Members of the cult Swedish pop group Ace of Base then and now. Group Ace of Base (Ace of Base) Ace of base soloists
0 July 9, 2015, 19:38Mysterious, popular and loved by all band Ace of Base, created in 1990, once sounded from every speaker, not only in Sweden, where they come from, but also in other countries. The team included Jonas Berggren, his sisters Lynn and Jenny, and Ulf Ekberg.
The group's album Happy Nation/The Sign is the best-selling debut album in history. In the US, the album was certified platinum nine times.
In 2007, one of the soloists Lynn Berggren left the group, and in 2009 the second one, Jenny Berggren, also left. The remaining participants - Jonas Berggren and Ulf Ekberg in 2010 created a new musical project, which is called Ace.of.Base. In 2013, the new team broke up.
How did the life of the musicians of our favorite band turn out?
Lynn was probably the most mysterious member of the Ace of Base team. While her sister Jenny told the press that "she would love to be a singer forever", Lynn preferred not to make such statements. On the contrary, in 1997, she said:
I would like to sing, but I never wanted to be a singer. Since 1997, Lynn has appeared at the band's concerts, standing either in a poorly lit area or hiding behind objects on the stage (for example, curtains). In the group's clips, she was standing away from the members and her face was blurred. For a year, Lynn did not give anyone an interview, and the other members of the group were very reluctant to explain what happened to the main soloist of the group. .
What only the media did not write then: both that she was seriously ill, and that she had an accident. However, her colleagues in the group said that she was just shy. In one of her last interviews today, Berggren stated that she wanted to remain in the shadows.
The details of his personal life are also not known.
Jenny is the author of many of the band's songs and his solo compositions. Since 1995 he has also been engaged in solo creative activity. She left the group in 2009 and released her debut album My Story in 2010. In February 2011, Yenny presented the song Let your heart be mine in qualifying round final of Denmark at Eurovision 2011 and took second place.
Jonas Berggren
It was Jonas who wrote and produced almost all of the group's compositions. During creative career Jonas has also worked with DJ Bobo, Army of Lovers, E-Type and Mee. Jonas was also the producer and composer of the album Pride by the Swedish pop group Yaki-Da. He is married to a Norwegian hairdresser and they have three children.
Ulf was a rather versatile member of Ace of Base. It is known that he took part in both TV shows and film projects. In 1993, a scandal erupted when one of the Swedish newspapers reported that Ulf was playing in a band whose lyrics were "impregnated with racism." After that, it became known that he was a member of a neo-Nazi gang. Already after a while, Ulf assured in many interviews that he was done with it.
From 1994 to 2000 he was married to Swedish model Emma Viklund. On this moment has been living in London since civil wife and three children.
It is unlikely that anyone will dispute the fact that the world symbol of Scandinavian pop music is the ABBA group - and quite deservedly so. But show business is a tricky thing, and the concept of "success" in it, oh, how relative! The honor of recording the best-selling debut album (it is also the most popular non-American album in the US) went not to ABBA, but to their countrymen - the Swedish quartet ACE OF BASE.
Another invasion of the descendants of the Vikings on foreign charts happened in 1993-94. I was just living in a student dormitory, so the cheerful whistles of ACE OF BASE ingrained in my brain for a long time - along with the heart-rending melismas of Whitney Houston from The Bodyguard.
A project was created according to a recipe tested by ABBA - two Swedes and two Swedes - light and dark. The Scandinavians did not change and family tradition Three of the participants were close relatives. Powerful boy Jonas Berggren called for help from his two sisters - "fair" Lynn and "dark" Jenya, as well as his sidekick Ulf Ekberg. The team took the meaningful name of ASY BAZY (something like "master of the studio"), and their style was chosen as a kind of mixture of Europop with reggae rhythms.
According to the same old Swedish tradition new group not appreciated at home. The publishers of their first single "Wheel of Fortune" ACE OF BASE found in neighboring Denmark. There, the song first became a hit, taking 2nd place.
However, the real breakthrough was made by the second composition ...
The song was originally called "Mr. Ace. As such, the band sent a demo tape to producer Janice Pop, known for his work with another hero of the early 1990s, Dr. Alban. According to legend, the demo cassette got stuck in the producer's car stereo, causing him to listen to Swedish pop reggae for several days. As a result, Pop, as they say, "ripened". That's just forced the group to completely remove the male vocals and completely rewrite the text.
The song became known as All That She Wants ”(“ Everything she wants ”) and told about a lonely young lady who every night goes hunting for a new man to leave him in the morning. This unpretentious plot was fully illustrated by the clip, where the Danish actress and singer Christian Bjorg Nielsen starred (she also provided the group with her impressive apartment for filming).
True, in Western sources I came across rather strange interpretations of the text - they say that the song is about a girl who “takes off” men for a reason, but in order to get pregnant and receive social benefits for single mothers. Where such interpretations come from is not clear ...
So, in 1992, the single with the song went on sale and in October became No. 1 in Denmark. Christmas was approaching, so the label forced ACE OF BASE to record the album quickly, which was done in a few weeks.
The name of the album was given by one of his songs - "Happy Nation" ("Happy Nation") - a kind of anthem for a generation living in a prosperous country. However, in "prosperous" Sweden, the disc was not appreciated and was even declared "the worst album of the year."
Lynn Berggren:
"We'd be more proud if we played folk and sang in Swedish."Jenny Berggren:
“We were ignored by the media, and the young people who bought our albums in Sweden preferred to keep quiet about it. It's a matter of mentality. In our country, very high level life, there is practically no poverty. Therefore, people who become rich and successful are treated much worse than those who are miserable and helpless.
In addition, in 1993 a small scandal erupted. It turned out that the author of the song about a happy nation living in friendship and harmony - Ulf Ekberg - in the mid-1980s was the leader of a gang of ... Swedish skinheads and the leader musical group, performing the appropriate songs in the spirit of "Bay the Black Sea, save Sweden!" However, Ulf repented and declared that he had been different for a long time - although white, but fluffy ...
However, the audience did not worry about the biography of the musician. Pop-reggae ACE OF BASE, like a virus, spread throughout Europe, hitting the post-Soviet space as well. It is enough to compare the song "Happy Nation" with the domestic hit by Irina Allegrova about a 9x12 photo. A lot of covers were created for "All That She Wants" (of which I was especially amused by the punk version of the band WIZO).
By 1994, the "virus" ACE OF BASE moved across the ocean. A miracle happened - as many as three songs from the debut album ("All That She Wants", "The Sign", "Don`t Turn Around") hit the American TOP-10 one after another. The album was immediately re-released in the USA - however, it was called not "Happy Nation", but "The Sign" (after the most successful song, which took 1st place). They write that in total about 23 million copies of the debut album were sold!
How popular ACE OF BASE was in America can already be judged by the episode from the animated series "South Park", where in 1999 they find a frozen "prehistoric" person from ... 1996. To create familiar conditions for him, he is placed in a pressure chamber, where the song “The Sign” is constantly playing ...
In 1995, the triumph of ACE OF BASE continues. At the discos, they are constantly spinning another portion of joy - the new hit of the group " beautiful life" ("Wonderful Life").
And Jonas Berggren sold so much that he founded another project - a purely feminine one.
We are talking about the duet YAKI-DA, which, according to tradition, was made up of two differently colored beauties - fair-haired Linda Schoenberg and dark-haired Mary Knutsen.
The rest is nothing new. All the same rhythms and brain-eating cheerful tunes like the notorious song “I Saw You Dancing”, where the same obsessively repeated cryptic word"Yaki-Da".
Of course, our Sergey Minaev could not pass by such a "viral" song.
Kohl in bad weather
planes do not fly - it does not matter.
"Ilys" cannot,
and "Yaki" yes ...
…find a way
where the grass is very difficult sometimes.
Bulls can't, but yaks can...
In fact, "Yaki-Da" is a Gallic table toast (like "Let's be healthy!"). That was the name of the bar in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, where Jonas Berggren found his yaki ladies. True, after the success of the duo, the bar remembered the copyright, and in Sweden the girls had to perform under the abbreviated name Y-D. However, YAKI-DA quickly disappeared from the pop scene and remained with their "I Saw You Dancing" only in the hit collections of the 1990s ...
But “ASI and VASI” (as we affectionately called them) are still holding on. True, from the first composition there were only "Vasya" left. Lynn was the first to leave the team. It officially happened in 2007. However, since 1998, many have noticed that the "fair" - which previously focused most of the attention - has gone into the shadows. She stopped appearing in public, almost completely gave the lead role to her sister Jenny ... Even on the cover of the Flowers album, Lynn stands behind the group, and her face is blurred.
However, two years later, Jenny also left the group. Well, Jonas and Ulf recruited new girls and... What's the difference!:)
NOTE:
1 — From a letter from reader Anton Rasputin:
The song does have a subtext. In the 90s in Sweden, single mothers of two children received just a fabulous allowance. That's why the song says... all she wants is another child... It is the situation when a man is needed only to conceive a child. A friend told me this, she lived in Sweden at that time. Yes, she had the same thoughts. And then he says to me: This song is just about that. I told her again: Well, what are you, maybe there is another meaning. And she: No, we discussed with local acquaintances.
October 2014
Getting hold of Ace Of Base, which has delighted our ears with reggae-infused pop hits like "All that she wants", "The Sign" and "Happy Nation" for the past five years, has proven to be no easy feat. Jonas Berggren was in the air somewhere between Russia and Sweden, Jenny Berggren couldn't finish her make-up, and her older sister Malinn was going through a mysterious personal drama and sitting in public places with a funeral look. Since Lynn was not recommended to ask questions, she had to find out in a circuitous way: according to rumors, she was either raped by some Swedish maniac, or she was found to have a cyst on her vocal cords, or she broke up with her lover. And only Ulf Ekberg, the fourth member of the group, was ready to answer all questions.
- Dustin Hoffman said he came to Hollywood to meet the most beautiful girls. Why did you get into show business?
I wasn't originally in show business. And I never thought that such a thing would come commercial success. It was just funny. I have loved music for a long time, it was torn from my heart. You have to do what you feel. But there is another side of the coin: after all, everyone wants to bask in the rays of glory at least a little.
This is freedom. Doors open in front of you that you would never enter if you weren't a star. It's also easy to make people happy. Lots and at once. Because they love your music. I constantly meet with children with leukemia. One boy spoke to me the day before the operation. He knew he would not survive. But he was still happy, because his dream came true.
- In Sweden, everywhere you look, photos of Ace Of Base are everywhere. What it's like to be national hero?
Ha! I'm loved everywhere except home country. In Sweden, if you succeed, they try to humiliate and destroy you in every possible way. Black envy. The same thing happened with ABBA.
They were too successful, too commercial, and they were hated here. We love only the poor and orphans. That's why I left the country.
- Just because?
Also because of taxes. 82%.
- But there are no poor, - Jenny joins the conversation.
We have the most perfect social system in the world.
"She's been rotten for a long time," Ulf disagrees. It is felt that this is an old stumbling block, because dissatisfaction with each other hangs in the air.
- Have you noticed that people are especially meticulously looking at you? Are your trousers ironed, is your hair combed...
Certainly. If you are not alone, you are constantly in suspense. I get into the car, meet with a friend - with a friend, not a mistress - we go somewhere in the city, there are flashes around, voice recorders: and who are you sitting with? Is it true that you are going to get married? The next day we're at the paper and my real fiancee is hysterical.
- I recently came across a photo on the Internet, you are very beautiful girl named Emma. That's her?
Yes. She is a famous actress and fashion model. If you remember, she appeared in George Michael's "Too Funky" video. Now she is in France for the next show, but she should also fly to Russia for the weekend.
- Before Ace Of Base you were in a Nazi gang. And skinheads are known to be vengeful people. They don't prosecute you for "betraying the idea"?
Constantly. After all, I was the leader of a group of 150 people.
Almost God. Evil genius. I left before Ace Of Base, which they didn't really accept, but still didn't get very tired. Then, when success came to us, they wanted to destroy me physically. But I'm not afraid of them. My love for people is stronger than their aggression, violence, hatred. Now I'm atoning for old sins.
- Were you also aggressive and cruel?
And dumb. I was the most cruel. How many windows have been broken, how many cars have been smashed and people beaten up! All in all, I spent probably a couple of months at the police station. - Jenny, do you know what happened to the Yaki-da project?
They are recording now new album along with Jonas.
- They say that one of the soloists of Yaki-da is his girlfriend.
Hmm, I wonder which one? If all the Jonas girls got a song, it would be a choir ... Although it's better to ask him.
- What can you do besides sing songs?
- (Ulf) We don't have time to list everything I would like to do. I will say this: I am a computer engineer by education, and fantasy just boils in me.
- (Jenny) I want to be a doctor. Now I study medical literature myself. I would've dealt with my appendix by now.
- What is the best way to listen to your new album "Flowers"?
Very loud. On a good stereo. To get to the bone.
In the 1990s their hits "All That She Wants", "The Sign", "Happy Nation", "Don't Turn Around" sounded from everywhere. "Ace of Base" was called one of the most popular European bands of the 20th century, their very first album sold 23 million discs and was recognized as the best-selling debut record, hitting the Guinness Book of Records.
In the 2000s two soloists left the group, and since then the popularity of "Ace of Base" has declined. What they are doing now, and how they look today - further in the review. 
The first line-up of the group *Ace of Base*
The founders of the group were Swedish musicians Jonas Berggren and Ulf Ekberg. At first, their team was called "Kalinin Prospect" ("Prospect of Kalinin"), but when Berggren's sisters Jenny and Lynn joined them, the group changed its name to "Ace of Base". The name of the group was a play on words, so there are several options for its translation. One of them is the “trump ace”, the other is the “aces of the studio” (their first studio was in the basement - English basement). 
Members of *Ace of Base* 
Their first single "Wheel of Fortune" was not successful - in Sweden it was considered too simple and uninteresting. But the next song - "All That She Wants" - took first place in the charts in 17 countries, and the first album of the same name sold a record 23 million copies. Two more songs from this album - "The Sign" and "Don't Turn Around" - also topped the first lines of the charts. The group became popular not only in Europe, but also in the USA, Russia and Asia. And in Israel, at their concert in 1993, 55 thousand people gathered. 
One of the most popular in the twentieth century. European groups
Even the scandal that erupted in 1993, when one of the Swedish newspapers reported that Ulf Ekberg was a member of a neo-Nazi organization, did not prevent the group's ascent to the musical Olympus. He himself did not deny this fact, while arguing that he had never been a racist. Later, the musician did not like to recall this episode of his biography: “I really regret what I did. I closed this chapter of my life. I don't even want to talk about my past, because it doesn't interest me anymore." 
Surprisingly, the Ace of Base group has always been more popular abroad than at home. In Sweden, their album "The Sign" was recognized as the worst album of the year, and in the United States in just one year it sold 8 million copies. True, this fame had back side. In 1994, a mentally unstable fan broke into Jenny Berggren's house and stabbed the singer's mother. 
Youth idols of the 1990s 
One of the most popular in the twentieth century. European groups
After the release of their second album "The Bridge" in 1995 and a round-the-world tour, the group took a break for 2 years, performing again only in 1997 at a concert dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Princess Victoria of Sweden. IN next year they released the 3rd album - "Flowers", in which the main vocals were no longer performed by Lynn Berggren, but by her sister Jenny. The singer herself explained this by the fact that she damaged her vocal cords. 
Lynn Berggren in the 1990s and 2000s 
Cult Swedish band *Ace of Base*
At the beginning of the new century, the popularity of "Ace of Base" began to decline. In 2007, the blonde Lynn Berggren, who was called the face and voice of the group, left the band, deciding to devote all her time to her family. She had surprised fans before with her statements that she never wanted to be a singer, and since 1997 she tried to stay in the shadows all the time - at concerts she forbade lighting her with spotlights, in clips she kept away from the rest of the participants, in the photo her image was blurry . At that time, there were persistent rumors that, allegedly, after the resounding success of the group, Lynn developed phobias - she was afraid to appear in public, refused photo shoots and filming videos, she was credited with glossophobia (fear of speaking in public) and fear of the camera. The rest of the group did not comment on this information or said that she was simply shy by nature. At present, nothing is written about the life of Lynn Berggren anywhere, she has remained the most mysterious of all the participants in Ace of Base. 
Jonas Berggren in the 1990s and 2000s 
Stars of the 1990s – group *Ace of Base* 
Ulf Ekberg in the 1990s and 2000s
After the departure of Lynn, the trio continued to tour actively: in 2007 they gave several concerts in Russia, Estonia and Lithuania, in 2008 they went on a world tour again, but their old hits at all performances were much more successful than new songs. In 2009, the second soloist left the group. Jenny Berggren explained this by her decision to take up solo career. In 2010, her debut album was released. These days, Jenny is a frequent TV guest, recording new songs and performing with old ones. 
Jenny Berggren in the 1990s and 2000s 
Jenny Berggren today
Since that time, the Ace of Base group has continued to perform in an updated line-up, having accepted two new soloists into the team. But in 2013, the renewed Ace of Base group nevertheless broke up.
After the departure of one of the sisters, the group turned into a trio 
The new composition of the group
Members of the group periodically visit Russia, where they are invited to concerts in the wake of the popularity of music in the 1990s. Ulf Ekberg says: “I visit Moscow at least once a year. There, at the discos, I constantly hear one of our songs, then another. I have many friends in Russia." 
The first composition of the group remained the most successful
