It was the ultimate “Sign.”
That’s exactly what happened when Ace of Base’s demo tape got stuck in the car cassette player of the late pioneering Swedish producer Denniz Pop.
As a result of that fateful foul-up, the song that would end up on repeat for weeks was “Mr. Ace,” an early title of “All That She Wants,” the reggae-pop smash that would launch the quartet from Göteborg, Sweden to international stardom in 1992.
“That was one of the songs we tried to get a record deal from,” Ulf Ekberg, founding member of Ace of Base, told The Post. “But we were rejected by every single record company in Sweden.”
But there was something in the special sauce of Denniz Pop that made the quartet Ekberg formed with siblings Jonas, Jenny and Linn Berggren feel like he could be their secret weapon.
“We heard his skills, how he worked with drums and so forth,” he said, “and we were good at melodies, but not good at rhythms.
“That he got the tape stuck in his car … it was kind of this perfect serendipity situation to go to Stockholm and record with him. The magic from Denniz Pop, what he did, he just signified everything. Because now we can go all in.”
And so they did, as depicted in the new docuseries “Ace of Base: All That She Wants,” which is streaming on Viaplay through Amazon Prime. The three episodes trace how the quartet exploded into fame — setting the Swedish-produced pop prototype for everyone from Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC to Britney Spears — before they imploded from getting all that they wanted.
After the European success of “All That She Wants,” Ace of Base conquered the States with “The Sign” — the 1993 US reissue of the group’s debut album “Happy Nation” — which also featured the chart-topping title track, and another hit single, “Don’t Turn Around.” A blockbuster in the boom of the CD age, it remains one of the best-selling debut LPs of all time.
But as quickly as Ace of Base — originally known as Tech Noir — rose to fame, they experienced rapid repercussions from it.
Pushed to the forefront in the US, Linn — the lead singer of “All That She Wants” — struggled with the spotlight.
“That was very, very difficult to see her suffer so much being in the front when we knew she should be more in the back,” said Ekberg. “Because in the US, she was very good to promote: blonde, beautiful, an amazing voice.”
Meanwhile, Jenny — who still performs Ace of Base’s hits today as a solo artist — was attacked by a crazed German fan in her parents’ home at the peak of the pandemonium.
And after Ekberg and Jonas — nicknamed “Buddha” and “Joker,” respectively — had written almost of their debut album, both sisters wanted more creative input for 1995’s “The Bridge.” The result was an increasingly fragmented foursome.
As the signs became clearer and clearer that it was over, Ace of Base went on hiatus after 2002’s “Da Capo.” By then, though, their ’90s pop legacy still shaped pop culture. Denniz Pop’s Swedish protégé Max Martin continues cranking out hits for everyone from Taylor Swift and The Weeknd to Ariana Grande.
“I’m super proud of my fellow Swedes who followed the amazing journey that started in a small studio called SweMix with Denniz Pop and with ‘All That She Wants,’” said Ekberg. “That song will always have a very special part of my heart, because that is really how everything started.”
