FROM THE ARCHIVE
21 Things We Love About Abba
To celebrate the arrival of Mamma Mia! on our cinema screens, we present 21 reasons ABBA turned us all into dancing queens...
1. Agnetha
It's the big debate, who did we like the most, Agnetha or Frida? We've plumped for Aggie because she had the best hair and no matter how girl-next-door the image she projected, there was always a sense of the tears of a clown about her (she was married to Bjorn, poor thing). However, she's the one standing in the way of a reunion, so maybe we don't like her so much after all.
2. Frida
Agnetha may have been the sad one, but Anni-Frid was the drama queen. She was born during the Nazi occupation of Norway and was unknowingly part of the Nazi 'Lebensborn' plan to expand the Aryan race. Frida believed that her father had died when his ship to Germany was sunk during the war, but in 1977 discovered that her father had not died after all, and was able to meet him. These days she's Swedish royalty, married to Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss.
3. Bjorn and Benny
Let's face it, not many of us were that interested in Bjorn or Benny, despite the fact there would have been no ABBA without them. Maybe if they were a tad better looking, we would have taken more notice in those early days.
4. Waterloo
It was clear as day ABBA would sweep the boards at Eurovision 1974, even though we were rooting for Tina, who was singing Cross Your Heart for Ireland. The likes of T-Rex had come and gone in the pop charts, but their costumes appropriated glam rock into the song contest after the fact. Combined with some feisty attitude and a ditty about a war-mongering would-be dictator, the formula made them the most successful Eurovision winners ever.
5. The Hair
The blonde versus brunette thing was natural, but inspired, and the girls always gave good hair, even if they did accessorise with shockingly bad headbands, scarves, artificial flowers and bobby pins. We loved Agnetha's hair the most, because it took a kink so well. We kinda liked Frida's afro in the early days too.
6. The Clothes
For their Eurovision win, Agnetha and Frida made the band's dubious costumes with their own fair hands. In the years that followed the band were always trying to up the ante with ever more outrageous attire. Jumpsuits with matching headbands were the mostly the order of the day, along with plenty of sequinned appliqué. Our favourites were those silky kimono-like things with printed cats on them.
7. The Merchandise
Stig Anderson, ABBA's manager, was well ahead of his time when it came to merchandising. Not only did the band invent the video, but he helped them invent the band as brand too. The logo with it's trademark inverted B's was a first in pop history and it appeared on a plethora of natty products, while the ABBA dolls came with custom designed outfits - those kimono things with the cats.
8. Dancing Queen
It's this song more than any other that ensured the longevity of ABBA's popularity. In the late '80s, when it was generally considered a sin to say you ever liked ABBA, 'Dancing Queen' was the trademark song of London's gay scene. Some exec in Polydor got wind of it and, hey presto, they released ABBA Gold. Suddenly breeders everywhere got hip to the groove.
9. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
The other big gay dancefloor number, principally because it featured 'A Man After Midnight' in brackets after the main title. It first stormed the dancefloors when ABBA released Voulez Vous, an album of dance tracks aimed at the American market who had just bought the Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever in their droves. It didn't break Stateside for them, but it made them gayer than ever over here.
10. The Videos
ABBA literally invented the video. Because Agnetha in particular was so adverse to touring, Benny and Bjorn were looking for ways to visually stay in the world's consciousness, so they started filming promos for their hits. The results were laughable, but they sealed ABBA's long-lasting fame across the globe. MTV was to follow.
11. The Australian Phenomenon
Australia embraced ABBA like no other European act before or since. The Ozzie love of ABBA inspired two hugely successful antipodean films, Muriel's Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the latter of which featured one of Agnetha's turds, fished from a toilet bowl after one of their down-under concerts.
12. Abba: The Movie
You thought Madonna was the first to film a behind the scenes of a pop concert tour movie, but you'd be wrong. ABBA got there first with Abba: The Movie, released on the back of Abba: The Album in 1977. The film featured the euphoric Australian leg of their first world tour and had a hapless journalist chasing our heroes for an elusive interview. It was utter crap, but it made box office gold.
13. The Mini Musical
At the heart of Abba: The Movie was Bjorn and Benny's first foray into the land of musical theatre, a mini-musical called The Girl With Golden Hair. Although it didn't have a narrative, it's three songs, I Wonder, Thank You for the Music and I'm a Marionette showed how the ABBA idiom could fit on to the musical stage and the provided the impetus for Chess.
14. The Major Musicals
Teaming up with Tim Rice, Bjorn and Benny unleashed Chess on London's West End in 1986. It spawned Elaine Paige and Barbara Dixon's number one, I Know Him So Well and Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok (remember that?), and ran for three years, proving that much of ABBA's success came from songwriting that appealed to an audience who liked a story. It's currently being revived off-Broadway and re-tailored for the West End.
B&B’s other major musical has not been seen outside their native country – yet. Based on the Swedish epic novel, The Emigrants, it tells the story of a group of Southern Swedes who decide to settle in Minnesota, USA. Benny’s daughter has taken the title role and it made her a star at home too. A Broadway production is scheduled for 2010.
15. Mamma Mia!
Another first. In 2000 Bjorn and Benny, realising how much ABBA's songs related to musical traditions, decided to re-work their greatest hits into a musical. The result was Mamma Mia!, currently the world's most successful show with productions in 13 different countries, seen to date by 30 million people. And now we have the movie of the musical on our screens, featuring Meryl Streep playing a woman in her mid-40s and ex-Bond man, Pierce Brosnan belting out ABBA showstoppers. What’s the world coming to?
16. The Break Up Songs
There isn't another band that can match the intensity of an ABBA break-up song. That's perhaps the best of them came when the two marriages at the heart of ABBA were actually breaking up. They included, 'One of Us', 'When All is Said and Done', and the clincher, 'The Winner Takes it All'. Accompanied by a video so loaded with pain, dirty looks and bad hair, it would make you cry buckets, it gave the group their second last number one.
17. The Day Before You Came
Abba's least successful (it only charted in three countries) single was also their masterpiece. The melancholy story of a day in the life of a disaffected single girl who is just about to meet the love of her life, it showcases Bjorn and Benny at the height of their writing skills and wonderfully tear-stained vocals from Agnetha. They were never to top it.
18. The Covers
Blancmange covered 'The Day Before You Came' in 1984, as did Tanita Tikaram four years later, but perhaps the most successful and memorable ABBA covers came from Erasure, who released the Abbaesque EP in 1992. Featuring super souped-up versions of 'Lay All Your Love on Me', 'Voulez Vous', 'Take a Chance on Me' and 'S.O.S.', it brought ABBA to a new generation.
19. Bjorn Again
Agnetha Falstart, Frida Longstokin, Benny Anderwear and Björn Volvo-us surfaced in 1989 after being rescued from a desert island after a near-fatal helicopter crash. They had total amnesia, but could recall all the words to ABBA's songs. Benny described Bjorn Again as the nearest thing the world would ever get to an ABBA reunion. They kickstarted the lookalike band phenomenon.
20. The Solo Albums
After ABBA, Anni-Frid and Agnetha stayed on the circuit for a while with solo projects. The most successful of these was Frida's single 'Something's Going On', from an album of the same name (1982). Frida released a second album, Shine, in 1984 and in 1996 she made a brief native comeback with the Swedish language album Djupa andetag. Agnetha released a Swedish album during her ABBA time, and three albums, Wrap Your Arms Around Me, Eyes of a Woman and I Stand Alone in 1983, 1985 and 1987 respectively. This year, after an eight year break, she released My Colouring Book, which entered the UK charts at No'12 in June.
21. The Last Video
At the Eurovision Song Contest last May, all four members of ABBA turned up for a 30th Anniversary tribute film called The Last Video. In it they appear alongside lifesize dolls of themselves, who sing several of the bigger hits in an effort to secure a recording contract. It's released on DVD this month.