On the Chart, May 2008
El Perro del Mar
The recording name of the Swedish singer Sarah Assbring, which began in Gothenburg as a run of small EPs. By 2008 it was on a British label, and on a Cove list in the same sentence as Mariah Carey.
The Cove archive desk · Compiled October 2026
One sentence in Cove
Cove’s May 2008 blog page, On the Chart, reported that the Naked Brothers Band had taken No. 1 on the Pop list by exceeding music from El Perro del Mar, Raven-Symoné and even Mariah Carey
. That is the whole of the reference. The page does not name the El Perro del Mar song, and the May lists were not archived, so the song is not published. What MusicBrainz does establish is that the album From the Valley to the Stars came out on 27 February 2008, a few months before that list.
At a glance
| Act | Solo artist |
|---|---|
| Origin | Gothenburg (Wikipedia) |
| Releases on MusicBrainz | 30 release groups, 2004–2024 |
| Earliest dated release listed | Holiday Special (2004, ep (demo)) |
| Label on that release | no label (self-released) |
| In Cove’s archive | On the Chart, May 2008 |
Albums and EPs
| First released | Title | Type | Label on first release |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Holiday Special | EP (demo) | no label (self-released) |
| 2004 | What's New? | EP | Hybris |
| 2004-04-19 | Baby I've Been in a Bad Place | EP | Hybris |
| 2004-06-02 | I've Got Good News | EP | Hybris |
| 2004-12-01 | Oh What a Christmas! | EP | Hybris |
| 2005-05-18 | Look! It's El Perro del Mar! | Album | Hybris |
| 2005-11-16 | You Gotta Give to Get | EP | Hybris |
| 2006-04-10 | El Perro del Mar | Album | Memphis Industries |
| 2008-02-27 | From the Valley to the Stars | Album | Memphis Industries |
| 2009-04-01 | Love Is Not Pop | Album | Licking Fingers |
| 2012-11-12 | Pale Fire | Album | The Control Group |
| 2016-09-16 | KoKoro | Album | The Control Group |
| 2018-02-23 | We Are History | EP | Ging Ging Recordings |
| 2020-11-20 | Free Land | EP | The Control Group |
| 2024-02-16 | Big Anonymous | Album | City Slang |
| 2024-11-25 | Big Anonymous for Organ | EP | City Slang |
MusicBrainz lists thirty release groups. The table shows the albums and EPs; the singles are left out. In the record, “El Perro del Mar” is linked to Sarah Assbring as the person behind it, and Wikipedia describes it the same way: a project founded in Gothenburg in December 2003 with her as its only member.
The label history
The table shows the steps. Every album and EP from 2004 to 2005 is on the Swedish label Hybris, apart from a demo EP with no label. Wikipedia says she began as an MP3 and CD-R artist. The self-titled album of 2006 shows Memphis Industries, the UK label that Wikipedia says picked the record up that year, and The Control Group, which it names as her American label. Licking Fingers, the label run by the band The Concretes according to Wikipedia, appears on Love Is Not Pop (2009). The most recent entries, Big Anonymous and an organ version of it, both 2024, are on City Slang.
What is documented since
A long career on the record: albums in 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2024, and EPs in 2018 and 2020. Wikipedia describes her later work as changing character from album to album. MusicBrainz shows the same thing as constant label and format changes.
She is one of only two non-American acts in this set of profiles. The other is Nick Howard, born in Brighton. Cove mostly covered North American records, and its own method note said the Editor’s List drew on albums … normally released only in North America
, which makes a Swedish act on a Cove Pop list worth noting. The same blog post covered Lizz Wright, Lyfe Jennings and Phil Stacey.
From the Valley to the Stars, track by track
The album current at the time of Cove’s May 2008 list. The US release below is dated 22 April 2008, two months after the first release of the album.
| # | Track | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jubilee | 2:11 |
| 2 | Glory to the World | 2:49 |
| 3 | You Can't Steal a Gift | 2:29 |
| 4 | How Did We Forget? | 3:11 |
| 5 | Inside the Golden Egg | 1:46 |
| 6 | To Give Love | 2:26 |
| 7 | Inner Island | 4:32 |
| 8 | Do Not Despair | 3:17 |
| 9 | Somebody's Baby | 2:28 |
| 10 | The Sun Is an Old Friend | 1:02 |
| 11 | Happiness Won Me Over | 3:41 |
| 12 | From the Valley to the Stars | 2:21 |
| 13 | You Belong to the Sky Now | 1:38 |
| 14 | Into the Sunshine | 2:58 |
| 15 | Someday I'll Understand (Love Will Be My Mirror) | 3:44 |
| 16 | Your Name Is Neverending | 2:09 |
Discography data: MusicBrainz (CC0), checked 26 October 2026. Dates are first-release dates as MusicBrainz records them; a release it does not list is not shown here. Background not held by MusicBrainz was confirmed against Wikipedia, checked 26 October 2026.
Also in Cove’s archive: Lyfe Jennings · Aimee Allen · all the new artists in Cove’s archive · the archive home page