Doug Messel

I Saw the Sign

Written by

Doug

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On the topic of European dance music and why it\’s okay to listen to bad songs.

Depending on who you ask, I have an eclectic taste in music that is either remarkably good or unbearably terrible. My musical proclivities can vary wildly, not just from day to day but from hour to hour. In the morning I can start with mood-boosting 90’s pop music or boy bands and end my day with symphonic metal. And when it comes to 90’s pop and dance music, there’s perhaps no more ignominious album in my collection than the 1992 Ace of Base album Happy Nation, best known to U.S. audiences at the time of its 1993 release as The Sign.

Let’s be clear-eyed about this: The Sign is, in no way shape or form, a good record. It has not aged particularly well, and its distinctly early 1990’s brand of synth sounds and dance beats stick out like a sore thumb. Lyrically it’s kind of a mess, too, with such “hits” as “Don’t Turn Around,” “All That She Wants,” and the title track, “The Sign” being cliche-filled, loosely translated messes.

It did, however, get pretty substantial airplay in the U.S., and I remember hearing “Don’t Turn Around” quite a bit on 100.7 MIX-FM, which was the Wabash Valley’s best Top-40 station when I was growing up. But the main reason I came to own the album—on CD, of course—is slightly more embarrassing.

“The Sign” really is a perfect pop ear worm, designed to get under your skin and linger in your brain, and that’s exactly what happened to me when I saw the Full House episode “We Got the Beat” in reruns. That, combined with hearing the other tracks on the album on the radio, made me want to own it. So I begged my mom to buy it, and she did, and I listened to it on repeat approximately five million times. Even John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats is/was a huge fan of the album, mentioning that he bought it on cassette once and played it over and over again during a road trip. Actually, here’s a video of him doing a cover of “The Sign.” It is pretty good.

Here’s the thing, though. “The Sign” is not the best song on the album, or at least it’s not my favorite. That honor goes to “Waiting for Magic.” Of course my exposure to it is primarily through the U.S. version, which is a remix of the original track that appeared on Happy Nation. But the lead vocals are different—at least as far as I can tell—and that’s why the track stands out to me.

The thing about Ace of Base is that I have never, in one million years, been able to determine who is singing what part. Unlike other pop music videos, where it feels like there’s an effort to show who is singing I’ve watched a bunch of Ace of Base videos at various times in my life and I cannot figure out whose voice belongs to which person. And it’s not like this is a thing I have chosen not to study. It’s like that period where OK Go would do the viral videos, but the lead singer in those was never actually Damian Kulash; those onscreen duties went instead to the band’s bassist, Tim Nordwind. And if we’re being frank here, I am 35 years old and a parent and a full-time writer, so maybe it is not a productive use of my time to finally try to research or suss this out. I should just enjoy the music.

And I do enjoy the music quite a bit. It’s good background for working, although sometimes I actually put Happy Nation on instead of The Sign because there are a few tracks that don’t carry over, namely the bizarre dance number (they’re all dance numbers) “Fashion Party,” which sounds like it could be background music for any number of Eastern European pornographic videos where thirty people get down in orgiastic delight.

It could also be boss music for a Streets of Rage game.

A few days ago I went down a rabbit hole that led me back to Ace of Base, and it’s all because one of my coworkers posted a link to a Spanish version of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” in Slack. I don’t revisit Aqua as much as I do Ace of Base. But much like the latter, I tend not to listen to their most popular song as much as I do others. My favorite Aqua songs are not, in fact, “Barbie Girl” but the tracks “Turn Back Time,” from 1997’s Aquarium, and “Cartoon Heroes\” off their follow-up, Aquarius.

“Cartoon Heroes,” much like “Barbie Girl,” has some pretty out-there lyrics, but it’s a song that sticks in my head more for the sound than anything else. Other songs I enjoy in this genre despite their lack of popularity or ironic inclusion on mixtapes and playlists include:

  • “We Like to Party” by Vengaboys

  • “Another Night” by Real McCoy

  • “Luv U More” by Rollergirl

There is something about dance music—and particularly dance music of a European bent—that is extraordinarily calming. It induces productivity, at least when I find myself avoiding the temptation to tap my toes and sing along. If you haven’t revisited these songs in a while—or ever listened to them before—perhaps you owe it to yourself to give them the time of day.

Required Reading

Before I sat down to write today’s defense of bad music, I finished reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King, which I started reading yesterday morning. It was, in addition to being a fast read, a very engrossing, lovely book. It beautifully captures the sensation of being a writer while also flailing and failing at everything you put your effort into. I gave it five stars on Goodreads and Amazon, which is a rarity for me. I almost wish I could read it again. In addition to capturing my attention completely (sorry, Benji), it threw me headlong into a new idea for my own book and got me outlining last night for the first time in years. The last time that happened was with Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, and that resulted in an almost 130,000 word draft.

Final Thoughts

January is over, and thank fuck for that. This month has been nothing more than a distracting garbage fire that’s completely sapped me of creativity and energy. February is traditionally my least favorite month for a litany of reasons, chief among them Charlotte Day, but I’m poring over my mind trying to come up with some kind of fun fundraising activity to rope people into, especially since we can’t repeat last year’s “Happy Kit” drive.

One other exciting thing that’s happening this month is that I’m throwing myself back into running games for my long-distance tabletop group, and we’re kicking things off with Chariot of the Gods, the Alien RPG Quickstart. Maybe I’ll provide a review in the next issue, or maybe I’ll spend time talking about another one of my video store customers with an unhealthy obsession for Michael Myers of Halloween fame.

Until next time.

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