爱司基地

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".