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Aqua Sells Gold in the USA Picture

(I received this article & picture in the mail the other day)  

Lene Nystrøm was recently shocked : Two days after Aqua's debut album reached USA's record shops, she stood  with a gold record between her arms.

Dizzy 505 000 CD-records and cassettes are out in the shops in USA, and there is only the first estimate. Tears ran down the cheeks of the 23 year-old woman from Tønsberg,  Norway when the record company released the news yesterday
"I don't believe it, " shined Lene who then  lay her head on the neck of Renè Dif, who searched feverishly his own handkerchief.

When Lene awoke up in the morning, she had to pinch herself on her arm to believe that it is true:
   * The single «Barbie Girl» reached # 7 on Billboards hit list before the sale was abruptly stopped by the record company MCA in anticipation of the debut of the album «Aquarium».
   * «Barbie Girl» is the most demanded song at 20 american radio stations.
   * Aqua-fans made traffic chaos in Kuala Lumpur.
   * The album already tops the hit list in New Zealand, a country no one in the group had ever visited.
   * She standing in the middle of it all, together with  group members, René Dif (29), Claus
   Noreen (28) and Søren Raasted (27).
   * And that the party had just begun, because the album «Aquarium» had only been in the shops in USA for
   three days.
 
"Hard working"
 
No Norwegian pop musician has ever experienced hullaballo such as this since the Norwegian  group A-ha was on the list 11 years ago.
- You have to keep your feet on the ground, says Lene Nystrøm, which is not easy wearing four inches high platform shoes!  Three straight weeks of touring in the East is hard on the body. The success doesn't come by itself, but with hard work from morning till night.

- It is madly funny, but unbelievably hard just the same, says Lene, who suffers from   constant homesickness from the family in Norway.
The success and the incredible reception everywhere are the motivating power to keep working on with new interviews and still more autographs and handshakes. The nearly two month long journey around the world is most of all a promotional tour for appeal to new markets.

"Unprepared "
 
Søren Raasted tells us about the huge difference in only three months, since they were in Asia:
- At the early part of the summer we could travel undisturbed throughout the East. But now, when we come to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia,  there were fans by the hundred already at the airport!

Aqua were aware that record sales had exploded, but were still quite unprepared forthe hullabaloo.
- We stood still in traffic in Kuala Lumpur for about an hour. When we cam to the concert hall, it showed that  we were the main reason for the traffic chaos. It were hordes of people and cars there, says René Dif.
In three weeks Aqua had done 12-14 concerts and also many promotional tours. Everywhere people screamed for more.
While «Barbie Girl» had been the hottest song in USA this autumn, the asians prefered two other songs on the record: «Roses Are Red» and «My Oh My».
- Everywhere they screamed for more, Lene tells us.
The Danish/Norwegian band came to Los Angeles direct from concerts and TV performances in Hongkong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea.
Despite the luxury life with the best hotels and long, white limousines a promotion-tour is hard working from morning till night. Lene and the boys admits that they are tired,  but the motivating power not to give up is the big response that they are getting everywhere:

All four underscored how important it is to operate like a team now when success brings the band to heaven.
- We are four ordinary people who now are experiencing something many people just dream about: an international breakthrough in a couple of weeks, says Lene. (VG 12.09.97)

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