Lyrical Lutefisk: Celebrating Scandinavian Music Quiz

Answer: ABBA

The Hep Stars were the original band of Benny Andersson and The Hootenanny Singers was the original band of Bjorn Ulvaeus. Erasure is a British band known for covering ABBA songs, as well as their own hits.

ABBA, named after the initials of the singers, were two married couples: Benny Anderson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog. As married couples, they made beautiful music, and lots of it, but as their marriages fell apart, their music soon followed.

Andersson and Ulvaeus still remained as a songwriting team, working with Tim Rice to compose the score for the musical "Chess", including the song "One Night in Bangkok".

Answer: Take on Me

The song "Take on Me" is remembered for an outstanding music video, mixing live action sequences with animated comic book art in a dramatic fashion. It was, however, the second video shot for the song. The first is a low budget, forgettable video of the band playing while a gymnast does handsprings.

The song was initially titled, "The Juicy Fruit Song", and was also re-titled, "Lesson One", before they settled on the more obvious "Take on Me".

Answer: Cotton-Eyed Joe

They went by names like Mary Joe, Bobby Sue, Ken Tacky, Billy Ray, and Mup, but they were actually Annika Ljungberg, Kent Olander, Arne Arstrand, Jonas Nilsson, and Patrick Edenberg. They had the idea of mixing American traditional folk with dance pop and wound up with a surprise novelty hit.

Answer: Barbie Girl

Aqua's novelty song "Barbie Girl" may have made them the best selling Danish group of all time, but this came at a price. They had to defend themselves against a lawsuit from Barbie doll manufacturer Mattel, who objected to their product being used in a song, especially one loaded with double entendres. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

Answer: I Wanna Love You Tender

"I love you, I wanna love you tender.
You could be my only sweet surrender.
I would never bring you any kind of sorrow.

You love me, you wanna love me tender.
How can I be sure you're not pretender?
You want me today,
But what about tomorrow?"

Although Ilkka "Danny" Lipsanen and Armi Aavikko were not pretender when they came up with the English version of their Finnish hit "Tahdon olla sulle hellä" (complete with bad grammar and worse choreography), there have been over 2,000 pretenders who have uploaded their own versions of the video.

Answer: Blue Swede

Blue Swede was Bjorn Skifs, Anders Bergland, Bosse Liljedahl, Hinke Ekestubbe, Jan Guldback, Michael Areklew, and Tommy Berglund. They released a couple albums of English covers, and then Skifs dropped the band and went solo. He returned to his Swedish roots and, after recording a duet with ABBA's Anni-Frid Lyngstad, moved on to acting and screenwriting.

Answer: Roxette

In 1986, Kenny Rogers recorded "The Pride is Back (Born in America)", a duet with a singer credited as "Nickie Ryder" for a Chrysler commercial. In one of his box sets, he admits that Nickie Ryder was a Swedish singer who later became the lead singer for Roxette--in other words, Marie Fredriksson.

It would not have made much sense for her to be credited singing "Born in America" as a Swede.

Answer: The Final Countdown

Rolf Magnus Joakim Larsson realized that if he wanted to be known as a rocker outside of Sweden, he would be better off as Joey Tempest. He joined John Terry Norum, Tony Niemisto (AKA Tony Reno), and Peter Olsson in the band Force, later to be called Europe. John Gunnar Leven later took over for Olsson after, apparently, one of the major crises that destroy bands occurred--Tempest stole Olsson's girlfriend.

"The Final Countdown"'s keyboard riff led it to being played everywhere, including at the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics. It reached number one in 25 countries and number eight in the Billboard Hot 100. The keyboard riff was written about four years before the actual song, and while Leven was the one who recommended he turn it into a song, the rest of the band wasn't excited about it.

Europe's Final Countdown appeared to happen in 1992, but they later reunited in 2003 and have released several songs, as well as playing "The Final Countdown" in a GEICO insurance commercial.

Answer: The Cardigans

The group consists of guitarist Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Sveningsson, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and lead singer Nina Persson, starting in 1992 and never changing personnel. Svensson and Persson wrote "Lovefool", which became an international hit in 1996. The song was featured in "Romeo + Juliet" and "Cruel Intentions". While it performed at or near the top of many charts, it was ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 as it was never released as a commercial single in the US. Billboard dropped that rule in 1998.

Answer: Ace of Base

The first album "Happy Nation" (called "The Sign" in the US) was certified nine-times Platinum, the first debut album to produce three Number One singles on the Top 40 Chart ("The Sign", "Don't Turn Around", and "All that She Wants"). The group was an overnight success in the way many groups are overnight successes, in that they took several years, several names, several personnel changes, and several style changes locally in Sweden before releasing their debut album worldwide.

Sisters Linn and Jenny Berggren actually were both educated as teachers, and Linn was never comfortable as a singer. Though she did the majority of singing in the first album, she eventually allowed Jenny to take over and gradually reduced her involvement in the band, even reducing her role in music videos and concerts and finally leaving altogether. She completely withdrew from the spotlight, and while the rest of the band tours or maintains solo careers, and regularly grants interviews, Linn has not interviewed or performed in public in many years.