Released:
December 1992 ^HN,
June 1, 1993 ^TS

^HN Happy Nation
^TS The Sign

Genre: dance pop

Quotable: --

Album Tracks: ^HN

1. Voulez-Vous Danser
2. All That She Wants
3. Just Chaos *
4. Happy Nation
5. Waiting for Magic
6. Fashion Party *
7. Wheel of Fortune
8. Dancer in a Daydream
9. My Mind
10. W.O.F. (original club mix) *
11. Dimension of Depth *
12. Young and Proud
13. All That She Wants (Banghra Version)

Album Tracks: ^TS

1. All That She Wants
2. Don’t Turn Around **
3. Young and Proud
4. The Sign **
5. Living in Danger **
6. Dancer in a Daydream
7. Wheel of Fortune
8. Waiting for Magic
9. Happy Nation
10. Voulez-Vous Danser
11. My Mind
12. All That She Wants (Banghra Version)

Rating:

Sales (in millions):

9.0
0.6
--
16.0

Peak:

1 ²
1 ²

Singles/Hit Songs:

• All That She Wants (5/8/93) #2 US, #1 UK, #22 AC, #17 MR. Platinum single.
• Wheel of Fortune (8/28/93) #20 UK
• Happy Nation (11/13/93) #40 UK
• The Sign * (1/1/94) #1 US, #2 UK, #2 AC. Platinum single.
• Don’t Turn Around * (5/7/94) #1a US, #5 UK, #7 AC. Gold single.
• Living in Danger * (10/22/94) #16a US, #18 UK, #35 AC

Notes: To really confuse matters, this album has been released in several variations. However, The Sign featured all the singles noted above, whereas those noted with an asterisk (*) did not appear on the original album Happy Nation.

After The Sign was released in the U.S., it was also “re-issued in Europe with the same track listing as The Sign plus the previously unreleased track ‘Hear Me Calling’” (wikipedia). In the U.S., that album was then released “at the end of 1993 as Happy Nation U.S. Version” (wikipedia).

Information on this page refers primarily to the U.S. version of The Sign, unless noted otherwise.

Awards:

Then the album was “re-issued with a different track listing in the US as The Sign September 25, 1993” (wikipedia). Four songs were left off Happy Nation and replaced with three songs that became major hits – The Sign, Don’t Turn Around, and Living in Danger. “It’s easy to see why they were hits – the beat is relentless and the hooks are incessantly catchy” (Erlewine).

However, “Ace of Base’s strong point is not versatility – all of their hit singles have exactly the same beat. But that doesn’t matter” (Erlewine). Ace of Base “managed to create a piece of melodic Euro-disco that was a huge hit all over the world, appealing to both dance clubs and pop radio” (Erlewine).

As far as the albums go, matters were confused even more when the album was released again in Europe as The Sign and the bonus track ‘Hear Me Calling’ was added. As if this didn’t muddle the waters enough, now this new version of The Sign was then released again in the U.S. as Happy Nation: U.S. Version.

In the end, the album that really is responsible for generating multi-million in sales worldwide is the original U.S. album entitled The Sign. It featured three top 5 hits in the U.S., another top 20 hit, and two more songs that were minor hits in the U.K. Only true fans need to seek out the original Happy Nation album.