They have soldover 380 million albums and singles worldwide and were the first group from a non-English speaking country to have consistent success in English speaking countries. Agnetha, Bjorn , Benny and Anni-Frid - Names that put a smile on people's faces all over the world. 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 song "Waterloo" was chosen; the group were now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England. This was first written as "Bjrn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida," but was subsequently crossed out with "ABBA" written in large letters on top. Their album "Voyage" will be released November 5, and a hologram concert will premiere next spring. Here's all you need to know. Other well-known stars such as Rik Mayall, Cher and Iron Maiden's Eddie also made appearances in the video. Although "Take a Chance on Me" did not top the American charts, it proved to be ABBA's biggest hit single there, selling more copies than "Dancing Queen". [128] Also, in an interview with BBC News on 5 November, Andersson stated "if they (the ladies) twist my arm I might change my mind. The group was comprised of two females, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad, and two males, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. 23. But in the 1980s, ABBA went on an indefinite hiatus, which ended up turning into the dissolution of the band. Greatest Hits Vol. She had met Ulvaeus briefly in 1963 during a talent contest, and Fltskog during a TV show in early 1968. [24] On that occasion Andersson briefly met his future spouse, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who also participated in the contest. The group's status had changed dramatically and they were clearly regarded as superstars. The book reveals that part of the reason for the band's outrageous costumes was that Swedish tax laws at the time allowed the cost of garish outfits that were not suitable for daily wear to be tax deductible. [60] Nonetheless, the media continued to confront them with this in interviews. Along with her own compositions, she recorded covers of foreign hits and performed them on tours in Swedish folkparks. grossing some $2billion since its debut. The name of the group has been generated from the first letters of their first name. While "Fernando" and "SOS" did not break the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching number 13 and 15 respectively), they did reach the Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando") and Record World ("SOS") charts. Also included on Greatest Hits was a new single, "Fernando", which went to number-one in at least thirteen countries all over the world, including the UK, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa and Mexico, and the top five in most other significant markets, including, at number four, becoming their biggest hit to date in Canada; the single went on to sell over 10million copies worldwide. In the middle of 1975, ABBA released "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", which again received little airplay on Radio 1, but did manage to climb to number 38 on the UK chart, while making top five in several northern and western European countries, and number one in South Africa. The compilation album ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in August 2008 (15 years after it was first released in the US in 1993), becoming the group's first number-one album ever on any of the Billboard album charts. Some of these videos have become 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. Andersson has on several occasions performed ABBA songs. Young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition. Agnetha continued to have success as a solo artist after the split with three hit albums, but she then made headlines for the wrong reasons. They became among the most successful acts in the history of music. Abba have announced that they will split for good after the release of upcoming album Voyage. Benny and Anni-Frid were married between 1978 and 1980, as were Bjorn and Agnetha married in 1971 but divorced in 1979; they had a son and a daughter together. Between 1967 and 1975, Fltskog released five studio albums. Although the album was less well received by UK reviewers, it did spawn more worldwide hits: "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me", which both topped the UK charts and racked up impressive sales in most countries, although "The Name of the Game" was generally the more successful in the Nordic countries and Down Under, while "Take a Chance on Me" was more successful in North America and the German-speaking countries. Friday, Feb 17 Members Members Book Club: "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life". . Bjrn 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. (A Man After Midnight), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, 50th anniversary celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest, ABBA: Thank You for the Music, An All-Star Tribute, Recording Industry Association of America, List of awards and nominations received by ABBA, "Abba to reunite for 'new entertainment experience', "Abba reunite for Voyage, first new album in 40 years", "ABBA music enhances 'Mamma Mia!' Also in 1976, the group received its first international prize, with "Fernando" being chosen as the "Best Studio Recording of 1975". Andersson would then produce Lyngstad's debut studio album, Frida, which was released in March 1971. This tour was the last "on the road" adventure of their career. For other inquiries, Contact Us. According to the exhibition's website, ABBAWORLD is "approved and fully supported" by the band members. Mini Bio (1) ABBA is a Swedish pop group, formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fltskog, Bjrn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. 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. "I Am the City" and "Just Like That" were left unreleased on The Singles: The First Ten Years for possible inclusion on the next projected studio album, though this never came to fruition. Sources also indicate that sales in Poland exceeded 1 million copies and that sales demand in Russia could not be met by the supply available. Here We Go Again: The Movie Soundtrack, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ABBA&oldid=1133884431, Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Sweden, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2022, Articles containing Swedish-language text, Articles containing Spanish-language text, Articles containing Portuguese-language text, Articles containing Serbo-Croatian-language text, Articles containing Italian-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. 3.5 million people applied for tickets for two dates to see ABBA at London's Royal Albert Hall, enough to fill the venue an astonishing 580 times. These include Rutger Gunnarsson (19721982) bass guitar and string arrangements, Ola Brunkert (19721981) drums, Mike Watson (19721980) bass guitar, Janne Schaffer (19721982) lead electric guitar, Roger Palm (19721979) drums, Malando Gassama (19731979) percussion, Lasse Wellander (19742021) lead electric guitar, Anders Eljas (1977) keyboards and all the band's orchestration,[146] and Per Lindvall (19802021) drums. As U2 arrived in Stockholm for a concert in June of that year, the band paid homage to ABBA by inviting Bjrn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to join them on stage for a rendition of "Dancing Queen", playing guitar and keyboards. [124] "Don't Shut Me Down" became the first ABBA release since October 1978 to top the singles chart in Sweden. For this occasion, ABBA recorded the track "Hovas Vittne" (a pun on the Swedish name for Jehovah's Witness and Anderson's birthplace, Hova) as a tribute to him, and released it only on 200 red vinyl copies, to be distributed to the guests attending the party. Together, the awesome foursome have a net worth of more than $1 billion, with each member's fortune estimated at between $200 million and $300 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Agnetha Faltskog is currently 68 years old; Bjorn Alvaeus is 73 years . Albeit a short promotional visit, it included their first performance on American television, The Mike Douglas Show. After this, the duo penned the global hit Mamma Mia! The song returned to the Top 20 of the UK singles chart in August that year, this time peaking at number 16. [89][90] On 6 June 2016, the quartet appeared together at a private party at Berns Salonger in Stockholm, which was held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Andersson and Ulvaeus's first meeting. It topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, ABBA's first American number-one single on any chart. This was also done in an effort to minimise travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. [9] The project would feature the members in their "life-like" avatar form, called ABBAtars, based on their late 1970s tour and would be set to launch by the spring of 2019. Here We Go Again, was announced; the film was released on 20 July 2018. "I Have a Dream" was a sizeable hit reaching number one in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria, number three in South Africa, and number four in Germany, although it only reached number 64 in Australia. Five commercial spots, each of approximately one minute, were produced, each presenting the "National Song" performed by ABBA using the melody and instrumental arrangements of "Fernando" and revised lyrics. News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. The individual members' endeavours shortly before and after their final public performance coupled with the collapse of both marriages and the lack of significant activity in the following few years after that widely suggested that the group had broken up. Here's all you need to know. [120][121] Fltskog stated that the Voyage album and tour are likely to be their last. In May 1984, Lyngstad performed "I Have a Dream" with a children's choir at the United Nations Organisation Gala, in Geneva, Switzerland. They also performed solo numbers from respective albums, but the lukewarm reception convinced the foursome to shelve plans for working together for the time being, and each soon concentrated on individual projects again.[21]. [40] "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Bjrn, Benny, Anni-Frid, although there has never been any official confirmation of who each letter in the sequence refers to. Fltskog and Lyngstad performed live, singing "The Way Old Friends Do"[91] before they were joined on stage by Andersson and Ulvaeus. 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.". Proof of age cards bearing the "Pass" hologram symbol; UK Photo Driving . The pair won an Ivor Novello Award in 2008. The four had not seen each other for more than two years. That same year they also performed privately at another friend's 40th birthday: their old tour manager, Claes af Geijerstam. Upon their arrival in Melbourne, a civic reception was held at the Melbourne Town Hall and ABBA appeared on the balcony to greet an enthusiastic crowd of 6,000. Ulvaeus started writing English-language songs for his group and even had a brief solo career alongside. For the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, staged in Istanbul 30 years after ABBA had won the contest in Brighton, all four members made cameo appearances in a special comedy video made for the interval act, titled Our Last Video Ever. The Color Committee will be appointed by the ABBA President and will serve for the full show year. [21] The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a "wall of sound" production technique that became a distinctive new sound thereafter associated with ABBA. Andersson hinted at the possibility of a third song. [117] On 29 August, the band officially joined TikTok with a video of Benny Andersson playing "Dancing Queen" on the piano,[118] and media reported on a new album to be announced on 2 September. The two also began playing occasionally with the other's bands on stage and on record, although it was not until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first real hits together: "Ljuva sextital" ("Sweet Sixties"), recorded by Brita Borg, and the Hep Stars' 1969 hit "Speleman" ("Fiddler"). #616 [130], In May 2022, after the premiere of ABBA Voyage, Andersson stated in an interview with Variety that "nothing is going to happen after this", confirming the residency as ABBA's final group collaboration. . [42], Their official logo, distinct with the backward "B," was designed by Rune Sderqvist, who designed most of ABBA's record sleeves. Fltskog's blonde good looks had long made her the band's "pin-up girl", a role she disdained. In March 1976, the band released the compilation album Greatest Hits. However, she sang with Gary Barlow at BBC Children in Need in 2013 in her first live performance in 25 years. - In an ideal world, a study would include all members of a target population as this would provide the most accurate results. Boublil previously also wrote the French lyric for Mireille Mathieu's version of "The Winner Takes It All". It was not included in the official DVD release of the 2004 Eurovision contest, but was issued as a separate DVD release, retitled The Last Video at the request of the former ABBA members. The success of the group in the United States had until that time been limited to single releases. The group also had 12 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All", reaching number one. In January 1981, Ulvaeus married Lena Kllersj, and manager Stig Anderson celebrated his 50th birthday with a party. Two broken marriages, a horrific road traffic accident in 1983, her mums suicide in 1994 and being targeted by stalkers caused her to step away from the limelight. They both went on to remarry after ABBA, Benny remarried and had a son, while Bjorn had two daughters. Live performances continued in the middle of 1975 when ABBA embarked on a fourteen open-air date tour of Sweden and Finland. Having formed in 1972, at the height of their fame in the mid-1970s six out of seven singles in a row reached No 1 in the UK: Fernando, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, Name of the. [145] For their subsequent marriages, see their articles. "[69] ABBA won their nation's hearts on Swedish television on 9 February 1974, and with this third attempt were far more experienced and better prepared for the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2022, the group will go on tour, performing using holographic avatars of their younger selves. In 1992, Polygram added a crown emblem to it for the first release of the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits compilation. Ulvaeus stated that he wanted the band to be remembered as they were during the peak years of their success.[80]. [123] The music video for "I Still Have Faith in You", featuring footage of the band during their performing years and a first look at the ABBAtars, earned over a million views in its first three hours. This started an immense interest for ABBA in Australia, resulting in "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" staying at number one for three weeks, then "SOS" spending a week there, followed by "Mamma Mia" staying there for ten weeks, and the album holding down the number one position for months. World exclusive: Here we go again! Thank you for the music: The original cast of Abba, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. A sequel, Mamma Mia! He has been with the band since its creation in 1968. Lyngstad, who had recently moved to Paris, participated in the French version, and recorded a single, "Belle", a duet with French singer Daniel Balavoine. [137] Choreography by Graham Tainton also contributed to their performance style. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, Agnetha retreated from public life for a number of years, Frida continued her solo career post-ABBA. The group's sixth studio album, Voulez-Vous, was released in April 1979, with its title track recorded at the famous Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida, with the assistance of recording engineer Tom Dowd amongst others. Andersson played the keyboard and eventually started writing original songs for his band, many of which became major hits, including "No Response", which hit number three in 1965, and "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", and "Consolation", all of which hit number one in 1966. 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