Ace of Base - The sign - Live @ Top Of The Pops 1994-02-24 (lyrics in info) 

Yes this actually looked like live

No, only the singing is live, the rest is still stupid 100% playback. Why even putting a keyboard on the stage o.O ...

+Lofote Well, not to make excuses, but the general problem with keyboards on stage is that the performance tends to be so static and boring. The guys wanted to look more dynamic and exciting, which would have messed up their playing, so they decided to not actually play. They couldn't have played all of the parts of the song anyway (and weren't going to stuff a larger band or orchestra into this tiny space), so they decided to use sequencers or a recording or whatever for the whole backing track. Personally, I'd prefer that they play, but to tell you the truth I barely noticed anyway with the girls actually singing live up front, which was and is somewhat of a rarity (for most any performer) on TV.

rbrtck The 80s and 90s unfortunately were like that, with mostly even full playback, which Ace of Base unfortunately also had a lot. Yeah :( About the dynamic thing: well, I think one rule for any musician would be crucial: "What you see is what you hear". Meaning, if I see a musician do sound (either play on an instrument or sing), I expect that this is not fake but actually heared. So in case of Ace of Base just like most other synth-oriented bands, I do not expect that everything I hear is live, they can use backing tapes and/or sequencers, but what their hands or mouths or feet actually play, should be live. Everything else just looks stupid ;).

Lofote For the record, I totally agree with you in regard to playing live. I was just trying to figure out how they might have justified their pantomime to themselves, but that doesn't make it right.

Nirvana only did one like that out of many shows`

+CitySkin09 I don't know, as a 70s baby that grew up with the 80s, they look like a couple of cutie-pies to me--nice, classy young ladies with beautiful, distinctive singing voices.

who cares

theyre both fk beautiful

Daniel Bone isn’t she gorgeous

thats a good wholesome crush my dude!

she has a name u know lol

si! q melancolia!

Cuanta verdad,como me gustaba la rubia, me tuvo a maltraer varias noches de insomnio jaja

Eu Tb adoraria ter visto um show desta banda fantástica! Amo Ace of Base!

Her name is Jenny

I like Jenny Singing voice too

That brown hair girl is Jenny.

And she is very beatiful

+Sonic Pulse This comes pretty darn close to the recording, though, so if anyone ever doubted that these girls could sing live--or at all, heh--they can put those doubts to rest. In fact, these vocals are cleaner and more natural than on the recording--less reverb to my ear (if any), and of course no Auto-Tune is used anywhere (hadn't even been invented yet).

This song is so damn true

Yes the Chile video is pure sync 😂

Ouço até hoje. Baixei todas.

Nope all live buddy Provide proof or stfu Thanks👌

All that she wants was recorded singing live. But Jenny sang off tune at some points lol

@@southlondon86 1990s Abba they weren't. :D

A ponerse en la fila entonces jaja

+Alphonse Elric She rocks the Amish look. I bet Linn could rock a burlap sack with her head shaved. :)

Ooohh how sweet was that! Jenny is So lovable ❤️

Ikr when songs were good

Umm..autotune existed since a few years after Cher came to the scene,this band was around in the early 90s, there was deff autotune lol

It says "Isn't that enough?"

You're right. In many Ace of base songs, Linn and Jenny's vocals are hard to distinguish from eachother. But in The Sign they sound very similar. Both girls have great voices. :)

It's not that weird, they are sisters haha

@@magoria1382 i did not know that

@@luckyskin09 ooh I see haha 😄

because they are siblings.. lol

+PinkNarcissus i ask the same question too

+PinkNarcissus I've searched around, and apparently it's still a mystery after all of these years. After carefully listening to the few live recordings I could find, over and over in alternating fashion, to the best of my ability I believe that Jenny says "I'm born a fool, yeah!" Additionally, this seems to fit with the message of finally seeing "the sign" that opened up her eyes and mind so that she won't be so foolish anymore.

I think it's just nonsense noise

Hoppáhoppáojjeojje😂

Some say “We’re parting oh yeah” other says “we got the power oh yeah” but that’s something to ask Jenny

she cant handle the fame.. needs simple life.

+jurr47 I think Linn's voice was just tired at that point, and she didn't want to risk hitting a sour note. She sang the rest of the song almost perfectly, though--a fantastic performance overall. Most singers don't sound nearly this good live (when it's really live).

Did she ever hit that note live? I'd like to hear her.

+jurr47 Me too, but I don't know. She did sing that loud high part in concerts, but I suspect they cheated a bit with playback (lip-sync)--just that part, mind you, with the rest actually live. Others have claimed that she did sing it live at times, albeit imperfectly, and I think that she wanted to sound closer to perfect in this promotional video, which she does. I think that while Linn is clearly the real deal as a singer (as is her sister Jenny next to her), and I for one am a huge fan, she has by her own admission a "small" voice. She sings beautifully, even live, when fully rested, but she doesn't have one of those "big" voices that can belt out challenging tunes concert after concert. This performance came on the heels of a big tour, as I recall, and she hadn't fully recovered yet. Unfortunately so many of their TV performances were playback (at the request of the TV producers, actually), so I have yet to find a video of her actually singing the loud high notes of this song live. I know that she can sing high very well, so I assume that she can do this part when she feels up to it, although I haven't seen it myself.

I have been looking for some live version of this song in which Linn rises the tone, which for me is the high point of the song and not find it. Sad that they failed to repeat studio performance. :(

+Peter Panda Well, in the studio it is very quiet, so Linn can sing quietly, allowing her to do everything she is capable of. Many singers don't sound good until they sing fairly loudly (it's just how their voices are), but Linn actually sounds best when she is singing quietly. Some people are prone to believe that she can't sing at all if she can't hit certain notes in a loud live environment, but all singers are different. Truth be told, Linn's singing is still excellent when she is forced to get louder, although singing high notes hard like that is something she apparently won't do live. She has always been protective of her voice (damaging a voice like hers would be utterly tragic!), which is one probable reason, and another is probably that she thinks she doesn't sound good when doing that so loudly, and she always wants to sound good. Linn is definitely not the kind of singer who would go on a talent show, for example, and hit the highest, loudest, longest note she could in order to impress the judges and audience. To me that's more like stunt-singing than anything that sounds nice. It's like comparing a Disneyland roller coaster to one at a regular amusement park--Disney don't even try to be the tallest or fastest at all because that's not what they're about, which is art and design instead. Similarly, Linn's strengths are the unique artistry of her singing and the beauty of her voice, not the sheer power and volume of her vocal cords. Sure, it would be nice if she had a bigger, stronger voice that could do absolutely everything live that it does in the studio, but in life we take what we can get, and personally I'd take Linn over any other singer. I can live with her skipping a few--only a very few, actually, like one or two total--parts of the songs. Lots of other pop singers do this anyway, especially when they're on long tours--even ones who are known for being able to sing high and loud. By the way, some have touted how the replacement singers of the fake "Ace.of.Base" always sang that part of "The Sign" high, but I've heard them, and they sang it with NO force at all and sounded terrible with raspy voices, so who cares? I've also heard Jenny sing it, and sometimes she tries to sing it as intended, but it still doesn't sound nearly as forceful as intended. I guess it really is a product of the studio--not any kind of processing, but rather Linn being able to make it sound so strong and forceful while actually singing it quietly (not that easy to do, either). Fortunately they didn't do this much, so Linn could sing practically everything else live and still sound very much like the recordings.