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MUSIC

Ace of Base to release new album worldwide

Did you see the sign? Vintage Swedish group Ace of Base have announced they are releasing a new album on March 6th, containing ten tracks recorded between 1991 and 2005.

Published: 24 February 2015 17:03 CET
Ace of Base to release new album worldwide
Ace of Base pictured in 2011. Photo: TT
The album will be entitled 'Hidden Gems', the bands record company Playground said, adding that fans downloading it on iTunes will also be treated to two bonus tracks and a 15 page "digital leaflet". The new material will be released worldwide on the same date.
 
Ace of Base are one of Sweden's biggest pop exports and had a string of hits during the 1990s including the anthemic 'All That She Wants' and 'The Sign' which is now 20 years old.
 
The group sold more than 30 million records during their career, behind only Abba and Roxette. It continues to perform but hasn't enjoyed a hit for years.
 
Of the original line-up only Jonas Berggren and Ulk Ekberg remain, while siblings Linn Berggren and Jenny Berggren have since left to pursue solo careers.  
 
News of the band's previously unreleased material delighted fans on social media on Tuesday, with one US music journalist tweeting that he'd just received his favourite press release of all time.
 
But other Twitter users remarked that they were much more excited about other upcoming albums, such as one by Killers frontman Brandon Flowers, which was also announced this week.
 
While news of the band's reincarnation was widely reported in Swedish media on Tuesday afternoon, it emerged that journalists in Sweden had in fact been slow to respond to a press release posted on the band's record company website on February 2nd, 
 
 
Ace of Base were also back in the headlines last year after a teenage pop quartet tribute act named A*Base released its first single in November 2014. 
 
The track – a makeover of the original group's 1995 hit 'Never Gonna Say I'm Sorry' – was dubbed a "slick, clean and very faithful update" by Time Magazine.
 
A*Base were formed in 2012 and the band made up of four singers, Matilda Lundberg, Malin Enstedt, Alexander Beyer, and Emil Henrohn, aged between 15 and 17. It's believed they spent two years recording their debut album of Ace of Base hits titled Happy Generation.
 

CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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