all from sweden.
In this article we are going to tell you a bit about some of the bands from Sweden who are famous international. Roxette , Antiloop, Ace of Base and Abba. Maybe you recognise some of them.
Anyway, hope you find this interesting.
Roxette
The first single of Roxette, "Neverending Love", was a hit in Sweden. First Per Gessle made a Swedish version of the song. It's name was "Svarta glas" (Black Glasses). He sent it to a Swedish singer ,but she didn't want to record it.
After that Per made an English version, "Neverending Love".
EMI's managing director heard the song and suggested that Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson would sing the song together. Per and Marie were famous already in Sweden, but they both now wanted an international career.
They did record the song and the Roxette history was now in the beginning!
Their first record , "Pearls Of Passion", was released in 1986. This album is now deleted and it is not counted on the official album list. But Per Gessle informed that this album will be re-released in October 1997.
In the summer of 88 Roxette started to record a new album, Look Sharp! It had an incredible success in Sweden, but nobody knew it abroad.
Everything changed when an American exchange student took "Look Sharp!" to a local radio station in Minneapolis. DJs loved "The Look" and soon copies of the song spread from radio station to another and suddenly everybody knew the song! Then the official single was released and it went straight up to no.1.
"Look Sharp!" has sold 8 million copies world-wide.
The next album, Joyride became also a success (10 million units world wide). The "Joyride" video was shown 12 times a day on MTV USA. That's not bad.
As Roxette toured, they also made a new album, "Tourism, Songs from studios, stages, hotelrooms & other strange places." And in 94' they released a new album called " Crash! Boom! Bang!".
October 1995 Roxette released an album called "Don't Bore Us - Get To The Chorus! Roxette's Greatest Hits". There are 14 greatest hits and 4 new songs on the album.
"Don't Bore Us - Get To The Chorus!" has now sold over 4 million copies world-wide.
And the next album we all are waiting for? If all works out, it will hit the world before the Christmas of 1998.
Feels like forever.
Antiloop 
David Westerlund and Robin Soderman the members of Antiloop are two young and very talented producers. Since they were neighbours they've known each other for a long time, but it wasn't until two and a half years ago that they started making music together.
By that time David played the piano and Robin was working as a DJ. They were both in to Dance music and decided to make some tracks together.
Their first EP N.S.F.M.C made it to the third place on the Swedish Prime Cuts and later also the Swedish dance Chart. Other remarkable chart-positions were the Swedish Singles Chart where they made it to the 3rd place. Never before had an instrumental techno-anthem climbed so high in Sweden. They became pioneers! "Beauty & The Beast", one of the tracks on the EP, was welcomed by the Swedish National Radio with storm. They put it on their dance show as the 12" of the week. "Polythene", another track from the EP, became a massive underground hit in Stockholm.
With more than 3000 copies of the EP sold and a video that rotated on MTV all over the world, Antiloop really got themselves a well deserved reputation. Since then Antiloop has attended all of the "Nordic Rave" compilations from Fluid Records and made remixes of famous Swedish artists such as: E-type, Vacuum, Army Of Lovers, Ardis and Flexx.
The E-Type remix, "Calling your name", went No.1 in the Swedish Dance Chart for 5 weeks.
If you haven't heard Antiloop, I promise you will.
Ace of Base 
Formed just four years ago in the industrial city of Gothenburg, in Sweden, Ace Of Base is the fruit of joining synthesisers and rave parties with Ulf 'Buddha' Ekberg, Jonas 'Joker' Berggren and his sisters, Jenny and Linn.
The Gothenburg-based Ace of Base - like Abba, made up of two men and two women - is in the Guinness Book of Records for producing the biggest selling debut album ever.
Called ``Happy Nation'' in most markets, it has sold more than 19 million copies world-wide, according to the group's label, Mega Records. It's the most notable of a number of groups who have emerged in the last few years to take up Abba's mantle.
The myth was that Abba earned more for the country than Volvo. As Volvo today has an annual turnover - the vast majority outside Sweden - of more than $20 billion and profits of $2.3 billion, even Ace of Base would be stretched to come near to it in earnings.
Ace of Base's catchy pop-reggae songs are derided by critics but have stormed to the top of the charts all over the world. ``Happy Nation'' was No. 1 in the U.S. Three singles from the album - ``The Sign,'' ``All That She Wants'' and ``Don't Turn Around'' - reached Nos. 1, 2 and 4 respectively in the U.S.
By comparison, the new Ace of Base album, ``The Bridge,'' has gotten off to a slow start - but it has sold 3 million records in the space of a few weeks.
Sweden's success appears to have been built on a strong local musical tradition, blended with rich immigrant influences and an unusual openness to English-language culture. All the Swedish international success stories - from Abba to Ace of Base - have written original songs in fluent English.
ABBA 
Björn Ulvaeus, a member of the Hootenany Singers (somewhat equivalent to the Beatles), and his friend Benny Andersson formed ABBA in 1972 with Björn's wife Agnetha Fältskog, a beautiful blonde in her early 20s; and Benny's girlfriend Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They were all managed by Stig Anderson, a business entrepreneur.
During the first few months, they were known as Agnetha, Benny, Björn, and Anni-Frid. Of course, this name seemed a bit too long to put on album covers, so they decided to shorten the name by one or maybe two words. They took the first letter from each of their first names and that made a word that came to be known as ABBA.
Unfortunately, there was a fish-canning company at that time with exactly the same name! They asked the company for permission to use the name. The company said they could, provided that they modify the name so that people could tell the difference between the company and the group. So, ABBA inverted the first "B" in ABBA, which became their trademark.
By the end of 1972 and the beginning 1973, ABBA achieved popularity and success, but this was mainly around continental Europe. What ABBA wanted was to reach out to the world, with the USA being their main target. They achieved their goal in late 1973 when they recorded a monster hit which topped charts all over the world, which resulted in half the world turning over to them. This hit was called Ring Ring, and it was not only written by Benny and Björn, but with assistance from their manager Stig, as well as two American hit-makers, Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody.
The other half followed in 1974, when ABBA performed at the Eurovision contest in Brighton, England, and defeated all other opposition. The song they performed was Waterloo, a song which compared love to Napoleon's battle at Waterloo. They won this contest mainly because of the upbeat tempo of the song, and also because the conductor of their backing orchestra wore an instantly recognisable Napoleonic hat. When released as a single, it topped charts all over the world, and even reached the US Top 20.
Not everyone was happy about ABBA's victory at Eurovision: The British were very upset because this was the very first time that a non-British group ever won such a contest. There was bias about non-British groups being "less superior" than British groups. Unfortunately, ABBA were victims of this bias which resulted in all their follow-up singles being less successful.
ABBA did make a comeback in 1975, with S.O.S, which proved that could be internationally appealing. Other big hits from that year were Mamma Mia , which was a German Number One, and I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, which reached the US Top 20.
With the 1974 and 1975 albums selling like crazy, ABBA was on the verge of "exploding". Between February 1975 and December 1978, seven singles were released in Britain, six which topped charts and the seventh which became probably ABBA's biggest hit ever. If this wasn't enough, between 1978 and 1979, six more singles were released, of which most topped charts.
To make a long story short, ABBA was basically outselling every other group at that time. However, there was barely anything about them in the press. This was mainly because ABBA was too busy for the press, as they were either recording new hits or travelling all over the world for personal appearances.
One of these hits that was released during that period was Dancing Queen. Released in 1976, it topped the charts in many countries including the USA and Australia for six weeks. Not only was this song popular among the "common" people, it was also fairly popular with the Swedish royalty. This resulted in ABBA being invited to perform this song at the reception celebrating the wedding of Silvia Sommerlath to the King Of Sweden. This event was aired on Swedish television (maybe other European networks) in November 1976. ABBA starred in their very first feature film in 1977. The title of this film was called ABBA- The Movie. It was about a reporter who had the job of interviewing ABBA, which was a very difficult task (they compared this to interviewing the Beatles on "Hey Day"). The songs featured in the movie were released on ABBA-The Album, which was released in 1978. Also in 1978, Anni-Frid and Benny finally got married after living together for several years. So, for the first time, ABBA was composed of two husband and wife teams. However, this happiness only lasted for a short while, because by the end of that year, Agnetha and Bjorn had separated.
We could write much more about this incredible group which probably is the biggest in Swedish musichistory ever, but unfortunately we haven't got the time and space to do it.
Writers: Frank Ericsson -Roxette, Marcus Pahlberg -Antiloop, Mattias Hakala -Ace of Base, Daniel Forslund -Abba.
Webmaster: Anna Nilsson, nv99-19@park.se