The Grammis
Where the Week Started, Where the Week Ended
The first Stockholm Music Week closed where it had to close. At Annexet, on a televised stage, with the Swedish music industry gathered in full to honor its own.
Zara Larsson took the night. She won Pop of the Year for Midnight Sun, accepted on stage by her mother Agnetha, who told the room how much Zara had wanted to be there in person.
Zara cannot be here because she is in Los Angeles, living her dream. She really wanted to be here tonight. It took her thirteen years to get here, but she is there now.
Agnetha Larsson, accepting on behalf of her daughter Zara
It took her 13 years, but now she is where she always dreamed of being.
Agnetha Larsson, on her daughter Zara
Then came Artist of the Year, her third in that category. Larsson appeared on a video link from Los Angeles where she was on tour and preparing to attend the Billboard Women in Music ceremony that same evening, where she was named Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
It is exciting to have a breakthrough thirteen years into a career. The biggest tip I can give younger artists is: write your own music, if you don't already. I wish I had done it earlier. I'm here now, and it has never felt better.
Zara Larsson, Artist of the Year
It was Tuesday's argument, again, from another angle. Build slowly. Take time. The streaming era taught the industry to chase the moment. The saturation era is teaching it to build the room. Larsson, taking Sweden's most coveted music prize on the same evening she was named Billboard's Breakthrough Artist of the Year, was the proof of what thirteen patient years can do.
Viagra Boys swept three categories. Album of the Year for viagr aboys, Rock for the same record, and Songwriter of the Year for Sebastian Murphy. Pelle Gunnerfeldt won Producer of the Year for his work across both Viagra Boys and The Hives. Ghost, who were one of five Music Export Prize nominees the week before, won Hard Rock/Metal for Skeletá.
In their acceptance speeches, Viagra Boys thanked their wives and their mothers, a quietly tender note from a band better known for its noise.
Elvira Anderfjärd won Composer of the Year for her work on Addison Rae's Addison. Yukimi won Soul/R&B for For You. Anna von Hausswolff won Alternative Pop for ICONOCLASTS. Jireel won Hiphop for YEMAYA II. Lisa Nilsson won Singer-Songwriter for Uteblivna vi.
Fanny Avonne won New Artist of the Year, presented in partnership with Spotify. As a songwriter and composer she has co-written several of Olga Myko's songs, including TV and Use Me, which Myko has previously cited as her viral breakthrough moment. Two of the week's most-mentioned emerging Swedish artists turn out to share a writers' room.
KAJ's Bara bada bastu won Song of the Year. The Finland-Swedish trio's tongue-in-cheek ode to the sauna became one of the year's defining cross-Nordic pop moments, having previously taken Sweden into Eurovision.
Lifetime achievement went to Siw Malmkvist, the Swedish pop legend who began her career in the 1950s, and who took to the stage to rap.
The week's other recurring names appeared across the nominations. Olga Myko, whom the week began with at Wednesday's opening dinner and who sat with Icona Pop at the Spotify session on Tuesday, was nominated for Alternative Pop. Boko Yout, who opened the Spotify 20-year celebration on Thursday, was nominated for both Rock and Music Video.
In the end, the week returned to the thing it was always about. The music. The songs that travel out of this country and into the rest of the world, the records that hold up a decade later, the writers and producers and artists who keep building a sound that Sweden, against the odds of its size, has made one of the most listened-to on earth. The Grammis was a reminder of what is being protected, and of what this country has built, and continues to build, one song at a time.
This is just the beginning, and Stockholm Music Week has a bright future ahead.
Parisa Liljestrand, Minister for Culture, opening dinner, 22 April
Earlier in the week, on the stage at Fållan, Jin Suk Choi from Korea had given the room a metaphor for how a music scene is actually built: by tending the conditions that let one grow.
When you want to catch the butterfly, you don't just catch the butterfly. You build a garden. The butterfly may not come this spring. That is fine, because you can enjoy the garden.
Jin Suk Choi, Kreation Music Rights
The garden is the scene itself. The artists, the writers, the producers, the venues, the labels, the publishers, the platforms, the policymakers, the audiences. Year one has been the ground broken, together. We are deeply grateful to every partner, artist, venue and friend who built this with us. What we have planted is the beginning of a garden the whole world will, in time, seek out to catch sight of the future of music. From here, we go all in on planning for 2027. The garden is what we are here to grow, together.
Stockholm Music Week 2026. Seven days. The first edition. See you in 2027.