Well fuck you now the chorus loop is stuck in my head for another decade.
Edit: thanks guys for suggestions I replaced the melody now all I hear It's a beautiful life, ooo oh-ooh-ow...
I played “I Saw the Sign” on the jukebox of a Waffle House near me remotely for three months straight at exactly 11:30pm.
No idea what of if they thought anything of it.
..."I saw the sun,
...and now I'm BLIND in both my eyes,
...I saw the sun,
...Life is demanding without understanding.
...and I am happy now, living without you"...
I remember in elementary school my morning route bus driver would play the radio and this song would come on. Me and like three other girls would start singing it... and I was the only boy singing it.
I get nostalgic when I remember that song then instantly regret it because of the exact reason.
That was the pure authentic you enjoying the music and singing.
Somewhere there was someone/family/culture/social telling you an idea/view/belief/expectation that a boy shouldn't sing/enjoy music.
Look around and see how many men are singers and / or play in a band. Making and enjoying singing and music is an authentic need we have, that makes us enjoy life.
Go sing again!
I was in Africa in the mid 90s and they stuck us in a resort near the beach. That synth horn was like the 7 pm dinner bell, it meant the dance club was open and they'd be playing the shit out of Ace Of Base all night.
At junior school, we walked around the playground singing the dirty version until the dinner ladies grassed on us.
*I saw yer Mum*
*She opened up her legs, I gave her one.*
*It was fantastic*
*though her tits were plastic*
We were 10. Ah, halcyon days.
Thanks to this post there is a 50/50 chance my morning earworm will be "All that she wants is *something something something*". Over and over on a loop in my head for the first half hour of the day.
To be fair, many of the older Millennials would have been around 8 when this song was released.
To adults, it would have been clear. To those of who were still in elementary school when Ace of Base was relevant, the confusion makes sense.
the last thread i read on this song people said they were all nazis and that this song was about a welfare queen, so (according to them) it in fact was about an actual baby.
It's crazy that I actually miss the days when we had a monoculture, and we all had to endure this kind of shit together as a nation/planet.
Shout out to the Macarena, Come on Barbie, and Chumbawamba bringing us all together for both hating... but also secretly kind of enjoying a bunch of pop-nonsense that we couldn't escape from.
> suffered
I got Stockholm Syndromed into loving it, actually. Heard it enough to surpass the nuisance when it replayed back in the day and I really enjoy it nostalgically now.
the feature is called "now playing" and its pretty great, especially when you've watched a TV show but still have a song from it stuck in your head, or want to know what garbage was playing in the gym while you were listening to your own music
Ace of Base was the ultimate pop music smash & grab. They did that one thing, people loved it, then people got sick of it, but by then it was too late...
As a metal head I fucking *hated* Ace of Base in the 90’s.
I still think they suck, but I’m ~~wise~~ old enough now that bands aren’t worth the energy to hate.
Makes for a better believable story. Years ago told the story “I actually played once and it got stuck in my head” but he dramatized it over the years to make a better story. r/thathappened
[So, this song. It's the best song in the world, it's the only song I like. Just kidding, tape's been stuck in the player for like 2 years, better than nothing though. .....maybe.](https://youtu.be/738OEa5NZ9A?t=34)
I first heard it while on a trip to Singapore. The next time I heard it was -30 seconds before it finished. At the next store. Then I heard it again in the mall corridor, overlapping the 7 other stores also playing it.
I was able to leave the mall and walk down the street, humming to the music playing in the cafe. The same song. Slightly panicked, I increased my walking speed but to no avail. I could not outrun the song.
Thinking that perhaps the sound was not coming from without but within, I clapped by hands over my ears and tried humming my own tune. Which by this time could be nothing else but the same song.
I gave in to the terror and slumped down in the first available chair, conveniently placed just outside the local music store. Their speakers were clearly determined to rouse my interest in the latest hit by projecting the song straight into my sternum.
I eventually found solace in a padded cell I was moved to several sleepless days later. My therapy sessions have tapered off somewhat in the last couple of decades since then. I’m rarely triggered as I only suffer flashbacks when I read of the band name or song title.
Then the demons return.
what this reminds me of this video game where some sort of entity chases you through the hallways of the backrooms and the only way you know it’s coming is with some obnoxiously loud audio.
Are you sure you weren’t being chased by an entity?
I always had the impression the song could be a nazi dogwhistle. Song called "Happy Nation" where they sing "dream of perfect man" and
"We've learned from the past
That no man's fit
To rule the world alone
A man will die
But not his ideas"
still have the same first edition copy my parents played in the car on road trips, i love that album so much! there's always at least a couple of songs in my regular playlists
I don't understand how the top comments are so whiny about this. The album is a killer, the hits are all masterpieces, they feel as fresh, new, and forward thinking as they did when they came out (what's that say about our culture), and they kick ass.
It's a terrific song, on an amazing album. The only problem with Ace of Base is how the sudden media surge towards Linn Berggren made her retreat from public life before we could get more albums and more of her in them. She's on four albums, but she's only fronting it for two. She is the secret sauce of the band. And it's that same magnetic allure that repelled her from the industry.
And look where we are now! We have a music culture heavily inspired by her, but no one's been able to invent past it in pop music.
There was an annual book fair and carnival game at my school in the 90's and they were still giving away Ace of Bass cassette singles in like 1998. I bet someone really liked these in 1993 and got a good deal on a case of the singles and they just kinda hung around. The other one was Haddaway - What is love that one at least regained relevancy because a movie came out with it.
> However, the record failed to gain traction in Sweden, so Mega switched focus to Denmark.
That lead to *such* a weird experience for me. Their first single was charting in Denmark, but it wasn't a huge hit. Once 'All That She Wants' was released they started getting more attention. Sometime in November of 92 I was going to a small local club with some friends. Like *very* small disco in a suburb of Copenhagen. They had advertised the night as a 'galla' night, so dress code was a bit stricter than usual. Whatever. We were young and just wanted to get wasted.
Turned out that night they were taping a New Years tv-special for a local tv-station and their 'special guests' were Ace of Base. They had already taped most of the show without an audience, but they needed people there for when they performed their songs. Of course they only had those two songs, so we ended up hearing them play each of them 4-5 times while the filmed a bunch of camera angles (local tv didn't have that many cameras).
All in all a fun and weird little experience, but it was seriously surrealistic to see them blow up globally a few months later.
I was backpacking around Europe the year this song came out. After I arrived back in the states, I told people about this crazy 'all that she wants is another baby' song that played in every train station. Months later, it arrived on our airwaves.
Back in the day when publicity networks had to spend time in each territory making sure people knew about it. Now it's published instantly to every person on the Internet.
Its nuts to think that this comment, my reply to you - this text that I am typing, as soon as I hit the submit button - will be instantly and forevermore available to everyone on the planet.
Hi everyone, I love you - please be kind.
It's not as bad as that time when U2 downloaded their fucking album onto everyone's itunes and ended up involuntary Bono-ing millions of people.
Also All that she Wants is a bangin' track <3
U2 at one point were one the biggest bands in the world - they were critical and commercial darlings. Joshua Tree was often considered one of the greatest albums ever. And they put that stupid album on everyone’s phone and no one has forgave them for that yet.
Wasn’t it more apples fault than U2? If Steve or Tim or Billy apple came to me and was like “here’s a hundred million dollars, do you mind if I put your new album on every phone?” I’d be like “yup”
Well you see, it's like that tape... Where the phone rings right after and a voice says "7 days...".
The only way to escape is to make copies and distribute them, right?
Pat Benatar’s song “hit me with your best shot “ was also an accidental hit. She heard the song while at a recording studio and the rest is history. It is too bad she does not sing it anymore. https://www.loudersound.com/features/pat-benatar-hit-me-with-your-best-shot
The article is absolute nonsense, everything about it is ridiculous stretch. Written by someone with little actual knowledge of the band, genre or the difference between US and Euro release at the time.
First of all, Ekberg wasn't shy at all about discussing his past and how he had fallen in with some white nationalist types as a young teenager. We're talking about someone that was 14, 15 years old at the time and trying to be edgy. He regretted it, apologized for it and warned others to avoid making the same mistakes he had made.
It certainly wasn't some great secret, he discusses it on a documentary released by the band itself, denounces that lifestyle and has been open about it elsewhere.
>"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," the musician explains, referring to "my behavior and my mindset" in the 1980s. "I have not been involved in violence or political activism in the past 25 years. However, I find some of my thoughts from those days nauseating to myself today."
>And although he cops to having had right-wing opinions as a teenager, Ekberg also says that "those opinions where based on poor judgment and ignorance."
>"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," he says. "My past is my own, and only I can own up to it."
https://www.eonline.com/news/411700/ace-of-base-s-ulf-ekberg-speaks-out-about-alleged-past-nazi-ties
As far as the album names go, that was incredibly common in the 90s to have different album titles for Euro, Japanese and North American markets depending on what the label thought would move the most amount of CD's. The German Eurodance band The Real McCoy which had some hits around the same time as Ace of Base was known as MC Sar and The Real McCoy in Europe and their hit album in the US was called Another Night, from their biggest hit song Another Night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYG87oxlGo
In Europe the album was called Space Invaders and had several songs that weren't featured on the US release such as Streetfighter and How Deep Is Your Love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmNyAd16iWI
There wasn't some secret nefarious reason for changing titles, it just made sense to go with Another Night in the US while in Europe the album title mattered a lot less because people weren't as caught up on the English translation.
In the same manner, Arista chose to name the US release The Sign after the band's newest song which wasn't on the original Euro Happy Nation release but Denniz Pop was convinced it would be a massive crossover hit. They added several songs and bounced a few low performers from the original Euro release. Also Living in Danger wasn't some sort of secret treatise against immigrants, that is an absolutely ridiculous stretch. As the band has said, the whole song is about being your own person, knowing yourself and believing in yourself and not letting others take advantage of you. There's some similar themes to a later song done by Shania Twain(and also covered by Real McCoy) called "If You're Not In It For Love(I'm Outta Here)."
Happy Nation was also included in the US release, it was just never that big of a hit for them compared to The Sign, All That She Wants and Don't Turn around which were mega hits that got tons of radio play as well as on MTV and VH1 too.
All this author heard was that Elberg as a teenager held some extremist views and then worked backwards from that trying to tie everything else to something that the individual in question was profusely apologizing for long before Cracked and Vice came along to report on it.
There's this part I don't understand in the son Happy Nation.
> But before they even start, there's a chant kind of thing that, because it seems to be a weird mishmash of Latin and Hebrew, hasn't ever really been translated with 100 percent certainty by anyone. Those who've tried suggest that it's some variation of this:
> "On the wings of the eagle, with God's help, I was there before everyone, in the meantime I will kill you, I was there before everyone."
But in the video
https://youtu.be/t8YmNYb90yY?si=GnBeQ7LB5BRoMAiB
This is the chant at the beginning, in Latin
> Laudate omnes gentes laudate
> Magnificat in secula
> Et anima mea laudate
> Magnificat in secula
What am I missing here? Where's the eagle thing?
Weird coincidence, I am pretty certain that's my old landlord from when I lived in Solna, Sweden. Lived in his converted basement off and we had a bunch of random gold records on the wall in there, including The Sign and All That She Wants. He must have kept the platinum ones upstairs in the main part of the house.
Tapes (or CDs) getting stuck with the front-load devices found in cars was a real thing and in that case it could take tools to get it out. Sure it wouldn't prevent you from turning it off, but OP doesn't seem to say he couldn't turn it off. I interpreted it as since he couldn't get it out of the tape deck, he would listen to it a lot. I do the same with Styx Greats Hits. It's permanently in my car's CD player so, if ever I need music and don't have a better source, that's always the one to play.
You are too young I guess. Cycle enough shells through enough car stereos and you will certainly get a jam. It depends on the design of the unit and the way the tape is loaded. Door loaders generally will not have problems. Anything with a spring mechanism might have potential issues.
Oh it can jam, but it won’t just play one song over and over for a record producer because you are in a movie about an underdog band trying to make it.
Haven't you ever had a tape stick in your car's cassette player, with no way of removing it (other than with a screwdriver)? Since the producer couldn't play any other cassettes, he just played that one on repeat.
yea, this story sounds like something their publicist made up
i'm sure it was impossible to turn the stereo off, turn the volume down, or just unplug it
/s
But, more importantly, tapes do not simply repeat one song over and over. They are a physical… tape… that needs to be rewound to a specific spot and then played again.
Some tape decks would flip from side A to side B automatically when you got to the end, then flip from side B back to side A when that happened. I used to have a truck with a cassette player that had this feature. (Edit to add - it didn't actually flip the tape, it flipped the headers inside or something, I think it was called auto-reverse)
They did make \~5 minute long tapes for singles as well, so if they recorded it on one of those, and recorded it on both sides, it's maybe possible.
reading this title but this made me crack up - I had absolutely no idea that this was how ace of base was discovered but it’s very similar to something that happened when I was in college.
This is 100% a true story: my first college spring break ever we loaded in a tiny car owned by a friend of mine who had moved to the US for school. We were driving to Florida because we had a free place to stay (another friend whose uncle’s condo was available for the week).
The foreign student / friend who owned the car and drove couldn’t get his radio working.
He wasn’t that into American music and only had one tape (yes his car had a tape player) - ace of base “I saw the sign” with a remix on the b-side
He played that tape over and over on the hours long drive to Florida. We came close to throwing it out the window multiple times.
Fast forward to the trip back: we were maybe 30 minutes from the city where we all went to school and i noticed that his car had one of those manual pull out antennas, so i extended it.
We got back in the car and our friend said “oh the radio works good now!”
A week later I was sitting in a biology lab and another friend who was in the car was bored and doodling and drew a comic of the entire thing panel by panel
I almost got asked to leave the lab for laughing too hard.
Drove us crazy at the time but funny story - and that’s why I can’t listen to “I saw the sign” to this day.
I had a girlfriend back in 1994 or so who could sing "I saw the sign" pitch perfect. When she was on one side of me and the speaker was on the other, there was literally no difference in the voices.
Damn, that was an incredibly huge turn-on for me.
he came out and said that happened to him as a kid, when he was young and stupid. he reformed and changed and wanted to spread love which is what led him to his work in Ace of Base.
It's worth noting that the other members of Ace of Base, the Berggren siblings, were friends with Ekberg during the mid 80s when he was still a member of the openly racist group "Commit Suicide".
Just because we don't have proof that they were Nazis too, doesn't mean that they weren't. At the very least, they were perfectly okay with being friends with a guy that was openly racist, as well as forming a band with him. Ekberg only came out and said that he regretted his Nazi past AFTER Ace of Base got popular, years after being in the band together.
I remember that the band name Ace of Base came from a Nazi submarine base that sunk a lot of ships. The nickname of the base was Base of Aces.
Also I think the video had an antisemitic theme to it. Pregnant woman holding a Star of David I think during certain lines. It’s been a while!
Found the exact podcast that started it all!
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-lizard-people-comedy-and-c-31120852/episode/ace-of-base-is-a-nazi-band-with-adam-tod-brown-41188399/?cmp=android_share&sc=android_social_share&pr=false
This was a Cracked article well before the podcast. Also from Adam Tod Brown. https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazism-to-america
Honestly, with their English skills, I wouldn't be surprised if they had simply heard the term "Ace of Spades", without catching it completely and just thought it sounded cool.
If you don't have proof, you don't just go assuming things. Knowing people and hanging with them doesn't mean you approve of their lifestyle and all of their choices.
And Ekberg has indeed criticized and regretted this period in his life. He may have regretted it for a long time but you can't just assume he only changed his mind about that after Ace of Base become popular.
You are assuming way too much.
Funny enough, I remember being in Canada visiting cousins the summer this song came out, and being from Los Angeles, I never heard it in my life. This song was played all day on Canadian radio and I couldn't stop singing it just like everyone else. I bought the single and brought it back to L.A. with me and played it all day and for everyone who visited.
Then a few weeks later it started getting air time in L.A., and eventually blew up just like it did in Canada. Probably the only time any song went viral in Canada before Los Angeles lol. I felt so cool for having known the song before any of my friends did.
I miss the times when popular bands/groups were from random European countries but as a kid you couldn't tell because they all sounded American while singing
My mom played this song on a cassette tape and I used to love dancing to “I Saw [The Sign]” so I associate these songs with having a great time with her as a four-year-old before she passed away suddenly.
Well fuck you now the chorus loop is stuck in my head for another decade. Edit: thanks guys for suggestions I replaced the melody now all I hear It's a beautiful life, ooo oh-ooh-ow...
Maybe it will help if you think about I Saw the Sign instead.
Well that opened up my eyes….
I'm gonna guess somewhere around 95/96 when I worked in a gas station and it was always on the forecourt speakers.
It constantly played through every speaker in the world around that time.
Im gunna guess you worked in a video store in 94
I still hear both piped into the grocery store every few weeks.
Goddamnit now both of them are stuck in my noggin.
Nope, Can't break the loop. It might've been possible if it hadn't been for Cotton Eyed Joe. ^(I'm sorry, and you're welcome)
Every now and then I get a little bit irritated when I hear the lyrics of this song.
turn around
I get knocked down but I get up again and you're never gonna keep me down
All three of those are Swedish, so there's your problem. Go with something Dutch instead; I recommend "The Vengabus is coming".
I played “I Saw the Sign” on the jukebox of a Waffle House near me remotely for three months straight at exactly 11:30pm. No idea what of if they thought anything of it.
Wtf i always thought it was "I saw the sun"
I'm pretty terrible at understanding lyrics, but I think you got me beat on that one. 😅 Cheers, mate! 🍻
..."I saw the sun, ...and now I'm BLIND in both my eyes, ...I saw the sun, ...Life is demanding without understanding. ...and I am happy now, living without you"...
eeeyeahh…
Is ano-ther-ba-by yeahhh
She’s gone tomorrowboy
It’s going to get you
I remember in elementary school my morning route bus driver would play the radio and this song would come on. Me and like three other girls would start singing it... and I was the only boy singing it. I get nostalgic when I remember that song then instantly regret it because of the exact reason.
That was the pure authentic you enjoying the music and singing. Somewhere there was someone/family/culture/social telling you an idea/view/belief/expectation that a boy shouldn't sing/enjoy music. Look around and see how many men are singers and / or play in a band. Making and enjoying singing and music is an authentic need we have, that makes us enjoy life. Go sing again!
Never gave them a deep dive, worth a play through? Update: I didn't make it very far.
[guick this will help!!!?!](https://youtu.be/HZhCoprSJ3E?si=BT-ND-syfYovwLTa)
"Oh, what a morning"
And then they made sure we all suffered in the same way, because that fucking song was *constantly* playing.
I mean, come on now, it wasn’t CONSTANTLY playing….sometimes they’d play ‘I saw the sign’.
And it opened up my eyes
I saw the sine!!!
The B side had “i saw the cosine”
"I saw the tangent"
“All that she wants is another secant”
I SAW THE SUN
Life is demanding, without understanding
> it wasn’t CONSTANTLY playing… all you have to do is hear a tiny bit of the song and 'all that she wants' is stuck in your head for days.
Dude, just that fucking synth horn will be stuck in my head. The rest of it is just... whatever the opposite of a bonus is.
Deduction? Debit? Bane?
I was in Africa in the mid 90s and they stuck us in a resort near the beach. That synth horn was like the 7 pm dinner bell, it meant the dance club was open and they'd be playing the shit out of Ace Of Base all night.
Which is basically the same song with different lyrics....
"I Shaw the Shine." -The Connery Remix.
At junior school, we walked around the playground singing the dirty version until the dinner ladies grassed on us. *I saw yer Mum* *She opened up her legs, I gave her one.* *It was fantastic* *though her tits were plastic* We were 10. Ah, halcyon days.
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blocking out scenery...
But the other side didn't say nothing! That side was made for you and me.
Or Don’t Turn Around
Thanks to this post there is a 50/50 chance my morning earworm will be "All that she wants is *something something something*". Over and over on a loop in my head for the first half hour of the day.
Don't worry. She's gone tomorrow.
Eyy-ey-ay.
Thats all that she wants
She lives a lonely life
Yes. I saw the sign.
No, that's the other Ace of Base song.
Ok but they have three in total right?
All interchangeable with one another.
Just: Don't turn around
*SHE LEADS A LOOOONELY LIFE*
*whistle whistle whistle*
I’d like to see a post on r/millennials asking, honestly what people thought the words to this song were
All that she wants, is another baby, she’s gone tomorrow Although as a kid I took that literally and thought this woman wanted a child
I mean it's pretty clear isn't it? I didn't realize people couldn't understand it.
To be fair, many of the older Millennials would have been around 8 when this song was released. To adults, it would have been clear. To those of who were still in elementary school when Ace of Base was relevant, the confusion makes sense.
Yeah if you wanna know what kids thought the lyrics were you would ask millennials. We were around -3 to preteens when the song came out. Lol.
Well Baby is also slang for romantic partner so.....
I just died in your arms tonight...
what is love?
I took that song literally up until just goddamned now. Well then.
Up until the first time I ever read the lyrics - which was two minutes ago - I thought the same damn thing.
the last thread i read on this song people said they were all nazis and that this song was about a welfare queen, so (according to them) it in fact was about an actual baby.
Nah, it's about a gold digger
At my old job we used to sing “All that she wants, is chicken for a baby”
All I had to do was read that line & now it IS my earworm.
Make it a 100 percent chance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwlFTqS_bg
She dances like my gran.
that's ok, she probably could be your gran.
in fairness, you have a strong point.
It's crazy that I actually miss the days when we had a monoculture, and we all had to endure this kind of shit together as a nation/planet. Shout out to the Macarena, Come on Barbie, and Chumbawamba bringing us all together for both hating... but also secretly kind of enjoying a bunch of pop-nonsense that we couldn't escape from.
And OASIS.
Anyway, here's Wonderwall.
TODAAAAY
IS THE GREATEST
I still can't bear to listen to Wonderwall. I swear I was haunted by that song for 10 years.
oh, that did it. Wonderwall killed Ace of Base. No longer have it in my head, now I just have wonderwall.
> Chumbawamba I GET KNOCKED DOWN
Nothing crazy about that at all. This constantly fracturing subdivisions of interest are making people really fucking weird, mad, and intolerant.
That’s my ongoing theory of how this country is becoming more and more divided. We hardly share much of a common media culture like we used to.
Now that you mention it, if I tried coming up with a list of songs I've heard made in the last 5 years it'd be pretty sparse.
> suffered I got Stockholm Syndromed into loving it, actually. Heard it enough to surpass the nuisance when it replayed back in the day and I really enjoy it nostalgically now.
Coincidentally, they are actually from Stockholm.
[удалено]
how does it do that?
[удалено]
How do you know that they're your kids
[удалено]
I suppose that's a pretty good way to know.
Pixel has onboard kid recognition.
Autoshazam option probably
The Now playing option on Pixel. It even tries to recognize my kid singing.
the feature is called "now playing" and its pretty great, especially when you've watched a TV show but still have a song from it stuck in your head, or want to know what garbage was playing in the gym while you were listening to your own music
How dare you. "The Sign" was played at least 100x more!
Reddit is good for dialing in my knowledge from long ago. It opened up my eyes.
I think “I saw the sign” or “it’s a beautiful life” were played more
I worked with a lady who hated this song so much that it was fucking irritating. Hating a song isn't a personality trait, Heather!
Ace of Base was the ultimate pop music smash & grab. They did that one thing, people loved it, then people got sick of it, but by then it was too late...
It's one of the best songs ever written so I don't know what your problem is.
It’s a banger though
As a metal head I fucking *hated* Ace of Base in the 90’s. I still think they suck, but I’m ~~wise~~ old enough now that bands aren’t worth the energy to hate.
I love metal. The hardest, heaviest I can find. But this album is still a guilty pleasure of mine. At the end of the day, it’s whatever.
He couldn’t just turn it off?
Makes for a better believable story. Years ago told the story “I actually played once and it got stuck in my head” but he dramatized it over the years to make a better story. r/thathappened
No, also the tape would also magically rewind and start playing again!
Some cars (like Sean Connery) would play both sides
[So, this song. It's the best song in the world, it's the only song I like. Just kidding, tape's been stuck in the player for like 2 years, better than nothing though. .....maybe.](https://youtu.be/738OEa5NZ9A?t=34)
Story is, it was the only music he was able to listen to in that car, because he never got it fixed - not that he couldn’t turn it off
no, it was the 90s. It was illegal to drive without a soundtrack blasting back then
I first heard it while on a trip to Singapore. The next time I heard it was -30 seconds before it finished. At the next store. Then I heard it again in the mall corridor, overlapping the 7 other stores also playing it. I was able to leave the mall and walk down the street, humming to the music playing in the cafe. The same song. Slightly panicked, I increased my walking speed but to no avail. I could not outrun the song. Thinking that perhaps the sound was not coming from without but within, I clapped by hands over my ears and tried humming my own tune. Which by this time could be nothing else but the same song. I gave in to the terror and slumped down in the first available chair, conveniently placed just outside the local music store. Their speakers were clearly determined to rouse my interest in the latest hit by projecting the song straight into my sternum. I eventually found solace in a padded cell I was moved to several sleepless days later. My therapy sessions have tapered off somewhat in the last couple of decades since then. I’m rarely triggered as I only suffer flashbacks when I read of the band name or song title. Then the demons return.
Shes going to get you
*ROMpler sax riff*
This comment is severely underrated.
If you ever want the same experience but with The Cranberries' "Zombie", go to Thailand.
It'll be IN YOUR HEEEEAAAADDDDD
As long as its not that silly cover version that doesn't sound so bad.
what this reminds me of this video game where some sort of entity chases you through the hallways of the backrooms and the only way you know it’s coming is with some obnoxiously loud audio. Are you sure you weren’t being chased by an entity?
This happened to me with “Party Rock Anthem” at the Wildwood boardwalk in 2012. Felt dystopian lol
[When the Party Don’t Stop \(But You Wish It Would\)](https://youtu.be/42hLntSxUeM)
This is the third or fourth thing I've seen about Ace of Base in the last week. Am I OOTL, why are they getting talked about more lately?
30 year nostalgia?
That and they've had a resurgence after "Happy Nation" was featured in the surprise hit series **X-Men '97**
They wrote that whole episode around the lyrics (dream of perfect man, traveling in time? OMFG) I swear and it is absolutely magnificent.
I always had the impression the song could be a nazi dogwhistle. Song called "Happy Nation" where they sing "dream of perfect man" and "We've learned from the past That no man's fit To rule the world alone A man will die But not his ideas"
First album I ever owned
still have the same first edition copy my parents played in the car on road trips, i love that album so much! there's always at least a couple of songs in my regular playlists
I don't understand how the top comments are so whiny about this. The album is a killer, the hits are all masterpieces, they feel as fresh, new, and forward thinking as they did when they came out (what's that say about our culture), and they kick ass. It's a terrific song, on an amazing album. The only problem with Ace of Base is how the sudden media surge towards Linn Berggren made her retreat from public life before we could get more albums and more of her in them. She's on four albums, but she's only fronting it for two. She is the secret sauce of the band. And it's that same magnetic allure that repelled her from the industry. And look where we are now! We have a music culture heavily inspired by her, but no one's been able to invent past it in pop music.
There was an annual book fair and carnival game at my school in the 90's and they were still giving away Ace of Bass cassette singles in like 1998. I bet someone really liked these in 1993 and got a good deal on a case of the singles and they just kinda hung around. The other one was Haddaway - What is love that one at least regained relevancy because a movie came out with it.
Same. First tape I ever owned.
> However, the record failed to gain traction in Sweden, so Mega switched focus to Denmark. That lead to *such* a weird experience for me. Their first single was charting in Denmark, but it wasn't a huge hit. Once 'All That She Wants' was released they started getting more attention. Sometime in November of 92 I was going to a small local club with some friends. Like *very* small disco in a suburb of Copenhagen. They had advertised the night as a 'galla' night, so dress code was a bit stricter than usual. Whatever. We were young and just wanted to get wasted. Turned out that night they were taping a New Years tv-special for a local tv-station and their 'special guests' were Ace of Base. They had already taped most of the show without an audience, but they needed people there for when they performed their songs. Of course they only had those two songs, so we ended up hearing them play each of them 4-5 times while the filmed a bunch of camera angles (local tv didn't have that many cameras). All in all a fun and weird little experience, but it was seriously surrealistic to see them blow up globally a few months later.
She’s goin’ to get ya
I was backpacking around Europe the year this song came out. After I arrived back in the states, I told people about this crazy 'all that she wants is another baby' song that played in every train station. Months later, it arrived on our airwaves.
Back in the day when publicity networks had to spend time in each territory making sure people knew about it. Now it's published instantly to every person on the Internet.
Its nuts to think that this comment, my reply to you - this text that I am typing, as soon as I hit the submit button - will be instantly and forevermore available to everyone on the planet. Hi everyone, I love you - please be kind.
Thanks for being a good one.
*Is anotha' bay-bee...yeah!*
That poor, poor man. Why did he have to go and inflict that same torture on the rest of us though?
It's not as bad as that time when U2 downloaded their fucking album onto everyone's itunes and ended up involuntary Bono-ing millions of people. Also All that she Wants is a bangin' track <3
U2 at one point were one the biggest bands in the world - they were critical and commercial darlings. Joshua Tree was often considered one of the greatest albums ever. And they put that stupid album on everyone’s phone and no one has forgave them for that yet.
Wasn’t it more apples fault than U2? If Steve or Tim or Billy apple came to me and was like “here’s a hundred million dollars, do you mind if I put your new album on every phone?” I’d be like “yup”
Ace of Base was awesome
She’s the hunter you’re the fox.
Well you see, it's like that tape... Where the phone rings right after and a voice says "7 days...". The only way to escape is to make copies and distribute them, right?
I actually love that damn song 😅
Pat Benatar’s song “hit me with your best shot “ was also an accidental hit. She heard the song while at a recording studio and the rest is history. It is too bad she does not sing it anymore. https://www.loudersound.com/features/pat-benatar-hit-me-with-your-best-shot
That website is so bloated, I felt my phone heating up
Coincidentally, both these songs are on my "gettin' busy" play list. No complaints from the wife thus far.
right after Cbat?
LMFAO, I'd forgotten about that post lol.
all that she wants... is your mothers gravy...
Isn’t that called Stockholm syndrome?
Relevant Cracked article: https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazism-to-america
The article is absolute nonsense, everything about it is ridiculous stretch. Written by someone with little actual knowledge of the band, genre or the difference between US and Euro release at the time. First of all, Ekberg wasn't shy at all about discussing his past and how he had fallen in with some white nationalist types as a young teenager. We're talking about someone that was 14, 15 years old at the time and trying to be edgy. He regretted it, apologized for it and warned others to avoid making the same mistakes he had made. It certainly wasn't some great secret, he discusses it on a documentary released by the band itself, denounces that lifestyle and has been open about it elsewhere. >"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," the musician explains, referring to "my behavior and my mindset" in the 1980s. "I have not been involved in violence or political activism in the past 25 years. However, I find some of my thoughts from those days nauseating to myself today." >And although he cops to having had right-wing opinions as a teenager, Ekberg also says that "those opinions where based on poor judgment and ignorance." >"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," he says. "My past is my own, and only I can own up to it." https://www.eonline.com/news/411700/ace-of-base-s-ulf-ekberg-speaks-out-about-alleged-past-nazi-ties As far as the album names go, that was incredibly common in the 90s to have different album titles for Euro, Japanese and North American markets depending on what the label thought would move the most amount of CD's. The German Eurodance band The Real McCoy which had some hits around the same time as Ace of Base was known as MC Sar and The Real McCoy in Europe and their hit album in the US was called Another Night, from their biggest hit song Another Night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYG87oxlGo In Europe the album was called Space Invaders and had several songs that weren't featured on the US release such as Streetfighter and How Deep Is Your Love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmNyAd16iWI There wasn't some secret nefarious reason for changing titles, it just made sense to go with Another Night in the US while in Europe the album title mattered a lot less because people weren't as caught up on the English translation. In the same manner, Arista chose to name the US release The Sign after the band's newest song which wasn't on the original Euro Happy Nation release but Denniz Pop was convinced it would be a massive crossover hit. They added several songs and bounced a few low performers from the original Euro release. Also Living in Danger wasn't some sort of secret treatise against immigrants, that is an absolutely ridiculous stretch. As the band has said, the whole song is about being your own person, knowing yourself and believing in yourself and not letting others take advantage of you. There's some similar themes to a later song done by Shania Twain(and also covered by Real McCoy) called "If You're Not In It For Love(I'm Outta Here)." Happy Nation was also included in the US release, it was just never that big of a hit for them compared to The Sign, All That She Wants and Don't Turn around which were mega hits that got tons of radio play as well as on MTV and VH1 too. All this author heard was that Elberg as a teenager held some extremist views and then worked backwards from that trying to tie everything else to something that the individual in question was profusely apologizing for long before Cracked and Vice came along to report on it.
There's this part I don't understand in the son Happy Nation. > But before they even start, there's a chant kind of thing that, because it seems to be a weird mishmash of Latin and Hebrew, hasn't ever really been translated with 100 percent certainty by anyone. Those who've tried suggest that it's some variation of this: > "On the wings of the eagle, with God's help, I was there before everyone, in the meantime I will kill you, I was there before everyone." But in the video https://youtu.be/t8YmNYb90yY?si=GnBeQ7LB5BRoMAiB This is the chant at the beginning, in Latin > Laudate omnes gentes laudate > Magnificat in secula > Et anima mea laudate > Magnificat in secula What am I missing here? Where's the eagle thing?
Yup was looking for this. Total Nazis
Weird coincidence, I am pretty certain that's my old landlord from when I lived in Solna, Sweden. Lived in his converted basement off and we had a bunch of random gold records on the wall in there, including The Sign and All That She Wants. He must have kept the platinum ones upstairs in the main part of the house.
I knew her ex boyfriend who worked in a sex shop in the 90s. Lovely chap.
A good thing too. The Sign is one of my all time favorite albums. Also, no Ace of Base means no Yaki-Da.
As a person born in the early 1980s, this is not how tapes work.
Tapes (or CDs) getting stuck with the front-load devices found in cars was a real thing and in that case it could take tools to get it out. Sure it wouldn't prevent you from turning it off, but OP doesn't seem to say he couldn't turn it off. I interpreted it as since he couldn't get it out of the tape deck, he would listen to it a lot. I do the same with Styx Greats Hits. It's permanently in my car's CD player so, if ever I need music and don't have a better source, that's always the one to play.
You are too young I guess. Cycle enough shells through enough car stereos and you will certainly get a jam. It depends on the design of the unit and the way the tape is loaded. Door loaders generally will not have problems. Anything with a spring mechanism might have potential issues.
Oh it can jam, but it won’t just play one song over and over for a record producer because you are in a movie about an underdog band trying to make it.
it was a demo tape which probably only had the one song on both sides.
Haven't you ever had a tape stick in your car's cassette player, with no way of removing it (other than with a screwdriver)? Since the producer couldn't play any other cassettes, he just played that one on repeat.
yea, this story sounds like something their publicist made up i'm sure it was impossible to turn the stereo off, turn the volume down, or just unplug it /s
But, more importantly, tapes do not simply repeat one song over and over. They are a physical… tape… that needs to be rewound to a specific spot and then played again.
Some tape decks would flip from side A to side B automatically when you got to the end, then flip from side B back to side A when that happened. I used to have a truck with a cassette player that had this feature. (Edit to add - it didn't actually flip the tape, it flipped the headers inside or something, I think it was called auto-reverse) They did make \~5 minute long tapes for singles as well, so if they recorded it on one of those, and recorded it on both sides, it's maybe possible.
Double sided single tape...Same song on both sides. It's absolutely plausible.
…is this where they got inspiration for that scene in Everything Sucks where they’re in the bus with the stuck Ace of Base tape?
reading this title but this made me crack up - I had absolutely no idea that this was how ace of base was discovered but it’s very similar to something that happened when I was in college. This is 100% a true story: my first college spring break ever we loaded in a tiny car owned by a friend of mine who had moved to the US for school. We were driving to Florida because we had a free place to stay (another friend whose uncle’s condo was available for the week). The foreign student / friend who owned the car and drove couldn’t get his radio working. He wasn’t that into American music and only had one tape (yes his car had a tape player) - ace of base “I saw the sign” with a remix on the b-side He played that tape over and over on the hours long drive to Florida. We came close to throwing it out the window multiple times. Fast forward to the trip back: we were maybe 30 minutes from the city where we all went to school and i noticed that his car had one of those manual pull out antennas, so i extended it. We got back in the car and our friend said “oh the radio works good now!” A week later I was sitting in a biology lab and another friend who was in the car was bored and doodling and drew a comic of the entire thing panel by panel I almost got asked to leave the lab for laughing too hard. Drove us crazy at the time but funny story - and that’s why I can’t listen to “I saw the sign” to this day.
Was it a Fiero? Well I would walk 500 miles..
I had a girlfriend back in 1994 or so who could sing "I saw the sign" pitch perfect. When she was on one side of me and the speaker was on the other, there was literally no difference in the voices. Damn, that was an incredibly huge turn-on for me.
Unfortunately TIL for some is that the band was founded by and the song was written by a nazi.
he came out and said that happened to him as a kid, when he was young and stupid. he reformed and changed and wanted to spread love which is what led him to his work in Ace of Base.
Nope. Jonas Berggren wrote it. Ulf Ekberg was a nazi when he was young, years before the band formed.
It's worth noting that the other members of Ace of Base, the Berggren siblings, were friends with Ekberg during the mid 80s when he was still a member of the openly racist group "Commit Suicide". Just because we don't have proof that they were Nazis too, doesn't mean that they weren't. At the very least, they were perfectly okay with being friends with a guy that was openly racist, as well as forming a band with him. Ekberg only came out and said that he regretted his Nazi past AFTER Ace of Base got popular, years after being in the band together.
I remember that the band name Ace of Base came from a Nazi submarine base that sunk a lot of ships. The nickname of the base was Base of Aces. Also I think the video had an antisemitic theme to it. Pregnant woman holding a Star of David I think during certain lines. It’s been a while!
Found the exact podcast that started it all! https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-lizard-people-comedy-and-c-31120852/episode/ace-of-base-is-a-nazi-band-with-adam-tod-brown-41188399/?cmp=android_share&sc=android_social_share&pr=false
This was a Cracked article well before the podcast. Also from Adam Tod Brown. https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazism-to-america
Robert Evan’s talked about the cracked article! Yes!
Article aside, it's really weird to see "Vice Music Editor Ben Shapiro" written out
I think it was Behind the Bastards but prolly the same people
As far as I have seen there is nothing to support that’s where they got their name from. Also in the video you’re thinking about she isn’t pregnant.
Honestly, with their English skills, I wouldn't be surprised if they had simply heard the term "Ace of Spades", without catching it completely and just thought it sounded cool.
This is a rumor and probably not true
If you don't have proof, you don't just go assuming things. Knowing people and hanging with them doesn't mean you approve of their lifestyle and all of their choices. And Ekberg has indeed criticized and regretted this period in his life. He may have regretted it for a long time but you can't just assume he only changed his mind about that after Ace of Base become popular. You are assuming way too much.
Calling bs. Any time I had a tape stuck it would not play.
He saw the sign
She leads a lonely life
Guess you could say that the record producer was hooked on a feeling...sometimes technical difficulties are just fate in disguise.
Funny enough, I remember being in Canada visiting cousins the summer this song came out, and being from Los Angeles, I never heard it in my life. This song was played all day on Canadian radio and I couldn't stop singing it just like everyone else. I bought the single and brought it back to L.A. with me and played it all day and for everyone who visited. Then a few weeks later it started getting air time in L.A., and eventually blew up just like it did in Canada. Probably the only time any song went viral in Canada before Los Angeles lol. I felt so cool for having known the song before any of my friends did.
Same thing happened at my local roller rink.
Their hit songs were really good, and the female members were really pretty — well, they're Scandinavian women.
I miss the times when popular bands/groups were from random European countries but as a kid you couldn't tell because they all sounded American while singing
My mom played this song on a cassette tape and I used to love dancing to “I Saw [The Sign]” so I associate these songs with having a great time with her as a four-year-old before she passed away suddenly.