One of the most anticipated reunions in the history of pop culture, ABBA 2.0 is certainly a musical force to be reckoned with. A household name that evokes adolescence for many people – those in the millennial or Gen Z bracket may have grown up listening to their hit numbers or at least watching their parents watch it. The Swedish quartet from Stockholm became a pop band in 1972. After tasting success at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, the group of Agnetha Faltskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Annie-Frid Lingstad (Frida) became one of these. Goat in the history of music. The band broke up in 1982 after two couples in the group broke up. However, this did not diminish the band’s widespread popularity, as ABBA Gold, a collection of their favorite songs released 10 years after their separation, became a bestseller and the only one to spend 19 years and two weeks in the UK Top 100. The record was made. It is currently number 17 in the UK charts. Now you must have got the right idea as to why his latest album ‘Voyage’, which released on 5th November after a long gap of 47 years, has made the world go crazy. A fully virtual 2022 concert in London is also on the cards, which will see his digital avatar or ‘Abbaatar’ performing created with motion capture technology.
How did ABBA shape up?
Benny and Bjorn had already worked on a few projects together, and the idea of a band began to form after Agnetha and Frida met in 1969. ‘Festfolk’, meaning ‘party people’, was a cabaret act by four men. The name was a wordplay on Swedish slang for engaged couples – fastfolk. Although it failed to take off, they recorded ‘People Need Love’ as Björn & Benny, Agnetha and Annie-Frid, which was moderately successful. The group came third in the Swedish selection for the Eurovision contest in 1973 with the single ‘Ring, Ring’. The band also entered the competition the following year, this time with ‘Waterloo’. They held a contest in the Gothenburg newspaper to find the correct band name, but eventually settled on ABBA, an acronym made up of the initials of their name, which was coined by team manager Stig Anderson. A canned fish company in Sweden also shared the same name but agreed to lend it to a pop band. ABBA won over the jury with ‘Waterloo’ and Sweden received its first Eurovision award. The rest, as you know, is history.
highs and lows
ABBA was not always so popular. There was a time when the band was looked down upon as critics branded them as superficial and cliche, with no political color to their songs. ABBA was brash pop when progressive rock was ruling the time. The influence of the growing glam rock movement in the UK also permeated their outrageous stage outfits, a ploy to evade Swedish taxes. It has, in fact, become a non-mutually exclusive component of ABBA, so when you think about them, there’s no way you don’t even remember the flashy outfits. In their country, in particular, which had a largely egalitarian society, the ABBA were seen as money-hungry and ‘scholarly’ – a term of derision for the popular music they created. In The Journal of Popular Music Studies, music scholar Per F. Broman writes, “The problem with ABBAs was not that they lacked skill or talent, but that they were professional.” Some laughed at the faulty structure of their English songs – Agnetha and Frida initially had trouble with the language. This didn’t bother fans at all, who saw “Waterloo” top the US and European charts. In 2005, the runaway hit was named the best song to mark the 50th anniversary of Eurovision. ABBA also found a surprising fan following in Australia, who were impressed by the catchy tunes of ‘Mamma Mia’. ABBA really arrived in 1976 with their fourth music album, Arrival, with tracks like “Dancing Queen” and “Fernando”.
Bjorn married Agnetha in 1971, while Benny and Frida married in 1978. By the 80s, marriages ran into trouble, which was reflected in later songs as well. The couple parted ways shortly after, and their music became more gloomy with lyrics that were deeper than ever. ‘One of Us’, ‘Happy New Year’, ‘Our Last Summer’ and ‘Like an Angel Passing Through My Room’, all had a different tint of sadness. His last two albums ‘Super Trooper’ and ‘The Visitors’ poignantly captured the emotional turmoil in his personal life, a style far removed from his usual music.
After the band’s disbandment in 1982, several factors were at play that kept its legacy alive. Bjorn, in 2011, admitted that ABBA were “uncool” in the 80s. “But for some strange reason, we still remain popular on the gay scene.” He has always attributed the band’s revival to the gay crowd of the late ’80s and early ’90s. ABBA is for many gay fans who are Rolling Stones straight—whose appeal transcends time, place, and age, Barry Walters, a music critic, wrote in a Los Angeles Times article.
Tribute bands such as Bjorn Again also emerged and became extremely popular with sold-out shows. ABBA Gold, released in 1992, was a harbinger of its budding revival. Riding the Wave, the musical adaptation of ‘Mamma Mia!’ debuted in 1999 and became one of the longest running shows in US Broadway history. The 2008 film of the same name, which starred Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried, was the highest-grossing film in the UK that year. Its sequel, ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’, released in 2018. ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ and ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ were also film tributes.
What makes ABBA ABBA
Perhaps ABBA has stood its ground through the many revolutions that music has witnessed because it can always cure us of a sweet escape from harsh realities. With the added charm of easy-to-understand lyrics and rhyming endings, ABBA music was the perfect antidote to a heavy-duty day. Anyone can plug in any of their songs and it just sticks with you. No matter how hard you try, you find yourself footsteps and humming along to the chorus. Its non-boisterous premises and catchy music made it almost as if we were floating home on a cloud.
Carl Magnus Palm, author of the definitive biography ‘Abba: Bright Lights, Dark Shadows’, says the key is his understanding of Swedishness. “In particular it’s the importance of their melody of Swedish folk songs and the sound called Schlger. It’s not good music, but they’ve added other things like The Beach Boys and The Beatles and millions of people can relate to it.” Schlager’s simple, melodious and rhyming style of music was extremely popular in Europe. Although Pam points out, there is a hint of sadness in even the most joyous ABBA songs. The members experienced poverty and family strife while growing up in post-war Sweden, and its influence certainly seeps into the deeper layers of the song’s themes.
Yet another element that set ABBA music apart was the ‘Wall of Sound’ production formula created by American record producer Phil Spector. The band sounded more polished and heavy thanks to the double-tracking system developed by studio engineer Michael Tretto, which duplicates the instrument sounds. ABBA: Let the Music Speak writer Chris Patrick said Frida and Agnetha’s voices were of a different league altogether. Soprano, “You can’t tell any of them when you hear them in unison. It’s just a voiced voice.”
If you’re still wondering whether there’s a science to success, cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin said in a New York Times article that ABBA’s catchy melodies, simple lyrics that encourage people to sing along, and chorus Regularity, which satisfies our need for order, stimulate dopamine — our brain’s “happy juice.” While their sad songs induce prolactin, the “relaxing hormone”.
Why is ‘travel’ historical?
After selling over 385 million albums, ABBA is the first band from a non-English-speaking country to have continued success in English-speaking countries. They also had eight back-to-back number one albums in the UK. A best-selling band from Sweden as well as continental Europe, their popularity also spread to Latin America. Even with so many records under their belt, they were adamant not to meet again and reportedly turned down a $1 billion offer to tour.
Cut to 2016, they performed live for a private event and rumors started swirling again. “We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we have decided it is time to end it. We just call it the Journey and we are really sailing in unknown waters,” the band said in a statement. ‘Voyage’ is already on track to break records by becoming the fastest-selling UK album in four years. It is expected that Ed Sheeran’s ‘=’ (equals) will be dropped from the number one spot. If that happens (on November 12), it would make Voyage their 10th chart-topping album. The announcement of “Voyage”, the follow-up to their swansong “The Visitors”, and the new release “I Still Have Faith In”. Teasing the world with “You” and “Don’t Shut Me Down,” ABBA made it clear that their magic was still bursting. separated, the reunion proved to be. As “Voyage” enters an era-defining moment, ABBA is perhaps the only band to have united after nearly half a decade and produced an LP as well as future concerts. For Has made such a huge impact around the world – for an ‘album’, in fact.
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