Abba Where Are They Now – ABBA disbanded in 1982 when the marriages of two of the group’s couples collapsed. Credits: Instagram/ABBA
After almost half a decade, the beloved pop group ABBA is back with their fastest-selling Voyage album and digital avatars.
Abba Where Are They Now
One of the most anticipated reunions in pop culture history, ABBA 2.0 are certainly a musical force to be reckoned with. A familiar name that brings back fond memories of teenage years for many – those of the Millennial or Gen Z generation may have grown up listening to his hit, or at least seen their parents belting it out. The Swedish quartet from Stockholm had become a pop band in 1972. After tasting success at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, the group consisting of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida) emerged as one goat. in music annals. The band broke up in 1982, when the marriages of two of the band’s couples collapsed. That didn’t dampen the band’s massive popularity, however, as ABBA Gold, a collection of their best-loved songs released 10 years after their breakup, became a bestseller and the only album to spend 19 years and two weeks in the UK top 100. It’s currently number 17 in the UK charts. You might now have a good idea why their latest album Voyage, released on November 5th after a 47-year hiatus, has the world going crazy. Also on the cards is a 2022 completely virtual concert in London, where their digital avatars, or “Abbatars” created with motion capture technology, will perform.
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Benny and Bjorn had already worked together in a few projects and the idea of a band began to form in 1969 after Agnetha and Frida met. ‘Festfolk’, which means ‘party people’, was Nelone’s cabaret performance. The name was a pun on the Swedish slang for engaged couples – fästfolk. Although it failed to take off, they recorded “People Need Love” with Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, which was a moderate success. The band placed third in Sweden’s Eurovision selection with the single “Ring, Ring” in 1973. The band also participated in the competition the following year, this time with “Waterloo”. By then they had organized a competition. in a Gothenburg newspaper to find the perfect band name, eventually settling on ABBA, an acronym made up of the first letters of their name created by the team’s manager, Stig Anderson. A Swedish fish canning company also shared the same name, but agreed to lend it to a pop band. ABBA won the jury with “Waterloo” and got Sweden’s first Eurovision award. The rest, as you know, is history.
ABBA wasn’t always this popular. There was a time when the band was looked down upon by critics as superficial and clichéd with no political undertones in their songs. ABBA was unabashedly pop at a time when progressive rock was the dominant ethos of the time. The influence of the emerging glam rock movement in Great Britain also spilled over into their outrageous stage outfits, which were a ploy to evade Swedish taxes. In fact, it became a non-exclusive part of ABBA, because when you think of them, you can’t possibly remember the gaudy outfits as well. Especially in their home country, which had a largely egalitarian society, ABBA were seen as money-grubbing and “schlager” – a term of derision for the kind of popular music they made. “The problem with ABBA was not that they lacked skill or talent, but that they were commercial,” writes music scholar Per F. Broman in The Journal of Popular Music Studies. Some laughed at the incorrect construction of their English lyrics – Agnetha and Frida had problems with the language at first. This didn’t bother the fans at all, who took “Waterloo” to the top of the US and European charts. In 2005, the runaway hit was chosen as the best song in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest. ABBA unexpectedly found fans in Australia as well, who fell in love with the catchy songs of “Mamma Mia”. ABBA really arrived with their fourth music album Arrival in 1976, which included the songs “Dancing Queen” and “Fernando”.
Björn was married to Agnetha in 1971, while Benny and Frida got married in 1978. In the 80s, Marriages ran into trouble, which was also reflected in later songs. Both couples broke up soon after, and the gloom descended on their music, with lyrics that carry more depth than ever. ‘One Of Us’, ‘Happy New Year’, Our Last Summer’ and ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’, all of which had a distinct undertone of sadness. Their two most recent albums ‘Super Trouper’ and ‘The Visitors’ poignantly captured the emotional turbulence of their personal lives, far removed from their usual upbeat music.
After the band broke up in 1982, many factors contributed to what kept its legacy alive. Björn admitted in 2011 that ABBA was “uncool” in the 80s. “But for some strange reason we still remained popular in the gay world.” He has always attributed the revival of the band in the late 80s and early 90s to the gay crowd. ABBA is to many gay fans what the Rolling Stones are to the straight — whose appeal transcends time, place and age, music critic Barry Walters wrote in an article for the Los Angeles Times.
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Tribute bands like Björn Again also emerged and became extremely popular with sold-out shows. ABBA Gold, released in 1992, was like a prediction of its impending rebirth. The musical adaptation “Mamma Mia!”, which rode the wave debuted in 1999 and became one of the longest-running shows in US Broadway history. The 2008 film of the same name, starring Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried, was the highest-grossing in the UK that year. Its sequel is “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” which was released in 2018. “Muriel’s Wedding” and “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” were also credited in the film.
Perhaps ABBA has stayed put through the many revolutions music has experienced because it can always help us escape rudely. With easy-to-understand lyrics and the appeal of rhyming endings, ABBA’s music was the perfect antidote to a heavy day. You could relate to any of their songs and it just grabbed you. No matter how hard you try, you find yourself tapping your feet and humming along to the chorus. Its cheeky spaces and fresh musicality almost gave the impression that we were floating home on a cloud.
Carl Magnus Palm, author of the definitive biography, Abba: Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, says the key is their understated Swedishness. “Swedish folk songs and the Schlager sound are especially important in their music. It’s not cool music, but they added other things they loved, like The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and millions could relate to it.” The simple, upbeat, rhyming style of Schlager music was very popular in Europe. Although Palm explains There is a hint of melancholy in ABBA’s songs, the members had experienced poverty and family problems growing up in post-war Sweden, and its influence must have crept into the deeper layers of the song’s theme.
Another element that made ABBA’s music stand out was the “Wall of Sound” production formula created by American record producer Phil Spector. The band sounded more sophisticated and massive thanks to a dual-track system developed by studio engineer Michael Tretow, which amplified the sounds of the instruments. Chris Patrick, author of “ABBA: Let The Music Speak,” said Frida’s and Agnetha’s voices were in a completely different class. soprano: “When you listen to them together, you can’t tell either of them. It’s just a Monophonic sound.”
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If you’re still wondering if 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 the regularity of the chorus satisfy our needs. order, encourage dopamine – our brain’s “happy juice”. While their sad songs induce prolactin, the “comfort hormone”.
Having sold more than 385 million albums, ABBA is the first band from a non-English-speaking country to have sustained success in English-speaking countries. They even had eight consecutive number one albums in the UK. The best-selling band from Sweden and continental Europe, their popularity even spread to Latin America. Despite having so many records under their belts, they were strictly incoherent and reportedly turned down a billion dollar offer to tour.
Starting in 2016, they performed live at a private event and rumors began to circulate about a reunion. “We went on hiatus in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to call it quits. We’re simply calling it Voyage and sailing in truly uncharted waters,” the band said in a statement.
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