Back in 2010, Swedish singer Mans Zelmerlow released a Christmas album, "Christmas With Friends". It was said that Mans was going back to the sound of classic Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc. You know, lots of swinging brass and snappy arrangements. The samples I'd heard were superb. I wanted that record. I needed that record. One of the blessings and curses of the Internet is that I can not only learn of these overseas records, I can actually purchase them--usually at a slight premium after figuring out what a "British Pound" or a "Euro" or a "Krona" is in American money. Only problem was that "Christmas With Friends" was sold exclusively through ICA stores and they weren't selling them online. So, sighing heavily, I put an alert for "Mans Zelmerlow" on eBay and hoped for the best. The record never turned up on eBay. Not in 6 years.
In this country, it is pretty much SOP for an artist who releases a Christmas album exclusive to one retailer to do what we call a "wide release" of that same record (usually with small changes to the cover art and/or track list) the following year (or sometimes a couple of years later). About the only artist I can think of who didn't do that, oddly enough, was Taylor Swift, whose Christmas EP continues to be a big seller for Target, year in and year out.
Did I ever even think the same might be true overseas? Nope. Did it ever occur to me to check the artist's web site (or, heck, even check frickin' Wikipedia) even once over the last six years? Nope. I did check Amazon every once in a while...but not for "Kära vinter". That's not one of my standard search terms. It's not even one of my off-the-wall search terms. (For the record, Amazon proper doesn't offer it, but one of their private vendors does).