Swedish hard rockers Europe are most widely known for their 1986 hit, “The Final Countdown.” The song reached No. 1 in 25 countries and it peaked at No 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. It has been used in numerous television shows and movies including “Arrested Development,” “Chuck, “Glee,” “Gotham,” “Pitch Perfect” and “The Kid & I,” and Bryan Danielson used it as his entrance music during his independent wrestling days. More recently Europe was featured performing the song in a Geico insurance commercial.
Recently, the song/video received a major distinction on YouTube when it hit one billion views. The video was uploaded in 2009 and contains footage from two 1986 Europe concerts in Sweden. “Unbelievable! One Billion Views!” the band wrote on social media earlier this week. “Thanks so much to everyone out there who has enjoyed ‘The Final Countdown’ song and video! We’re sure we have annoyed a few people along the way as well with this song. : ) In any case we are super thrilled and will celebrate tonight in Gothenburg with all our fans on this tour with WHITESNAKE!”
Singer Joey Tempest told Wall of Sound the origins of the track. “I did the demo at home with this song and we had the ideas for it for so long. It was a one-minute demo since high school for me. On the third album, we decided to record the song and we were talking about writing around this main keyboard riff. Initially, it was really a soundtrack-type song and not a hit single, and I guess this was good for it. I remember playing the demo for the guys and they really saw the song so strong and it built from there. [But] no, we never knew that this was going to be such a big hit. We opened the album and the tour with this song, but we really thought this was not the one to be the initial single.”
Tempest continued that “The Final Countdown” still stands as “one of our strongest albums and it was one of the albums that stands out; it opened up a lot of doors for the band. You know, ‘Wings Of Tomorrow’ was a little more naïve and stronger in that regard. But personally, I think we have done better albums, especially in the last [few] years. The three last albums are our strongest, but obviously it was something that belonged in that era and something so important to our career and history.”
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