BWO was a Swedish electropop group, formed in 2003. Prior to early 2006 they used the name Bodies Without Organs. In Sweden they have enjoyed considerable commercial success throughout their career, so far notching up 15 Top 40 singles, including a Number 1 with "Temple of Love", and five Top 10 albums including a Number 1 with Halcyon Days, and have won several major Swedish music awards. The group scored major successes in countries like Russia.
Since the mid-2000s, BWO have had significant chart success in several Eastern European countries including Ukraine and Russia, and some moderate success in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and the United States. 2009 saw a major breakthrough for the band in Japan, China and Taiwan with the compilation album Sunshine in the Rain, targeted at the Asian market.
Origins
Alexander Bard, whose previous music projects had included Army of Lovers, Vacuum and Alcazar, started work on a new project during 2003, working with the record producer Anders Hansson who became the band's co-producer. They auditioned over 35 different vocalists before meeting former Popstars contestant Martin Rolinski who was duly chosen as lead singer and Caroline McDowell backing vocals. Marina Schiptjenko, an art-dealer and a one-time member of Vacuum, then came on board as the third member of what became Bodies Without Organs.
There was initially a suggestion that the band would be a four-piece including Jean-Pierre Barda from Army of Lovers, but this did not come to fruition, and Barda's explicit involvement extended as co-writing the songs "Living In A Fantasy" (BWO's first single) and "European Psycho", both included on BWO's first album "Prototype" (It's odd that a picture of Barda turned up in the inner booklet of this album), and appearing on the videos "Conquering America", "Sixteen Tons of Hardware", "Open Door" and "The Bells of Freedom", in which Dominika Peczynski, also from Army of Lovers did make a cameo too.
The name of the band derives from the philosophical term body without organs, developed by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari in their 1972 book Anti-Œdipus. Bard, an author and lecturer of philosophy, has referred to the ideas of Deleuze in his books "The Netocrats", "The Global Empire", and "The Body Machines", all co-written with Jan Söderqvist.
At no point has BWO been a full-time project for any of the band's members - Bard continues his other career as a philosopher, while Schiptjenko remains an art dealer in Stockholm and Rolinski has a Master of Science in Engineering and works in that field.
Chart and airplay success
2004-2005: Prototype
BWO's debut single release was "Living in a Fantasy" in May 2004. This was only a moderate Number 44 hit in Sweden, and the style and production of the song differ somewhat from those of any BWO song released subsequently. Subsequent releases were more successful in Sweden, particularly third single "Sixteen Tons of Hardware" (Number 11) in February 2005. BWO's debut album Prototype, first released in Russia in November 2004, was released in Sweden in March 2005, reaching Number 2 in the album charts and attaining platinum status. Eventually no fewer than seven tracks from the album went on to be Swedish hit singles, with sixth single "Sunshine in the Rain" (Number 12) being another high point. Peter Ashraf.
"Sixteen Tons of Hardware" and "Voodoo Magic" were both hit singles in Finland. Two singles off the album, "Living in a Fantasy" and "Sixteen Tons of Hardware" went Number 1 in the Europa Plus Airplay Chart in Russia, and the album soon crossed over to neighboring countries, generating no less than five Top 5 hit singles in Ukraine and two Top 5 hit singles in Hungary. The track "Gone" was a Number 1 hit in Lebanon.
2006: Halcyon Days
BWO's second album Halcyon Days, released in April 2006, entered the Swedish Album Chart at Number 1, shipping gold and generating four further hit singles, of which the first single "Temple of Love" was a Number 1 smash in Sweden and charted across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.
Halcyon Days was followed by a remix collection called Halcyon Nights, released in December 2006.