ABBA (Continued)
| ABBA | |
|---|---|
ABBA in 1974, from left to right: Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), Agnetha Fältskog, and Björn Ulvaeus
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid |
| Origin | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Genres | Pop, pop rock, disco |
| Years active | 1972–1982 |
| Labels | Polar, Metal, Polydor, Atlantic, Universal, Epic, Vogue, RCA, PolyGram, Sunshine (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe), Ariston/Dig It (Italy) |
| Associated acts | Hep Stars, Hootenanny Singers, Benny Anderssons Orkester |
| Website | abbasite |
| Past members | Agnetha Fältskog Björn Ulvaeus Benny Andersson Anni-Frid Lyngstad |
First hit as Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny & Björn
Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements. "People Need Love" was released in June 1972, featuring guest vocals by the women, who were now given much greater prominence.Stig Anderson released it as a single, credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song peaked at number 17 in the Swedish combined single and album charts, enough to convince them they were on to something.[18]
The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at number 114 on the Cashbox singles chart and number 117 on the Record World singles chart. Labeled as Björn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), it was released there through Playboy Records.
However, according to Stig Anderson, "People Need Love" could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers.[19]
The foursome decided to record their first album together in the autumn of 1972, and sessions began on 26 September 1972. The women shared lead vocals on "Nina, Pretty Ballerina" (a top ten hit in Austria) that day, and their voices in harmony for the first time gave the foursome an idea of the quality of their combined talents.
"Ring Ring"
In 1973, the band and their manager Stig Anderson decided to have another try at Melodifestivalen, this time with the song "Ring Ring". The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a "wall of sound" production technique that became the wholly new sound.Stig Anderson arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a surefire winner. However, on 10 February 1973, the song came third in Melodifestivalen, thus it never reached the Eurovision Song Contest itself.
Nevertheless, the group released their debut studio album, also called Ring Ring. The album did well and the "Ring Ring" single was a hit in many parts of Europe and also in South Africa. However, Stig Anderson felt that the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit.[20]
When Agnetha Fältskog gave birth to her first child in 1973, she was replaced for a short period by Inger Brundin on a trip to West Germany.
Official Naming
In early 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA.At first, this was a play on words, as Abba is also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden, and itself an acronym. However, since the fish-canners were unknown outside Sweden, Anderson came to believe the name would work in international markets.
A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper. The group was impressed with the names "Alibaba", "FABB", and "Baba", but in the end all the entries were ignored and it was officially announced in the summer that the group were to be known as "ABBA".
The group negotiated with the canners for the rights to the name.[21]
"ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.[22]
During a promotional photo, Benny flipped his "B" horizontally for fun, and from 1976 onwards the first 'B' in the logo version of the name was "mirror-image" reversed on the band's promotional material and ᗅᗺᗷᗅ became the group's registered trademark.
The first time "ABBA" is found written on paper is on a recording session sheet from the Metronome Studio in Stockholm, dated 16 October 1973. This was first written as "Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida", but was subsequently crossed out with "ABBA" written in large letters on top.
The official logo, using the bold version of the News Gothic typeface, was designed by Rune Söderqvist, and appeared for the first time on the "Dancing Queen" single in August 1976, and subsequently on all later original albums and singles.
But the idea for the official logo was made by the German photographer Wolfgang Heilemann on a "Dancing Queen" shoot for the teenage magazine Bravo.
On the photo, the ABBA members held a giant initial letter of his/her name. After the pictures were made, Heilemann found out that one of the men held his letter backwards as in ᗅᗺᗷᗅ®.
They discussed it and the members of ABBA liked it. Following their acquisition of the group's catalogue, Polygram began using variations of the ABBA logo, using a different font and adding a crown emblem to it in 1992 for the first release of the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation.
When Universal Music purchased Polygram (and, thus, ABBA's label Polar Music International), control of the group's catalogue was returned to Stockholm. Since then, the original logo has been reinstated on all official products.[23]
Breakthrough (1973–1976)
Eurovision Song Contest 1974
ABBA making an appearance on Dutch TV in April 1974: Clockwise from top left Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Ulvaeus, Andersson and Stig Anderson believed in the possibilities of using the Eurovision Song Contest as a way to make the music business aware of them as songwriters, as well as the band itself. In late 1973, they were invited by Swedish television to contribute a song for the Melodifestivalen 1974 and from a number of new songs, the upbeat number "Waterloo" was chosen; the group was now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England.
ABBA won their national heats on Swedish television on 9 February 1974, and with this third attempt were far more experienced and better prepared for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Winning the 1974 Contest on 6 April 1974 gave ABBA the chance to tour Europe and perform on major television shows; thus the band saw the "Waterloo" single chart in many European countries. "Waterloo" was ABBA's first number one single in big markets such as the UK and West Germany. In the United States, the song peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album and their first trip as a group there.
Albeit a short promotional visit, it included their first performance on American television, The Mike Douglas Show. The album Waterloo only peaked at number 145 on the Billboard 200 chart, but received unanimous high praise from the US critics: Los Angeles Times called it "a compelling and fascinating debut album that captures the spirit of mainstream pop quite effectively … an immensely enjoyable and pleasant project", while Creem characterized it as "a perfect blend of exceptional, lovable compositions".[citation needed]
ABBA's follow-up single, "Honey, Honey", peaked at number 27 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and was a number 2 hit in West Germany. However, in the United Kingdom, ABBA's British record label, Epic, decided to re-release a remixed version of "Ring Ring" instead of "Honey, Honey", and a cover version of the latter by Sweet Dreams peaked at number 10.
Both records debuted on the UK chart within one week of each other. "Ring Ring" failed to reach the Top 30 in the United Kingdom, increasing growing speculation that the group was simply a Eurovision one-hit wonder.
Post-Eurovision
In November 1974, ABBA embarked on their first European tour, playing dates in Denmark, West Germany and Austria. It was not as successful as the band had hoped, since most of the venues did not sell out.Due to a lack of demand, they were even forced to cancel a few shows, including a sole concert scheduled in Switzerland. The second leg of the tour, which took them through Scandinavia in January 1975, was very different.
They played to full houses everywhere and finally got the reception they had aimed for. Live performances continued during the summer of 1975 when ABBA embarked on a fourteen open-air date tour of Sweden and Finland.
Their Stockholm show at the Gröna Lund amusement park had an estimated audience of 19,200.[24] Björn Ulvaeus later said that "If you look at the singles we released straight after Waterloo, we were trying to be more like the Sweet, a semi-glam rock group, which was stupid because we were always a pop group."[25]
In late 1974, "So Long" was released as a single in the United Kingdom but it received no airplay from Radio 1 and failed to chart. In the summer of 1975 ABBA released "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", which again received little airplay on Radio 1 but managed to climb the charts, to number 38.
Later in 1975, the release of their self-titled third studio album ABBA and single "SOS" brought back their chart presence in the UK, where the single hit number 6 and the album peaked at number 13. "SOS" also became ABBA's second number 1 single in Germany and their third in Australia.
Success was further solidified with "Mamma Mia" reaching number 1 in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia. In the United States, "SOS" peaked at number 10 on the Record World Top 100 singles chart and number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, picking up the BMI Award along the way as one of the most played songs on American radio in 1975.
The success of the group in the United States had until that time been limited to single releases. By early 1976, the group already had four Top 30 singles on the US charts, but the album market proved to be tough to crack.
The eponymous ABBA album generated three American hits, but it only peaked at number 165 on the Cashbox album chart and number 174 on the Billboard 200 chart. Opinions were voiced, by Creem in particular, that in the US ABBA had endured "a very sloppy promotional campaign".
Nevertheless, the group enjoyed warm reviews from the American press. Cashbox went as far as saying that "there is a recurrent thread of taste and artistry inherent in Abba's marketing, creativity and presentation that makes it almost embarrassing to critique their efforts", while Creem wrote: "SOS is surrounded on this LP by so many good tunes that the mind boggles".
In Australia, the airing of the music videos for "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" and "Mamma Mia" on the nationally-broadcast TV pop show Countdown (which premiered in November 1974) saw the band rapidly gain enormous popularity, and Countdown become a key promoter of the group via their distinctive music videos.
This started an immense interest for ABBA in Australia, resulting in both the single and album holding down the No. 1 positions on the charts for months.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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