Fiona Sturges: Stop scoffing. We should now look to Sweden for inspiration

It has long been a custom for us Brits to scoff at Swedish music. Rock critics have been especially cruel, peppering reviews with jibes about Volvos and flat-pack furniture. Now they're laughing on the other side of their faces. As British pop sinks in a mire of TV-manufactured groups and the American industry struggles to exercise control over its rap stars, Swedish music is undergoing a revolution.

It was the arrival of the Hives last year, signed in the UK by the ex-Creation boss Alan McGee on his Poptones label, that hinted at what was to come. Their slant on old-fashioned garage rock, led by the insistent holler of Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, had critics frothing at the mouth with excitement and punters flocking to their shows. Not bad for a band who named themselves after a skin complaint. Next came the (International) Noise Conspiracy, an unruly bunch of anti-capitalist garage rockers who became notorious after playing illegally in China and joining the Gothenburg summit riots. Their anti-globalist sloganeering, leavened by catchy choruses and a healthy dose of rock'n'roll attitude, made them the toast of the international music scene.

Abba were the band who started it all for the music-loving Swedes. The boy-girl quartet were thrust into the limelight in 1974 with "Waterloo", a song which won the Eurovision Song Contest and saw the band scaling the charts in Britain and America. But by the Eighties they had fallen out of favour and were lampooned as the epitome of Seventies kitsch.

The Eighties was a dark decade for Swedish pop, the country's most successful exports being the grisly death metal outfit Dismember and the poodled-permed guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. Things picked up in the Nineties with the success of the Cardigans, the indie-pop band whose song "Lovefool" appeared on Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet, and the Wannadies, a power pop combo whose big hit was "The You and Me Song". The Nineties heralded a series of glossy Abba re-issues and saw Benny, Agnetha, Anni-Frid and Bjorn reinstated at the top of the album charts. With an endless parade of tribute bands (Steps included) and even an Abba-inspired West End musical, the band enjoy a busy afterlife.

A decade later Swedish music is going from strength to strength with the Hives and (International) Noise Conspiracy leading the way in rock. Given the lack of talent and charisma on our own music scene, perhaps it is us who should be looking to Sweden for musical inspiration.