Sputnik

Who is Sputnik?

Knut T. Storbukås, more commonly known by his stage name, Sputnik, is a musician and truck driver from Bostrak in the village of Tørdal which is in the municipality of Drangedal, Telemark. His most well known songs are Skilles Johanne og Lukk opp din hjertedør Open Up Your Heart.

In only a few years, Storbukås sold more than one million cassettes, and set records in a series of places where he performed. He was rated as artist of the year in Norway in 1990, and in the fall of 1993 he got into the The Guinness Book of World Records when he performed thirty-six times in locations from Mandal in the south to Tromsø in the north in the period of only 72 hours.

During Easter in 1990, he was in the Soviet Union and was a part of the most original music video that a Norwegian had ever made at the time. Under glasnost, Sputnik stood in Red Square in Moscow and sang Lukk opp din hjertedør. The video was later shown in its entirety in Norwegian on Dagsrevyen. Sputnik stole the show during the opening of TV2 in Grieghallen in the fall of 1992, in a duet with Kjell Bekkelund.

He has also performed in Sweden, Denmark, USA, Svalbard, Zanzibar, and Spain. However, most of all, he has performed hundreds of times in both big and small places around all of Norway. In the beginning, Sputnik received a harsh treatment from the critics, but he was loved by the people.