What did Swedish legend Ace of Base pay for?

Everyone will like a song and have a week in their head. That happened to me recently. It's a song. Happy Nation. Ace of Base. Interest in her arose with the easy filing of my friend. In a social media post, she said she had made a discovery. Just watching the clip, listening to the words and learning the translation of the text.

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=HWjCStB6k4o

Many of us sang along and danced to this mega-popular song in the 90s by Swedish band Ace of Base. But not everyone thought about what she was singing.

The song Happy Nation One of the most popular singles of the 90s Happy Nation held a leading position in the charts of different countries.

The happy fate befell in 1992 and the first studio album, also named Happy Nation.. It was recognized as the best-selling debut album in history: more than 25 million copies were sold like hot cakes.

Swedish band Ace of Base Founders Junas Berggren and Ulf Ekberg first played techno music. The name of the band Ace of Base is the fourth in a row. In it you can see a game of words, which is why there is no single translation option. The most common of them is “Trump Ace”.

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As Ekberg told, the selected phrase sounded pretty good, interesting. By the way, the studio of musicians originally served as the basement of the auto workshop, which explains another translation of the name "Ace Studio". In the project Ace of Base agreed to participate sisters Yunas Berggren, Jenny and Lynn. The girls had a musical education and sang in the church choir. That's how the famous four appeared.

The translation of this text is easy to find on the Internet (and it is not alone). The song "Happy Nation" begins with the words:

Praise the people, praise the people.
Great at all times.
And praise my soul.
Great at all times.

According to one version, these are the words of the church hymn “You, God, we praise”, the authorship of which is attributed to St. John. Ambrosia.

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A happy nation, living in a happy nation,
Where people understand
They dream of a perfect man.
The case leading to the sweet salvation,
For the people, for the good,
For the brotherhood of humanity.

We travel through time...

The ideas of man are the only thing that will never disappear.
And over time, we learned from the past...
There is no man who can run the world alone.
Man will disappear, but not his ideas.

Tell them we've gone too far...

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Each sentence has a deep meaning. And the clip is masterful. It serves as an excellent visual accompaniment to words and music, magnetically holds attention to the last frame.

The first footage of the video is a candle with a flame blowing to the side. Then there are the phrases of the Joker in Latin, various ancient symbols and images (the symbol of the world, runic inscriptions, Buddhist symbols, Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Chinese symbol of yin-yang, the signs of the zodiac, the crucifixion of Jesus and even the book of Charles Darwin).

The main part of the video is Lynn's vocals, which Jenny sings along. All this is accompanied by the background vocals of the Joker. There are also black and white shots, as if from old movies: an atomic explosion, people, a tree that falls. It's symbolic. On the last notes, the candle burning at the beginning of the clip goes out.

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In the next few years, the hits of the group continue to occupy the first position in the music charts. But the team admits that stunning success affects the lives of each participant. In the apartment of Jenny Berggren once penetrated a fan with a knife in her hands, suffering from mental disorders. And from the constant comparison of Ace of Base with the same well-known band ABBA and other artists, they are simply tired.

But the members of Ace of Base find strength, write songs, periodically give out albums and go on tour. And then again for a while disappear from view and do not appear anywhere with performances.

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In support of their fourth album in the early 2000s, only two of the band's four members, Jenny and Ulf, toured. The rest decided to devote time to their families. That album included the "lost" composition The Juvenile, which the musicians prepared back in 1995 for the tape "Golden Eye" (from the famous James Bond saga). Then the record company for some reason refused to take it, and Ace of Base no longer returned to writing soundtracks.

In 2007, the legendary band with new inspiration performed in Russia, Denmark, Estonia. During this period, Lynn Berggren left the band permanently, according to her sister Jenny, to "...dedicate most of her time to study and family."

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Two years later, Ace of Base was shut down. And the recording studios announced their desire to see the team as before, in full strength. The producers invited new soloists to the updated project called Ace. of. Base. But this did not help – in 2012 the group finally broke up.

Not everyone stands the test of fame. A stunning success can play a cruel joke with musicians, as happened with the winner of Eurovision-2009 Alexander Rybak, which we wrote earlier.

However, let’s not be upset, let’s give place to bright nostalgia. I'll probably put a Happy Nation ringtone on the phone.