A*Teens BIOGRAPHY
In the two years since Sweden's A*Teens got together in October 1998 they have evolved into one of Europe's biggest teen bands. Their rise in fame has given them the opportunity to receive several international awards, break sales records around the world, appear on American TV with Puff Daddy, not to mention touring the USA with pop sensation N*SYNC and Britney Spears.
With that said their new single to be called "Bouncing Off the Ceiling (Upside Down)" in the US and just "Upside Down" everywhere else. Their debut album "The Abba Generation" sold close to 3 million copies worldwide, that indeed is how their world has been turned UPSIDE DOWN.
It all started in May 1999 when it only took one week for A*Teens to break the sales records in Sweden with their first single "Mamma Mia" which entered the Swedish Sales chart at the top spot. After three weeks the track had sold 120,000 copies and it eventually went on to become the best-selling single in Sweden of 1999, after staying at number one for two whole months.
The debut album "The ABBA Generation", is full of high energy renditions of ABBA's popular songs, followed in August 1999 and it followed 'Mamma Mia's success by also entering the Album chart at number one. The record stayed there for five weeks, and since that time the album has gone on to sell Triple Platinum in Sweden.
A*Teens are made up of four individual singers Marie Serneholt (17), Amit Paul (17), Sara Lumholdt (16) and Dhani Lennevald (16). After their conquering of Scandinavia, the band set out to conquer the world. Holland, Belgium, Spain, Germany and the rest of Europe were completely captivated. By the time summer 2000 came around they were awarded a European Platinum Award for 1 million sales on the continent. In September 2000 they received a Viva Music Award for Best International Newcomer in competition with Christina Aguilera and Blink 182.
They then took their pop stardust to the USA - in fact almost the all of 2000 was spent touring here, firstly with the heartthrobs of N*SYNC. "We were very nervous for the N*SYNC tour, we didn't have an idea how we would be received. But we didn't have anything to worry about, it all went really well! It was fantastic! To play in front of 10,000-15,000 people every night was so great," says Marie. Right after the tour with N*SYNC wound up, A*Teens went on the road with diva Britney Spears. "That was such a fun tour, not least because we at that time had started to be known even in the USA. A lot of people knew the words of the songs and at the same time we got brilliant reviews for our concerts" explains Dhani.
By September 2000 all the hard work in the United States was starting to pay off - "The Abba Generation" reached Gold status (500,000 copies sold) and only a couple of months later the record is close to reach Platinum (1,000,000 copies sold). Of course, with one of 1999's most successful albums of the year, the obvious question about the future was raised. Should A*Teens continue with Abba's songs?
"We immediately felt that we wanted to try without Abba's music," explained Dhani. "Of course we realise that it is absolutely impossible to find better pop songs than Abba's; therefore, we wanted to find different songs. Together with the record company we discussed what kind of songs we wanted and then they started to look for the material." Amit qualifies the thinking behind the new album "Teen Spirit" further - "We didn't want to make the mistake of doing an album that was too mature. We should never forget that many of our fans are young, and so are we. We wanted to do a happy, uptempo and positive album. We wanted to keep some parts of the "old" but at the same time show our development as a band."
Perhaphs the biggest difference from the last album is Dhani's and Amit's roles. On Teen Spirit they sing a lot more than on "The Abba Generation". Teen Spirit is due in stores in the United States on February 27, 2001. |
