Fairytales (Alexander Rybak album)


Fairytales is the debut studio album by the Belarusian-Norwegian artist Alexander Rybak. It was released in Norway and most of Europe on 29 May 2009, and in the UK on 15 June. Most of the songs on the album are written and/or composed by Rybak himself.
The first single of this album is Rybak's "Fairytale", the winning song from the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. His entry broke the previous record of 292 in the festival and achieved a total of 387 points. All the participating countries voted for the song.
Rybak wrote English lyrics for one Russian and one Norwegian song, for the album. The chorus in the song "Abandoned", uses music by Kirill Moltchanov, from the theme from the 1968 Russian film Доживем до понедельника. The song "If You Were Gone", is an English version of the Norwegian song "Vårsøg", with music by Henning Sommerro.

Track listing

Bonus track
Bonus track
French edition
Russian edition bonus track

Russian winter edition

Fairytales – Зимняя сказка
Standard-Edition
Digipack-Edition
1. CD:
Same songs as Standard-Edition
2. DVD:

Personnel

Musicians
Recording and production staff
Album artwork
RegionDateLabelFormat
Armenia29 May 2009UniversalCD
Austria29 May 2009EMICD
Azerbaijan29 May 2009UniversalCD
Belarus29 May 2009UniversalCD
Belgium29 May 2009V2/UniversalCD
Denmark29 May 2009EMICD; Digital download
Finland29 May 2009EMICD; Digital download
Germany29 May 2009EMICD; Digital download
Kazakhstan29 May 2009UniversalCD
Kyrgyzstan29 May 2009UniversalCD
Luxembourg29 May 2009V2/UniversalCD
Netherlands29 May 2009V2/UniversalCD
Norway29 May 2009EMICD
Russia29 May 2009UniversalCD
Romania29 May 2009UniversalCD
Switzerland29 May 2009EMICD
Tajikistan29 May 2009UniversalCD
Turkmenistan29 May 2009UniversalCD
Uzbekistan29 May 2009UniversalCD
UkraineUniversalCD-
Cyprus2 June 2009UniversalCD
Greece2 June 2009UniversalCD
Sweden3 June 2009LionheartCD
EstoniaJune 4, 2009CD
IrelandJune 15, 2009EMICD
United Kingdom15 June 2009EMICD
France17 August 2009M6 InteractionsCD
Poland21 August 2009UniversalCD

Charts

Critical reception

On 27 May 2009 Norway's biggest newspaper Verdens Gang was the first to review the album giving it top score, 6 out of 6. "Alexander Rybak has not only become a star in no time, he deserves the status as well", the paper said. On the same day it was revealed that the album had been leaked illegally on the net. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet was less enthused. "Rybak is seducing, but not entirely convincing" their critic stated, giving it 4 out of 6 points. Aftenposten gave it 5 out of 6 stars, calling Rybak "a complete artist." Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, however, caused a stir by giving the record merely 1 star and hurling epithets like "violin hobbit" and "smurf hits" at the artist. TV2 in Norway gave the album 4 out of 6 stars, stating that Rybak was "no one-hit-wonder at all". NRK gave Rybak a good review saying that Rybak was "a good pop composer." Dagsavisen gave the record 5 points out of 6, exclaiming "the fairy tale continues!" The radio channel P4 Radio Hele Norge gave the album a rather poor review. Calling it a record for "13 year old girls and Eurovision enthusiasts" it got 2 stars. Bergensavisen was impressed by the record, especially by the album's "personal style", and gave it 5 stars.