ABBA

ABBA was a Swedish pop group consisting of former couples Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, formed in Stockholm in 1972. With around 400 million records sold, they are one of the most successful bands in music history.

The group helped shape the history of pop music. Until the 1970s, no other band from Sweden or Scandinavia had achieved comparable success. Despite American and British dominance in the music business, ABBA achieved an international breakthrough. After winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with their song Waterloo, the band was particularly successful in Europe and Australia, and later also in Latin America and Japan. Especially in the second half of the 1970s, ABBA was considered a co-founder of a new international pop music because of their elaborate and sophisticated music productions. In 1982, the group members ended their musical collaboration due to private differences. Since 2018, they have been working together again on new music, which is scheduled for release in 2021.

Their best-known songs include SOS, Mamma Mia, Fernando, Dancing Queen, Money, Money, Money, Take a Chance on Me, The Winner Takes It All and Super Trouper. The group was also characterized by their colorful, pop costumes, which were outlandish for the time, and which the quartet wore during performances and in music videos. While Ulvaeus and Andersson were mainly responsible for the lyrics and compositions of the songs, Fältskog and Lyngstad mainly acted as lead singers.

The best-of album ABBA Gold, released in 1992, is one of the world's most successful albums, with 31 million copies sold, and played a major role in the ABBA revival of the 1990s. In 1999, the musical Mamma Mia! based on ABBA songs premiered in London and has been seen by more than 60 million people to date, making it one of the most successful musicals in the world. The 2008 film adaptation of Mamma Mia! is also one of the most successful musical adaptations.

Although there have been no band performances since their unofficial split almost 40 years ago, their music is still popular. Thus, their songs continue to be produced in a wide variety of interpretations and cover versions, and are usually marketed very successfully; since 2013, there has been an ABBA museum in Stockholm.

Aftermath

The ABBA revival in the 1990s

In 1992, the British synth-pop duo Erasure released the EP single Abba-esque with cover versions of the four ABBA songs Lay All Your Love on Me, SOS, Take a Chance on Me and Voulez Vous. The single reached #1 in the UK, #2 in Germany (a total of 19 weeks in the charts), #1 in Austria (8 weeks) and #3 in Switzerland, among others. As a result of this unexpected success, ABBA songs were also subsequently covered by various artists. Artists like U2, Nirvana, R.E.M.. Madonna or Tina Turner publicly confessed their sympathies for the Swedish pop group. On 11 June 1992, Andersson and Ulvaeus came on stage during a concert of the Irish rock band U2 at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm and sang the song Dancing Queen together with singer Bono.

In autumn 1992 - about ten years after ABBA split up - the music label Polygram released the compilation ABBA Gold as a reaction to the ABBA revival. It sold so well worldwide that it reached top positions in the sales charts in many countries. The album reached number one in twelve countries, including the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Australia. In Germany, the album held the top position for eleven weeks. The success came as a complete surprise to the four ABBA members, as the CD contained only previously released material and there were no promotional dates with the former band members. In late July 2008, 16 years after its release, the album reached number one on the Billboard Pop Catalog Albums chart in the United States for the first time and the number one spot on the UK music chart for the fourth time due to the popularity of the motion picture Mamma Mia! It is the group's best-selling album with 31 million copies.

As a result, interest in the band and its music increased worldwide, and the revival continued. ABBA parties or 70s parties were again held in discotheques, at which so-called tribute or revival bands performed. Although the group itself was no longer active, ABBA received awards from all over the world in 1993 as the most successful international pop group of the year, including the World Music Award. There were platinum and multiplatinum awards as in ABBA's successful times. The second compilation CD More ABBA Gold made the Top Ten in Germany and France at the end of 1993 and reached the Top 20 in the UK and Australia. The music also became popular again there with the 1994 films Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla - Queen of the Desert. In 1999, the Swedish pop group A*Teens, which had initially been formed as ABBA Teens, entered the music scene as a youthful group that initially played songs exclusively by ABBA. Their first album The ABBA Generation reached the top of the sales charts in many countries.

The musical and the film series Mamma Mia!

Another pillar of ABBA's long-running post-breakup success is the globally successful musical Mamma Mia! which features many well-known ABBA hits such as Dancing Queen, Super Trouper and The Winner Takes It All. The background story of single mother Donna and her daughter Sophie, who is about to get married, is by British author Catherine Johnson. The world premiere took place on April 6, 1999 at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. The musical has since toured to over 150 cities worldwide, in addition to several permanent venues. The accompanying soundtrack album has also charted in many countries, including Germany (#5), Austria (#1), Switzerland (#1), the UK (#1 in the compilation charts) and the US (#1).

On February 12, 2005, all four ABBA members came to Stockholm's Cirkus Theatre for the premiere of the Swedish version of the musical. It was the first time in almost 20 years that Fältskog, Lyngstad, Andersson and Ulvaeus were seen together in public. Fältskog's attendance, in particular, was not expected. However, at the end of the performance, only Andersson and Ulvaeus went on stage. Fältskog left the theatre. There is also no photo from this event showing all four together. On 30 June 2008, the film version ofMamma Mia! premiered and was also released in German cinemas on 17 July 2008. The film became a worldwide success and held the record as the most successful musical adaptation for years, with box office takings of over 600 million US dollars. At the premiere of the film in Stockholm on 4 July 2008, all four ABBA members appeared and appeared for about two minutes together with some of the film actors on the balcony of Stockholm's Rival Theatre.

Exhibition of ABBA memorabilia

After the opening of an ABBA museum in Stockholm planned for 2008 initially did not materialize, it was announced in December 2008 that the exhibition would be shown on a world tour instead. The touring exhibition under the name "ABBA WORLD" presented over 750 exhibits to the visitors. In addition to original costumes and instruments, various memorabilia and merchandising items from the pop group were on display. The song contest medal from 1974 was also on display. The exhibition also featured various interactive presentation elements, including a replica of the former recording studio.

The first stop of the exhibition was Earls Court Exhibition Centre in the British capital London from 26 January to 28 March 2010, and on 19 June 2010 ABBA World opened at Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia. From 4 December 2010 to 3 April 2011, memorabilia was on display at ETO Park in Győr, Hungary, and from 6 May 2011, the exhibition venue was at the Slovanský dum shopping centre in Prague, Czech Republic. From March to December 2011, large parts of the exhibition were on display at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia. On 7 May 2013, the museum opened as a permanent part of the Swedish Hall of Fame in Stockholm under the name ABBA The Museum. A special attraction here is the "Ring Ring Phone", on which the four former ABBA members call at irregular intervals. Visitors thus have the opportunity to speak to the members at random.

ABBA and actors of the movie Mamma Mia! at the premiere in Stockholm (2008)


Copy of the "Waterloo costumes" in the ABBA Museum


Cover of ABBA Gold

Reception

Economic success

Marketing

A major factor in ABBA's international breakthrough was first of all their victory in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, which made the group and its simple but distinctive band name ABBA internationally famous virtually overnight. At the same time, they conveyed a new, modern image through their song Waterloo and the unusual, shrill costumes, which was predominantly judged positively by the European audience. The two singers Fältskog and Lyngstad, who were two completely different but equally attractive and likeable types of women and appeared with a fresh and positive charisma, contributed to this. For years ABBA cultivated the image of two happy and very good friends, who without the usual scandals like love affairs, drug use etc. always appeared nice and friendly in public, at TV shows and towards their fans. And even after the separation of Fältskog and Ulvaeus, the four musicians presented themselves as a group that worked together for a music project despite personal differences.

While many bands in the early 1970s were still playing music inspired by the popular English rock music of the 1960s, ABBA was striving to produce more modern, catchy and commercially successful light music. After ABBA experimented with very different musical styles on their first records - from the glam rock number Rock Me to the international hit song Honey, Honey - the group found their own and previously unproduced pop sound with their third album ABBA in 1975. Supported by a versatile choice of instruments, modern arrangements and sophisticated studio technology, which was very elaborate compared to many other pop and disco musicians of their time, ABBA achieved a very high standard of quality, both in music recording and production. The group also had a very good sense for the selection of singles and their releases, as well as for the further development of their music. Only if a song seemed "promising" to the production team, it was released. Especially the songs that were released as singles before a new album were very demanding for the ABBA team. But also the later singles had to have "hit level".

In the course of a global marketing strategy, the ABBA management around Stig Anderson from the first Greatest Hits album at the end of 1975 onwards focused on releases as uniform as possible, but again and again different titles, singles and albums - as already at the beginning of their career - were recorded and released very country-specific. Thus, there are many titles that were sung in different languages, divergent titles on the B-sides of the singles as well as many special productions and compilation albums for individual countries. In addition, the band had a high media presence in the countries that were most important to them commercially. The group gave countless interviews and appeared live on major television programs and music shows to promote new songs and albums. They also used the medium of the music video more than almost any other group. In parallel, the group performed on worldwide tours in 1977 and 1979 with elaborate stage and spotlight shows, which was known in this dimension only from very few artists.

Several factors mainly contributed to the success on a compositional level: firstly, the syllabic style, i.e. one note per lyric syllable in each song. Secondly, the correspondence between text content and song structure (text structure = song structure). Thirdly, the very well-balanced proportion of melody or syllable notes to rests and instrumental sections in most songs. Fourthly, a melodic design with simple and small tonal intervals without chromatic tones, so that the overall result is an almost folksong-like, particularly singable, easy-to-follow song in which the vocal melody already contains the underlying harmonic framework completely or to a large extent itself, even without instrumental accompaniment.

The "ABBA Empire"

In the course of the - also financially - very successful years, the four Swedes and their manager Stig Anderson built up a hardly manageable conglomerate with different companies, company participations and other capital investments, which was also often called the "ABBA Empire". Among them was, for example, the company "Sannes Trading", which Stig Anderson had founded together with the Swedish businessman Anders Wall after the group's success in Eastern Europe, with the purpose of making compensation deals with the countries of the Eastern Bloc. However, the company was not successful because the products offered by the Eastern Bloc countries could not be sold in Sweden. At the end of the 1970s, Sannes Trading was renamed "Pol Oil" and from then on concentrated on the oil business. The purchase of 55,000 tons of crude oil at the beginning of 1980 brought the company a loss of 30 million kronor, after which it had to close down.

Shortly after the breakup of the band, a massive crisis followed due to superficial and partly uncontrolled management as well as dubious financial management (including back taxes, speculative borrowing, dubious stock market speculations) with high financial losses also for Fältskog, Andersson, Ulvaeus and their manager Anderson. Only Lyngstad remained largely unscathed, as she had already sold her capital shares in the course of the separation from ABBA. In January 1990, Stig Anderson finally sold Polar Music, including almost all exploitation and licensing rights to the registered ABBA trademark, to the media conglomerate Polygram for 300 million kroner. The sale was overshadowed by a lawsuit filed by the former ABBA members against their ex-manager, when in the course of it it became known that the label had paid out only 3 percent instead of the agreed 9 percent royalties for years under his management. The conflict was settled out of court in July 1991, but led to a rift between Stig Anderson on the one hand and Fältskog, Ulvaeus and Andersson on the other.

Sales figures

There are no consistent figures on the number of ABBA records sold: Estimates range from about 140 million to over 500 million. At the beginning of 1977, the sales figures were given in a television report with 44 million (14 million albums, 30 million singles). In the spring of 1978, calculations by Polar Music gave a total of 53 million units, while the US label Atlantic Records gave record sales as 120 million as part of the band's promotional tour. This figure was also adopted in the TV special ABBA in Japan, but is questionable, not least because of the publicity fraud common in the US at the time and the label's method of calculation. In 1983, according to an estimate by the Guinness Book of Records, ABBA had already sold 125 million records. As of May 1985, their record sales were estimated by the same with 215 million units.

In 1992 it is said to have been already 250 million, as it is mentioned among others in the documentary Thank You ABBA from 1993. Through the ABBA revival, sales allegedly rose again to 350 million, which is also considered questionable. Since the official sales figures for ABBA Gold, which was instrumental in the success of the ABBA revival, are 15 million copies by 1999, 85 million other ABBA albums and singles would therefore have had to be sold to equal this figure. Based on this calculation, ABBA received a symbolic award in 2004 for 360 million records sold, and in 2010 the group was presented with another for 375 million records. In 2013, Björn Ulvaeus gave the sales figures as 380 million records, referring to Universal Music. Annually, it is estimated that over three million ABBA records are still sold. In 2019, the number of records sold was put at around 385 million.

International success

The worldwide popularity of ABBA from 1975 onwards was, apart from the commercial aspect, also remarkable in that until the 1970s there had been no other band from Sweden or Scandinavia that had achieved comparable success. The success of Swedish music artists since the 1950s had mostly been limited to their home country, with sales of 50,000 copies of an album already considered a major success. Their second album Waterloo had already set a sales record in Sweden with 250,000 copies in 1974, and their fourth album Arrival sold as many as 750,000 copies two years later. By 1979, the group had sold 2.9 million records in Sweden.

The intention to succeed on the international and especially the English-speaking music market had ABBA manager Stig Anderson as well as Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus already at an early stage. As a result, it quickly became a goal for the musicians to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest in order to at least gain recognition among a large international audience. With this in mind, many of the group's hits were produced in the early years of their career, while Anderson, as manager, used his worldwide contacts to release the songs as singles in all markets. After first successes outside their home country in 1973, especially in Scandinavia and the Benelux countries, ABBA's success after the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest was enormous, especially in Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Australia. But also in smaller to medium-sized music markets such as Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and New Zealand, the band was able to record partly great chart and sales successes.

In 1976, the most successful year of ABBA's career, the group had three number one hits in the UK, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, four number one hits in Germany and New Zealand and five number one hits in Australia. In addition, at least one of the group's singles topped the charts in Norway, Sweden, Austria, France and Switzerland in 1976.

In Germany, the group had regular promotional appearances in various popular music shows on television. In addition to occasional guest appearances on shows such as Am laufenden Band with Rudi Carrell or Aktuelle Schaubude, it was mainly appearances on music shows such as ZDF's Disco with Ilja Richter, Radio Bremen's Musikladen or Starparade presented by Rainer Holbe. In Great Britain all singles from 1974 to 1981 placed at least in the top ten of the charts, eight of them reached the top position. With a total of 11.3 million copies, ABBA today rank third among the bands with the best-selling singles in the UK. Dancing Queen is the most successful single, selling over a million copies. Until 1982 eight albums in a row reached the top position. To date, a total of 17 million ABBA albums have been sold in the UK. The release of their recordings in Great Britain was always accompanied by appearances and interviews on television as well as a total of 15 concerts in 1977 and 1979.

In contrast, the band never achieved a similarly big breakthrough in the USA. Already in 1972 the US label Playboy Records released the first records of the group, but all of them never reached the charts. In 1974, Stig Anderson signed a three-year contract with Atlantic Records, which distributed all of the band's records in the USA until their breakup. Although ABBA made promotional trips there in 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1978, none of their albums made it beyond the Top 20. The success of their singles was also limited, with one number one hit and three top ten hits; six others reached the top 20. Benny Andersson stated in a 1976 interview that the US music market was generally more difficult for bands from Europe to reach than, say, Europe or Australia. Not only music videos and TV appearances are important here, but above all the live presence of a group. However, the demand for ABBA records did not increase much after their US tour in 1979. In Japan, their success was mainly due to their promotional tour in the fall of 1978, whose television appearances and specials were released on DVD in 2009 under the title ABBA in Japan. Their concerts were completely sold out in 1980. In addition, numerous licensed LPs of ABBA were released in Japan, some of which are difficult to obtain today and therefore represent collector's items.

Criticism

In 1970s Sweden, music was strongly influenced by the progressive "Music Movement", or "Progg" for short, which included music publishers, record labels, newspapers and radio stations. Characteristic of this style of music was above all its left-wing character, which was reflected in political lyrics and was by no means geared towards commercial success. This was in contrast to ABBA, who were reproached countless times by the prog movement. The youth editor-in-chief of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation said: "Their [ABBA's] music doesn't express any feelings, and the idea of commerce constantly shines through. Thus the music becomes a passionless, cold product [...]" (Palm, 2006). The 1975 Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Sweden, led to the organization of the Alternative Festival as a counter-event and to Sweden not participating in the Song Contest the following year.

Especially after ABBA's victory in the Song Contest and in the following years, the group and their manager were criticized for their appearance. The music was described as "gifted crap" that "lacks a personal expression" (Halling, 2014). The group was called "the result of hardened cynicism," accused that their music "aims primarily to fill the creators' bank accounts without giving anything in return to the listeners" (Halling, 2014). In 1975, the article in a Swedish newspaper said, "I love you sing ABBA while pointing to the audience. But this is mendacious. ABBA don't love us, only the 20 kronor they take out of our pockets [...]" (Palm, 2006). The progg movement went so far that musicians like Janne Schaffer, Mike Watson or Ulf Andersson who collaborated with ABBA were ostracized. Schaffer, for example, was forbidden to play in halls that were under the influence of the movement. Through ABBA, a "two-class society" of music was created in Sweden at the time, in which a distinction was made between "commercial" and "non-commercial" artists.

Unlike Sweden, ABBA was largely well received in the US soon after their Song Contest victory. By this time, many critics complained that rock music had become an "often pretentious and pompous art form." ABBA thus represented an innovative new departure; for example, Ken Barnes wrote in Rolling Stone, "With their concise and fast-paced pop numbers, ABBA are much closer to actual rock 'n' roll than many of those overblown guitar cannons or those soulful groupings that seek to bring cosmo-dynamic enlightenment to the bewildered masses" (Palm, 2006). Other critics also wrote that Waterloo "stands out clearly from that whole morass of soul ballads and trivial country music [...]" (Palm, 2006). Similarly, later albums such as Arrival and ABBA - The Album received good reviews, including in Billboard magazine, which called Arrival "an album that showed signs of artistic development." The songs on The Album were praised for "the catchy, thoughtful lyrics never getting lost under the powerful backing of keyboard/synthesizer with strings, guitar and bass in the background."

In the UK, rock music critics in particular were surprised that ABBA had great success in the British market. A pop group that "just wanted to entertain" disappointed the expectation of a continuation of the lineage in rock music. ABBA was accused of not being rooted in the traditions of blues and soul music (Palm, 2006). On their concert tour through Great Britain in 1977, critics wrote that the group would "manipulate cleverly and ruthlessly", releasing "single after single with the precision of a robot"; they attested a "lack of warmth, an almost icy atmosphere in the technically perfect live shows" (Palm, 2006).

Awards and honors

ABBA received a Bravo Otto in the category "Band" from the youth magazine Bravo for nine consecutive years (1974-1982), but never reached first place ("Golden Otto") in the Bravo readers' poll.

• "Silver Otto" (2nd place): 1974, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1982.
• "Bronze Otto" (3rd place): 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1981.

On April 18, 1977, ABBA attended a gala spring festival for the Expressen newspaper and was presented with a "Golden Wasp" for the 1976 television documentary ABBA-DABBA-Doo! which had been voted the best programme of the year by the public.

In 1983 a stamp block Musik i Sverige was issued in Sweden, which also included a stamp with a motif of ABBA showing the band on a stage in front of a cheering audience. The motif is based on a photograph taken by Anders Hanser on 18 September 1979 at a concert in Portland (Oregon) (USA). Another stamp with a motif of ABBA was issued in Sweden in March 2000. The theme of this stamp is the musical development - especially in the Eurovision Song Contest (at that time Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson). On the stamp ABBA in the costumes of 1974 is juxtaposed with a young artist in a "New Wave/Techno outfit".

In 2002, ABBA was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pennsylvania, USA, which honors the world's best vocal groups.

On 23 January 2009, Fältskog and Lyngstad jointly accepted the Rockbjörnen ("Rock Bear") award in Stockholm, which was presented to the pop group for their life's work by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

In 2010, ABBA was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In September 2012, four wax figures of ABBA were made by Madame Tussauds. The figures wear the outfits with which the group had performed in 1975 as part of the promotional tour for their third album ABBA. They had been on display in London since October 2012. In January 2013, the figures moved on to Vienna, where they remained until mid-March. From 20 April 2013, the figures were on display in Berlin for two months. At the end of April 2015, the figures moved again to Vienna for three months, where they were on display as part of a special Song Contest exhibition.

Record awards for the group's record sales at the ABBA Museum (Stockholm)