ABBA

ABBA is a very popular Swedish pop music group which is actually considered to be the most successful band ever to come out of Scandinavia. This four singers - two men and two women - actually made many of our parents dance to ABBA's rhythms, and they are not forgotten nowadays as well. Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad and Benny Andersson, Bjurn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fultskog have all started singing in the early age. Before the the group was formed, they all released either several singles or even albums. But the real success came when one day - in the year 1971 - they met to form a new group. The name was no question to them - by uniting the first letters of their names they got A+B+B+A=: you know, what came out of it. :-). At first this name was as a joke, since Abba was also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden, but after becoming popular the group negotiated with the canners for the right to the name. There first song "People Need Love" was described by critics as having "new sound" and reached #17 in the Swedish charts, enough to convince them they were on the right way. The following year, 1973, they decided to have a try at the Melodifestivalen, with the song "Ring Ring". But in the Melodifestivalen, on 10 February 1973, it came third, and thus never reached the international contest. But it was a good start, and very promising, too. Being more experienced and prepared after the first contests, ABBA won their national heats on Swedish TV on 9 February 1974. "Waterloo" was ABBA's first UK #1 single. In the US, it reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album there. ABBA's follow-up single, "Honey, Honey", reached #27 in the US, and also became a top three hit in Germany. The release of their third album, ABBA, and their single "SOS" make their presence in UK charts, and the album reached #13. British success was further solidified with "Mamma Mia" that became a real breakthrough at the end of January 1976. In the US, "SOS" reached #10 on the Record World Top 100 singles chart, ans was recognized as one of the most played songs on American radio in 1975. The group's next album (their fourth), Arrival, became more rock-orientated - and that what people needed! Hit after hit flowed from Arrival: "Money, Money, Money", "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and their most enduring and definitive hit, "Dancing Queen". In 1977, Arrival was nominated for the inaugural BRIT Award in the category Best International Album of the Year. 1977 was the year of tours and superstar lives. They went through Western Europe to go to UK for the concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. Tickets for these two shows were available only by mail application and it was later revealed that the box-office received 3.5 million requests for tickets. In December 1977 fifth album The Album was released - more personal and more musical, as many assume, composing of "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me" and, of course, "Thank You for the Music". By 1978, ABBA were a megagroup. Their sixth album, Voulez-Vous, was met with much expectation, ans very soon became popular all over the world. For example, "I Have a Dream" became #1 in Canada. The year 1980 saw the release of ABBA's seventh album Super Trouper, which reflected a certain change in ABBA's style with more prominent use of synthesisers and increasingly more personal lyrics. "The Winner Takes It All", "Super Trouper", "Lay All Your Love on Me", The Visitors (1981), ABBA's eighth and final studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placed the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies. The Visitors was not as commercially successful as its predecessors.. February 1981 saw Andersson and Lyngstad announce their divorce, increasing speculation of tension within the band. Soon the fame fate was waiting for Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fultskog. All four members made their last public appearance - as four 'friends' more than as ABBA - in January 1986, when they recorded a video of themselves performing an acoustic version of "Tivedshambo". The four members have never officially announced the end of the group, but as the years pass by the chances of ABBA working together again have become increasingly slim, and the group is now considered dissolved. They started to work separately for the sole careers, but it was never another ABBA again. ABBA - A - B - B - A=:. The circle was completed.