Ace of Base are a Swedish pop music group formed in Gothenburg in 1990. Originally consisting of siblings Jonas, Linn, and Jenny Berggren along with Ulf Ekberg, they achieved worldwide success following the release of their debut album Happy Nation in 1992. Later reissued as The Sign it was certified nine-times platinum in the United States. Not only was it the best-selling album of 1994 but also one of the most successful debut albums of all time, being the first to produce three No. 1 singles on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart: "All That She Wants", "The Sign", and "Don't Turn Around".
The group continued to score hit singles throughout the 1990s with "Beautiful Life", "Lucky Love", "Cruel Summer", and "Life Is a Flower". They have sold 30 million copies of their first four studio albums, making them the third most successful Swedish group of all time, behind ABBA and Roxette.
Despite being largely inactive since 2012, the group has never officially disbanded. In the last decade they have released several demo tracks, first via their Facebook page and later in 2015 on the compilation album Hidden Gems. A follow-up titled Hidden Gems, Vol. 2 was included in the 2020 box set All That She Wants: The Classic Collection. Jenny Berggren continues to perform the group's hits in solo concerts around the world.
History 1987–1992: Formation In 1987 after several years as part of a new wave and punk cover band called G Konrad (named after Hungarian author György Konrád), Jonas Berggren formed a band with two friends, Johnny Lindén and Niklas Tränk, for a school project; his sisters Linn and Jenny later joined as vocalists. The new band went through several names: New Arbat Avenue, after an avenue in Moscow; CAD (Computer-Aided Disco); and Tech-Noir, which is French for black technology, inspired by a nightclub in the film The Terminator. They toured the clubs of Sweden with original material, techno tracks inspired by 1980s Italo disco and house music.
Johnny left the group in 1989, and Niklas made his departure known by failing to turn up at a gig at Bältespännarparken in Gothenburg on 4 August 1990, instead attending a Rolling Stones concert across town. Jonas asked his friend Ulf Ekberg to stand in for Niklas. Inspired by a Jamaican reggae band who resided in a studio next door to theirs, they experimented with a fusion of reggae and pop – dubbed "China reggae" by their Jamaican friends – which became the band's trademark sound.
After responding to an ad in the paper Göteborgs-Posten, the new quartet began working in the studio with record producer John Ballard. They decided to adopt a new name to make a fresh start, as well as to avoid confusion with another band called Tech Noir who were attracting bad reviews. Linn said, "No one could pronounce the name of the group and nobody could remember it." They settled on Ace of Base in early 1991 after Ulf was inspired by the Motörhead song "Ace of Spades". In a 2018 interview Ulf explained: "I was hungover, watching MTV, and I saw Motörhead's video for their song 'Ace of Spades'. I liked the name and I thought I'd play around with those words. [...] Then I thought of our studio and how it's our base".
The group continued performing in the clubs of Gothenburg but struggled to gain recognition, partly due to the local preference for heavy metal music over techno. They sent out demo cassettes to numerous record companies, but all received refusals. In May 1991 Jonas and Ulf travelled to various record companies in Stockholm, including Polar Music, which requested that they record more songs first, and SweMix, which expressed interest but did not have the capacity to work with them until autumn.
In July Klas Lunding at Telegram Records arranged for the group to record a new version of "Wheel of Fortune" in their newly renovated Decibel Studio but did not offer them a recording contract. Jonas recounts: When it had just been finished, Martin Dodd (Head of A&R at independent Danish label Mega Records) called and shouted, "Do not sign anything, do not sign anything!" They wanted everything from us, while Telegram only wanted the reggae songs and no up-tempos. We had already recorded a single with Telegram but hadn't signed anything. Klas is not the fastest in the world, so to speakand that was perhaps lucky for us. So Mega bought the master tape from Klas for 34,000 SEK.
"Wheel of Fortune" was serviced to radio and nightclubs in Sweden in early 1992, reaching Gothenburg's local Jockeytoppen chart in March, which led to an invitation to perform on the music television channel ZTV. However, the record failed to gain traction in Sweden, prompting Mega to shift focus to Denmark. After servicing the single to media three times, it was finally released commercially at the end of June 1992, entering the Danish singles chart at No. 6 before rising to No. 2.
1992–1994: International success with Happy Nation and The Sign
Following the success of "Wheel of Fortune" in Denmark, the group continued to work on new music. After hearing Kayo's "Another Mother" in a record store – a top-20 hit in Sweden in 1990 – Jonas and Ulf decided that it was the exact sound they wanted to create.
In early 1992, they sent producer Denniz PoP a demo tape that included a song titled "Mr. Ace". Initially, he was not particularly impressed, but the tape became stuck in the cassette player of his car. As a result, he had to listen to it repeatedly and gradually realized the song's potential. Although he had lost the band's contact details, when they called him a few months later, he invited them to his SweMix studio to re-record the song in July 1992. The song was eventually titled "All That She Wants" and, upon its release at the end of August, it quickly ascended to No. 1 on the Danish chart, while the previous single remained at No. 2. Eager to release an LP for the Christmas market, Mega Records pressured the band for an album, which was recorded and mixed in just a few weeks.
The album, Happy Nation, was released on 2 November 1992, in Denmark, and its success generated interest throughout Europe. A pan-European license was signed with Metronome/PolyGram (now Universal Music), but the American division declined to pursue the band. Within a few months, "All That She Wants" reached No. 3 in Sweden and spent eight weeks at No. 1 in Germany. In various European countries, "Happy Nation" and "Waiting for Magic" were released as additional singles following the album's release.
In May 1993, "All That She Wants" solidified its European success by topping the charts for three weeks in the United Kingdom. However, despite Mega Records's efforts to secure a distribution deal in the United States, the response was always the same: "This band will never work in the States." Eventually, Clive Davis, founder of Arista Records, heard the song playing on the radio whilst on vacation on his yacht, and rushed to sign a licence with Mega for the Americas. In October and November 1993, "All That She Wants" reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as in Australia.
The group had already started work on a second album, with the working title of The Sign, named after one of the new tracks they had written. However, concerned about the sales of import copies of Happy Nation, Davis decided to modify the track list of the original LP by adding three new tracks and re-titling it The Sign. Released in the US on 23 November 1993, the album remained in the top three of the Billboard Top 200 for 26 consecutive weeks and was nominated for Best Pop Album at the 1995 Grammy Awards. The updated album was released in Europe as Happy Nation (US Version). Collectively, the various versions of the album reached the No. 1 position in at least 14 countries and sold over 21 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling debut albums of all time. It was also one of the best-selling albums of 1994.
The second U.S. single was the album's title track, "The Sign", released on 14 December. It proved to be even more successful than the first single, spending six weeks at No. 1 and becoming the best-selling single of 1994. The song also achieved significant international success, peaking at No. 2 in both the UK and Sweden, and reaching No. 1 in Germany; in Australia, it topped the charts for four weeks. At the request of Clive Davis, the group's next single was "Don't Turn Around". This song had previously been released by Tina Turner as the B-side of her single "Typical Male" (1986) and had reached No. 1 in the UK for Aswad in 1988. The cover version achieved top 5 placements in the US, UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Promotion for the album concluded with the final single release, "Living in Danger", which also became a top 40 hit internationally and was performed in front of the Brandenburg Gate at the first-ever MTV Europe Music Awards in Berlin in November 1994.
The band became embroiled in controversy when, on 27 March 1993, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that Ulf had been a member of a skinhead gang during his teenage years, prior to his association with Ace of Base. Linn commented in 1993, "Ulf gave all that up long ago, and my family had nothing to do with any of that in the first place." In 2013, the story resurfaced in a report by Vice, which referenced an unauthorized CD released in 1998 titled Uffe Was a Nazi!, containing songs with racist content purportedly recorded by Ulf's former band, "Commit Suiside". Ulf was described as "a drug and alcohol-abusing teenager, when he was a member of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang". In response, Ekberg denied that Commit Suiside wrote or performed the racist songs released on Uffe was a Nazi!, and described the band as "a New Wave music band creating and performing electronic music on synthesizers without any political touch or agenda." In an interview with E!, Ulf stated, "I have always been deeply regretful of that period in my life, as I strive to bring happiness to people, and during that period, I did not live up to that standard. [...] I'm truly deeply sorry for any hurt and disappointment this has caused for our fans, and I really hope that we clearly have stated that Ace of Base never shared any of these opinions and strongly oppose all extremist opinions on both the right and left wing."
In April 1994, an obsessed German fan broke into the Berggren family home, brandishing a knife. After managing to restrain her, the band decided they needed bodyguards. Recalling the attack in a 2016 interview, Jenny said:
"She woke me up with a knife to my throat. She broke into my parents' house when I was staying there after two years away. I woke up and she was standing over me with the knife. I was terrified. That was the darker side of fame. I remember just after I was attacked I found out that we were Number 1 in the United States. All I could think was that I almost got killed. Everyone was like, 'wow, let's have a huge party'. I didn't want a party. I was broken."
1995–1997: The Bridge
Following the substantial success of their debut album, the group was offered the opportunity to perform at Madison Square Garden in New York and asked to represent brands such as Pepsi and Reebok in promotional campaigns. However, after two years of traveling the world to promote their first album, the band was too exhausted to accept any of these offers. Simultaneously, their various record companies worldwide were demanding a second album promptly. To expedite the process, instead of Jonas and Ulf writing most of the album, each member was encouraged to submit their own tracks for consideration.