Europe

Europe come from Upplands Väsby in Sweden, and they named themselves after the whole continent, which tells you everything about the size of their ambitions. Singer Joey Tempest, guitarist John Norum, bassist Peter Olsson and drummer Tony Reno founded the group, and in 1982 they won Rock-SM, the Swedish Rock Championships, on national TV the first time the contest was ever held.

The first two albums did decent business at home, but it was the third, The Final Countdown in 1986, that sent them around the world. The title track is pure stadium theater: a fanfare of synths that sounds like a spaceship leaving the launchpad, Tempest belting over the top, and guitars built for a fist in the air. It reached number eight on the Hot 100, "Carrie" went to number three, and "Rock the Night" made the top 30. Norum left in 1986, with Kee Marcello stepping in on guitar.

They broke up in 1992, played Stockholm on New Year's Eve 1999, and officially reunited in 2003 with Norum back in the fold alongside Tempest, John Levén on bass, Mic Michaeli on keyboards and Ian Haugland on drums, making six more albums from Start from the Dark to Walk the Earth. The Swedish Music Hall of Fame took them in in 2018.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.