of people from the music business. Peter Åstedt who has been kind enough to help us out a lot, is also here and he knows just about everybody…
Mikael and I are staying at the Pod Hotel Brooklyn, which is very close to the main center for the Mondo conference. Hotels are very expensive in NY but we found this little cute room. Looks mostly like a cabin on a ferry or something. VERY compact living, but cozy. Good thing we are married and not so high maintenance. ;-)

We’ve been working so hard for this. Doing PR, fixing up my website and socials, filling out forms and documents, reaching out to press. Luckily our kids understand that this is important for me, and even encourage me to do it. We have the best people to take care of them while we are away! And now all that is left is the fun part. We had a grand rehearsal in our living room and I could feel the excitement of almost being there. Now I just gotta make sure I didn’t catch a cold on the airplane. ;-)

Wish me luck, and I will be back shortly with an update!

Back in business, after a marvelous summer. Really, it hit me, like a smack in the face! The summer has been so warm and relaxing (as relaxing as it can be in a mobile car with four kids;-). Going back, getting a grip of all the new routines at school and day-care, and facing the fact that you haven’t been very effective during the summer, made me freak out for a while. I felt like I was getting nowhere... But if I stop and look back, just starting at New Year, we've come a long way. Considering we have five kids and need to bring in the dough at the same time. Patience is a virtue I don’t always have..;-)
 
And now it’s all slowly coming together. We updated our studio a great deal so my next songs will sound amazing! I'm really excited about it. Right now we are finishing the acoustic version of Superwoman and it makes me cry each time I hear it. I don’t know why. I was not feeling well when we recorded it and my voice was kind of hoarse. That together with the piano and the amazing strings produced and recorded by Adrian Davinski is just overwhelming. I really hope that you will love it.
 

The video is doing well on YouTube! I hope you have seen it. It was a mess getting it all together, but my god we did it. Almost 10 000 people have seen it already!
And you know what? I might be going to New York! I was asked to perform there at the Mondo festival and I really hope we can make it work with childcare, hotels, and flights. Never been there other than at the airport many times. I lived in the states for six months (Minneapolis) and I’ve been touring in the US many times with different groups but never got to go to New York. Crossing my fingers, this time!
 

Next week I will also start taking bookings for my new show! Tell you more about that later. ;-) Right now I’m getting ready to vote! There is an important election coming up in Sweden and I’m going to vote for the party that will develop our country forward instead of backward! I will vote for equality and humanity. For a party that has a strong economic strategy and makes it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses because I think they are the foundation of any society. We all start out that way and grow if we can, putting people to work, pay taxes and build a solid economy. Also, I care for a better climate with fewer toxins in our environment, more funds to our schools and elderly, definitely a better immigration process to get the people coming here a job a lot faster, learning the language and integrate with our society, following our rules and regulations. If the immigrants get treated with respect when they arrive here, they will also respect our country and its citizens and want to contribute. All this leads to a safer and more enjoyable environment for us all. Wish us luck!

We had no idea what to expect. Many times I asked my self if this was crazy. Paying a babysitter for four days, airfares, entrance tickets (costly), hotel and transfer... was it gonna be worth it? It was all my husbands' idea, and apparently, he was convinced. Was probably more about the need for sun, a break from the everyday life. ;-) But I went along. 
We flew to Nice, and from there we decided to grab a helicopter! MIDEM participants had a special rate, and the taxi fare was also quite expensive, so we decided to make it an event instead of just sitting in a cab.

Absolutely one of the things we will remember when we’re old. We were also in a hurry to our first meeting, and none of us had ever been in a helicopter before. We decided to make the most of it and film it as much as possible. Knowing we had a video coming up.
And my god it was a great experience. The sun was shining, and I felt like a superstar being escorted through security checks and transported in a nice car out to the helipad. And the adrenaline rush as we elevated and left the shore to fly over the ocean was great. So beautiful!

As we arrived, I had no idea what to expect. But we had lots of meetings scheduled, and Mikael gave me a quick brief before each one. We are a good team. We complement each other perfectly. After the first day, we both said that even if this were it, we would be more then happy with our trip. Record Labels, Publishing, PR, Artists, DJ's, Songwriters, Digital marketing, digital services etc. After three days we'd had more than 50 essential meetings and also so much fun getting to know a lot of great people in the industry. I can't even count the happy hour events we attended. ;-)  

Now a week later, we already started collaborations and discussing deals with several of them and are connecting with all of them to see how we can benefit from each other.
I'm so thrilled to make this journey with my crazy husband where the sky is the limit. VIP treatment is taken for granted. ;-) Love it!
Now all my focus is on the video that we will be recording on Tuesday in the center of Stockholm. My very generous neighbor is helping me with the choreography and getting the dancers together. Another friend will be there to do makeup and hair. One will be photographing behind the scenes, and another one will be doing backup vocals. A very generous company will be helping out with the post... The nightclub is also giving me a generous deal.

What would I do without all these guys?! I'm so thankful and happy. I could never afford a video like this without them. It's gonna be so much fun. I just hope the audience will show up. A lot of people expressed an interest in, but you never know in these busy times... Wish me luck!

I’m having the time of my life. My first video will be recorded on the 19th of June. Please come to Golden Hits at Kungsgatan in Stockholm for an after work drink between 17:00-19:00 and be my audience as we shoot the video. I will be performing my music on stage with dancers and everything. It will be so much fun and I really need you there to get the right feeling on stage. Let me know if you can make it!
Also we are releasing the fourth song of the album "Superwoman"around Midsummer. The song is called “Dance with me” and I really hope you will do so on the 19th. ;-)
It's Co-written with our friend Andreas Aleman who is a magnificent artist and composer.
A groovy uptempo you won't be able to stand still to. I hope! ;-)

So I’m keeping my self busy. Summer is finally here, the kids are doing well and things are developing according to plan. I have decided not to rush anything. In the beginning of the year when I released my first single I just couldn’t wait to get started. Couldn’t wait for my next song, or my next event and checked my numbers and streams every day to follow the development. 
Now I feel that I have taken a step back. I’m looking at all I have achieved in so little time besides from being a mother of five and all the everyday chores. We took this decision a year ago and now we are definitely up and running. Many new contacts are made and we are planning for future events.

I did my first lecture, talking for one hole hour about my journey as an entrepreneur in the music business. About the lessons I have made, reflections over my personality and how other people have reacted. I talked about courage, failures and how to find strength and meaning within yourself. 
I was really nervous and just before I went on I thought to myself that all these women are all entrepreneurs themselves. They have probably been through similar things. What do I have to give them...But I got up and I did it. Afterwards we had a continuing discussion on the subject and the moderator asked if anyone had any questions for me. One girl raised her hand and said that “This is not really a question by my god this was inspiring! I feel like I’ve had an electrical chock.” And the rest of the audience was nodding and agreeing. One man said that he had seen many lectures and presentations but this was really something special. I was moved to tears. I faced my fears, did it anyway and landed on my feet and actually made a difference in someone’s life. That’s just awesome! I was awesome! And so very proud and thankful for the journey I have made and all the lessons I have learned on the way. I hope I can pass them forward to many but most of all my own kids. So that they can “Stand up straight with pride, spread your wings and spread them wide” a phrase from my first single Superwoman. I wish you all a great week when you try to notice and enjoy every single little progress you make, every day. Life is a rollercoaster. You might as well just enjoy the ride.