Secret Service (band)

Secret Service was a Swedish new wave/pop band, popular in the early 1980s.[1]

Secret Service
Secret Service.
Background information
Origin	Stockholm, Sweden
Genres	Eurodisco, synthpop, Hi-NRG, new wave
Years active	1979–1987, 1992, 2000, 2006–present
Labels	Stockholm Records
Website	https://www.secretservicemusic.com/
Members	Anders Hansson Mats Lindberg Ulf Wahlberg Tim Norell John Becker Jamie Borger Jan Perning
Past members	Ola Håkansson Leif Johansson Tonny Lindberg Leif Paulsèn Mikael Erlandsson

In 1979, Ola Håkansson, former vocalist of Ola & the Janglers and then a publishing manager at Sonet Records, teamed up with Tim Norell and Ulf Wahlberg as Ola+3 to write a few songs that they submitted to the 1979 Melodifestivalen, a popular contest which is the Swedish qualification to the Eurovision Song Contest. Ola+3 did not win but the members decided to continue working together and changed their band's name to Secret Service. Besides Ola Håkansson (vocals), Tim Norell and Ulf Wahlberg (keyboards), the original lineup also included Tony Lindberg (guitars), Leif Paulsen (bass) and Leif Johansson (drums).

Norell, who along with Björn Håkanson penned most songs of the band, did not however appear with them on stage or on the album covers. Secret Service's first single "Oh Susie" became a hit in Sweden and several other countries in Europe, in South America and Australia. Their album of the same title included another hit, "Ten O'Clock Postman", which went gold in Sweden. Other successes followed, with their synthpop number "Flash in the Night" in 1981 (their greatest success) hitting charts all over continental Europe. Ola Håkansson's duet with ex-ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog, "The Way You Are", released 1986, became a gold single in Sweden.

In 1987, Håkansson, Norell and Wahlberg released Aux Deux Magots, their last album as Secret Service. The other members of the band had quit by then and were replaced by multi-instrumentalist Anders Hansson and bassist Mats A. Lindberg. Håkansson would become Norell's partner with Army of Lovers' Alexander Bard in what would be known as the Megatrio, a Swedish equivalent to Stock-Aitken-Waterman known as Norell Oson Bard. In 1992, Håkansson and his associates established Stockholm Records as a joint venture with PolyGram. They produced such artists as Army of Lovers and The Cardigans, among others.

In 2012, Secret Service released The Lost Box, an album with forgotten and unreleased recorded songs from the '80s and '90s, such as "Different" and "Satellites".

"Oh Susie" was covered in Czech as "Ó, Sůzi", performed by Petr Kotvald. "10 O'Clock Postman" was covered by Wolfgang Petry as "Ganz oder gar nicht" (in German), and also covered by Date as "Sida vid sida" (in Swedish).

Norell, Wahlberg, Hansson and Lindberg has begun to tour with a new singer, Johan Becker, as Secret Service, mostly in Russia.[2] They also released a single, Secret Mission in 2020.[3]