Dear Poptastic Readers,
Swedish legends Army Of Lovers have released their 5th album called Sexodus. How is this only their 5th album? We have already featured all of the new tracks in Poptastic Confessions the past 2 months, but while we are working on the countdown of our Top 101 Songs of 2023, we thought we’d share an album review with you, and a little more.
If you aren’t familiar with Army Of Lovers, we will give you a quick overview. The group is known for not being great singers and they usually have a choir helping them out on the chorus of each song, and sometimes more than the chorus.
They’ve had a few lineups over the years: Originally Alexander Bard was singing drag queen called Barbie with Jean-Pierre Barda and Camilla (La Camilla) Henemark as backup dancers. The 3 of them formed Army Of Lovers and released two albums (Disco Extravaganza in 1990 and Massive Luxury Overdose in 1991) with slew of dance hits: “Ride The Bullet”, “My Army Of Lovers”, “Supernatural”, “Crucified”, and “Obsession.” However, it was during the promotion of the second album that La Camilla was fired from the group and replaced with Michaela Dornoville de la Cour.
Alexander, Michaela, and Jean-Pierre
The second album was repackaged in 1992 with Michaela on the cover. Previous singles “Ride The Bullet”, “Obsession”, and "Candyman Messiah" were re-released with Michaela on the cover as well as new music videos for both songs. However, no new vocals were recorded for those songs. They also released a new song called “Judgment Day” with vocals from Michaela.
La Camilla made a splash with her solo song “Everytime You Lie.”
For their third album The Gods of Heaven and Earth in 1993, the trio added a new member: Dominika Peczynski. As a four piece, they also recorded another album in 1994 called Glory, Glamour, and Gold. They released these fabulous songs: “Israelism”, “La Plage de Saint Tropez”, “I Am”, “Lit de Parade”, and “Sexual Revolution.”
In 1995, Michaela left the group. She was replaced by original member La Camilla! They released Les Greatest Hits with new songs: “Give My Life” and “King Midas.” Then the group took a long break.
La Camilla released a solo album in 1996 called Temper with the singles “The Witch In Me” and “I’m Not In The Mood For Lovers.”
In 1996, Alexander Bard formed a group called Vaccuum with singer Mathias Lindblom and Marina Schiptjenko. They had big song called “I Breathe” in 1997. Alexander left the group in 1998 after the second album.
In 1998, Alexander started working as a songwriter and producer for a new Swedish group called Alcazar! He even gave Annika her nickname/artist name: Annikafiore. Alexander was the main songwriter on their first album Casino. The singles he cowrote and coproduced were "Shine On", “Crying At The Discoteque” (in which he has a camera in the video and has the middle talking part), and “Sexual Guarantee.”
In 2001, another best-of compilation was released called La Grand Docu-Soap. It featured 2 new singles “Let The Sunshine In” and “Hands Up.” And then the group was over for a very long time.
In 2004, Alexander formed the group Bodies Without Organs (BWO) with former Vacuum member Marina Schiptjenko and singer Martin Rolinski. They were very successful in Europe until they ended 2009 after 4 studio albums and 24 singles. Here are some of our favourites: “Conquering America” (with a cameo by Jean-Pierre in the music video), “Sunshine In The Rain”, “Chariots Of Fire”, “Lay Your Love On Me”, “The Bells Of Freedom” (with cameos by Dominika and Jean-Pierre in the music video) and “Right Here, Right Now.”
After BWO, Alexander formed another group in 2010 with singer Anders Öhrn called Gravitonas. The theme was much darker and they had some great songs over the next 2 years: “Kites”, “Religious”, “You Break Me Up”, “Everybody Dance” with Roma Kenga, “Call Your Name”, and “Incredible.” We will also talk about Graviton's more in a bit.
Dominika, La Camilla, and Martin
In 2011, La Camilla and Dominika joined Martin Johansson (initially in his drag queen persona Miss Inga) on a fabulous track “Don’t Try To Steal My Limelight”, which was #8 in our Top Songs of 2011. The three of them formed a group called Happy Hoes and in 2012 they released “We Rule The World” (#14 in our Top Songs of 2012) and the campy Christmas song “Happy Ho Ho Ho.”
Also at the end of 2012, it was announced that the original lineup of Army Of Lovers would reunite for Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest selection called Melodifestivalen with a new song called “Rockin’ The Ride.” They had even recorded a few new tracks for new compilation called Big Battle Of Egos.
The new trio released 3 more singles from 2012 to 2014: “Signed On My Tattoo” featuring Gravitonas in 2012; “Crucified 2013”, and “People Are Lonely” by Gravitonas featuring Army Of Lovers in early 2014. But since then, the band has been on hiatus, until this year.
And now for the Sexodus album review. Click on the song title to see what we originally said about the song.
“Sexodus”: This glorious track starts off the album with a bang. Dominika and Jean-Pierre dominate the vocals with the Army Of Lovers Tabernacle Choir in the chorus. This is epic. We love it. See a live performance here ...
"Love Is Blue" featuring Olya Polyakova: This ABBA-esque track is a fun one. Although the rhyming dictionary must have been in full effect when writing the lyrics. Olya's vocals soar. It's nice to hear Jean-Pierre and Dominika chime in too. Check out a live performance here ...
"What's That Look" featuring Tamer Wilde: This is a fun down-tempo groove. Even more fun that we know it was originally a song by Dream Beats and The Face. While we never heard the original, it is fun to know that the singers from The Face are still on this song. Dominika rapping is awesome, as is Jean-Pierre with his signature French lyrics. Listen to it here ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KIbwGzpQU
"Romanism": This Indian-pop song is straight out of a Bollywood movie. We love it. Jean-Pierre takes the lead on this fun song. "All hail the golden toilet brush" is a lyric for the ages. The chorus is a bit hypnotizing. See a live performance here ...
"Bring Your Love": This is a fun and catchy pop song in which Alexander takes the lead vocal. The chorus will have you singing along in no time. After the first 2 verses there is a fun "boom-chicka-boom" part that really is quite cool. Check out a live performance here ...
"Israelism 2023": A modern remake of their classic 1993 hit. It is not as fabulous as the original, but it is nice to hear a remake celebrating Jewish culture. Jean-Pierre does a great job on lead vocals. There is a YouTube account called Army Of Lovers Party 2023 that has dubbed the new version on the original video with Michaela and added pop-up cameos from La Camilla. Check it out ...
"Clash Of Titans": This is also a remake of their 1993 popular album track called "Carry My Urn To Ukraine." Dominika takes the lead here and does quite well. We wish this version was a bit faster, but it works well on the album. Have a look ...
"Tragedy" was a song originally recorded for their 2013 compilation called Big Battle of Egos. It features Alexander on lead vocals. The music is upbeat and fun, even though the song is about a tragedy. The song originally had a middle talking part by La Camilla. After she was fired a second time, the middle talking part was rerecorded with Jean-Pierre and Dominika for their Scandinavian Crime EP in 2013. When the album Sexodus was first released a couple of weeks ago, the La Camilla version was put on the album by mistake. The version has been updated on all streaming platforms. See a performance here ...
"Signed On My Tattoo" featuring Gravitonas. This is also from 2013 and it was done with Alexander's other group Gravitonas. It is a sexy song, especially when Anders sings. The music video is a hoot. Be warned: there is blood!
"People Are Lonely" by Gravitonas featuring Army Of Lovers. This was their last single in 2014 before taking almost a 10-year hiatus. Alexander's high vocals on this song are a bit off putting but we like everything else about it. Check out the music video ...
There are 2 songs missing from this album in our view: the version of "Rockin' The Ride" with the spoken middle part by Dominika. Why wasn't this included? So odd. Also, in 2013, they rerecorded their biggest hit "Crucified." Why wasn't this version of the song included? Well, if you download all of the tracks, you can add them to your playlist. We did.
Besides the 2 song omissions, this is a fun album. We are most interested in the first 5 tracks as those are the new music. We hope Army Of Lovers continues to release more music because we have missed them.
You can listen to Sexodus here. Remember the best way to support the group is to purchase the album.
Please like and share our links so that more people hear and buy the music!
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