Copenhagen calling: Alphabeat arriving in U.S. this fall

"60 Minutes" is fascinated with Denmark: The venerable CBS news magazine has aired this segment on the country at least twice over the last year (the piece explores why the Danes are at the top of the “world map of happiness”).

And while Morley Safer and company draw few conclusions as to why the Danes consistently top the annual survey that ranks countries by how happy they are (by Britain's University of Leicester), we’d like to offer up one reason why the kids in Copenhagen seem so sprightly: It’s the music. Exhibit A is Denmark’s hot-right-now Alphabeat.

The pop sextet is currently doing well for EMI in Europe, with a gold record in the U.K. and top 10 chart action in countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands.

Now, the band has its sights set on America. On Wednesday, Soundboard spoke with the band’s manager, Iian Watt, who confirmed that the group has secured a U.S. booking agent and that it's looking at teaser dates in cities such as New York and Los Angeles this fall (late September or early October).

“If things progress in the right way,” Watt says, the band will be back for a full U.S. tour in “March or April” (right in time for Austin's annual music festival, SXSW).

Watt says Alphabeat is already receiving interest from U.S. fans, despite the fact that their debut offering, “This Is Alphabeat,” is not yet available in America.

That will change soon, Watt promises. The manager says the band is in talks with “Universal, EMI and Warner” and may have a deal done in a “matter of weeks.”

It would seem likely that an EMI-affiliated label in the U.S. might have the inside track on putting out “This Is Alphabet” on this side of the pond, but Watt says nothing is certain at the moment.

Regardless, this report from the British newpaper the Sun, detailing how the band has already been "snapped up" by Seymour Stein, looks premature (at best). Warner music and Sire representatives told Soundboard late last week that it was simply not true .

So why all the fuss over the band? In short, Alphabeat is winning over a new generation of pop music fans with catchy-as-all-get-out songs.

Elton John is reportedly a fan, according to Perez Hilton, who is also a champion of the act.

It’s not hard to see why European music lovers are hot for the band, which hails from a small town 120 miles outside of Copenhagen. Impossibly catchy songs such as “Fascination” conjure up the male-female harmonizing of such 1980s acts as Prefab Sprout. And offerings such as “10000 Nights of Thunder” stay stuck in your head for days upon hearing them.

Alphabeat even covers Public Image Ltd.’s “Public Image” on the import-only (for now) debut disc; turning it into a sunny summer jam replete with whistling (à la Peter, Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks”).

It remains to be seen whether or not Alphabeat’s success will cross over the Atlantic, or if they are set to remain European favorites.

But it doesn’t seem too far-fetched that “Fascination” might well take off in America -- if paired with the right product in a massive commercial campaign, for example. This is exactly the kind of irrationally exuberant tune the good people at Apple seem fond of for their iTunes television campaign.

-- Charlie Amter