Alexander Bard: Encyclopedia - Alexander Bard

Alexander Bard

Alexander Bard (born March 17, 1961 in Motala) is a Swedish author, songwriter, producer, singer and actor.

He began his music career in the 1980s with the a single "Life in a Goldfish Bowl" released under the name Baard. He later had some minor success as Barbie, which saw Bard in drag singing dance-oriented pop. After abandoning work on a second Barbie album, he formed Army of Lovers with two of Barbie's entourage, Farouk (Jean-Pierre Barda) and Katanga (La Camilla). Army of Lovers had over 20 pan-European hits, the biggest being "Crucified", "Obsession" and "Sexual Revolution", while their presence in the US and the UK was limited to repeated club chart successes. They released five studio albums before Bard disbanded the group to concentrate on his new group Vacuum.

Vacuum consisted of Alexander Bard, Marina Schiptjenko (formerly of synthpop group Page), and newcomer Mattias Lindblom. Their first single "I Breathe" did very well - it was one of the fastest selling singles in Sweden in 1996. Further releases did not do as well, except in Russia and Ukraine, and Bard left after only two albums. Later Bard reformed Army of Lovers briefly for a handful of new tracks and a greatest hits collection, and contributed to the first two Alcazar albums. Since 2005 he has been working and performing with a new band, Bodies Without Organs, with Marina Schiptjenko and new vocalist Martin Rolinski. Their debut album "Prototype" generated seven top 20 hit singles in Scandinavia and reached platinum status.

Besides the groups mentioned above, Alexander Bard has also worked as a songwriter and producer for several Swedish artists, in the early 1990s mainly with Anders Wollbeck and more recently mainly with Anders Hansson. He was a co-founder of Stockholm Records and currently has several internet and music-related businesses. Bard has written two books with Jan Söderqvist , the first called "Nätokraterna" (published in English as Netocracy: The New Power Elite & Life After Capitalism, as well as in other languages) and the second book titled "Det globala imperiet" (currently in translation to English as "The Global Empire") in which he presents his sociological theories on the interactive revolution. A former student of the The Stockholm School of Economics, he has given lectures on the subjects of the books as well as other topics, such as Zoroastrianism. He is a convert to that religion, and is active in that community.

Alexander Bard - Links

• The Shrine - A site dedicated to him and his current music project [(Bodies Without Organs)]
• The Army of Lovers Network - Army of Lovers fansite
• Army of Lovers - We Are The Universe - Fan website

See also: List of Swedes in music

Categories: Swedish musical groups | 1961 births | Swedish sociologists | Swedish songwriters | Zoroastrianism | Bisexual musicians | Gay, lesbian or bisexual people

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Alexander Bard", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki