Ola Salo | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Rolf Ola Anders Svensson |
| Born | 19 February 1977 |
| Origin | Avesta, Sweden |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Singer songwriter keyboardist |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, piano, guitar, harmonica |
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Labels | Roxy |
Ola Salo (born Rolf Ola Anders Svensson; 19 February 1977) is a Swedish rock musician, and the lead vocalist of Swedish glam rock band The Ark.
He lived in Rottne, Växjö Municipality, in Sweden when he was a child, where, in 1991, he and his friends Jepson and Leari officially started the band The Ark.
Salo and the other members of the band had an international breakthrough in 2000 with the album We Are The Ark, containing the signature song "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" (for which Ola won a Grammis for "Song of the Year"), a song Salo wrote after watching the Danish film Idioterne (The Idiots). [ citation needed ]
In October 2006 during a party celebrating the new Swedish embassy in Washington, D.C., The Ark was performing on stage. As a plane was flying very low overhead Salo said "In this country, you don't know where those planes are headed. Well, this one seems to be heading in the right direction anyway..." meaning the airport, but then suddenly adding "...to the White House" which happened to be in the same direction. [1]
This caused controversy as many newspapers reported that Salo had "wished an airplane to crash into the White House". Salo later said that it was a bad joke, "totally unserious way of being cheeky toward the White House" and not a political statement. [2] [3] The band ended up cancelling almost its entire U.S. tour. [4]
On 10 March 2007, Salo and the band The Ark won Melodifestivalen 2007 and went on to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 with the song "The Worrying Kind", where, in which they came 18th with 51 points. [5]
In 2008, Salo translated Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar into Swedish for a performance in Malmö where he played the role of Jesus, and as a result he stated that "2008 will be a very quiet year" for The Ark [6] after a hectic 2007 with the Eurovision Song Contest and the release of Prayer for the Weekend. In 2009. Salo featured on the Empire Dogs' album, Come On You Preachers. [7] In 2018, he participated in the first season of Stjärnornas stjärna on TV4.
In 2019, Salo opened his headline residency It takes a fool to remain sane in the Rondo, (Gothenburg), directed by Edward af Sillén. [8]
| Year | Album | Peak positions | Certification |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE [10] | |||
| 2015 | Wilderness | 2 |
Neal Joseph Schon is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder and lead guitarist for the rock band Journey. He is the last original member to remain throughout the group's history. He was a member of the rock band Santana before forming Journey. He was also a member of the group Bad English during Journey's hiatus from 1987 to 1995, as well as an original member of Hardline.
Constantinos Christophorou is a Greek-Cypriot singer. He represented Cyprus in Eurovision Song Contest as a solo singer with "Mono Yia Mas" (1996) and "Ela Ela " (2005) and as part of the boy band formation One with "Gimme" (2002).
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The Ark are a Swedish glam rock band formed in 1991 and remaining active until 2011. They released five studio albums and became one of the most successful bands in Scandinavia. They made their breakthrough with the song "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" in 2000, and several hit songs followed.
Anna Jenny Charlotte Perrelli, known simply until 2003 as Charlotte Nilsson and later as Charlotte Perrelli, is a Swedish singer and television host. Under her maiden name, she won the 1999 Melodifestivalen and subsequently that year's Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Take Me to Your Heaven".
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Evridiki Theokleous, known professionally as simply Evridiki, is a Greek Cypriot singer. She is best known in Europe for representing her home country, Cyprus, in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1992, 1994 and 2007 with the songs Teriazoume, Eimai Anthropos Ki Ego and Comme Ci, Comme Ça, respectively.
We Are the Ark was released on 25 September 2000 and is the debut studio album from Swedish glam rock group The Ark. The album was both a critical and commercial success, spawning four singles.
In Lust We Trust is the second album by Swedish glam rock band the Ark, released on 26 August 2002. Four singles were released from the album: "Calleth You, Cometh I", "Father of a Son", "Tell Me This Night Is Over" and "Disease".
Sam Blue is an English hard rock singer, who has been part of the bands Emerson, Axis, L. A. Secrets, Paul Samson's Empire, Ya Ya, Ultravox, GTS, and Burns Blue. He works in the UK and Europe as a session singer, performing and collaborating with many artists including The Streets, Dizzee Rascal, Braund Reynolds, The Young Punx, Phonat, Urban Myth, Avicci, Otto Knows, Madness. Had Top 40 single in 2006 with Baywatch theme – I'll be Ready Also worked an artist manager at Plan C Management with Christian Ulf-Hansen. The company's artists included the singer-songwriter, Tobias Fröberg (Sweden); & Kathryn Williams.
Ola Nils Håkan Svensson is a Swedish artist and songwriter, known professionally by the mononym Ola until 2014, and as Brother Leo from 2018 to present. Born in Lund, Skåne, his career began in 2005, when he finished eighth on season two of Swedish Idol. Since then, Ola has released four studio albums. Eleven of his singles have reached the top five on the Swedish singles chart, with six achieving number one, and nine attaining gold and platinum certifications. After being signed to Universal Music for many years, Ola founded his own record label Oliniho Records for the Swedish market, keeping distribution arrangements with Sony Music in Europe and internationally. Following a four-year break, he returned in 2018, recording under the stage name Brother Leo for Columbia Records.
"The Worrying Kind" is a rock song performed by the Ark, written and composed by Ola Salo. It was released as the second single from their fourth album, Prayer for the Weekend. On 10 March 2007 the song won Melodifestivalen 2007, becoming Sweden's Eurovision Song Contest 2007 entry. The song won both the jury and public vote.
State of The Ark was released on 27 December 2004 and is the third studio album from the Swedish rock band the Ark, and their final as a quintet. In it, the band's sound became more synthesizer-flavoured and keyboard-oriented, a departure from the more organic glam rock sound of the first two albums. Three singles were released from the album: "One of Us Is Gonna Die Young", "Clamour for Glamour" and "Trust Is Shareware", the latter being a new recording specifically made for single release. "This Piece of Poetry Is Meant to Do Harm" appears in John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus and the band has stated that "Hey Kwanongoma!" was inspired by the marimba piece "Rugare 2" by Alport Mhlanga.
Prayer for the Weekend was released on 11 April 2007 and is the fourth studio album from Swedish rock band the Ark. It is their first album with the sixth member, keyboard player Jens Andersson.
"It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" is a song performed by the Ark on their 2000 studio album We Are the Ark. It was a hit in Sweden and Italy. The song was also awarded a Grammis for "song of the year".
"Dream On" is an electronica song written by Christian Falk, Robyn, and Klas Åhlund. The song is produced and performed by Falk, with vocals from Robyn and The Ark's Ola Salo. The song appears on Falk's 2006 album People Say and was released as a single in Sweden, and in 2008, it was released in the United Kingdom.
Kevin James Borg, is a Maltese pop singer who lives and works in Sweden. Borg rose to fame as the winner of the fifth series of the Swedish television singing competition Idol in 2008. He was the third male winner and the first in the show's history to be born outside of Sweden, having moved there exactly one year before he was declared winner.
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In Full Regalia is the fifth and final studio album by Swedish band the Ark. It has been released in a new unique format: it has been released as a magazine with 100 pages containing a history of the band's 20-year career as well as the actual album. In its first week it reached number two on the Swedish Albums Chart and was certified Gold in Sweden. The lead single "Superstar" was released on 29 March 2010. The second single was announced to be "Stay with Me" and was released digitally on 7 June.
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