Tag: Ace of Base

Ace of Base – All That She Wants (Mowlo Remix)

“All the elements seem to conflict with each other.”

Tim: A couple of months back I posited that tropical house was reaching the end of its life as Kygo moved elsewhere; Ace of Base had other ideas, though, so crack open a can of Lilt and help yourself to a play button.

Tom: Well, at least they haven’t just nicked Kygo’s synth patch. Close, but not quite.

Tim: Twelve moths back the short-lived A*Base covered it; we remarked it was roughly what it would sound like if Ace of Base were recording it now, and you said you might be happier if it got done as an official remix. So, how is it for you?

Tom: Disappointing.

Tim: Oh.

Tom: There’s something about the mix that just doesn’t seem right: all the elements seem to conflict with each other rather than actually making a good track. The vocals were interesting, shifting keys and moods, and the backing just doesn’t follow that. It’s discordant.

Tim: Hmm. See, I don’t really find that – for me, it’s basically a fully decent enough remix of (controversial statement ahead) a song that I always felt was a bit overrated. It had a lot of vocal-less moments and nowhere near enough of an instrumental to liven them up; this fixes both of those issues, binning off 16 seconds of dead air and beefing everything else up. Still not overly enamoured with it as a track, but I’d say it’s a solid improvement on the original.

Tom: I agree that the original wasn’t one of their best — but this isn’t an improvement for me.

Saturday Flashback: Ace of Base – Life Is A Flower

“It’s just such a happy track.”

Tim: I woke up early this morning, and after a while my mind wondered to what song we could write about today, and then my alarm went off, and a massive smile appeared on my face. Because it’s this song. This wonderful, wonderful song.

Tom: Let’s see, it was 1998 when this came out. I’ve got a particular memory associated with this: Ingoldmells, of all places, on a double-decker bus with some friends. I think someone was throwing paper airplanes out of the slightly-open rear window.

Tim: That’s, er, yes, quite a particular memory. I myself offer a different story: I can’t remember now who it was, but a while back someone mentioned that this was their pick-me-up track, their go-to track for when they’re feeling a bit low, and I didn’t think much at the time, and then a while ago I was in need of a track like that, and I remembered it, and WOW. Because it’s just such a happy track.

Tom: Apart from that middle-eight: I don’t know why, but it never really worked for me. But yes, it’s a classic for good reason.

Tim: Oh, multiple reasons. The lyrics: not only is life a wonderful flower, but “we live in a free world”, and just “carry on smiling, and the world will smile with you”. The music: that lovely flowing intro, the strings underneath. The background chanting at the end. Even the video, with the flower dye (God, I’d love it if that were a real thing). I just find it near impossible to listen to without smiling; if I do find myself not smiling, well, I listen to it again. And again. And again, for good measure.

Tom: And if you get bored? The US version, which has different lyrics, different instrumentation, a different key and — crucially — a fixed middle eight. It’s not better, mind: it’s just different.

Tim: Oh. Oh, my. I don’t…oh. Huh.

Jenny Berggren – Gotta Go

I’m entirely in favour of this song.

Tom: Europlop reader Roger writes in, noting that we haven’t commented on Jenny Berggren’s new album. She’s the lead singer of Ace of Base, and put out a solo album at the end of last year. And Roger’s right – we missed it entirely.

‘Gotta Go’, he says, “is not the song with the highest star rating, rather it is one of those I like the most”.

And you know what? I like it too. And that’s not just because her surname is nearly a palindrome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQOgvwXTM4

Tom: By the time the beat drops back in at 0:45, I’m entirely in favour of this song. It’s one of those tracks where the melody doesn’t seem to entirely connect with what the instrumentation is playing – almost like it’s a mashup! – but I don’t mind at all.

Tim: It is a bit odd, that – it’s almost disorienting, and I’m not sure I like it. It’s as though there are several tracks competing with each other for attention.

Tom: That said, the beat does drop back in a lot of times. At least four, if you count the bridge. There’s a lot of quiet bits coming back with a slightly-too-triumphant whoomph. Even the bridge seems to treat itself by dipping the drums out twice.

Tim: That, however, I do like, because even if it’s only an illusion, it does give the impression like it’s constantly building to be massive at the end, although the ending is then a bit disappointing.

Tom: It might be a bit full of itself, and the last chorus might not be triumphant enough – with this much palaver in the song, it needs a key change.

Tim: You’re right – what it needs, actually, is a Linda Bengtzing style key change – not just after the bridge, but later on, ideally on the ‘late’ at 3:36.

Tom: Despite that, I still like this song.

Tim: Good. Me too.

Ace of Base – All For You

The good thing about this blog is that we can be all judgmental.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9JXLBI_KQ

Tim: Following your Vengaboys comeback song, you may be tempted to listen to the single that marks Ace of Base’s return. If so, here it is.

Tom: That is a textbook Ace of Base song, isn’t it? I was expecting a ‘Don’t Turn Around’ somewhere in there.

I think the problem I had with the Vengaboys comeback is the same as the one I have now with this Ace of Base comeback. And the Aqua one, now I think of it. They’re all album tracks. If they’ve been away for this long, they’ve had years and years to come up with something absolutely brilliant. Instead, it just sounds like they’ve taken something from the rejects bin of their last album.

Tim: Now you mention it, that seems to be the same with most comebacks. Aside from Take That (who I think were the first of recent times, and whose success is probably largely to blame for the recent spate), I don’t think I can think of an artist/group that has actually done well.

A lot of them probably think that all their old fans are out there, and that once news gets around they’re coming back the fans will lap up everything they can throw at them. They can therefore put out a vaguely good single with a promise that an album will forthcoming and assume it’ll be fine. The problem is, of course, that it isn’t, and if a vaguely good single doesn’t sell because the fans feel cheated there’s no way an album will.

You might get a few gigs out of it, or a full tour if you’re lucky, but no more.

Tom: Let’s not forget: Take That’s second comeback, this time with a certain Mr. Williams, is on the cards. Admittedly “Greatest Day” was pretty damn good – if they can pull it off twice that it basically means that Gary Barlow is the greatest songwriter of modern times, which is not really something I’m comfortable with saying.

Tim: This Ace of Base one is like so many – no real effort. It’s not particularly bad – catchy enough, with a decent hook – but there’s just nothing to get excited about. The chorus always feels like a not very good post-bridge chorus, and isn’t enough to make me want more. To have a better chance of success, artists should write a whole album (or even just an EP) and then choose the good songs off it to release, because they’d then have a good idea of what the overall quality of the work would be, and we’d have a proper idea of what we could expect.

That’s not particularly realistic, of course, given the much increased time and effort it would involve, but it might help. I don’t know – the good thing about a blog like this is that we can be all judgmental without having to pretend we know anything about the music business at all.