ABBA
ABBA were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They are among the most renowned and commercially successful musical groups in history.
In, ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest for with their song "Waterloo". In 2005, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history during its 50th anniversary celebration. During their peak, ABBA comprised two married couples: Fältskog and Ulvaeus, and Lyngstad and Andersson. As their fame grew, their personal lives suffered, leading to the dissolution of both marriages. These relationship changes were reflected in the group's later music, which featured darker and more introspective lyrics. After ABBA disbanded in December 1982, Andersson and Ulvaeus continued their success writing music for stage, musicals, and films, while Fältskog and Lyngstad pursued solo careers. Ten years after the group's breakup, the compilation ABBA Gold was released and became a worldwide best-seller. In 1999, ABBA's music was adapted into Mamma Mia!, a stage musical that toured globally. As of October 2024, it remains one of the ten longest-running productions on Broadway and the West End. A film of the same name, released in 2008, became the highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom that year. A sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, was released in 2018.
ABBA have sold in excess of 400 million records worldwide. In 2004 they received an award from Polar Records and Universal Music Group to commemorate achieving worldwide record sales of 360 million between 1974 and 2004, making them one of the best-selling acts in the history of popular music. The group are ranked as the third best-selling singles artist in the United Kingdom, with a total of 11.3 million singles sold as of 3 November 2012. In May 2023, ABBA received the BRIT Billion Award, which honours artists who have surpassed one billion UK streams in their careers. They were the first group from a non-English-speaking country to achieve consistent success on the charts in English-speaking countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, the Republic of Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. ABBA are recognised as the best-selling Swedish band of all time and the best-selling band originating from continental Europe. The group achieved eight consecutive number-one albums in the UK and also enjoyed significant success in Latin America, recording a collection of their hit songs in Spanish. ABBA were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, becoming the first recording artists to receive this honour from outside an Anglophone country. In 2015, their song "Dancing Queen" was inducted into the Recording Academy's Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2024, the United States Library of Congress included the album Arrival in the National Recording Registry, recognising it as a work "worthy of preservation for all time based on its cultural, historical, or aesthetic importance in the nation's recorded sound heritage".
In 2016, the group reunited and started working on a digital avatar concert tour. Newly recorded songs were announced in 2018. Voyage, their first new album in 40 years, was released on 5 November 2021, to positive critical reviews and strong sales. ABBA Voyage, a concert residency featuring ABBA as virtual avatars, opened in May 2022 in London.
History
1958–1970: Before ABBA
Member origins and collaboration
sang with a local dance band headed by Bernt Enghardt, who sent a demo recording of their music to Karl-Gerhard Lundkvist. The demo tape featured a song written and sung by Fältskog: "Jag var så kär". Lundkvist was impressed by her voice and believed she had the potential to become a star; he sought her out and arranged her to travel to Stockholm to record two of her own compositions. As a result, at the age of 18, Fältskog achieved a number-one single in Sweden with a self-written song, which subsequently sold over 80,000 copies. She was soon noticed by critics and songwriters as a talented singer/songwriter of schlager-style songs. Along with her own compositions, she recorded covers of foreign hits and performed them on tours in Swedish folkparks. She achieved a number of successful singles on the Swedish charts, the majority of which were her own compositions. Between 1968 and 1971, Fältskog released four solo studio albums.Björn Ulvaeus also began his musical career at the age of 18, as a singer and guitarist, when he fronted the Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk-skiffle group. Ulvaeus began composing English-language songs for his group and concurrently pursued a brief solo career. The Hootenanny Singers and Benny Andersson's Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring. In June 1966, Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together. Their first attempt was "Isn't It Easy to Say", a song that was later recorded by the Hep Stars. Stig Anderson was the manager of the Hootenanny Singers and founder of the Polar Music label. He saw potential in the collaboration and encouraged them to write more. The two also began playing occasionally with the other's band on stage and on records, although it was not until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first hit songs: "Ljuva sextital", recorded by Brita Borg, and the Hep Stars' 1969 hit "Speleman".
Benny Andersson became, at age 18, a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars, that performed, among other things, covers of international hits. The Hep Stars were known as "the Swedish Beatles". They also set up Hep House, their equivalent of Apple Corps. Andersson played the keyboard and eventually started writing original songs for his band, many of which became major hits, including "No Response", which reached number three on the charts in 1965, "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", and "Consolation", all of which reached number one in 1966. Andersson also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote his first Svensktoppen entry, "Sagan om lilla Sofie", in 1968.
Andersson wrote and submitted the song "Hej, Clown" for Melodifestivalen 1969, the national festival to select the Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The song tied for first place, but re-voting relegated Andersson's song to second place. On that occasion Andersson briefly met his future spouse, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who also participated in the contest. A week later, they met again during a concert tour in southern Sweden, and soon became a couple. As their respective bands began to break up during 1969, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and recorded their first collaborative album in 1970, called Lycka, which included original songs sung by both musicians. Their partners were often present in the recording studio and sometimes added backing vocals; Fältskog co-wrote one of the songs. Ulvaeus still occasionally recorded and performed with the Hootenanny Singers until the middle of 1974, and Andersson took part in producing their records.
Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands and worked mainly in jazz-orientated cabaret music. She also formed her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. In the middle of 1967, she won a national talent competition with "En ledig dag", a Swedish version of the bossa nova song "A Day in Portofino", which is included in the EMI compilation Frida 1967–1972. The first prize was a recording contract with EMI Sweden and the opportunity to perform live on the most popular TV shows in the country. This TV performance, among many others, are included in the -hour documentary Frida – The DVD. Lyngstad released several schlager style singles on EMI with mixed success. When Benny Andersson started to produce her recordings in 1971, she had her first number-one single, "Min egen stad", written by Benny and featuring all the future ABBA members on backing vocals. Lyngstad toured and performed regularly on the folkpark circuit and made appearances on radio and TV. She had a second number-one single with "Man Vill Ju Leva Lite Dessemellan" in late 1972. She had met Ulvaeus briefly in 1963 during a talent contest and Fältskog during a TV show in early 1968.
Andersson produced Lyngstad's single "Peter Pan" in September 1969—her first collaboration with Benny and Björn, as they had written the song. Andersson would then produce Lyngstad's debut studio album, Frida, which was released in March 1971. Lyngstad also played in several revues and cabaret shows in Stockholm between 1969 and 1973. After ABBA formed, she recorded another album in 1975, Frida ensam, which included the original Swedish rendition of "Fernando", a hit on the Swedish radio charts before the English version was released by ABBA.
During filming of a Swedish TV special in May 1969, Fältskog met Ulvaeus, and they got married on 6 July 1971. Fältskog and Ulvaeus eventually were involved in each other's recording sessions, and soon Andersson and Lyngstad added backing vocals to Fältskog's third studio album, Som jag är . In 1972, Fältskog starred as Mary Magdalene in the original Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar and attracted favourable reviews.
First live performance and the start of "Festfolket"
An initial collaboration between the two couples took place in April 1970, when they travelled together to the island of Cyprus. What started as singing for fun on the beach ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the United Nations soldiers stationed on the island. Andersson and Ulvaeus were at this time recording their first album together, Lycka, which was to be released in September 1970. Fältskog and Lyngstad added backing vocals on several tracks during June, and the idea of their working together saw them launch a stage act, "Festfolket", on 1 November 1970 in Gothenburg.The cabaret show attracted predominantly negative reviews, except for the performance of the Andersson and Ulvaeus hit "Hej, gamle man" —the first Björn and Benny recording to feature all four. 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.