There is something that Europe can do that no other continent as yet has managed to perfect: Trashy Euro-pop. Each continent has their brand of bizarre pop music, it’s true. But Europe sees that line between dinky innocent electro-pop and exaggerated sexual innuendos, and drags that dinky innocent electro-pop kicking and screaming to the side of the embellished who embrace questionable morals with a can-do-attitude.

The longer I live here the more of these dazzling pop explosions I uncover in Iceland’s ubercamp music scene. You would think that in the home of respectable international musicians like Björk, Ólafur Arnalds and Sigur Rós this is what you could come to expect from us, but no, there is the respectable and the fabulously debauched as well.

As I wrote about Princess Leoncie and her place in Iceland’s crown of grace and sophistication not too long ago I hadn’t intended to write about music again for a while. But when I was introduced to Haffi Haff, the trashiest of all of Iceland’s music supernovas, how could I resist sharing his outrageous antics with you all?

Haffi Haff, like me, is an Icelander who spent his youth abroad and only returned recently to get back in touch with the homeland. And gotten in touch, he has. It’s almost as though he is straddling the island with his refined behavior and elegant music (note sarcasm here).

An excellent start to the journey of familiarizing yourself to the tasteful music of Haffi Haff is “Give Me Sexy,” the lyrics of which seem to predominantly consist of that exact line and feeling “dirty” and “nasty.” In fact, it’s all about giving sexy all the time.

One must assume that the person that you are delivering the “sexy” to is indeed Haffi Haff but what exactly the “sexy” is remains ambiguous. A sexy look? A sexy dance? The sex? Or an ambiguous concept which encompasses all things sexy? The answer remains a mystery and only Haffi Haff knows.

The second stop on our Haffi Haff tour is Eurovision, the natural habitat of graceful Euro-pop creatures like Haffi Haff. 

Haffi Haff sadly lost his chance to grace the stage in Moscow this summer with his classy vocal stylings after Jóhanna Gudrún Jónsdóttir beat him to the Euro-crown in the preliminary Eurovision contest and placed a respectable second place in the final competition. Haffi Haff was simply forced to Wiggle Wiggle to the floor on his own.

Not defeated by the cold shoulder of the Icelandic voters who chose Jóhanna over him he continued to work at the Mac counter in Iceland’s only Debenhams, made an appearance at the Miss World Malta competition, and kept creating his music, which he describes on his MySpace site as a journey of controversy, hidden messages and one in which he willingly puts himself in harm’s way to make a statement.

No, really, he does actually put himself in some fairly dicey situations. For example, in his newest music video “Jealousy” Haffi Haff struts through the centre of Reykjavík with a bucket of acid green paint (the color no doubt representing envy, as you can see Haffi Haff works on a number of symbolic levels), wearing what looks like a disco ball transformed into a cat suit and splatters this green paint on unsuspecting and furious by-passers on the street.

The film crew catches the shocked faces, distraught as Haffi Haff has ruined all their clothes or their food (at one point, Haffi smears paint on a row of hotdogs still in the hands of the innocent people who had planned to eat them).

Their heartbreak as their hot dogs fall limply to the ground was astounding, some party goers, upset about getting paint splashed on them threaten to start a fight but Haffi Haff merely brushes those plebs aside as he exclaims that they are all just jealous of his chic extraterrestrial glory because everyone wants to be like him.

Yes, we are all jealous of Haffi Haff… who wouldn’t be? Did you see the hat with the random strings dangling from them? That disco ball cat suit? His sunflower yellow leather hot pants?

No? You’re not jealous? Me neither, but he gave me some laughs and some sass, which came as a welcome relief from all the mania my workload and fiscal uncertainty assigned me.

Nanna Árnadóttir – nannaa@hotmail.co.uk