These past years I´ve come to listen more and more to Swedish groups and musicians. Someone I really admire is the 42 year old  charismatic star called Joakim (Stortån Pimme Thåis) Thåström. According to my opinion he's the Swedish version of "the King" although their music aren´t at all similar. Most of all I like Thåström´s band Imperiet and his solo albums. Karenina is one of Thåström´s beautiful ballads, so that´s where I got my nick from!
Ulf Lundell is also an artist whose music and books I'm highly impressed by. My favourite songs by him are "Museum", "Stackars Jack" and "Snön faller och vi med den" among others. I like his book Jack where he, in great detail, describes the life of five blokes in the middle of the seventies.
Cornelis Vreeswijk, yet another tremendous artist, was a famous troubadour who wrote many hilarious and serious lyrics about the society and its defects. Unfortunately he died in 1987, mainly due to alcoholic problems.

When it comes to foreign artists I'm quite into Irish music, folk music as well as popular. Sinead O`Connor and the Cranberries are included in the latter category.

I'm also fond of Spanish music such as Dover, Ella baila sola and Amistades Peligrosas but unfortunately they're yet not that famous world wide.