Nineteen years ago to this day, the Swedish quartet Ace of Base reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with their single "The Sign," which remained there for the rest of the year. Originally released in October 1993 in Europe, the song became a hit around the world and made the album of the same name one of the best-selling of all time. We recently asked lead singer Jenny Berggren, 41, who released a solo album, My Story, in 2010, to talk about how she feels about the song now.
My brother was the one who wrote the song.
It's about when suddenly you visualize something and it becomes something you use to change your life. You realize, I should do this or not do it anymore. He's always kept [whatever his sign was] a secret, and I'm not sure he had one.
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Jenny Berggren
[Malin] was the famous one. I was just her sister, the background. But on "The Sign," we split the song like we wanted to do, and so it became a duet. She was happy with that, and I was, too, and the way we sang it was just very joyful. I played around with the chords at the end and made the harmonies around it, and the guy in the studio said, "Please do that a lot of times." The high part was just her imagination.
We started in Denmark, then we hit all over in Scandinavia and Germany before we even got close to being known in Sweden. We'd had success in England as a #1, and then we went over to the States. After that, we got big in Sweden. You have to get big abroad before you get big at home.
I went to clubs in Gothenburg, and suddenly someone came up to me and said, "So you're the one singing on 'The Sign'?" Then he said, "I don't like your music and I don't like you." I had to ask, "Is it just me or is it our kind of music?" He said it was our music, so it was a big shock for us to come to the States and see we were so well-received.
We were working very much and were on the road constantly. One night when I was home sleeping, I woke up with a knife at my neck. My mother and father threw themselves at this woman, and that saved my life, I think. It was at 4 a.m. in February 1994. I remember it because when I went to my diary to research my book [the autobiography To Win the World], I saw that I was #1 in the States.
The woman was depressed and unstable. She had our number and we changed it, but she continued coming to see us because we were like a drug to her. We could tell that she'd been looking at MTV too much. I remember when the police came and took her away, I felt so sorry for myself and for her. I was safe, I had my heart and soul in the right place, but she didn't.
Afterward, we were sitting in a car in New Castle in Great Britain, traveling in the nighttime, and our managers were calling us on our mobile: "You should know that you're #1 in the States now." All four of us went back to sleep. All the tension was just a bit too much for us. It was like a snowball, rolling more and more, faster. We couldn't really grasp it.
We got a lot of nice backing and fantastic reviews and it opened many doors. After that, we became holy. No one could joke around with us, because we were actually big, we were at the top, we were the best. I'd seen a lot of these people before, the same producers, same stylist, but now we were being treated like royalty. We had a single and an album at the same time in the U.S., and we sold as much as anyone had ever done, so we had a world record. After that, we could do whatever, but the pressure was extremely heavy.
[With our follow-up, The Bridge], we just didn't sell as much, and that was embarrassing. I didn't know why. There was nothing wrong with the album or the airplay. Everything was good.
When I hear the songs [off The Sign] now, I get so happy. I'll read my diary and see there were a lot of wake-up calls at 3 a.m. in the morning. It was a stressful world and there was never any time for us to talk. But I forget that. Now when I hear the song, it's like I'm flying.
—As told to Jill Krasny
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