Songoftheday 1/28/20 - You can do what you want just seize the day, what you're doing tomorrow's gonna come your way...
from the album The Bridge (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song of the day comes from the Swedish pop group Ace of Base, whose debut album in the U.S., The Sign, was a huge success, topping the American sales chart and spinning off four top-40 hits on the way to selling over nine million records in the U.S.: "All That She Wants", "Don't Turn Around", "Living In Danger", and the #1 pop hit "The Sign". Between the four of them they spent a collection 104 weeks in the top-40. So of course expectations were high for their second album. While the song "Lucky Love" was picked as the lead single internationally, in America the record company (ahem, Clive) insisted on the breakneck speed HI-NRG track "Beautiful Life" to kick off the album promotion at radio. Written by member Jonas Berggen with John Ballard, it was a technically advanced track for the group, and an anthem for the clubs that was more positive than the moody pieces on The Sign...
"Beautiful Life" became Ace of Base's fifth top-40 pop hit in America in December of 1995. The song crossed over to Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart at #36, while the remixes of the track helped it top their Dance Club Play tally for one week. Internationally, in Canada the song did much better, climbing to #3, while elsewhere, where it was the second single from the Bridge album, it made the top ten in Finland (#3), Hungary (#6), Denmark (#8), and France (#10). Also, the single reached the top-40 in Australia (#11), Ireland (#12), Belgium (#13W/#15F), Germany (#20), Sweden (#22), Austria (#24), Iceland (#26), the Netherlands (#27), and Switzerland (#33). But since the results were lesser than the reception of their debut (particularly in their homeland), ears were pricked for their ultimate slide.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the video cut to the Vission Lorimer Remix Edit of the song, which helped the track top the dance chart...
and here's the band performing on the World Music Awards in 1996, with Celine Dion, Shania Twain, and Michael Jackson getting into it...
Up tomorrow: A British emo-pop duo gets remixed into a big American hit.
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