Abba - the greatest group that almost never was - and why they became the biggest pop group of the 1970's

Even after 40+ years these famous faces need no introduction

Sweden was hardly known for its musical stars much outside of that country in the past but all that changed in 1974 when Abba won the Eurovision song contest.

But it could have been very different. Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson had known each other in passing for some years in the Swedish music scene and as a result, they started working together on song ideas as their paths crossed more frequently.

With the forward-looking entrepreneur Stig Anderson providing backing, they embarked on work which produced an album in Swedish called 'Hej, gamle man,' which means Hey old man, in English.

They decided to front their own group to bring their music to a wider audience and by chance they both had (then) girlfriends who were singers, Anni-Frid Lyngtsad, a cabaret and club singer since early teenage years and Agnetha Falkskog, a seasoned pop veteran who had composed and taken her own song in to the pop charts in her own right in the 1960's.

Waterloo - the song from the 1974 Eurovision that boosted Abba to career success

However, if the 'group' (which had formed almost by chance) had not used the 'backing singers' who had such a wealth of talent out at the front of the band, one wonders if they would have achieved the worldwide success they enjoyed?

And Bjorn and Benny wisely insisted to Stig Anderson that the use of English as the language for their songs would make them more successful outside of their native country. Being both Beatles fans, Bjorn and Benny acknowledged that English language material was likely to reach a bigger audience. These two factors led to their success along with a lot of hard work.

We must not underplay Frida and Agnetha as part of the early group, they weren't initially 'in' the group but somebody must have realised their great talent and they found themselves 'out there.' Fortunately, they were just the right people to front the group, being great singers who worked instinctively between themselves and were able to interpret the material so effectively.

The group with a small collection of songs some of which would find their way on to their 'Greatest Hits' album, were put forward for the 1974 Eurovision contest in London. I watched this performance and immediately they started their song, it was like a breath of fresh air, they were different and they stormed the contest to win.

The early album 'Greatest Hits' had some really good songs, they went from the folky 'Another town, another train,' one of my favourites to 'So long' a real rocker. Although the songs were sung in English, there was a slight 'tinge' of the native Swedish sound of the language to them and they just sounded so good. The lyrics, composition, arrangements and studio sound were real quality. The diverse breadth of subject material in the songs was interesting to think about too.

Alternative cover for the greatest hits album

So what happened in their transition from their 'Euroschlager' pop style to chart toppers? Likely the realisation that Frida and Agnetha were such tonally capable singers that Bjorn  and Benny didn't have to be the front men and that the songs Bjorn and Benny were writing together were becoming very rich in melody, words and content. Perhaps the relationships of the 4 members provided some material. 

Given that Bjorn wasn't a native English speaker, he even at this stage was producing lyrics that were high quality and made sense. He was writing in English and not writing in Swedish and translating which can often lead to ambiguity or a confused interpretation.

Tonally, Agnetha and Frida apart were good, together they were ethereal

As time progressed from the Eurovision win, it was clear that Abba were no one hit wonders. Their first six singles hit number one in the UK charts, the seventh 'Money, money, money,' did not hit the top spot but it was a really good song and perhaps sowed the germ of an idea for the later musicals.

Abba's 'Money, money, money' video - takes Frida back to her cabaret days perhaps

Not only were Frida and Agnetha attractive to look at and always well attired, but they could produce the goods vocally which was more important. They both had been involved in the performing scene for some years before Abba and had honed their voices and styles with various musical situations.

As solo singers Frida and Agnetha were very good individually, but together, their vocals were bordering on the ethereal, with a dynamic 2 octave range they could produce a sound that even today on stage, modern groups cannot get near. I once saw a show where 4 young female singers tried out an Abba song and they were 'adequate' but you could tell who wasn't singing it!

The Album - the 1977 tour to Australia was massive as was the film of the tour

The group was very popular within the European zone but demand for an Australian tour was such that the group was no doubt surprised at the reception they received in that region. It was manic and massive and overwhelming and an overwhelming success for them.

Michael Tretow at left with Benny and Bjorn at the mixing desk

Abba were one of the early groups to go to fully digital recording

The 1977 album simply titled 'the album' was a new departure, part of it broke into a small mini-production which was a toe in the water for Bjorn and Benny to go onto write musicals. The first track on the album called 'Eagle' washed in with a creamy and enveloping synth sound that sounds like a wave washing onto the beach. It set the scene for yet another quality album. Songs like 'One Man, One Woman,' were setting a darker tone and perhaps situations in the band member's relationships were coming through into the songs more.

It was the last album to feature Stig Anderson as a contributor, Bjorn and Benny were in their own right becoming masters of their own craft and it was now time for them to fly on their own, lyrically speaking.

From the video of the song 'Knowing me, knowing you'

The underpinning of the Abba sound in the studio was from their engineer Michael Tretow, his daring use of by today's standards of primitive studio effects helped give Abba their 'sound, he worked wonders with the limited tools available as we know them.'

From the compression of the acoustic guitars to give a dynamic sound as on the chorus of 'SOS,' to multi-tracking, to using effects on the vocals, this gave the group an 'edge' over many other bread and butter pop acts who just took a song into a studio and put it on tape and bothered the charts with it.

Abba went over to fully digital recording when this technology emerged and it changed their sound, it also brought new problems as Michael Tretow the studio engineer had to almost relearn the process of mixing the sounds as the harder edge sound of digital provided a new canvas to paint on and increased possibilities to explore.

It was no different for any other studio desk engineer of the day. Even today, I prefer to record by analogue input to a computer to get a warmer sound. I find digital too harsh and thin, I prefer the warmth of analogue.

The imaginative use of video by Abba was a means that allowed the group to concentrate on the studio work and writing. Certainly with young families, this added strains of touring and after all these were 4 people, not robots who could disconnect emotions and just go on tour!

The touring situations were also hard on the group, the obsessive and massive fan interest, the stream of dates were things that most groups only dream of, but to Abba it was becoming like for the Beatles two decades earlier, too much.

There had to be a way to keep themselves 'out there' without being  'out there' and the answer was Video, something they had used since 1973 on songs like the curiously titled 'Bang a Boomerang.'.

Stills from the 'Chess like' studio sequence of the 'Knowing me, knowing you video.'

The video for 'Knowing me knowing you' for example, was fairly simple in construction. But the use of the camera angles and a mild bit of choreography, produced a great video.

The studio scenes where the four performers move as if they were Chess pieces, may have planted a seed with Benny and Bjorn for the future musical 'Chess,' I mean how surreal is it to have a musical about one of the most unscintillating to most viewers, games in the world? 

The 'Knowing me' video you can watch again and again for the simple but so effective studio sequence. The song was later brought back to the attention of the public by the fictional TV presenter Alan Partridge, which must have boosted the ABBA revenues some. 

The 1979 tour London show - one London show attracted 5 million ticket applications

This was their finest live concert performance and was thankfully recorded

If you couldn't get a ticket, there was always the album,
from a group right at the top of their game

What was the secret of their success? It was due to the individuals having previously worked in the industry and developed their talents and abilities over many years collectively, an intuitive and far sighted backer with vision as Stig Anderson had, winning Eurovision which can be a death knell for some, was the worldwide exposure that set them on the course to success, good quality lyrics and music and the image of an attractive group of four people.

For about the first time in the pop world, they were a pop group who were two couples, in one pop group. It could almost have been soap opera of its time, but this in itself produced authenticity in Bjorn's songs when things started to unravel in their personal relationships, like most songwriters and writers, they draw on life and their experinces.

Even after their respective divorces, the group remained a viable unit and produced great material. Inevitably music fashions change and after the Visitors album and the last melancholic single 'The day before you came,' the curtain closed on the group when they no longer issued singles, but Frida and Agnetha released solo singles for a while after. Interestingly, at the early 80's both Frida and Agnetha looked younger than in 1973.

The germ of the musicals idea like Chess for Bjorn and Benny, grew from the Album scenes, which developed into ideas that spawned a series of musicals and ultimately led to the Mama Mia film as someone recognised their earlier work still had legs, this helped bring their music to an audience that had largely grown up some years after the group ended.

Abba 2016 the most recent time that the group was reunited

The money Rolls in, a still from the 'Money, money, money,' video, nice Rolls Royce...

As with many groups, there is always the clamour from the fans to reunite. Sometimes the years have not been kind to groups and performers and the reformed performers are a shadow of their former selves, or go on 'sad' tours of 'so and so's this and that' because the performers do not want to perform together, or there is a dispute over band name 'ownership' or where only one original member of the group is still wanting to do it.

Groups like Cream, the Shadows and the Police eventually performed 'reunited' concerts to acclaim, to the kind of degree that the Shadows had to have two farewell tours! 

But, Abba as individual members continued to have output post Abba, Bjorn and Benny with their musicals and Agnetha and Frida with their solo work, but not as a reformed Abba.

So the questions are should Abba reform or could they reform?

From a personal view as a composer and performer, I would say that their original heyday was a long time ago which I think Bjorn tends to acknowledge in his refusal to reform, but they do have an avenue they have not yet explored which is viable.

This is a group of people who have led intertwined lives for almost half a century, in that they have had a full life both as couples and apart. In their later years, they could bring the memories of the old times and of times since the group stopped, to provide new material for their songs.

As a studio and video concept it is still viable and if schedules and the will was there it could be done. I can see from Bjorn's point of view that the old group is 'over' and to perform a concert like Wembley 1979 is not viable from the group's point of view now, every night on tour.

But Abba does have an opportunity for a final reflection musically and provided the material is strong enough, they could take it as a project and make something of it, the fans would likely buy the album anyway, but perhaps that is not the point.

It needs to have for the group, songs that are musically 'relevant' and lyrics that can be related to. There is no shortage of talent to deliver that in any of the people.

Agnetha, the one most unlikely to have wanted to return has recently put out new songs, given that she has historically not wanted to tour and to perform only in the studio, perhaps this might be the way forward, to do an album project with a couple of live shows in Sweden to finally put the lid on Abba. Knowing the fans, would they be satisfied with that?

They are of course as individuals publicly known to be financially sound and do not need to do it for the money, but it would provide the final coda to a career that never officially 'ended,' it just faded after the last single left the charts.

We fortunately have the videos of the old songs to look back on with fond memories.

But you never know.....