50 Years of Abba

50 years ago today (October 16, 1973) was the first time the acronymic band name ABBA was put to paper. It stands for the initials of its four members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group was formed from two popular Swedish music duos, each of which was also a married couple. Their formation was largely the work of manager Stig Anderson, who also co-wrote many of their catchy, high energy, irresistible songs with Ulvaeus and Andersson.

The band came to international prominence when they won the very first Eurovision song contest in 1974 with their song “Waterloo”. That song went to #6 in the US, followed by “Honey, Honey” (1974, #27), “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” (1975, #15), “SOS” (1975, #15), “Mamma Mia ” (1975, #32), “Fernando” (1976, #13), “Dancing Queen” (1976, #1), “Money, Money, Money” (1976, #56), “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (1977, #14), “The Name of the Game” (1977, #12), “Take a Chance on Me” (1978, #3), “Chiquitita” (1979, #29), “Does Your Mother Know” (1979, #19), “The Winner Takes It All” (1980, #8), “When All is Said and Done” (1981, #27).

At their peak ABBA was on American television shows like Saturday Night Live, The Midnight Special, and American Bandstand, and they even starred in their own motion picture, ABBA: The Movie (1977). I’ve seen it; as I recall, it’s no Hard Day’s Night. Be that as it may, few bands of any nation have had as many top 40 singles or best selling albums as ABBA, and certainly they were the first continental act to crack the English-speaking market as they did. To this day, I can’t think of any other European act to land in the U.S. like ABBA. Off the top of my head, I can think of several German artists who had, like, ONE hit U.S. single. Why Swedes struck such a note is an interesting phenomenon to contemplate. Among other things, these particular Swedes had started out covering pop music from the UK and the States. They studied the music of the Beatles closely, and their music emulated the Beatles’ early formula of high energy, upbeat, harmony-heavy, melodic jingles. They seemed exotic, almost futuristic. And on top if it all, their marketing was assisted by one of the best logos, for a band or anything else, of all time. The backwards B was like the A in Beatles. One doesn’t just say their name; one visualizes it.

The group’s charmed run was over by the early 1980s. Both marriages had broken up, and they fell out with Stig Anderson over withheld royalties. The music became less peppy and more introspective and in any case had also fallen out of step with changing times. In the MTV era, their peppy, Beatles-like pop lane was occupied by British groups (Duran Duran especially). ABBA was fatally identified with the roller disco era of the 1970s. Their last single “The Day Before You Came” (October, 1982) didn’t chart in the US at all. Their previous one “The Visitors” had only gone to #62. The writing was on the wall. They disbanded at the end of 1982.

Then, of course, because nothing stays dead in the age of the internet, ABBA was reborn. The stage musical Mamma Mia! premiered in 1999; the film version arrived in 2008.

For more on show business history,please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous; and keep an eye out for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.