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ABBA
File:ABBApromotional.jpg
Clockwise from top: Andersson, Ulvaeus, Lyngstad, Fältskog
Background information
OriginStockholm, Sweden
Years active1972-1982
Past membersBenny Andersson
Agnetha Fältskog
Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad
Björn Ulvaeus

ABBA (1972–1982) was a Swedish pop music group.

They remain the most successful act ever to come from Scandinavia. The group topped worldwide charts during the mid-to-late 1970s and gained widespread airplay during the early 1980s, selling many hit singles and albums. The group has sold "more than 300 million records, the vast majority being self-penned." [1] They were the first act from the European continent to become a regular fixture on the charts of the anglophonic world (Britain, the United States, and Australia).

ABBA was formed around 1972 by Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (nicknamed "Frida"). They became widely known after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo". The group consisted of two couples, Björn and Agnetha along with Benny and Frida. ABBA collectively decided to take a break at the beginning of 1983. They have yet to record together again in the studio.

History

Before ABBA

Benny Andersson was a member of the Swedish light/alternative rock/pop band Hep Stars who were very popular in Sweden during the 1960s. The band was modeled after various US and UK groups such as Herman's Hermits, The Who and [[The Björn Ulvaeus was fronting a skiffle group called the Hootenanny Singers whose sound was softer and more easy-listening than the Hep Stars. The singers crossed paths sometimes and they decided to write songs together. One of these, "Isn't It Easy To Say," became a hit for the Hep Stars and Björn sometimes guested with the band on tour. It was even suggested that the two bands merge but this never happened. Stig Anderson, manager of the Hootenanny Singers and founder of Polar Music, saw more potential in Benny and Björn working together and encouraged them to write more songs and create an album which was eventually called Lycka ("Happiness") when released on the Polar label.

Agnetha Fältskog was ABBA's youngest member and a pop phenomenon in her own right who wrote and performed Swedish hits while in her teens and had also played Mary Magdalene in the Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Agnetha was noted by critics and songwriters as an accomplished composer but she considered it hard work, writing and performing light pop songs in the Schlager style, recording covers of hit songs and touring Swedish folkparks, the main "live circuit" at that time. Inevitably she bumped into the Hootenanny Singers on their folkpark tours, meeting and eventually falling in love with Björn. Their marriage in 1971 was the Swedish celebrity wedding of the year and drew much publicity.

Having fronted bands from her early teens, Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad worked mainly in jazz-oriented cabaret. In 1967, she entered and won a national talent competition. Sweden was changing over from driving on the left side of the road to the right and a series of spectacular shows was being aired to encourage people to stay off the roads on the night of the switchover. Invited to appear on TV that evening with her winning song, Frida attracted record company attention. She signed with EMI and her professional musical career began in earnest. She met Benny Andersson on a subsequent folkpark tour. They became lovers and Benny invited Anni-Frid to sing backing vocals with Agnetha on the Lycka album. The two women were uncredited for this work. During this time, Benny Andersson also started producing Frida's solo records and this work is generally credited with enhancing her chart performances.

Early years

File:People Need Love small.jpg
The cover of "People Need Love," the first single released by the group.

By the early 1970s, although Björn and Agnetha were married, they pursued their own separate musical careers. However Stig was ambitious and determined to break into the mainstream international market, not something that Swedish acts were usually known for, though previously achieved by Swedish instrumental guitar group The Spotnicks (their best known hit was "Orange Blossom Special"). The also took advantage of what appearances were offered.[1] As a result he encouraged Björn and Benny to write a song for the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest and it was performed by Lena Anderson. "Say It With a Song" won third in the contest selection rounds but was a huge hit in several countries, convincing Stig he was on the right track.

Björn and Benny persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements which brought some success in Japan. One of the songs they came up with was "People Need Love," featuring guest vocals by the girls who were now given much greater prominence than previously. Everyone involved felt enthusiastic about the new sound and Stig released it as a single, credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The record reached number 17 in the Swedish charts, enough to convince them they were on to something.

File:Ringring1973sleeve.jpg
The cover of the 1973 version of the album Ring Ring.

The following year they decided to have another crack at Eurovision, this time with the song "Ring Ring." The studio work was handled by Michael B. Tretow who experimented with a Phil Spector-like "wall of sound" production technique that became the wholly new ABBA sound. Stig arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a sure-fire winner. Yet again, it came in third. Nevertheless the proto-group put out an album called Ring Ring, still carrying the awkward naming of Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida. The album did well and the "Ring Ring" single was a hit in many parts of Europe but Stig felt the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit.

The ABBA name

ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's name. It is usually written ABBA but is sometimes written as a word, Abba. The first B in the logo version of the name was reversed on the band's promotional material from 1976 onwards, out of consideration for a Swedish food producing company named Abba.

Around 1973 Stig, having tired of the unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA. This was done as a joke at first, since Abba was also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden. However, since the fish canners were more or less unknown outside Sweden, Stig came to believe the name would work in international markets and so it stuck. Later the group negotiated with the canners for the right to use the name.

Eurovision and after

File:Waterloo Watch Out.jpg
"Waterloo" (1974)
File:Mammamiasingle.jpg
"Mamma Mia" (1975)

They tried Eurovision again in 1974, now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in the UK and tracks like Wizzard's "See My Baby Jive". "Waterloo" was an unashamedly glam-style pop track produced with Michael B. Tretow's wall of sound approach. Now far more experienced, they were better prepared for the contest and had an album's worth of material released when the show was held in Brighton, England. The song won and catapulted them into British consciousness for the first time. Now they had a catchy name, ABBA, and people could buy the whole album (Waterloo) straightaway.

"Waterloo" was ABBA's first UK No. 1. It was also released in the US, reaching No. 6. But momentum proved hard to maintain, and their follow-up singles "So Long" and "Honey Honey" did not do nearly as well. The group was overstretched and unable to promote the songs convincingly in any one country. Moreover, much of their material was still heavily derivative. It wasn't until the release of their second proper album ABBA and their single "SOS" that ABBA began to show the first signs they were destined for bigger things. "SOS" consolidated ABBA's presence in the UK where it was a Top 10 hit and they were no longer regarded as a one-hit wonder.

Much wider success came in 1975 with every release charting solidly and "Mamma Mia" reaching the UK No. 1 spot in January 1976, knocking Queen's biggest hit Bohemian Rhapsody from the top.

At this time the band released the somewhat hubristically titled Greatest Hits album despite having had only five Top 40 hits in the UK and the US. This album included "Fernando" (which had originally been written in Swedish for Anni-Frid's 1975 Benny-produced solo LP Frida Ensam- it was a smash hit, prompting a subsequent English-language recording by ABBA). Becoming one of ABBA's best-known tracks, "Fernando" did not appear on the Swedish or Australian releases of Greatest Hits. In Sweden the song would wait until 1982's The Singles-The First Ten Years to appear in an English-language version credited to ABBA; the track was later included in the Australian release of their 1976 album, Arrival.

The next album, Arrival, represented a new level of accomplishment in both songwriting and studio work for ABBA. Hit after hit flowed from it: "Money, Money, Money", "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and their most enduring and definitive hit, "Dancing Queen". By this time ABBA were widely popular in the UK, most of Western Europe and Australia (who in a way almost "adopted" ABBA as their own) but still had only moderate recognition and airplay in the US, and "Dancing Queen" remains the only No. 1 ABBA ever achieved there.

Movie poster for ABBA: The Movie and The Album carried the same artwork.

By this time the ABBA sound was synonymous with European pop and was widely copied by groups like Brotherhood of Man and later, Bucks Fizz. Some felt it was necessary to copy ABBA's sound and two girl/two boy approach to win Eurovision, and the notion seemed validated when Brotherhood of Man won in 1976 and Bucks Fizz took the prize in 1981.

Meanwhile in 1977 ABBA followed up Arrival with the more complex The Album which was released to coincide with ABBA: The Movie, a feature film of their Australian tour. This album was less well-received by the critics but spawned several hits, "The Name of the Game" and "Take A Chance On Me", both of which topped the UK charts. This album also carried the well-known "Thank You for the Music" that later was released in the UK as a single (1983) and had been a B-side of "Eagle" in territories where that song was released as a single.

Later years

By 1978 ABBA was a megagroup. They converted a disused cinema into the Polar Music Studio, a new state-of-the-art studio in Stockholm which was used by several other successful bands (Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door was recorded there, for example).

Their standalone single "Summer Night City", their last Swedish number one, stopped just short of topping the UK charts but set the stage for ABBA's foray into disco with the album Voulez-Vous, which was released in Spring 1979. This release marked a slight decline in ABBA's popularity in the UK and Europe but gained them more attention in the US. The hits still came: "Chiquitita", "Does Your Mother Know", "Voulez-Vous" and "I Have A Dream" all charted. In January 1979, the group performed at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly, performing "Chiquitita"; the royalties from the song were donated to UNICEF.[2]

Later that year, the group released their second greatest hits album, Greatest Hits Vol 2, which featured a brand new track "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", perhaps their best known disco hit.

In 1979 ABBA toured the US and Canada, playing to huge audiences, but the breakthrough there was perhaps too little, too late.

1980's Super Trouper reflected a change in ABBA's style with more prominent synthesisers and more personal lyrics. It set a record for the most preorders ever received for a UK album after 1 million copies were ordered before release. Anticipation for the release had been built up by "The Winner Takes It All", the group's eighth UK chart topper (their first since 1978). This song was allegedly written about Bjorn and Agnetha's marriage, which was breaking down at the time. The next single from the album, "Super Trouper" also hit number 1. "Lay All Your Love On Me" was an album track that was released in 1981 as a 12-inch single only in limited territories, and, along with Super Trouper, managed to top the American club and dance chart. A Spanish language compilation album was also recorded at this time - 'Gracias Por La Musica', which was released in Latin America and sold very well.

The Visitors (1981), their final studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placed the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies. The Visitors' title track refers to secret meetings held against the approval of Communist governments in Soviet satellite states and other tracks address topics like aging, loss of innocence, a parent watching her child grow up and so on. Their melodies were still catchy but their change of style was reflected by the start of a commercial decline after their final great pop single "One Of Us" which was a worldwide hit in December 1981.

Although by this time regarded as a group in decline, ABBA still drew huge audiences, particularly in continental Europe and might have gone on indefinitely if it were not for the band's personal turmoils: the two married couples were both divorced by this point. Songs like "The Winner Takes It All" and "One Of Us" gave glimpses of personal issues ABBA's members were facing.

In summer 1982, the group gathered to record a new album. In the end they settled for a double album compilation of all their past successes with two new songs. The double album The Singles: The First Ten Years topped the UK album chart and was a worldwide bestseller. The new tracks were "Under Attack" and "The Day Before You Came", which was the last song ABBA ever recorded together. Four other songs were recorded and brought to completion during 1982: "Cassandra" (which appeared as the b-side to "The Day Before You Came"), "You Owe Me One" (the b-side to "Under Attack"), "I Am The City" and "Just Like That". "I Am The City" was released on the compilation album More ABBA Gold in 1993.

Despite numerous requests from fans, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson are still refusing to release "Just Like That" in its entirety.

The group then drifted apart as they began pursuing different projects. Benny and Björn continue to collaborate in music-writing, while Agnetha and Frida each worked on solo careers.

After ABBA

Björn and Benny wrote the music for the West End show Chess (1984) with lyricist Tim Rice. Chess ran for three years in London. The show also opened on Broadway in the US (1988) but the song order, lyrics and storyline had been altered compared with the London version, and was less successful; the show closed within weeks.

Björn and Benny, inspired by the successes of Rice and his former collaborator Andrew Lloyd-Webber, had long expressed their desire to write a musical. Their first attempt had been a "mini-musical", The Girl with The Golden Hair, performed by the group during their 1977 tour of Europe and Australia. Excerpts were included in ABBA - The Movie and ABBA - The Album. Björn and Benny followed Chess with Kristina från Duvemåla (1995), directed for the stage by Lars Rudolfsson and based on the Emigrants tetralogy by Swedish novelist Vilhelm Moberg. An Engish version of Kristina från Duvemåla has been in the works for a long time, but it has been reported that it will be arriving on Broadway soon, perhaps as soon as 2007. There is already a Broadway "workshop" that is involved in bringing this play to the US, and characters have already been cast. Mamma Mia!, a musical built around ABBA's songs, had its London premiere in 1999, and has had great success in the United States, as well as other countries. It is currently running in Stockholm. In 2003, their first musical was given new life in a Swedish-language version, Chess På Svenska, also to great success.

After receiving little attention during the acme of punk and New Wave in the mid and late 1980s, ABBA experienced a resurgence. They were recognised as masters of their art, the three minute (or so) pop song. 1992 saw a revival of interest in ABBA, with the release of their ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation album selling massively worldwide and setting chart longevity records. Björn and Benny were recognised in 2001 with an Ivor Novello Award for their songwriting.

During the 1990s many ABBA tracks were rediscovered and covered by other artists, such as Erasure, Ash and the A*Teens, among others. The avant-garde band Blancmange had also covered The Day Before You Came in the mid-1980s, one of the first bands to cover an ABBA track.

The 1994 film "Muriel's Wedding", a popular Australian film starring an ABBA-loving protagonist.

On April 6 2004 three former ABBA members (Björn, Benny and Frida) showed up together in London for the 30th anniversary of their Eurovision Song Contest win in 1974, appearing on stage after the fifth anniversary performance of Mamma Mia!. While on stage, they were presented an award from Universal Music and Polar Music for achieving record sales of 360 million sales wordwide between 1974 and 2004.

In a November 2004 interview with the German magazine Bunte Björn said a reunion would not satisfy ABBA's many fans, even though there are legions of them around the world often clamouring for one. In February 2005 all four members of ABBA appeared together in public for the first time since 1986 at the gala opening of Mamma Mia! in Stockholm.

On October 22 2005, during the celebration show for the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Copenhagen, Denmark, Waterloo was voted the best Eurovision song in the history of the contest.

Post-ABBA solo careers

Both female members of ABBA have had some success with solo careers following the break-up of the band.

In 1982, Frida released her Phil Collins-produced album Something's Going On. This album included the hit single "I Know There's Something Going On" - a big international hit, reaching #13 on the Billboard chart, thus outperforming many of ABBA's singles in the US. The album sold 1.5 million copies internationally.

Agnetha followed in 1983 with the album Wrap Your Arms Around Me. This album included the single The Heat Is On (a cover of the Noosha Fox recording) which was a big hit all over Europe and Scandinavia that year. In the US, Agnetha scored a Billboard top 30 hit with Can't Shake Loose. Her album sold over 1.2 million copies worldwide. Frida's second solo album Shine was a hit in Sweden and in parts of Europe but was a relative commercial failure elsewhere. This prompted her retirement from the industry. Agnetha fared slightly better with her second post-ABBA solo album Eyes of a Woman. The album was number two in the Swedish charts and also did reasonably well in Europe.

After I Stand Alone, in 1987 Agnetha withdrew from public life and refused to give interviews. In 1996 she released her autobiography called As I Am and also released a compilation that featured her solo hits alongside some ABBA classics. In 2004 she released a disc of cover songs called "My Colouring Book" which debuted at number one in Sweden and number six in Germany. The album peaked just outside of the British top ten (number 11) and the single If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind, a cover originally sung by Cilla Black reached number 9 in the UK singles chart. The album went triple-platinum in Sweden (300,000 copies), gold in Finland, and silver in Great Britain.

Frida released Shine (produced by Steve Lillywhite) in 1984, after which she effectively retired from the music business. However, in 1996 she staged a small but well-received comeback, releasing her last album to date, the Swedish-language Djupa Andetag (Deep Breaths). It was a number one album in Sweden (selling 90,000 copies) and critically acclaimed but she decided against an international release. A follow-up for international release was rumoured but it appears to have been shelved following the tragic deaths of Frida's daughter in 1998 and then Frida's husband in 1999. In September 2004, Frida recorded a song called "The Sun Will Shine Again" with former Deep Purple member Jon Lord for his "Beyond The Notes" album, making several promtional appearances on German television. In 2005, Frida released a 4-CD box set and an in-depth career retrospectiove DVD, indicating that, as far as her solo recording career goes, "that ship has sailed." Nevertheless Frida retains a glamorous high public profile, appearing at key social events, particularly those with a charitible slant. On August 26, 1992 Lyngstad married Prince Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen (May 24, 1950–October 29, 1999), of the German Reuss family, who died of cancer at 49 years old. Two years before, her daughter Ann Lise Lotte-Casper (1967–1997) had died at age 30 in a traffic accident in the United States. Her marriage gave her the title of HSH Princess Anni-Frid Reuss von Plauen. Today, Her Serene Highness lives in Switzerland. She is also known to be a friend of Queen Silvia of Sweden. Frida performed, with ABBA, at a concert in honor of the King and Queen's wedding in 1976, but it was through Frida's late husband, Prince Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen, that the two became better aquainted.

Legacy

ABBA's success subsequently opened the doors for many other European acts. Their lasting legacy is the legitimisation of the Swedish music industry as a mainstream player (Sweden is considered the third greatest exporter of music, following the US and the UK).

Fashion and videos

ABBA was widely noted for the colourful and trend-setting costumes its members wore. The videos which accompanied some of their biggest hits are often cited as being among the earliest examples of the genre. Though The Beatles and the Rolling Stones had shot the occasional video clip, making promotional videos still hadn't become the industry standard by the early-to-mid 1970s. Most of ABBA's videos (and ABBA - The Movie) were directed by Lasse Hallström who would later direct the films My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.

File:Ringringstill.jpg
A still from ABBA's music video, or promo clip, "Ring Ring."

ABBA made videos because their songs were hits in so many different countries and personal appearances weren't always possible. This was also an effort to minimise travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. Agnetha and Björn had two young children, and Agnetha, who was also afraid of flying, was very reluctant to leave her children for such a long time. ABBA's manager Stig Anderson realised the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicise a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour. Some of these videos became classics because of the 1970s era costumes and early video effects, such as the grouping of the band members in different combinations of pairs, overlapping one singer's profile with the other's full face, and the contrasting of one member against another. Nowadays, most of their videos can be seen on the DVDs ABBA Gold and The Definitive Collection.

Parodies

Several ABBA videos were spoofed by others: The video "Super Trouper" was satirised on the BBC comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News as "Super Dooper." The title Knowing Me, Knowing You was also borrowed for a spoof chat show on BBC starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge who always entered the studio shouting "Aha!" (an exclamation in the lyrics). UK comedy duo French and Saunders parodied ABBA with their song "C'est La Vie", an homage to "The Winner Takes it All." [3] Erasure paid homage to the ABBA video style with their video for "Take a Chance on Me."

There is a group called Abba Teens.

ABBA is very popular in karoke settings.

Music samples

Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end

Note: There are dozens of ABBA videos available at YouTube

Trivia

  • Songwriters Benny and Björn were unable to notate music on paper. Only Agnetha could (as revealed in a Dick Cavett interview with the group from 1981). The instrument parts were experimented, improvised, and overdubbed in the recording studio. [4] This limitation would later effect the production of the Mamma Mia musical as since other musicians were brought in just to sit and listen to the existing recordings and notate everything that was considered for use in the musical - an demanding task that required six months as Benny and Björn insisted on near-exact notation of their past performances. [5] The composers have also indicated that they almost always start with the music and add the words afterwards.
  • Abba has been spoofed by many TV shows, including French & Saunders [6], Not The Nine O'Clock News and Fast Forward. In addition, the character of "Alan Partridge" is noted as being a huge ABBA fan, especially on his television show Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge where all the hosts and all guests were introduced with different ABBA songs and Alan recited his ridiculous version of a line from an ABBA song: "Knowing me Alan Partridge, knowing you (name of guest), aha!" To which the guest was expected to reply "aha!" often creating much awkwardness for the guest.
  • At the height of their success ABBA was Sweden's biggest export, exceeding even Volvo cars.[citation needed]
  • While selling their music into Russia during the late 1970s, ABBA was paid in oil commodities because of an embargo on the ruble.[citation needed]
  • The song Chiquitita was first performed at the Music for UNICEF Concert in 1979. ABBA's performance at the concert was, however, lip-synched. All royalties from the song were donated to the children's charity UNICEF in perpetuity.[7]
  • In 1981, ABBA sponsored the ATS Formula One racing team, for whom Slim Borgudd, a former drummer who appeared on some ABBA recordings, was a driver.[citation needed]
  • The hit song "Bring Me Edelweiss" (1989) by Edelweiss features the tune and some lyrics from "S.O.S". This caused some controversy between Bjorn & Benny, and manager Stig - Stig had granted approval to use the song without consulting the others.[citation needed]
  • The sound track of the successful Australian film Muriel's Wedding (1994) prominently featured ABBA songs: The two female leads lip sync "Waterloo" and the wedding scene is scored to an orchestral rendition of "Dancing Queen". The movie also features "Mamma Mia", "Fernando" and "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do".
  • Another 1994 Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert features a performance of Mamma Mia! by two drag queens, furthering ABBA's status as a gay icon.
  • The ABBA tribute band Björn Again became so successful that as of 2004 there were five casts of Björn Again performing in various parts of the world. The original Björn Again had been touring for 15 years, longer than the original group.
  • Techno and house remakes of many original ABBA hits were released under the name Abbacadabra.
  • Mamma Mia! was nominated for a Broadway Tony Award as Best Musical in 2002.
  • In 2000 ABBA was reported to have turned down an offer of approximately $1,000,000,000 (one billion American dollars) to do a reunion tour.[8]
  • As of 2005 ABBA's 1976 hit single "Fernando" still held the record for the most weeks spent at number one in Australia (along with The Beatles' "Hey Jude").[9]
  • In 1975, ABBA's "SOS" became the first song with a palindromic title recorded by a group with a palindromic name to hit the pop charts.
  • ABBA was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.
  • In the film Johnny English, the title character (Rowan Atkinson) is discreetly characterized as an ABBA fan. He sings "Thank You for The Music", and lip-syncs to "Does Your Mother Know" in front of a mirror.
  • The Fugees sampled ABBA's "The Name Of The Game" (as well as Crystal Gayle) for their contribution to the 1996 "When We Were Kings" soundtrack, "Rumble in the Jungle"
  • Madonna sampled the group's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" in her 2005 single "Hung Up".

References

  • Bright Lights Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA by Carl Magnus Palm (2002) ISBN 0711991944
  • From "Abba" to "Mamma Mia!" by Carl Magnus Palm (2004) ISBN 1852278641
  1. ^ British Hit Singles & Albums (Edition 17), 2004, ISBN 0-85112-199-3

See also

Preceded by Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest
1974 		Succeeded by


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