A musical journey through Norway

An impressive amount of music comes from Norway, a country with only five million inhabitants. In this blog post, I will present music in Norwegian language that is popular today. You will find videos with different kinds of music, coming from different parts of the country. Spend the time you need, and enjoy!

Norway has produced many great artists, writers – and musicians. In this post, I will share some videos with you with different kinds of music made by artists from different parts of the country. You will probably like some tunes better than others, and you can easily skip the ones that you don’t like.

There is a lot of variation within the Norwegian music scene. We all have different tastes, and if you find an artist that you love, you can do some extra research yourself. I usually do not provide external links, since you can easily find more music on YouTube or Spotify. The lyrics of all the tunes that I present are also to be found online.

This journey will bring us to different places in Norway. However, most important is the music, and in this post you will be able to hear a variety of popular music. The selection is based on what I found to be representative of popular Norwegian music over the last few years.

Music from the city and from the country

We start in the Oslo region, with artists who come from that area, or who sing with that kind of accent. Our first artist is Chris Holsten, who has been tremendously popular the last couple of years. Here comes “Smilet i ditt eget speil” (The smile in your own mirror).

In Holsten’s video, you see landscapes from different places in Norway, some of them far from Oslo. However, the capital city is also beautifully situated within forests, islands and hills, although it is different from the fjords of Western Norway.

The next tune is by the band Halva Priset. It was set up by Peter Bjørklund Kristiansen, who previously known under the pseudonym Katastrofe. Kristiansen is primarily known for his party music, but sometimes, you will hear something that is more serious. Our next tune, “Den fineste Chevy’n”, is a good example. Here, you hear an acoustic version in cooperation with Maria Mena.

When going to other places, you easily realize that much of Norway has a love-hate relationship to its capital. The way people speak in Oslo is often considered to be the more “correct”, although you will hear different accents and dialects when travelling through the country.  Sometimes you can even hear this variation in the same song, like in this duet with Emma Steinbakken and Aslag Haugen singing “Jeg glemmer deg aldri” (I will never forget you).

Emma uses standardized Bokmål, while Aslag from the band Hellbillies sings in his dialect from Ål (Hallingdal), which is closer to Nynorsk.

If you watch the TV series Rådebank, you may also hear this tune. The TV series is about the Råner, young people in smaller towns who spend a lot of time driving around in their cars, without having any specific goal. However, the TV series may have helped improving the reputation of the råner.  

Hagle, that we see in the next video, also wants to give us a positive image of the Råner culture. Hagle (meaning Shot gun in Norwegian) comes from Mysen, 60 kilometers from Oslo, and they they call their music “country-rap”. Here, you can see and hear “Bøgda” (the countryside), made in cooperation with Staysman.

Did you notice the smiling driver of the old Volvo? That is the finance minister, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum!

Music of the fjords

In Norway, speaking dialect is common – people want to show where they come from. The inhabitants – the bergenser –  are very proud of their city, its historic centre and its beautiful surroundings. Bergen is the second-largest city of Norway and the largest in western Norway. It also fostered two of Norway’s most important musicians in the 19th century: Edvard Grieg and Ole Bull. In our times, music from Bergen has reached the tops of the hit lists on some occasions, and there is one particular singer that we need to mention –  Gabrielle.

Here, you will hear “Fem fine frøkner” (Five nice ladies)

Skam (meaning “shame”) is a Norwegian TV-series from 2015-2017 that has achieved world-wide fame, and remakes were made in several countries. . It describes the life of teenagers in Oslo, with all challenges that they encounter. In the series, you also see a love affair between two boys while the tune “Fem fine frøkner” can be heard in the background.

In the southwest lies Stavanger, a charming old town with many white wooden houses. It is known as Norway’s oil capital, but has remained a medium-sized city, with its own strong identity and its own dialect. This is also where the band “Stavangerkameratene”, (the Stavanger friends) comes from, who sing in their native Stavanger dialect.

Here, you will hear their tune “Bare så du vett det” (Just so you know).

Imagine snow, Christmas and a beautiful voice in a Norwegian context. These are ingredients for our next video. Eva Weel Skram comes from the fjord district of the west. Here, she sings Selmas sang, in Nynorsk.

This song was made for Snøfall, a TV series made like a Christmas calendar. The series is made for children, but is adult friendly and useful for Norwegian learners (they speak Bokmål).

Modern Norwegian folk music

Upper Telemark (Vinje area) used to be an isolated area, and more folk tunes have survived there than elsewhere. The dialect is poetic, but hard to understand. Therefore, a Nynorsk version of these songs are used in modern interpretations. Nynorsk has similarities to the dialect, but is easier to understand. The Trondheim band Gåte has experimented a lot with this, as we can se in the next video. This was the Norwegian contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 2024

Upper Telemark has also fostered an impressive number of talented musicians, including Odd Nordstoga, here with “Dans, dans, dans”

Norstoga has also been working closely with another musician from the same area, Ingebjørg Bratland. Here, she sings “Fordi eg elskar deg” (Because I love you).

Music of the Arctic

Some of the most beautiful Norwegian voices come from the north. One of them is Kari Bremnes from the Lofoten islands, north of the arctic circle.  

Sondre Justad is another artist from the same area. He is a sporty guy who has performed in places where you would not expect it, including the peak of a mountain. This concert was held right outside the village where he grew up, Henningsvær. Enjoy!

In June 2022, during the Oslo pride week, Norway was surprised by a terrorist attack at a gay bar. Sondre Justad was present at the memorial service that was held shortly afterwards. He performed a song that is a tribute to love of different types – “Ikke som de andre”.

Now, I will bring you even further north. Our next singer, Moddi, comes from a fishing village on the island of Senja. Here, he sings “Mannen i Ausa”, which is not only a song, but an old local legend.

Moddi also wants to express a point of view with his music. One example is Punk prayer, which is his interpretation of the performance of Pussy Riot in Moscow in 2012.

Our musical journey goes all the way north to Karasjok, a Sami village surrounded by wilderness. The Sami language is very different from Norwegian, as you can hear in the next video. We will see Mari Boine, probably the most successful Sami musician ever.

The immigrant community and their influence on Norwegian music

Oslo is also known for its immigrant community. They have made their imprint on daily life, also as second and third generation immigrants who speak Norwegian and feel like being Norwegian. However, they don’t always feel accepted by the Norwegian society.

The singer with the artist name Hkeem is of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, but he grew up in Oslo. He sings in Norwegian and has made rap music based on the idea that non-white people need to stand up for their rights. The title of the next tune is “fy faen”, which is a way of swearing, and should therefore not be said too often. However, it can also be a good way of expressing your own frustration, as we can see in the next video.

The hip-hop duo Karpe is one of the most popular bands in Norway right now. It has made an important contribution to the development of Norwegian music during the last 20 years. Their parents came from abroad, but Magdi and Chirag make lyrics in Norwegian, often related to the life of immigrants. Although primarily known as a hip-hop band, Karpe also makes other music that fit into other categories. The next tune, PAF.no, is based on a Tunisian traditional song (the tune itself begins at 2:10).

PAF.no is not only the title of the tune, but also the name (and the web address) of a charity foundation that the duo has set up.

Music just for fun

Music can sometimes be too serious, so I would like to finish with something that is less so. The next tune is Vidar Villa’s “Moren din” (your mother). The vocalist (whose first name is Vidar) is saying that he is in love with the other guy’s mother.

The mother in this video is Mia Gundersen, a singer from Stavanger. As you can see, she is certainly up for a joke.

A good party song could also be nice to cheer you up, or to make you stay in the right mood. Here comes “Pinne for landet” (a drink for the country) by Freddy Kalas.

By the way, the meaning of the word kalas is “party”. An excellent alias, in my opinion.

The biggest stars of Norwegian music?

I will finish by mentioning two artists who have been active for many years. Wenche Myhre is Norwegian, but she has also had success in a few other countries and performed tunes in several languages.

The original title of the next tune is “en chantant”, composed and sung by the French singer Michel Sardou. Here, you will hear Wenche Myhre performing the Norwegian version: “vi lever”. It is organized as a sing-along on Fredriksten Fortress in Halden, next to the Swedish border. This was organized during the corona pandemic, which is why there aren’t many people present.

Wenche Myhre also had an active career as a singer and TV-presenter in Germany for many years. Myhre’s performance of the German version of this tune, “Wir leben”, was also successful in German-speaking countries.  

Wenche Myhre did not make the translations of this song herself, the Norwegian version was written by Jan Eggum, another well-known Norwegian singer.

The last singer that I want to present is Jahn Teigen, one of the most popular singers ever in Norway. His international adventure was not very successful: He got zero points for “Mil etter mil” at the Eurovision song contest in 1979. But he never gave up, and the Norwegian people never stopped loving him, for his voice and for his humorous style. Unfortunately, we will never see him perform again – he passed away in early 2020. Now you can listen to his love song “Det vakreste som finnes”.


I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to music in the Norwegian language. This blog post was not meant as a comprehensive guide, but I have tried to make a selection that includes different kinds of music. There are certainly many other artists who are worth mentioning. If you look for music that was popular some years ago (and to some extent, still today), you could check out Lillebjørn Nielsen or Øystein Sunde. Together with Jan Eggum and Halfdan Sivertsen they also formed the group Gitarkameratene for a few years.

DeLillos or Postgirobygget are two other examples of groups that used to be very popular, and still are. However, if you want to know more about the music that is on the hit lists right now, you should check out the YouTube channel Norwegian music 2022 or a couple of Spotify’s channels, like Top 50 – Norway or Norsk Hiphop & Rap.

Do you want to learn more about Norway and the Norwegian language? There are different articles to be found on this blog. You are welcome to have a closer look.

Do you want to learn Norwegian yourself? Or do you want to master it better? Listening to songs can be an integrated part of the learning process.

However, you will need some basic knowledge of the language first, for which a good language teacher can be of great help. norwegian.online offers private Norwegian online language lessons. Check out this website to learn more.