Pitchfork

When Swedish synthpop princess Sally Shapiro first twirled her way into our brains a few years back, her alleged shyness got nearly as much press as her overwhelmingly satisfying starry-eyed bedroom-disco love songs. She wouldn't do shows, wouldn't pose for photos or do interviews, wouldn't even sing with anyone else in the room. In an age when genuine stars seemingly can't resist Twittering every time they run out to buy socks, that elusiveness gave her a truly rare sense of mystery. I even wrote a big long thing praising her for not shoving herself in everyone's face all the time.

But then Disco Romance, her really great debut album, sort of blew up indie-style, and Shapiro relaxed a few of her self-imposed constraints. She did a quick little DJ tour, consented to some interviews, generally showed her face a little more.

Well, that's over. In a post on her MySpace page, Shapiro and producer Johan Agebjörn announced yesterday that she doesn't plan to do any more DJ sets or any other kind of live performances in the future. But the reason isn't shyness; it's just regular run-of-the-mill sanity. Let them explain:

"After coming home from our short DJ tour last spring, Sally felt that standing on stage was not her thing, and that life on tour in general didn't interest her. It was not just about shyness, it was as much about a disinterest in endless travelling and working hours in the middle of the night. Some of the live/DJ requests turned into Johan solo DJ gigs, most didn't happen at all. Many people in the music industry think it's commercially stupid, we lose a lot of opportunities to gain listeners and sell records. And we guess they are right. We also have the feeling of making our listeners (the ones that we met were really nice) disappointed. But we believe that you shouldn't take opportunities just because they exist, if it's not what you really want to do. What if you just want to be a normal person with a normal job, record songs in the weekends, and spend the holidays picking blueberries instead of going on tour."

The post does contain some good news, however: There will be another Sally Shapiro album. Shapiro and Agebjörn are mostly done with the Disco Romance follow-up, and they say that it'll probably be out sometime this year. The record will be released on Paper Bag in North America, Husmus Media in Scandinavia, and Permanent Vacation in all the non-freezing parts of Europe.

And, judging by this quote, it should rule: "It will hopefully make you fall in love with the person sitting next to you on the bus." I guess people on public transit are prettier in Norway? Because it would take a whole lot more than an album to get me to fall in love with anyone I've ever seen on a bus over here.

Also, Shapiro now has a Twitter. Sigh.