ace of base: classic or "the biggest load of crap!!!" (cf. S Samson)?

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Berggren, Berggren, Berggren... and Ulf "Buddah" Ekberg!

(It had to be done.)

(M0unt4in G04ts to thread.)

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 23 March 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

to get 's smason' going you should just said what the biggest pile of shit the poptones label is.

I've had no thoughts ever on ace of base.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 23 March 2003 20:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

DON'T DIS DA BASE

Lynskey (Lynskey), Sunday, 23 March 2003 20:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

My first exposure to "The Sign" since the mid-90s = "What the hell were we thinking? This is terrific!"

nabisco (nabisco), Sunday, 23 March 2003 20:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

I liked that one about wanting another baby. Didn't something happen to one of the girls? Like she couldn't sing anymore, and she'd always appear in the background of their videos.

jel -- (jel), Sunday, 23 March 2003 20:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh. My. GOD.

JBR do not even get me started, I have hit the whiskey pretty early this afternoon and my wife would probably rather I didn't dig up the Ace of Base CD. Classic in the true sense of the word is the answer, anyhow: Sophocles. Virgil. Catullus. Jenny. Joker. Lynn. Buddah.

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

META:
what exactly does "life is demanding/without understanding" mean (to the hypothetical you/ILM audience)?

gygax! (gygax!), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

expect more violent answers as I get deeper into this bottle, however at the moment my wife is making preemptive disc-carousel choices in the vain hope that Ace of Base will not rule this house by nightfall

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:18 (twenty-one years ago) link

it's "love is demanding without understanding" as far as I know, and it means "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/creeps in this petty pace from day to day/to the last syllable of recorded time" etc

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

(They're crap, y'know).

Except 'The Sign' which is wicked good.

Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

thank God I'm not a moderator

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

Signed by a guy previously booted out of a record company for being too much of a cokehead, unbelievably.

Bands like these are good in a Wizard of Oz sense: 'pay no attention to the man behind the mirror' as he's ALWAYS some geriatric producer called Sven with bigger boobs than the girls fronting the group.

suzy (suzy), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Feel that hate in the eerie silence, J0hn! ILM: We Lub Bjork, The Base Are, urm, Dork...s.

Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 23 March 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah but it's a Sunday! I predict 100+ new answers of Ace of Base love by tomorrow. Such is needed for one of the most important bands of the last 20 years, we are only just beginning to realise their legacy.

jel -- (jel), Sunday, 23 March 2003 22:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

Classic: They served their purpose. Some of us moved on. Some of us did not. But who wants to destroy anyones fun?

Carey (Carey), Sunday, 23 March 2003 22:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

the sign was the first album i consciously purchased with my own money.

priceless=classic

reo fordecor, Sunday, 23 March 2003 22:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

they're ok, though the guys didn't get to rap enough. Especially the chubby guy (I think they actually called him Buddha!) who said "All night lohng to da break ahf DON!" on "It's A Beautiful Life".

I was very sad for them when I discoverd their first single from the third album was a cover of "Cruel Summer." That's pretty pathetic.

Oh, if only for "Rasputin," Boney M easy.

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 23 March 2003 22:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

Aaaah. What a load of crap!

: - D

S Samson, Sunday, 23 March 2003 22:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

Back when I was a young 'un, I heard this song that I really loved- all I could remember from it, tho, was the chorus of "mmm mmm mmm mmm". So I went to the record store and asked the clerck about it- he sold me Ace Of Base.

Now, it don't take a genius to figure out that the "mmm mmm mmm mmm" song was, of course, "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by The Crash Test Dummies. I wanted a Crash Test Dummies record, and the fucker gave me Ace Of Base!

I never listened to the record much. Did get the CTD record a few years after, tho, and it's pretty great in its Canadian dorkyness (they are Canadian, right?) Today, I wish I still had that AOB record, if only because I once checked out the lyrics on the 'net and apparently the "filler" portion of the record was way insane. I still wouldn't be able to fathom "All That She Wants", tho, because I once heard it used in a k-awful Italo movie about finding true love as a blonde bimbo with a bonehead stud. So Crash Test Dummies still > Ace Of Base.

Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 23 March 2003 23:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

"I wanted a Crash Test Dummies record, and the fucker gave me Ace Of Base!"

that sentence DEFINES 1993. What a fucked up time that was.

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 23 March 2003 23:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

The album with "The Sign" was also the first album I ever purchased with my own money.

I'm a pariah among my music-fan friends and acquaintances for still enjoying them. I wonder if I can find a cheap copy at the used CD store...

miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 23 March 2003 23:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

How young are you people?

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 23 March 2003 23:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

How young are you people?

You already know in my case, but I'll be damned if I miss out on a single chance to post these during the only twelve months in my life that I won't look silly doing so:

Lines form on my face and hands
Lines form from the ups and downs
I'm in the middle without any plans
I'm a boy and I'm a man

I'm eighteen
and I don't know what I want
Eighteen
I just don't know what I want
Eighteen
I gotta get away
I gotta get out of this place
I'll go runnin in outer space
Oh yeah

I got a
baby's brain and an old man's heart
Took eighteen years to get this far
Don't always know what I'm talkin' about
Feels like I'm livin in the middle of doubt
Cause I'm

Eighteen
I get confused every day
Eighteen
I just don't know what to say
Eighteen
I gotta get away

Lines form on my face and my hands
Lines form on the left and right
I'm in the middle
the middle of life
I'm a boy and I'm a man
I'm eighteen and I LIKE IT
Yes I like it
Oh I like it
Love it
Like it
Love it
Eighteen!
Eighteen!
Eighteen!
Eighteen and I LIKE IT


Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 24 March 2003 00:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

goldarnit, Jody. You're only like 25-26, right? Why do you keep pretending to be such a fogey? You're only, like, three years older than me!

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 24 March 2003 00:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

The whiskey has worn off but I must still say that Ace of Base, even on their worst day, could put the artistic smack down on Bjork without even breaking a sweat.

I find JBR's fogey routine quite charming, actually, though it sometimes it makes me feel like I'm about 80

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 24 March 2003 00:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

ace ov ba5e ruul, fukc all yuo h@t@z.

Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 24 March 2003 01:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

I can't believe that this has even reached the discussion stage. Ace of Base was horrible. The blonde guy was a ugly Nazi and each and every one of their records sucked. They disgraced the nation of Sweden. 'The Sign' is my least favourite record of all time; in thirty pop-loving years upon this planet I have never hated anything as much as their pissweak witless anodyne excuses for hit songs. Their very existence was an open challenge to anyone who has ever heard music.

They were even worse than the Crash Test Dummies.

In fact, now I come to think of it, even Roxette were better than Ace of Fucking Base.

Gatinha (rwillmsen), Monday, 24 March 2003 01:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

Roxette had their moments but Per Gessle's solo career is where it's really at.

Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 24 March 2003 01:29 (twenty-one years ago) link

is it true that one of the blokes was a bona-fide nazi?

anyway, that album was also the first album i ever conscoiusly bought with my own money - psych! I'd forgotten all about that as well! I tell everyone it's the Prodigy's first album lol!

dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 24 March 2003 01:57 (twenty-one years ago) link

There have been considerable loads of crap during musical history, but Ace Of Base are definitely one of them, if not necessarily the biggest...

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 24 March 2003 02:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

I am the biggest long of crap in the history of musical endeavor.

Geir Hongrow (Alex in SF), Monday, 24 March 2003 02:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

the main difference between Ace of Base and the Beatles is that Ace of Base made fucking brilliant records

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 24 March 2003 04:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

When I worked at crappy Musicland in highschool I only sold two records all day, everyday. They were Ace of Base and Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins, over and over and over and over...

Mike Taylor (mjt), Monday, 24 March 2003 06:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why do you keep pretending to be such a fogey?

1) Fogeys are so much cooler than kids, aren't they? I mean, they say stuff like "Get off my lawn!"

2) Part of the reason I'm going through my "'90s" phase is because I'm intensely jealous of my friends who are 5-10-15 years older and got to be "there" (as semi-adults, not just stupid pain-in-the-ass kids) during the early '80s, one of the richest musical eras in history. They all have these really romantic stories, and I don't. I'm mining the '90s for its best music so I can feel all smug and semi-adult in the face of my friends who are 5-10-15 years younger.

3) Poor health, depression, etc. The sense of bemused resignation that's completely washed over my youthful exuberance and snapcracklepop. (And I'm not even a rockist!)

4) I live in New York. This place turns everyone into a haggard old bastard.

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 24 March 2003 06:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm mining the '90s for its best music

or alternately, uh, worst (ok, that Macarena disc was pretty terrible)

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 24 March 2003 07:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jesus, J0hn, are you slagging on the Beatles? Wherefore? What good can come of that?

Kenan Hebert (kenan), Monday, 24 March 2003 07:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

And BTW, I think they're kind of thin. Kylie is far, far more brilliant.

Kenan Hebert (kenan), Monday, 24 March 2003 07:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've just downloaded the brilliant 'Life is a Flower',Love it!

Paul R (paul R), Monday, 24 March 2003 07:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Whether you liked them or not, you must admit Ace of Base were a lot better than most of the europop of that era. Me, I could never forget dancing to AoB in some seedy teenage disco with my friends... Ah! The youth! Anyways, "Happy Nation" & "All That She Wants" still beat shit out of Radiohead and other art crap my friends are listening to nowadays.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 24 March 2003 09:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

You convinced me! I still think Bjork could do a one-legged moonsault on those guys heads (I heard Graeme Souness, football manager, shout "sit on his head" at the weekend). But I'm willing to listen. (They always make me think of Whigfield).

Cozen (Cozen), Monday, 24 March 2003 12:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

(for the record Kenana I was trying [failing] to respond to Hongro's yawndom in an amusingly hyperbolic way -- I do think Ace of Base made much more interesting pop records that Kylie or practically anybody else, except maybe Take That, but then again the whole transparency-of-the-pop-icon moment we're presently experiencing [Avril et al and Kylie to some extent] strikes me as dull and sad)

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 24 March 2003 12:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

Kenan, I mean, no disrespect intended in the misspelling

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 24 March 2003 12:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jody, buy Good Charlotte's Young And The Hopeless and let them lovingly blow life back into your faux-fogey soul through the ear hole.

Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 24 March 2003 22:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

No. Get off my lawn.

Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 24 March 2003 23:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

Kenan, I mean, no disrespect intended in the misspelling

Yeah, sure. So I'm a little girlie man, am I? Deserve a feminine vowel on the end of my name, do I? You old fogie! I'll take you anyday! Bring it!

Kenan Hebert (kenan), Monday, 24 March 2003 23:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

I loved the fact that All That She Wants can be accurately recreated on those shite electric keyboards we had in school. You could even lob some bagpipe effects in on top, for free-jazz points.

But yeah, thinking about it, they weren't too bad.

William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 24 March 2003 23:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Kenan thank you for the biggest laugh I've had all day ;)

J0hna Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Monday, 24 March 2003 23:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

god DAMN 'All That She Wants' was a fucking momentous song!

the lewdest sax since 'Girls and Boys' by Prince.... but kind of para in a 'get-on-with-it' kind of way instead of laid-back, like some man with cologne and light summer jacket telling you to get in the car, and not being nice about it

and don't forget their robotically superior carbon-copy of 'Cruel Summer'!!

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 01:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ace of Base bring back rollerskating memories.
I think I like The Bridge better.

A Nairn (moretap), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 02:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Always Have, Always Will" is a terrific song - ditto most of the early singles. The Flowers album has the most bizarrely stupid liner notes of any record ever. Really, you've got to read them.

edward o (edwardo), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 03:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

ok, i thought, i've been wrong about stuff before, i thought. maybe ILX is right about this one like they were right about missy, i thought. so i downloaded a couple of their singles. YOU FUCKING BAST... never mind.

Dave M. (rotten03), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 03:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

What I remember most clearly is 5th grade, on the playground outside an elementary school in Iowa, before class begins.. a classmate walks up to me and reveals his discovery the previous night of "the coolest band in the world", that is, Ace of Base.

After finally hearing them I declared them sissy crap and went on playing video games. That said, I learned to like them again a few years later, after hanging out with a Russian friend whose favorite artists were SEAL and AoB.

Bobby D Gray (bedhead), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 03:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

A prime moment of wonderful nineties stuff that Mr. Darnielle must love -- me stumbling across some local program in Farsi in 1995 or so at around 4 am or something, where the affable host introduces a lip-sync effort from two Iranian-American teen girls. Song of choice: "The Sign." Gotta love it.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 25 March 2003 05:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

two years pass...
No one mentioned the girls on Full House performing a cover of "The Sign"? It's only like one of the top 5 most cringe worthy things EVER.

daddy warbuxx (daddy warbuxx), Thursday, 20 October 2005 05:55 (eighteen years ago) link

It appears they're back, by the way. (I'm not entirely sure, though, I don't speak Swedish, but "Ace of Bases comeback är ett faktum." sounds a lot like "... is a fact")

StanM (StanM), Thursday, 20 October 2005 06:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Correct. Also they

"have even started planning a new record. 'The plan is to go into the studio. But we're not stressed about it, so it won't appear for a while'".

The Vintner's Lipogram (OleM), Thursday, 20 October 2005 09:51 (eighteen years ago) link

The blonde guy was/is an ex-Nazi. Allegedly.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 09:53 (eighteen years ago) link

For him life truly is a flower.

Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:07 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

The bassline in "Dancer in A Daydream": great, or the greatest????

musically, Friday, 8 February 2008 19:35 (sixteen years ago) link

two years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJwqDa1QVI

it means "EMOTIONAL"! (HI DERE), Wednesday, 5 May 2010 20:51 (fourteen years ago) link

i've been fuckin with the new lady gaga joint, which reminds me.....

ace of base had some jams

The Reverend, Sunday, 16 May 2010 07:11 (thirteen years ago) link

like....even try to fuckin dispute that

The Reverend, Sunday, 16 May 2010 07:12 (thirteen years ago) link

two months pass...
eight years pass...

So my partner read an article similar to this one a while ago and made reference to it casually when we were talking about 90s jams with some friends the other night, and then I went down a rabbit hole...and I think Ace of Base were a fascist band?

https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-90s-pop-band-secretly-sold-nazism-to-america/

blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:33 (four years ago) link


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