Sweden is known for a lot of good things. But, to my primary concern, their music export game is absolutely second to none.
In 2014, 25% of the songs that reached the US Top 10 were co-written by Swedish songwriters - most notably, Max Martin. House music is littered with names from Sweden - RIP to Avicii. In fact, South Korea actively hired Swedish songwriters to help them craft some of the world's biggest K-Pop hits. ABBA are from Sweden. Spotify and SoundCloud have Swedish founders - music tech innovation is fierce in the country.
Henrik Karlsson puts forth 2 important factors as to why Sweden succeeded this well at music. One was the rise of self-organized study circles for the service of society, that lobbied with the state to get more funding (which is, a large chunk of the budget). However, the study circles lost their primary purpose, and instead turned into associations to learn anything that people find cool. Among those associations included "bands".
The second is subsidized public music schools which included 1-1 tutoring. Usually, private institutions excel in providing 1-1 tutoring, because people are willing to pay a premium for it. But that also means that such tutoring is restricted to higher-income families. It's hard to organize ground-up institutions / movements where the love of music is ingrained in a large section of society - which makes Sweden such a miraculous story. Around 600,000 Swedes regularly sing in choirs.
The importance of public institutions in building markets - and, in this case, scenes - could not be better exemplified. They don't have to come from the government, either. They can be groups of people willing to come together to form a spontaneous order that fosters knowledge creation, creativity, and sometimes, some incredible market successes. These public programs pay themselves back in those market successes in the form of kickbacks or taxes on the profits.
I am a DJ on the side. I get a ringside view to relatively new scenes forming in India. Drum-n-bass, trap, techno, and most notably hip-hop in recent times. I love that it's a group of individuals sharing an interest in music who not only want to make it out on their own, but are willing to share what worked for them and what didn't. What's also evident is the clear lack of institutional help. One can never predict when institutional intervention is required (or if), but the opportunity often presents itself.
Because you never know when a bunch of public school music tutors decide to gang up and make some song about a Canadian city where Napoleon fought.