Enter Sweden’s 3rd biggest-selling pop act… (Answers for 2nd place on a postcard… I’ll reveal it at the end of the post!)
All That She Wants, by Ace of Base (their 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 16th May – 6th June 1993
And in the grand Swedish tradition, it’s a male-female combo – two men, two women (though as far I can tell no marriages) – Ace of Base. With what I’ve always thought to be a deeply strange pop song.
There’s the sparse, ghostly intro, for example. And all the empty spaces in the song, where it’s just nothing more than a drum machine and a lumbering synth riff, and the low-key ending. It’s not your normal pop smash, even if it has more than a hint of dub-reggae – soon to be one of the dominant chart sounds – in the steady, hypnotic beat. And that’s before we dissect the lyrics…
All that she wants, Is another baby, She’s gone tomorrow boy… They tell the tale of a femme fatale, who prowls an unnamed beach looking for men… She’s the hunter, You’re the fox… And in that respect it’s great. Girl power! Fifteen years ago Brotherhood of Man told the story of a holiday resort lothario in ‘Figaro’, but Ace of Base flip it on its head. If it were sung by men it might be a bit cliched, but no. Go girls!
The problem I have with the lyrics is the fact that, as a kid, I took them literally. All that she wants, Is another baby… I thought she was wandering the beach looking for a man to get her pregnant. Which is weird, and I apologise; but having done some research I find I’m not alone. “As far as I can remember, ‘All That She Wants’ by Ace of Base is the only hit single ever to talk about a lady who uses men for stud service so that she can become an unwed mother,” said LA Weekly at the time. I like to think Ace of Base knew what they were doing, keeping the lyrics intentionally vague and menacing. Either way, I feel seen.
‘All That She Wants’ is definitely a grower. Even now, on my fourth or fifth listen, I’m remembering why it is such a good pop tune. I’m not sure what the hooks are – or perhaps it’s because there are so many it’s hard to pinpoint them – but it worms its way in and stays there. Just like Sweden’s biggest pop group, the one it’s impossible not to compare Ace of Base to… It’s not out of the question to imagine that, had ABBA been around in 1993, they might have been making records like this. And, like Agnetha and Frida, the girls here have similarly accented, idiosyncratic, but still very alluring, English.
This was only Ace of Base’s second chart hit, and what a hit. A number one across Europe, presumably unavoidable at beach bars from Faro to Faliraki in the summer of ’93, and a #2 in the US. It set them up for a run of Top 10s through the 1990s, including US #1 ‘The Sign’ and a cover of ‘Don’t Turn Around’, which Aswad had taken to the top in 1988. But permit me to give a shout out to my favourite Ace of Base tune, ‘Always Have, Always Will’, which takes everything you love about ABBA, Motown, sixties girl groups, and serves it up in pop perfection. Its #12 peak be damned!
This would be their only visit to the top of the charts, but they remain Sweden’s 3rd most successful act. ABBA are obviously the 1st, but what of the runners-up…? Well, it’s Roxette (another male-female act!), who never made it higher than #3 in the UK. Personally I’d have named garage rock loons The Hives as my second favourite Swedish act, but they’ve never come close to troubling the top of the charts.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
So now we know. I’d often wondered about the storyline, if you can call it thus, of the lyric, but never given it that much thought, so thanks for the full analysis! But yes, ‘Always Have…’ was far and away their best – perhaps the best non-American Motown hit since the Paper Dolls’ sublime ersatz-Supremes ‘Something Here in my Heart’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpoBzGhQ6_E BTW I think there was another video for ‘AHAW’ in addition to the one your link above took me to. Vague memories of a Top of the Pops appearance where it started off in black and white and looked like a vintage Motown clip, then at the end of a verse suddenly went to colour.
I don’t know about the video… I missed it when it was (briefly) in the charts, and got to know it when I worked in a bowling alley. It was a favourite of the DJ we had on Friday and Saturday nights for ‘disco bowl’ : )
Ps that Paper Dolls song is great! Never heard it before…
So glad you loved the Paper Dolls record. Sadly they were one-hit wonders, as a few follow-ups completely flopped. They had one stroke of very bad luck when their songwriting team were going to record ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ with them later that same year. Due to some communication breakdown, they didn’t make the session (we think), so it was offered to the Foundations. Their version became one of those evergreen hits that’s never really gone away.
I was 26 when this record came out and until I read your post this morning I’d always thought she was wandering around looking for a man to get her pregnant too! I think it’s because ( in the UK at least) very few songs after early Motown /Spector used the word baby to describe a romantic partner. Good use of ambiguous lyrics. I did wonder why she wanted so many kids!
I feel vindicated, having found out in my research and then the comments on my post that it wasn’t just me who took the stranger interpretation… I just put it down to them not writing/singing in their first language, and going for the romantic idea of ‘baby’
Such a great and simple song. Luckily I never understood what they were singing as a child and was later surprised to find out that the song was about a promiscuous woman. Production is too innocent for it to be true 😀
Is it, though…? I don’t think they’ve ever confirmed it. Good to keep it ambiguous : )
I like her voice and the melody a lot. I wish the music was more natural but I like it.
Rating: 5/5
Love it. Excellent pop song, with a bit of Euro synth-dance and reggae thrown in there. The beat is relentless, and the hooks within the song are maddeningly catchy. Still, I like “The Sign” even better.
Crazy how this group was much bigger in the US than they were in the UK. Like a reverse-ABBA. The only Swedish act to ever have the top-selling album in a year (The Sign), and the only Swedish act to have the top-selling single in a year (“The Sign”). In 1993, as alt-rock and gangsta rap were dominating popular music. And one of the only acts ever to achieve that Billboard double. Even Roxette was bigger in the US than the UK.
This is a great record, though it was The Sign that topped my charts this came close to it. Dub reggae is fine by me, in fact any reggae is fine by me, still buying new reggae tracks even if no-one else is! I never gave the lyrics that much thought, but coming from a working class community it isn’t at all unusual for some girls to want another baby, so I wouldn’t look for anything deeper! And the concept never stopped Madonna, oops, she used to live on an English estate too 🙂 I go along with Always Have Always Will as their best record, but they had quite a few goodies along the way. I bought that first album on CD. And Roxette’s on vinyl. Anything Swedish basically… 🙂
This is good, but in terms of that niche genre, ‘songs about women looking to get pregnant’, it’s got nothing on Heart’s ‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You’…