It’s really time to highlight the phenomenon of 22 för många (“22 too many”), the Stockholm band that paved a way out of punk and into something completely different. Something the contemporary world was not ready for, and hardly even our own time.
22 för många was a rock band in Stockholm that was active around 1980-1983. The band was born out of punk, but with 22 för många they wanted to break away from the music movement that they thought had solidified just as much as all movements before it.
Although the members had very different personalities and motivations, and were only about twenty years old, they found their own mature sound. Already from the first recordings you can hear that it’s 22 för många that’s playing. Bassist Catarina Silverforsen was also something very unusual at the time, as a female member in an otherwise male line-up – without playing a lesser role than the others. Quite the opposite, perhaps.
22 för många must be considered as completely unique. The music was innovative even in an international comparison, the lyrics dared to be both serious and ironic, and on stage the band was more of a musical theater group than a posing cliché. 22 för många were intense and they challenged their audience. Of course, they were not understood by their contemporaries and their success was almost none.
Nevertheless, the band managed to record two cassette albums, an LP, an EP and an unreleased LP for the slightly larger Mistlur label.
Since the funds were small and the band did most of the work themselves, the technical quality of the releases is far from the best. The cassette albums were issued in the cheapest possible way and the original tapes have long been assumed to have disappeared. Until now. Fanfar! has, after much research, located what is probably the best format of the various recordings. Our long-term wish is to make the entire catalog available in one way or another.
A sensational find is the master tapes of the first cassette LP. The material is available on the internet, but in shaky copies from the cassette. However, the quality of the masters is astonishing.
With the album Yrkesmördare i livets tjänst we want to do justice to 22 för många and release the first cassette in the way it would have been released in its time, and with the best possible conditions. So this is an vinyl LP, where all the steps from master to finished record are analog.
There are cheaper and easier ways to do this, but the purpose is to highlight this forgotten musical treasure – and it is part of the story of this record. No one benefits from wasting the talent that was 22 för många, again.
Here is a sample of 22 för många’s music. Note that the sample is taken from the cassette, not from the vinyl LP that we’re now releasing – where the source is the original studio master.
Members
- Henrik Franzén, vocals
- Catarina Silverforsen, bass and vocals
- Mikael Söderlund, guitar
- Patrik “Putte” Wetterström, drums
- (Over the years several different drummers participated)
Discography
- 22 för många (MC, 1981)
- 22 för många (LP, Futurax 1982)
- Förgiftad av kärlek (EP, Futurax 1983)
- I afton trans (MC, TFM 1983)
- Tokfansmännen i luftballongen (Outgiven LP, Mistlur 1983)
- Yrkesmördare i livets tjänst (LP, Fanfar! 2023)
Photo
Björn Sveding