Of all the hundreds of microgenres that make pop the funnest kind of butterfly collecting, perhaps the greatest is Swedish Reggae. The first person I heard talk about Swedish Reggae was Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields at the end of the 90s, but by then its heyday was long gone. It was a holiday romance, opposites attracting, never really meant to be – a union of the sun-hardened authenticity of reggae and kitschy Scando popcraft which couldn’t truly produce anything lasting, or could it?
In fact, now I think about it, maybe there only ever was one Swedish Reggae song – this song, “All That She Wants”, so startling that you imagined a whole style around it. The sound of “All That She Wants” is disarmingly simple – high, clear, piping synths over a basic skank – but also quite perfect. It’s a cooling sound, it makes the rest of pop sound busy and overheated. As the song so poetically puts it, “It’s not a day for work – it’s a day for catching time”.
Not just time, though – with its gulf between high and low end the Swedish Reggae sound is all about creating space, and the protagonist of “All That She Wants” demands that space – she’s an utterly autonomous creature, an apex predator of romance, lonely like a polar bear is lonely. She gets all that she wants, and all that she wants is (maybe) you (for the moment). It’s a lovely touch to have her in the song only as a reported presence – her “baby” isn’t singing, nor is she, just an unplaced narrator, a witness to her as an event as much as a person.
Score: 8
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A contender for most contradictory opening line: “When she woke up late in the morning light and the day had just begun”. (Along with “Slowly walking down the hall. Faster than a cannonball.”)
I remember seeing that Stephin Merritt quote and finding one or two examples of swedish reggae, but can’t find them again now.
Well you can at least add Robyn’s Dancehall Queen to the Swedish regrae canon, now.
Oh – and we now have Spotify on the sidebar I see – thanks Alan!
Midi, Maxi and Efti!
(There were lots of Swedish Reggae examples, I know, I was being rhetorical or something. Dr Alban! Paris Hilton revived the style in the mid-00s, proving you didn’t have to be Swedish to make Swedish Reggae)
Also – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q4nW6OR_4M – Bhangra version!! This is amazing.
Only one Swedish reggae song? Surely Ace of Base’s other main hits (The Sign, Don’t Turn Around) are in that genre too?
Anyhow, I agree with Tom’s 8 for this one. Swedish pop genius and Abba’s visual template re-emerging at the height of grunge in the US was genuinely refreshing. All the space in AOB’s tracks was indeed glorious, and when they fully exploited their visual potential as in this ToTP vid for All That She Wants or in The Sign’s official vid. the effect was intoxicating. Interestingly, now that dance-pop has become as bludgeoning and cluttered as grunge ever was, AOB’s stuff *still* refreshes, and I find myself liking ATSW, The Sign, and a few others more than ever.
Oh, and I love that little rasp/grunt from Linn after the leading ‘She leads a lonely life’. Excellent.
Happy Nation must be the most ironic of all album titles. Despite a six-year run of international hits, Ace Of Base were never going to be Sweden’s, or anyone’s, new Abba; where the latter always strove to look out onto their world, Ace Of Base gazed gloomily and downwards within themselves, as though having proceeded directly to “The Day Before You Came” without passing “Waterloo.” Given the very questionable political past of one of its members, some thought they did well to keep themselves to themselves, though the gentleman in question expressly recanted, and in any case, how could true racists build a career on a base of pop reggae?
“All That She Wants” was their first and biggest hit, and although it presents itself as a warning against a loose woman on the beach, a kind of gender inversion of the Brotherhood of Man’s “Figaro,” it sounds set on Ballard’s Desolation Beach, or Nevil Shute’s post-nuclear beach, all grey whirls of wind, mournfully staccato keyboards, a “Ghost Town” whistle. Linn’s lead vocal is cast as a harsher, depressed Kim Wilde; the tantalising suggestions of a major key resolution in the verses are never followed through; and throughout there is pity and even compassion for a seemingly unlovable protagonist (“She leads a lonely life,” “All that she wants is another baby…she’s gone tomorrow”). The song is sung as though everyone and everything has already gone, and it’s hardly surprising that they later gave “Cruel Summer” a similarly cold treatment, since this sounds like the Bananarama song remixed by an especially dolorous Jerry Dammers.
cobrastyle is reggae-ish, and Alejandro in the not-actually-swedish-artist category obv
I nearly put a playlist in the spotified sidebar.
It’s almost the gender-swap version of “The Wanderer”, narrated by her long-suffering best mate innit?
Leila K was Swedish, I think, too.. and more to the point (someone who I really wish qualified for inclusion here) didn’t Neneh Cherry (and brother) have some kind of Swedish connection too. “Buffalo Stance” would have made a fantastic no 1….
Love the characteristic melancholy that is a constant undertow on this track (though Happy Nation the song is that and little more), as well as the reggae beat. Although, still, I think, in fact, this is probably my least favourite single by Ace of Base.
They did (later – “The Sign”, and later still “Lucky Love”, and possibly elsewhere too) develop the art of the carefully edited 2-3 minute pop song that went as quickly as it came, leaving a clear and sharp impression that couldn’t overstay its welcome. ATSW is a bit blander, less focused, and doesn’t seem such a polished complete object as some of those other singles. And unlike those others, it does go on for too long.
I have to applaud getting such misery in to the form of the Capital Radio-friendly pop song, though.
Under-18s night at a (now derelict) club in the Midlands. My first kiss.
I was a kid when this was a hit, so I took baby literally and thought this was a song about a woman trying to have a second child.
Not Swedish admittedly, but wasn’t there one year in the 80s when the Finnish Eurovision entry was a ditty named ‘Reggae OK!’ From what I can remember it was every bit as awful as you’d expect.
#12 http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/17440/ – songmeanings suggests this is a pretty common reading!
I’m sorry, but when all is said and done (even if Robyn reinvents herself completely for the rest of her life): the mathematical formula goes
Finnish Tango > Swedish Reggae.
#12/#14 One reading for the song I’ve thought possible too!
Not having thought about the lyrics since I was about 12, I was still under the impression that it was an actual baby she wanted until, um, just now. I remember my uncle saying it was about the woman next-door to him who’d had three kids with different fathers – I forget if he was spinning this alleged fact in a “she must really love having babies” way or a “bloody scroungers” way.
Somehow the combination of reggae and Euro makes Euro sound even more melancholic and full-of-longing. I’m not sure if they’re Swedish (hang on a mo…no, they’re not) but the two other songs that most fit into this genre for me are Manu Chao’s Bongo Bong and the (Dutch) original of It Takes A Muscle To Fall In Love.
Yaki Da (who a bit of googling shows had a direct link with Ace of Base.) also spring to mind.
I was living in South-Eastern Europe (Ukraine, and a summer in Romania) for a time in the mid-90s, and they bloody loved this kind of stuff there.
I’m sure the films of Lukas Moodysson (at least: before he disappeared up his own backside – from “Container” on) will reveal more, actually…. (which makes me ask…is “Hole In My Heart” almost this song expressed in filmic form? More shocking and aggressively miserable and deliberately unpleasant, sure. But the same solitude and despair is overwhelmingly present)
I fear other artists of this genre will reenter my mind now, having been safely buried for 15+ years.
Think there’s an insistent bunny chomping greedily on a carrot in the area of Swedish Reggae too. (Again – definitely not *that* group’s best single)
TOTPWatch. Ace Of Base performed ‘All That She Wants’ on Top Of The Pops on four occasions. Details of the Christmas edition shall be provided anon;
6 May 1993. Also in the studio that week were; 2 Unlimited, Utah Saints and Kingmaker plus a live performance by satellite from Elton John in Atlanta. Tony Dortie was the host.
21 May 1993. Also in the studio that week were; Felix, Luther Vandross, Charles & Eddie, Runrig and Saint Etienne, plus a live performance by satellite from Bon Jovi in Glasgow. Tony Dortie was the host.
27 May 1993. Also in the studio that week were; Stereo MC’s, Suede, Louchie Lou & Michie One, Lenny Kravitz, Tears For Fears and Lisa Stansfield. Mark Franklin was the host.
I seem to remember tabloid commentary about this song at the time giving it a ‘moral panic’ interpretation as being about women who literally only “want another baby” i.e. single mothers who seek to be impregnated by anonymous fathers.
Light Entertainment Watch: Not many UK TV appearances for Ace of Base are on the list;
THE BRIAN CONLEY SHOW: with Ace Of Base, Duo Mouvance (1994)
DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT: with Bob Monkhouse, Dusty Springfield, Ace Of Base, Michael Flatley, Dominic Holland (1996)
RE Swedish Reggae, the Ace of Base sound actually came from them attempting to recreate the vibe of this Swedish classic that sadly never crossed over to the UK. You can hear how liberally they “Borrowed” the sound for All That She Wants. http://youtu.be/bRMuQt9G_UM
Like ABBA and Roxette, AoB were deceptively good songsmiths who were frequently written off as eurotrash. I love all of their albums for different reasons. My personal favourite of their hits (and they had more than you think) is Life is a Flower, surely one of the most uplifting candy-coated earworms of the 90s.
@12,14,16,20 On the Council Estate I was living on at the time, it seemed like most of the girls in the 16-24 age group had taken the song’s meaning a little too literally, if you know what I mean.
I love current Swedish reggae artist Kapten Röd, though singing in Swedish he seems unlikely to reach the US/UK market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbPNwzFNQ7E
It was this, the Shaman and 2 Unlimited that made the charts a lively taste ambassador for a precious while. It was the first time I was really paying attention to number ones, and it really paid off: here came the populist, mainly harmless but still vibrant edge of a mini-innovation happening somewhere, and the nexus of radio selection and the British Buying Public had sorted, selected and delivered.
And so a smashing song which I’m happy to have as the sole representative of its microgenre, rhetorical or not.
Strange to think how ridiculously massive Ace of Base were in America, although it didn’t really last beyond this album (which sold something ridiculous like 9 million!)
The Sign spent six weeks at #1 in America, whereas this was held off the top by the juggernaut that was Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love (and, for one week, Janet Jackson’s Again).
Amy Diamond is Swedish reggae. “Don’t Cry Your Heart Out”
Because I love pedantry (and ludicrously specific genre knowledge), I’ll add my friend’s response:
“Ace of Base was a _very_ late addition to Swedish Reggae. That webpage seems to have completely missed the genre-defining “Hög Standard” album from 1975 by Peps Perssons Blodsband. Tsk, tsk.”
Ace of Base were a band I neither liked nor despised – they came and went without really making much of an impression on me. However, I will say that it’s the big, empty spaces in this song which appeal to Tom and so many commenters that turn me off it. To me, it always felt cold, hollow and very unwelcoming. The only point of entry I had was the weird, sexually frustrated motorcycle noise Linn made after the line “She leads a lonely life” (already pointed out by Swanstep). “She leads a lonely life/ RRMMMM-MMMMMM!” gives some kind of justification to the woman in the song’s predatory behaviour. Sex provides a brief form of companionship to counter the dullness of her life, and she’s lucky enough to be able to easily grab it. But it’s the only display of life or emotion here, and it feels like a flatline of a pop song otherwise, stating the facts in a miserable manner. I’m amazed it appealed to so many people, and I have to wonder if they heard a jolly pop song where I’m hearing quite a dark and unwelcoming affair. Perhaps my attitude towards it says more about me than Ace of Base or anyone else (1993 was a pretty bleak year for me personally, all told).
Comparisons to Abba’s late material on this thread are incredibly apt, but then I never cared all that much for that, either. Same problem.
the meaning of the song remains (for me) satisfyingly unsettled – I’ve always thought it was about a woman whose biological clock was ticking – but other aspects of the lyrics don’t entirely support that. The bassline is very reminiscent of ‘Dub be good to me’ and there’s a similar tension between the reggae rhythms and the frosty vocals and compressed musical arrangement.
I hear hints of reggae in Little Dragon as well – although I may be thinking of the singers work with Gorillaz
…and this is yet another one that I first heard in my Great Late 80s/Early 90s Musical Discovery of January 2004, as mentioned in previous entries. For a band that had hits all through the decade I somehow ended up completely missing them at the time, perhaps because their biggest hit-making years were just before my musical memories begin.
I still have one memory attached to this though – my workplace’s Halloween quiz night in 2008 had a ‘Guess the song from the intro’ round, this being one of them. When they revealed the answers at the end and played the rest of the song, the entire room burst into a massive singsong of EVERY SINGLE LINE, right up to the first chorus. Fifteen years later and it had clearly stuck in everyone’s minds!
8 I agree with, I’d probably give ‘The Sign’ a 9 but sadly we won’t be seeing them again.
Another observation that probably seems quite obvious, but I’ll mention it anyway:
Fernando – ABBA
La Isla Bonita – Madonna
All That She Wants – Ace Of Base
*BUNNIED* – Shakira
Alejandro – Lady Gaga
They all share a similar sort of Pop DNA and arguably define the pop landscape within their own periods in time. The explicit connectedness of the tracks I mentioned with ATSW acting as a kind of fulcrum point seem to suggest one informs the next and so on. This sort of thing happens in Rock quite often, but in pop it seems less obvious. I’m sure a lot of the commenters here will go “Well, DUH!”, but I’m starting to notice this effect more often since contributing to Popular.
#13 – That would have been 1981, and it’s probably the only reggae song in the world to feature an accordion solo. Though you can’t really lay all the blame at the Finns’ door since it was written by British expat Jim Pembroke, as was also the case with the 1982 Finnish entry Nuku pommiin which received the royal nul points treatment.
Outside of these two, Pembroke (mainly known for fronting prog rockers Wigwam) has written tons of great songs – believe it or not.
I missed Ace of Base the first time around; I don’t know if there was any particular moment when I went back and caught up on them. They seem generally beloved by people my age (30) as something most of my peers except me got really into as kids and then quickly suppressed but never abandoned. Baffling really – – “Don’t Turn Around” is pretty good, “The Sign” kind of short on ideas but catchy as hell… but to me “All That She Wants” is a great melody and fairly compelling vocal, trapped in a clattering, distracting production. I can usually bracket this kind of thing as a period/genre piece – they all sound like that so it’s a bit lame to really harp on the beats, but man do they not serve the song. If it’s meant to be wistful, get all that crap out of there (especially the goofy synth sax!) and if it’s meant to be driving get a rhythm section that doesn’t sound like it came free in a box of Cheerios. As it is, the song just kind of minces along, making the vocals feel slower and more half-hearted than they actually are.
(I actually love the [i]sound[/i] of the goofy synth sax – just think it’s a weird fit here.)
This song is in a minor key all the way until the last verse, when it modulates to the tonic major. The musical equivalent of a happy ending.
#35 Not quite. The intro and choruses are minor, then it modulates to the parallel major the start of both verses (the verse melody never lands on the third so the change can go unnoticed), but there are little differences. The shift from F# major to F#minor under the line ‘It’s a day for catching time’ (or whatever) is not replicated in the second verse, which makes the whole verse ‘feel’ more major key as the tonal ground is more stable!
Sorry, that’s unclear. I mean the melody sung over that first chord in the verse sequence (c# major) doesn’t land on the third, which is why the change from minor to major may go unnoticed..
a rhythm section that doesn’t sound like it came free in a box of Cheerios
@#34, I guess I know what you’re getting at, but for myself I really like the drum machine and bass on this track and regard it as a cornerstone of the AoB sound (they used these same sounds and patterns on all of their early hits). It’s punchy but not at all pummelling if that makes any sense. In a way, I regard it as a useful update of the sort of driving but non-oppressive (non-drum machine) rhythm tracks that one finds on Evelyn King’s first album (Shame, The Show is Over, etc.) or even on Off The Wall. And it feels to me now about equally classic, and equally welcome when it turns up in mash-ups. Compare Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA with its mash-up/reboot to the AoB back track from The Sign.
they came and went without really making much of an impression on me
@#23. I kind of had the same feeling but I’ve tended to put that down to just that AoB weren’t able to follow up this initial period of storming success with anything much (in the US at least). Apparently, I gather, this was because (A-singer and visual focus) Linn very quickly wanted out of the business (Agnetha squared?). I’ve only caught up with AoB’s later semi-hits (outside the US) recently on youtube and the sense of Linn shrinking away from the camera (and the music) in those vids is quite palpable and remarkable.
I think my favourite of theirs was the more lightweight Life Is A Flower from a few years later. But the ambiguity of this gives it a faint but definite sinister feel. Does she want somebody else’s boyfriend or husband, or their actual baby? And she only wants another one of whichever it is, suggesting she tires of them quickly. What happens then? The vagueness of the lyrics and the menacing feel of the music gives the whole song the air of a thriller. What was it about Scandinavian pop groups that enabled them to produce such hummable darkness?
#37 Yes, there is quite an emphasis on avoidance of the 3rd. I seem to remember them doing a similar thing harmonically in The Sign (which is predominantly major).
Ultimately this song with its production and melancholy could only be Swedish. I remember a ska-punk-lite version of it done by their fellow countrymen The Grass Show a few years later. Paved the way for an influx of Scandinavian bands Stakka Bo, Cardigans, Wannadies etc who for me seamlessly fitted in with the Britpop scene despite not being British.
[…] a hiatus Tom Ewing continues counting down UK number ones, this time Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants,” a song so ubiquitous in late ’93 and […]
This is a 10 out of 10 for me.
Pedant’s point: isn’t the lyric “catching tan” rather than time?
#33 – other accordion solos in reggae(ish) songs = almost everything ever by Edward II…
The verses are a lot better than the chours I think. I would prefer that chilly morning after vibe to stay throughout the whole song.
The chours has a forced Saturday morning kids show bounciness that doesn’t quite balance with the rest of it and the lead singer has a voice even more uncharismatic than Andy Bell.
What really dates it are those synthetic horns. Evidently a similar preset to the one the Sugababes used for the ” brass section ” on their crappy (or rather even crappier than the original) version of Here Comes The Girls. The source presumably being a Tomytron keyboards for schools manual from 1980.
I wouldn’t look back too favourably on Ace of Base. All their other songs just seemed like variations on this one.
NOW watch: All That She Wants was on Disc One of Now 25. Bits of soft reggae, a few 80s throwbacks (incl. the bunnied entry), and even room for Kingmaker. It went pretty much like this:
George Michael & Queen : “Somebody to Love”
4 Non Blondes : “What’s Up?”
Tina Turner : “I Don’t Wanna Fight”
Ace of Base : “All That She Wants”
Gabrielle : “Dreams”
Lena Fiagbe : “You Come From Earth”
R.E.M. : “Everybody Hurts”
New Order : “Regret”
*******bunny ears*******
Gloria Gaynor : “I Will Survive”
Inner Circle : “Sweat (A La La La La Long)”
Chaka Demus & Pliers : “Tease Me”
Louchie Lou & Michie One : “Shout (It Out)”
Shabba Ranks featuring Maxi Priest : “Housecall”
Duran Duran : “Come Undone”
Paul Weller : “Sunflower”
Kingmaker : “Ten Years Asleep”
I loved this song at the time. And I still love it. But it has a lot of Tubthumping about it – it didn’t represent the rest of the bands releases as I heard them in Australia. I remember being very disappointed by every other single the band released. This was special at a time I turned off pop music – I mean how many songs have a recorder on them? Later I would filter it through a ska vibe – I recognised the reggae vibe for what it once as soon as I had a toolkit for thinking about reggae and ska. I liked the song even more. And stil do.
Other examples of Swedish reggae: T-Spoon, Mr President.
Nothing will convince me that this song isn’t about a woman trying to get pregnant from a one-night stand. What is the alternative reading?
Ah, Ace Of Base. I read a great quote once that these guys were huge in America (a whole slew of complexities over retitled and versioned albums resulting in, I think, an album called Happy Nation (US Edition) and the same album also called The Sign) – right up until the moment that Americans realised that they weren’t actually an abba reunion.
Good grief.
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/ace-of-bases-secret-nazi-past
(See also: and for a slight correction http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/ace-of-base-nazi-past-lyrics_n_3148797.html )