Wonder why so many prog bands come from Sweden?

Sweden has months with no sun- doesn't it. What else can you do?

Jonas Reingold (bass player from The Flower Kings) gave his opinion on this, but on a more general level:

PA: And what do you think of the music scene in Sweden right now? It seems very fertile.

JR: Yeah, I think that the average climate for music is very good! Not that they’re all getting gigs everywhere, I kind of think the gig scene is pretty low everywhere… but we’re the third biggest exporter of music in the world, and I think that’s pretty good considering our population. I believe that United States is number one and then England is 2 and then we’re number 3, so it’s a big success internationally, and we love that. There was a time in the late 90s where we really dominated on the Billboard list with guys like Max Martin and those guys who wrote songs for Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears and Celine Dion, and I think there was a specific week when Max Martin had number 1, 2, 3,4 and 5 on the charts and that’s only happened once before with the Beatles in ’64 or ’65 or something. I think it’s because of that and I think it’s because the parents can read that people are actually making money from music and it’s considered a good business here in Sweden. If you sell a million records you will make a good amount of money, so, they’re encouraging kids to play and we have a good education system here in Sweden where the parents can put their kids into a music school. I went to that school and they just had to pay a very, very low fee to have your kid in a musical school – I think it’s like fifty bucks a year or something – plus you can rent an instrument for fifty bucks more. Its nothing! So it’s a good system where anyone can start to play, and we have rehearsal rooms and studios where people can go and practice and form bands, and we have programs to try and keep the kids off the streets, just focusing on good, positive things like music or art. So we’re harvesting the benefits of what we started, like, 25 years ago - right now.  There’s a lot of bands playing and of course Abba opened the door in the 70s. There’s a lot of reasons, but it’s because we had things in place to do that, we had programs to keep them out of the streets and to stay productive.

^ I didn't mean to isolate the phenomenon, just add it as a counterweight to the horrible dansband music 

That must be why so many metal bands come from Sweden too.....

I don't know, really. This thing started in the late 60's or 70's - and is as popular as ever in Sweden (and Norway too when it comes to that).

Even the third rate tier of bands playing this music (imagine what that sounds like...) will sell loads more than your average prog band.

My personal theory - it's a reaction to growing up and being forcefed music like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS5FrHiO-9Q