Musicians have barely been able to perform for almost two years, but the Netherlands is teeming with new pop talent. That may be the conclusion after the digital edition of the Noorderslag festival in Groningen. Anyone who clicked on the festival stream on 3FM on Saturday evening was short of eyes and ears. From 8 o’clock you could enjoy the acts divided over three selection screens, all of which were given ten to fifteen minutes of broadcasting time. You could make one musical discovery after another, from the mesmerizing indie guitars of Elephant to the warm-blooded soul jazz of Bnnyhunna. Or just check whether well-known names such as Son Mieux, Goldband or Froukje deserve all the attention.
While scrolling, clicking and switching screens you fell from one surprise after another. Bob from South crushed with his old school Beastie Boys beats. Are carp fishing also turned out to be as witty as it was exciting live. Hip-hop was not nearly as dominant this Noorderslag as in other years. If the festival is still the indicator for the state of affairs in Dutch pop music, then we can conclude that 2022 will be the year of women in pop music.
New names such as Wies, Meau and Sophie Straat convinced; Froukje, Merol and S10 had already been seen before, but managed to overwhelm the cameras with sparkling performances during the Noorderslag sessions recorded in Groningen earlier this week.
It was even really difficult to choose and switch quickly when all the ladies were on the program at the same time between 9 and 10 o’clock. Meau impressed with her current monster hit you did that Merol presented new work that rests calmer and less on gimmicks than her shut up and cunt me, which she broke through three years ago.
The influence of Eefje de Visser’s innovative Dutch pop on the new generation of pop women was striking. You certainly heard something back from many of the way in which buzzing electronics merged with warm acoustic elements.
Exuberant and frivolous, Froukje set to work. She seems to grow as an artist every month and takes her band members along with her in that development. Good, Di-rect was allowed, partly thanks to their ‘corona anthem’ Soldier On received the Popprijs 2021 later in the evening, Froukjes I want to dance has now had a similar impact as comfort in these despondent times for artists and nightlife audiences.
But I want to dance was not the highlight of the evening so hopeful for Dutch pop music. The climax came a few minutes earlier with the new song without face, in which Froukje was assisted by S10.
The singer who will represent the Netherlands in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest already made a big impression on Saturday evening with a performance that can be remembered as grand and compelling. Together with Froukje you really got the feeling that you were witnessing a piece of pop history in the making.
The only thing that was missing is a very loud applause. Just as the beer shower and the noise in the hall were logically missing when the winner of the Popprijs was announced.
After twenty years, Di-rect knows what it’s like to play in front of a large audience, but for many of the new artists at Noorderslag, that’s something they don’t know. In any case, the lack of live experience has not stood in the way of the new pop talent. This became apparent earlier this week when the international part of Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) took place. Also free for everyone to follow, on three video channels. Among the hundreds of performances, those of the Belgian Meskerem Mees (sober soulful songs with cello accompaniment) or the Swedish Amason (pleasant disco pop) stood out. But the undisputed highlight was the English Yard Act on Friday evening with a pleasantly obnoxious post-punk set. Yard Act has a talking-spit-singing foreman in James Smith who, although unable to gain much stage experience in the past two years, does know how to play a camera. We would have loved to have seen Yard Act in Vera in Groningen on the day their debut album was released. As is usual on ESNS, after a long wait in a huge line, only to determine whether or not this was another ‘typical British band hype’.
Hopefully ESNS can again cause four days of unrest in Groningen next year. But the evenings in front of the screen have in any case shown that plenty of fresh, exciting, exciting, ear-pleasing and deafening pop is made. And a lot of the best that could be seen in beautifully designed streams came from the Netherlands. Too much even to take in in a few hours. The diversity and quality were so great that you can hardly wait for the moment when the hall doors and festival meadows can open to clap your hands for all that pop talent that has presented itself in recent days.
Direct wins Popprijs 2021
The Popprijs, which was awarded for the 35th time this year to ‘that band or artist who has meant the most to Dutch pop music in the past year’, was won by Di-rect. The rock band from The Hague, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021, received the prize (a statuette by Theo Mackaay and 10 thousand euros) for their perseverance, as the jury report states, and they also ‘sold out Ahoy twice in October and know they have maintained their position at the top for years through their passion, skill, diligence and friendship’.
