Marcel Winatschek

Before Everyone Else Caught On

Tove Styrke came third on Swedish Idol in 2009 at seventeen, which says less about her than about how those competitions work. The label signed her anyway. Her early single "Call My Name" arrived with the kind of effortless pop confidence that usually takes artists years to develop—bright and slightly sharp-edged and exactly as catchy as it needs to be, nothing wasted. Sweden keeps producing these people and I keep failing to be surprised enough.