Listen to Ace of Base on Batanga

After a few years in a new romantic and punk covers band called G Konrad, in 1987, Jonas Berggren formed a band with two friends, Johnny Lindén and Niklas Tränk; his sisters Linn and Jenny joined as singers. The new band went through several names: Kalinin Prospect (a street in Moscow); CAD (Computer-Aided Disco); and Tech-Noir (French for black technology, after a nightclub in the film The Terminator). They toured the clubs of Sweden with their new self-written material, techno inspired by the likes of The KLF and Snap!.

Johnny left the group in 1989. Niklas made his departure known by failing to appear at a gig at the Bältesspännarparken on 6 August 1990; he preferred to attend a Rolling Stones concert on the other side of town. Jonas asked his friend Ulf Ekberg to stand in for Niklas. The new quartet sought a new name to make a fresh start; Linn was reported saying: "No one could pronounce the name of the group and nobody could remember it". They settled on Ace of Base, because they were the "masters of their studio", the basement of a car-repair shop.

However the band continued to struggle to gain any recognition, partly due to the preference of heavy metal over techno in their home town, according to singer Jenny. After hearing Swedish top 20 hit "Another Mother" by Kayo, the band decided that was exactly the sound they wanted to create. They contacted the song's producer Denniz PoP and sent him a demo of a track called "Mr Ace". The tape got stuck in his car's cassette player so he was forced to listen to it over and over again which helped him decide to produce the track. The song became "All That She Wants", a unique dark fusion of dub-reggae with pop which became the band's trademark sound. On release in October 1992, it quickly climbed to number 1 on the Danish chart while the previous single was still sitting at number 2. Keen to rush out an LP for the Christmas market, Mega Records pressed the band for an album and it was hastily recorded, mixed, and released within a few weeks. Preceded by a single of the same name, the album, titled Happy Nation was an instant hit in Denmark, and its success prompted interest from elsewhere in Europe. Within a few months, "All That She Wants" had reached number 3 in Sweden and had spent eight weeks at number 1 in Germany. In May, "All That She Wants" continued to hit all round the world and topped the chart for three weeks in the United Kingdom. However, despite Mega Records' hard efforts to secure a distribution deal in the United States the response was always the same: "this band will never work in the States". But Clive Davis, founder of Arista Records and the man who had discovered Whitney Houston, thought otherwise, and by the end of 1993 "All That She Wants" had made its way to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. In order to freshen up the album for US release, Davis insisted that some new tracks were recorded, including "The Sign" which became the new title for the album and the second American single. It was even more successful than the first, spending six weeks at number 1 becoming the best-selling single of the year 1994. It was also a major hit in Europe, peaking at number 2 in the UK and Sweden and doing one better in Germany. PolyGram re-released the album under the name Happy Nation (US Version). Two more singles were released; "Living in Danger" and "Don't Turn Around".

The second album, entitled The Bridge, marked a considerable change of direction in sound; out were the reggae and club sounds that made the group so popular in favour of a more experimental sound and several ballads. The lead single "Lucky Love" however was a mainstream pop record and on release in October 1995 became the band's first number 1 single in Sweden, which came as a pleasant surprise as they had found that their fellow Swedes had been their harshest critics. It charted at a more modest number 13 in Germany and number 20 in the United Kingdom, but Arista Records decided that it wasn't appropriate for US release so they opted for the pulsating dance beat of "Beautiful Life" which peaked at number 15 both in the US and UK. The album was still certified platinum but the phenomenal success of the band's first album proved difficult to follow.

Ace of Base released their fourth studio album Da Capo in September 2002 in Europe, and in Japan through Toshiba EMI with a different cover and three bonus tracks. The album contained twelve original tracks and had originally been planned for release in mid-2000, but was repeatedly postponed due to record company complications. The album is named after the musical term da capo, meaning "back to the beginning". It was intended to be a return to the band's earliest sound.

On November 28, 2007, Ulf Ekberg confirmed in an interview that Malin Berggren had now officially left the band and that she would not be involved with any future projects. The group had already been performing mostly without Linn as a trio for a decade before her departure.

Ace of Base have won a number of awards and broken many records. Their first album The Sign was given the Guinness World Record for "Best-Selling Debut Album". Combined sales of Happy Nation and The Sign are thought to have now reached 23 million. In 1994, the band were awarded two American Music Awards including "Best Single" for "The Sign", which was also certified the year's best-selling single at the Billboard Music Awards.