If only I had said what I still hide,
If only I could turn back time,
I would stay for the night.
For the night...
Aqua is a Danishnote dance-pop group, best known for their 1997 breakthrough single "Barbie Girl". The group's most famous lineup consists of lead vocalists Lene Nystrøm and René Dif alongside multi-instrumentalists Søren Rasted and Claus Norreennote . They have sold an estimated 33 million records, making them the most successful Danish band ever.
The group was formed in 1994 by Søren Rasted and Claus Norreen, two childhood friends, after they were hired to produce a soundtrack for the 1994 children's movie Frække Frida og de frygtløse spioner, on which René Dif, then a club DJ, was also recruited to work. After getting along well, the three decided to collaborate again in the future. Several months later, Dif spotted Lene Nystrøm on a ferry and hired her as the lead singer for their group.
At first, the group went under the name Joyspeed, signing to a small Swedish label and releasing their debut single, "Itzy Bitzy Spider". After the song failed to chart, they cancelled their label contract, found a new manager, and started over. They began making songs in a new style which attracted the attention of Universal Music Denmark, and renamed themselves Aqua, with the name reportedly taken from a poster in their dressing room.
Aqua achieved huge success across the globe in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and managed to top the UK Singles Chart with their first three singles. Around this time, their singles managed to chart in the top 10 of a number of countries where European pop acts would not normally succeed, including the United States, Australia, and Japan. The group also caused controversy with the double entendres in their song "Barbie Girl", with Mattel filing a lawsuit against them (or rather their American record label, EMI). The lawsuit was finally dismissed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2002; the opinion, written by Judge Alex Kozinski, ruled, "The parties are advised to chill." In an ironic twist, Mattel later used reworked versions of "Barbie Girl" to promote the line, likely given the song's popularity.
The group released two albums (Aquarium in 1997 and Aquarius in 2000) before splitting up in July 2001. During their split, Nystrøm, Dif and Rasted all achieved solo chart success, and Norreen continued in the music industry remixing other artists' material. Rasted also participated in other notable musical projects, such as Lazyboy in 2004 and Hej Matematik from 2005 with his nephew Nicolaj Rasted.
At a press event in October 2007, the group announced a reunion tour and the release of a compilation album featuring new material. They remained active until 2012, releasing their third album Megalomania along the way. In September 2016, their second reunion was announced; Norreen split off from the group again around the time of this announcement, though on amicable terms, citing a desire to pursue other musical outlets. The group is currently still active.
A resurgence of attention for Aqua came in 2023 from (naturally) Greta Gerwig's film adaptation of the Barbie doll line. In the lead-up to the film's release, one of the biggest questions among fans was whether "Barbie Girl" would be included, and it was Nystrøm's manager who made the announcement that the song would not appear in the film. The news was met with outrage, and the team behind the film's soundtrack (as well as lead star Margot Robbie) still wanted the song to be included in some way. The end result was the song "Barbie World" (performed by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice), which heavily samples "Barbie Girl" and credits Aqua as co-performers and co-writers. The song debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Aqua's second US top-10 single since "Barbie Girl", and reached the Top 5 in the UK Singles Chart in the same week that "Barbie Girl" itself reentered the UK Top 40 for the first time in 25 years. The song also gained Aqua their first Grammy Award nominations (for Best Rap Song and Best Song Written for Visual Media).
Discography:
- Aquarium (1997)
- Bubble Mix (The Ultimate Aquarium Remixes Album) (1998)
- Aqua Mania Remix (1998)
- Aquarius (2000)
- Cartoon Heroes: The Best of Aqua (2002)
- Remix Super Best (2002)
- Greatest Hits (2009)
- Megalomania (2011)
This band provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: "Barbie Girl", of the titular doll.
- Album Closure: The last two tracks of the greatest hits album are "Turn Back Time" and "Goodbye to the Circus."
- Artistic License – Animal Care: Lene frees René (who is depicted as a goldfish) in the sea in the We Belong to the Sea music video. Goldfish are freshwater fish and cannot survive in the sea.
- Bald Head of Toughness: René is bald and tends to play the tough guy in the music videos, and has a deep gruff voice to sing along with it.
- Big Damn Heroes: René as Dr. Jones in "Dr. Jones", the robot C.A.N.D.Y. in "Lollipop (Candyman)" video, the whole band in "Cartoon Heroes".
- Break-Up Song: "Turn Back Time" is one of the regretful kind.
- Cannibal Tribe: Doctor Jones video.
- Christmas Songs: "Spin Me A Christmas".
- Cluster F-Bomb: Quite a few tracks from Megalomania.
- Concept Video: A few, including the videos for "Cartoon Heroes", "Lollipop (Candyman)", "Doctor Jones" and "We Belong to the Sea".
- Damsel in Distress: Lene in the "My Oh My" video (before turning the table on her captors). In "Doctor Jones", she ends up in a cannibal's pot and in "Lollipop (Candyman)" she is captured by aliens; in the latter two, she shares her distress with her male companions.
- Darker and Edgier: Megalomania mostly loses Aqua's humorous, cartoony image and sound in favor of darker, more mature-sounding modern pop and electronic music. The lyrics are also much more explicit, with several instances of "fuck" in many songs.
- Drives Like Crazy: The video for "How R U Doin". Okay, they are miniature cars, but toppling mini electrical poles and back-flipping midair is still pretty crazy.
- Face–Heel Turn: In "Lollipop (Candyman)", the Candyman from Bountyland is portrayed as a love/sexual interest for Lene. In "Halloween", the Candyman returns, but this time he's a sinister stalker who threatens Lene.
- Genre Throwback:
- Back To The 80's is a Genre Throwback to the music, music videos of The '80s.
- Halloween is an Homage to the Slasher Movie genre, complete with creepy killer breathing, Harassing Phone Call Coming from Inside the House, Evil Laugh, Stock Sound Effects of Dramatic Thunder, and eerie, ominous music (including a brief snippet of organ music playing chords from Bach's Toccata and Fugue, or a sound-alike), topped off with The Scream.
- Gratuitous French: The subtitles put on the speech of the cannibal tribe in the "Doctor Jones" video. (They translate as "Guys, we eat at 8 pm... And you are the dinner! As for appetizers, we have VOODOO!")
- Gratuitous Japanese: The opening of the "Barbie Girl" video contains a few Japanese subtitles.
- Hotter and Sexier: Any subtext from their previous songs has pretty much become, well, text as of Megalomania, which features very sexually explicit lyrics in many songs, including frequent usage of "fuck" to make sure there's absolutely no ambiguity.
- Incredibly Long Note: Final bridge on "Calling You": Op-er-ayat-UUUUUUUR.
- Insect Gender-Bender: "Bumble Bees" uses bees and pollination as a metaphor for sex and faithfulness. It has Lene, the female singer, singing about being a flower, while René, the male singer, plays the part of the bee. In reality, it is the female bees who go out and pollinate flowers.
- Intercourse with You: "Barbie Girl" has some very suggestive lyrics ("You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere", "Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky", "You can touch, you can play", etc.), but "Bumble Bees" is even worse, an extensive "flower and bees" metaphor riding what the English world calls "birds and bees".
- Just Like Robin Hood: René's lines in "My Oh My". "Gotta steal from the rich ... Gotta give to the poor."
- Kaleidoscope Hair: Lene wore no fewer than four wigs for "Lollipop (Candyman)".
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: From the album Megalomania we have this verse of "Sucker For A Superstar":Loves to ride in a limousine,
Goes downtown if you know what I mean - Lyrics/Video Mismatch: Most prominent on "My Oh My", whose lyrics are about Robin Hood-esque fantasy but whose video has a pirate theme. The song even begins with a horse sound (implying a chivalry theme), but the video just pairs it with a mechanical toy horse on the pirate ship.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "My Mamma Said", despite its fast pace and its unassuming title, talks about death. Plus, in the song itself, there is a Mood Whiplash between the emotional, grieving female narrator and the oddly-scientific male narrator.
- Monumental Damage: In the "Cartoon Heroes" music video, the giant monster is shown destroying various famous monuments, including the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty.
- Mood Whiplash: In an inversion of Surprisingly Gentle Song, each of their albums contains at least one song which is more serious than the rest, such as "Turn Back Time" (from Aquarium) and the Title Track off Aquarius.
- Ms. Fanservice: From her sexy Adventurer Outfit in the "Doctor Jones" music video to the extreme close up of her behind putting on jeans in the "We Belong To The Sea" music video, Lene fits this trope pretty well. So adorable when she whacks that spider.
- Mythology Gag:
- "Back to the 80's" mentions Barbie.
- "Halloween" mentions the Candyman from "Lollipop (Candyman)".
- Pirate: The video to "My Oh My" has a pirate theme. A group of pirates abduct Lene, who plays a noblewoman/princess, but after being mistreated and humiliated, she defeats the captain in a swashbuckling swordfight, forces him to surrender, and takes over the ship, becoming a full-fledged Pirate Girl in the process.
- Pointy Ears: Candyman (René) in the "Lollipop (Candyman)" music video.
- Raygun Gothic: The "Lollipop (Candyman)" music video.
- Ruder and Cruder: After a ten-year
Sequel Gap, the band released Megalomania, their first album to have an explicit language warning. However, there isn't much on the album that wasn't presented as subtext in their earlier albums; it just says it much more directly. - Screaming Woman:
- Lene lets out a bloodcurdling scream at the end of "Halloween", an example that is especially effective and chilling.
- In the "Dr. Jones" video, she freaks out upon seeing a Giant Spider before punching it away.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Male example in "My Oh My", after Lene takes over the leadership of the ship, she forces the pirates to wash up and wear clean clothes, and they look more attractive.
- Self-Parody: The "Bumble Bees" video, where they discuss their own image as they shoot a music video but run out of funds to make a A Bug's Life-like 3D-animated work, so they have to resort to dress up in cheap costumes on a stage.
- Shout-Out: Plenty. "Barbie Girl" is half Shout-Out, half Take That! to Barbie, "Doctor Jones" is a Shout-Out to Indiana Jones, "Cartoon Heroes" references Superhero comics among other things, and "Back to the 80's" is full of Shout Outs to pop culture from The '80s, such as Michael Jackson, Mr. T, and MTV.
- Soprano and Gravel: Lene singing is rather high-pitched (ridiculously so in the first two albums), while René has a deep, rough voice.
- Steampunk: The spaceship/submarine in the "Cartoon Heroes" music video has a Steampunk aesthetic, being made of brass and apparently running on steam power.
- Video Full of Film Clips: "Turn Back Time" with Sliding Doors - though it also toys with that movie's gimmick of Split Timelines Plot by having Lene replicate some scenes of the film.
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: René does a rap verse in Good Morning Sunshine.
