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ABBA. ABBA ( / ˈæbə / AB-ə, Swedish: [ˈâbːa]; stylized as АᗺBA; formerly named Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid or Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida) are a Swedish pop supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
- Agnetha Fältskog
Agneta Åse Fältskog KVO1kl (born 5 April 1950), known as...
- Anni-Frid Lyngstad
Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad KVO1kl (born 15 November 1945),...
- Abba Discography
The discography of Swedish pop music group ABBA consists of...
- Benny Andersson
Göran Bror Benny Andersson KVO1kl (Swedish: [ˈbɛ̌nːʏ...
- Arrival
Arrival is the fourth studio album by the Swedish pop group...
- Abba (Disambiguation)
ABBA ABBA, a short novel by Anthony Burgess; Jahangir Khan...
- Agnetha Fältskog
The Beginning. The ABBA story began in Sweden, more than five decades ago. In June 1966, 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.
As far as the world knew, ABBA's story started in April 1974 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo, but by that time the group had existed for two years and the individual members were virtual show business veterans in their native Sweden. It all began in June 1966, when Björn Ulvaeus met Benny Andersson for the first time.
- Overview
- Origin and Eurovision success
- Breakup and solo projects
- Cultural significance and reunion
ABBA was a Swedish Europop group whose songs dominated European charts in the 1970s. It enjoyed historic commercial success in the landscape of pop music. Group members included Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
What songs are ABBA most known for?
While ABBA produced an impressive number of hit singles, some of their most notable chart-topping songs are “Dancing Queen” (1976), “Super Trouper” (1980), and “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (1977). “Dancing Queen” stands apart for its induction into the Recording Academy’s Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.
How did the group get their name “ABBA”?
ABBA first debuted as a quartet cabaret act under the name Festfolk. Once they began to gain more recognition from participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, the group’s manager, Stig Anderson, took it upon himself to officially dub them ABBA—an acronym derived from the members’ first names.
Why did ABBA disband?
The group began to take shape in 1969, when Andersson and Ulvaeus, who had previously collaborated on a number of folk and pop projects, met Lyngstad and Fältskog. In addition to working together musically, the four paired off romantically, with Andersson becoming involved with Lyngstad and Ulvaeus dating Fältskog. The quartet debuted as the cabaret act Festfolk, a name chosen to play on two words with nearly identical pronunciations in Swedish: festfolk, meaning “party people,” and fästfolk, a 1970s slang term for “engaged couples.” Ulvaeus and Fältskog were married in 1971, and Andersson and Lyngstad followed suit in 1978. While Festfolk failed to gain a following in Sweden, the song “People Need Love,” which the group recorded as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, was a modest hit in 1972. The following year the foursome finished third in the Swedish qualifying round of the Eurovision Song Contest, with the single “Ring, Ring.” Encouraged by that success and dubbed ABBA—an acronym derived from the members’ first names—by the group’s manager, Stig Anderson, the band returned to Eurovision in 1974 and captured the top prize with the song “Waterloo.” The resulting single served as the anchor for the album of the same name, released that year.
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ABBA
More than a year after the triumph at Eurovision, ABBA (1975) truly established the group as a global pop phenomenon. The singles “Mamma Mia” and “S.O.S.” were massive hits in Europe, Australia, and North America, and the band embraced the emerging music video format to capitalize on the quartet’s shared charisma. ABBA’s 1977 release, Arrival, reached the United States at the height of the disco craze, and it provided the group with its sole American number one single—the catchy and undeniably club-friendly “Dancing Queen.” The Album (1978) marked a departure of sorts: although its standout single, “Take a Chance on Me,” was a brilliant, if straightforward, pop anthem, other tracks hinted at an art rock influence, and the album’s second side was dominated by a “mini-musical” titled “The Girl with the Golden Hair.”
While The Album marked an artistic progression for ABBA, personal relations within the band suffered when Ulvaeus and Fältskog divorced prior to the release of Voulez-Vous (1979). The pair vowed that their breakup would not affect the band’s output, but Super Trouper (1980) featured a collection of songs, most notably “The Winner Takes It All” and “Lay All Your Love on Me,” that betrayed a melancholic undercurrent that was absent in previous recordings. Andersson and Lyngstad divorced during the recording of The Visitors (1981), and the reggae rhythms of “One of Us” did little to conceal the prevailing mood of the band. This second breakup proved to be too much for the group, which disbanded in 1982.
After the demise of ABBA, Fältskog embarked on a moderately successful solo career before withdrawing from the public eye. Lyngstad had previously released a pair of solo albums under the name Frida; both were in Swedish and both had been produced by Andersson. For her English-language solo debut, she enlisted Genesis frontman Phil Collins to produce Something’s Going On (1982). The album, which featured a rock sound that was something of a departure for Lyngstad, was recorded between the release of The Visitors and the breakup of the band, and its title was a reflection of the uncertainty of that period. Ulvaeus and Andersson collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice to create Chess (1984), a concept album and stage musical that produced the surprise radio hit “One Night in Bangkok.” In 1995 the songwriting duo produced the critically acclaimed Kristina från Duvemåla (“Kristina from Duvemåla”), a stage musical based on the four-volume Emigrant series by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. Ulvaeus and Andersson merged their shared love of musical theatre with the ABBA back catalog to produce Mamma Mia!, a romantic comedy that debuted in London’s West End in 1999 and was subsequently seen by millions of people worldwide. A film version of the play, starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth, was one of the top global box office draws of 2008, earning more than $600 million. A sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, appeared in 2018.
Although the band frequently quashed rumours of a possible reunion over the following years, ABBA’s music never truly left the popular consciousness. Other groups performed ABBA songs with varying degrees of faithfulness, and British dance pop band Erasure devoted an entire EP (appropriately titled ABBA-esque [1992]) to ABBA covers. The music of ABBA was also a fixture on the big screen, playing a central role in both the plots and soundtracks of such films as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) and Muriel’s Wedding (1994). The group’s enduring appeal was amply demonstrated by the massive success of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits (1992). The compilation sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it ABBA’s most commercially successful recording. In 2021 ABBA Gold became the first album in history to spend more than 1,000 weeks on the British Top 100 albums chart.
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In 2016 Andersson announced that the group was reuniting to prepare for a “virtual” tour that would feature holographic avatars (“ABBAtars”) of the band appearing alongside live musicians. The quartet recorded two new songs—“I Still Have Faith in You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down”—and spent weeks performing in motion-capture suits to create the idealized 1979 versions of themselves that would appear as ABBAtars, but the reunion project soon grew in scope as it was overtaken by world events. The tour, originally scheduled to begin in 2019, was postponed because of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and the group responded by returning to the studio to record its first new album in nearly four decades. Voyage, released in November 2021, sold more than one million copies in its first week and topped the charts in countries around the world. Voyage was warmly received by both fans and critics, and the album’s lead single, “I Still Have Faith in You,” earned the group its first Grammy nomination. ABBA was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
Feb 24, 2021 · Capo: no capo. Author Unregistered. 4 contributors total, last edit on Feb 24, 2021. View official tab. We have an official Why Did It Have To Be Me tab made by UG professional guitarists....
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May 1, 2023 · Key: D. Capo: no capo. Author emollenkamp [a] 575. 7 contributors total, last edit on May 01, 2023. View official tab. We have an official Mamma Mia tab made by UG professional guitarists. Check...
With the lyrics written, Agnetha and Frida would come to the studio to add the magic of their vocals to the recording. As Benny once pointed out, the ladies’ voices were the most important ingredient of the group’s sound, the factor that made it sound like ABBA.
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