Prog in Norway: What's in the water?

How is it that a country with a population of 5.379 million (with a population density of 15 people per square kilometer) have such a thriving, high quality, proggy music scene? What's in the water? Will somebody please explain?

I think it is more that people outside Norway are simply just taking note of it.

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Their jazz scene is damn fine too.

SteveG wrote: Vikings have always loved prog. It goes back to the days of those great Nordic sagas.

BrufordFreak wrote: nick_h_nz wrote: I think it is more that people outside Norway are simply just taking note of it. I’m willing to bet there are many countries around the world making as much great music as Norway, but it is simply not being shouted about. I don’t want to be the negative nelly here, and I don’t want to take away from all the great music from Norway, but I don’t think it is as unusual as people are making out. Even on the Fennoscandian peninsula alone, Finland and Sweden have as much great music as Norway. Sweden has been recognised previously, and now Norway is getting its turn to shine. But all three have great musical history and heritage, and all three have a booming modern prog scene. That said, I love so much Norwegian prog (from the classic through to today). 🇳🇴  I'm not so sure, Nick:  The number of high quality albums from Norwegian bands that I've been collecting over the past 15 years seems disproportionate to those coming out of other countries--especially when I look at my End of Year Top Albums lists. I'll have to do some more thinking and spelunking about this, …

Not the case for me, 3% of my collection from 2000 onwards have been Norwegian dominated by elephant9, Jaga Jazzist, Hedvig Mollestad & Panzerpappa. 

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Not the case for me, 3% of my collection from 2000 onwards have been Norwegian dominated by elephant9, Jaga Jazzist, Hedvig Mollestad & Panzerpappa.  If I ignore UK & USA then the top countries for me are France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Sweden & Italy before I get to Norway. If I rank them in albums per 1MM population they are a much more respectable 2nd behind the UK UK - 9.5 albums per 1MM population Norway - 9 Belgium - 6 Sweden - 5.6 France - 3.3 USA - 1.9 Canada - 1.8 Germany - 1.1 Italy - 0.8

Personally, although it was never the main point of the OP, population density is completely irrelevant, as a lower population density can suggest a population is more spread out than a higher one. For example, Australia has a population density of approximately 3, while New Zealand is more like 15. (These are from memory of when I was at school, so are no doubt now changed, but their accuracy doesn’t change the point.) But, Australia has a large part of the country where next to no one lives, and their population is in more dense clumps than that of New Zealand.

nick_h_nz wrote: Personally, although it was never the main point of the OP, population density is completely irrelevant, as a lower population density can suggest a population is more spread out than a higher one. For example, Australia has a population density of approximately 3, while New Zealand is more like 15. (These are from memory of when I was at school, so are no doubt now changed, but their accuracy doesn’t change the point.) But, Australia has a large part of the country where next to no one lives, and their population is in more dense clumps than that of New Zealand. If you are going to use population statistics for wondering why there is so much music coming out from a country, then looking on a per capita basis is probably better than looking by density. Not that it is a particularly good way of looking at it, either, but it does work a little better, I am definitely not suggesting every country has as much music coming out of it as Norway, so it will be easy to find countries which are not. I just think that Norway seems to be getting more attention, so it seems like there is considerably more coming out from there than other countries, when this really doesn’t seem to be the case, so much as more of their bands getting more attention. Writing lists of what you have doesn’t change this. I can write lists, too.n The other thing is, of course, that once one starts to dive into the output of one country, it becomes easier to find more, and more, and more, and more, from that country. Norway has a great number of high quality music, it’s true. But it’s not alone or special in that, and it’s number isn’t considerably more than many other countries with a great number of high quality music. (Ignoring the subjectivity as to what at high quality music is, as I am using that only because it was used by the OP).

Whatever it is, we DO appreciate it!