A GROUP WITHOUT UNPLEASANT GIMMICKS

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The story of ABBA (from start)
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ABBA HISTORY
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The Story Of ABBA (Part One)
Posted by ABBARadio
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The Story Of ABBA (Part Two)
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The History of ABBA (part 3)
Posted by gimmeabba15
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© Copyright 2008 Bebo at bebo.com

ABBA represented a healthy challenge to the two-decades-long dominance of Western pop music by Britain and the United States. The musical context from which ABBA evolved was that of so-called Euro-pop – a flossy, bouncy, sometimes triumphantly silly fluff-music that derives not from the urgency of American blues (the source of rock) but from older forms of European folk music.
ABBA were a phenomenon. There was no way around that statement. In Oz they sold more records than anybody, ever. In England their Greatest Hits set was the biggest seller of 1976. In America Dancing Queen crashed the Top 10.
In Sweden they like to joke that ABBA was the nation’s biggest provider of revenue outside of Volvo. An exaggeration, of course, but just one of ABBA’s five companies was reputed to have paid a staggering $5.6 million tax in 1976 and 1977.
ABBA was the most successful pop group in the world, a show packed worth more than $70 million.
Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid, and their manager Stig Anderson were no longer innocents writing and singing Honey, Honey.
They have grown out of that part. They have gone to the top, and at the top, it was Money, Money, Money!
ABBA the music machine became ABBA the money machine. It became big business.
ABBA was making money on a grand scale. Money was rolling in at an increasing rate, and a rumour suggested there were plans to plough some of it into one of the biggest department stores in Stockholm. A likely price was $20 million.
ABBA’s rise was more methodical than meteoric, leading some to suspect that the group was more interested in marketing than music. Anderson insisted that this was a canard. “If you’re writing good songs, why shouldn’t the marketing be as good as the rest of it?” he asked. “After all, this is the first time in the history of show business that there has been 100% artistic control of writing, marketing, recording and record label. We’re just not giving it away to some third, fourth, fifth or sixth party.”
ABBA’s music was as tightly controlled as that dialogue. Every song, not just a few, rode on sprightly rhythms, bounced from melodic hook to melodic hook and was overlaid with the chiming vocals of Agnetha (Anna) Fältskog and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad. It was just the sort of music that dominated the American Top 40 – intense beat, frothy instrumentation and well-sung lyrics, much like Cyrkle’s Red Rubber Ball
ABBA, of course, stands for easy on the ear pop music of rock derivation, carefully-honed arrangements, catchy lyrics of no great substance and a stage presentation that has audiences on their feet and cheering loudly. The two girls do a lot of hip-wriggling and bottom-pushing of rich sex appeal, but at the same time remain as cool as any ziegfeld girl of the past. The cleanness of ABBA’s act and their obvious bourgeois appeal is never in doubt.
(From abba-world.net)

Benny and Bjorn
From abbafpics.blogspot.com
The ABBA story began in June 1966 when Björn Ulvaeus (born 1945) met Benny Andersson (born 1946) for the first time. Björn was a member of the Hootenanny Singers, a very popular folk music group, while Benny played keyboards in Sweden’s biggest pop group of the 1960s, The Hep Stars.
The pair wrote their first song together later that year, and by the end of the decade they had established a regular partnership as composers. By that time, Benny had left The Hep Stars, while the Hootenanny Singers only existed in the recording studio. The Hootenanny Singers released their records on the Polar Music record label, owned by Stig Anderson (1931–1997), who was to become ABBA’s manager. Stig also contributed lyrics to many ABBA hits during the first years of the group’s career.
In the spring of 1969, Björn and Benny met the two women who were to become not only their fiancées but also the other half of ABBA. Agnetha Fältskog (born 1950) had been a successful solo singer since releasing her first single in 1967. She and Björn were married in July 1971.

Agnetha 1982
From abbafpics.blogspot.com

GRATTIS FRIDA
From abbafpics.blogspot.com

Anni-Frid, also known as Frida, started her recording career shortly before Agnetha. Frida was of Norwegian origin, but had moved to Sweden at a very early age. Benny and Frida didn’t get married until October 1978.
They entered the 1973 Swedish selections for the Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘Ring Ring’. They finished third, but the single and the album of the same name competed for the top positions on the Swedish chart. ‘Ring Ring’ also became a hit in several other European countries.
The group entered the selections again in 1974, this time with ‘ Waterloo’, which took them all the way to the finals in Brighton, England. By this time they had changed their name to ABBA, an acronym of their first names. ABBA was also the name of a Swedish canned fish company, which luckily agreed to lending their name to a pop group. The Eurovision Song Contest on April 6, 1974 turned out to be the most famous moment in ABBA history, when the group won the international juries over with ‘ Waterloo’.

ABBA wins Eurovision Song Contest 1974
Posted by RaynerJM
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ABBA - Waterloo
kamy876
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Soon after this triumph, ‘ Waterloo’ was Number One on the charts all over Europe, and even reached the US Top Ten. The album of the same name was also a huge hit in Sweden. However, the "stigma" of being winners of the Eurovision Song Contest made it difficult for ABBA to be taken seriously when they tried to follow this first success. It was not until some 18 months later that they got a major worldwide hit again with ‘SOS’, taken off their third album, simply titled ABBA.
Mamma Mia’, also taken from ABBA, returned the group to the UK Number One spot, which they occupied a total of nine times between 1974 and 1980. ‘Mamma Mia’ was also a Number One hit in Australia, which was the first territory to release it as a single in August 1975. Over the next few years, Australia would be caught up in a virtual ABBA fever, giving the group a total of six Number One hits.
(From Official ABBA biography, written by Carl Magnus Palm April 2008 for Polar Music International/Universal Music Group at abba-world.net)
In March 1976, the band released the compilation Greatest Hits, despite having had only six Top 40 hits in the UK and the US. Nevertheless, it became their first UK #1 album, and also took ABBA into the Top 50 on the US album charts for the first time, eventually selling more than a million copies there. At the same time, Germany released a compilation named "The Very Best of ABBA", also becoming a number 1 album there whereas the "Greatest hits" LP followed few months later to number 2 on the German charts, despite all similarities with "The Very Best" album. Also included on Greatest Hits was a new single, "Fernando". This song had first been written by Ulvaeus and Andersson in Swedish for Lyngstad's #1 1975 solo album Frida ensam (Frida alone). After Lyngstad's major success with the song in Scandinavia, the group decided to record an English version. With "Fernando" hitting #1 in twelve countries worldwide (including the UK and Germany), it occupied the top position in Australia for 14 weeks, tying The Beatles for longest number one for "Hey Jude", making it one of the best-selling singles of all time in that country. That same year, the group received its first international prize, with "Fernando" being chosen as the "Best Studio Recording of 1975". In the US, "Fernando" reached the Top 10 of the Cashbox Top 100 singles chart and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, ABBA's first American number one single of any kind.
(Copyright 2009, iCubator Labs, LLC)

With history making runs of releases worldwide including :
19 top 5 U.K. hits, 9 of them #1's
15 top 10 hits in Australia, 6 being # 1
12 top 3 hits in Sweden
11 top 10's in Japan, 4 hit the top
23 top 5 hits in Holland, 8 were # 1's
21 top 10 singles in Germany, 9 at # 1
13 top 30 hits in the U.S.
(From ABBA histoty page at geocities.com)

ABBA gained immense international popularity employing catchy song hooks, simple lyrics, and a Wall of Sound achieved by overdubbing the female singers' voices in multiple harmonies. As their popularity grew, they were sought after to tour Europe, Australia, and North America, drawing crowds of near-hysterical fans, notably in Australia. Touring became a contentious issue, being particularly unpopular with Agnetha, but they continued to release studio albums to great commercial success. At the height of their popularity, however, both marriages of the band members (Benny with Frida, and Björn with Agnetha) failed, and the relationship changes were reflected in their music, as they produced more thoughtful lyrics with different compositions.
The group's next album, Arrival, a number 1 bestseller all over Europe and Australia, represented a new level of accomplishment in both songwriting and studio work, prompting rave reviews from more rock-orientated UK music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express, and mostly appreciative notices from American critics. In fact, hit after hit flowed from Arrival: "Money, Money, Money", another number 1 in Germany and Australia, and "Knowing Me, Knowing You", ABBAs sixth consecutive German number 1 as well as another UK #1. The real sensation of all was "Dancing Queen", not only topping the charts in the loyal markets UK, Germany and Australia, but also reaching number 1 in the United States. In 1977, Arrival was nominated for the inaugural BRIT Award in the category "Best International Album of the Year". By this time ABBA were very popular in the UK, most of Western Europe and Australia.
In Frida the dvd, Lyngstad explains how she and Fältskog developed as singers, as ABBA's recordings got more and more complex over the years.
(Copyright 2009, iCubator Labs, LLC)

ABBA: Hit Singles from Start to Finish
Posted by Silverslayer1190
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From the video of "The Winner Takes It All"
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1982: Release of ABBA's last single
"Under Attack/You owe me one".
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ABBA working on "Super Trouper"
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ABBA's performance at the "R.D.S Main Hall", Dublin
Their last live concert, ever, in Europe
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"Mamma Mia!" is nominated for Best Soundtrack album
Motion picture or television.
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