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In early 1987, Fältskog recorded a Swedish-language album, Kom följ med i vår karusell (Come Join Us on Our Carousel) with her son Christian and a children's choir. The single "På Söndag" ("On Sunday") received significant airplay on Swedish radio and even made the Swedish Top 10, unique for a song made for kids to enjoy.

Also in 1987, Fältskog released her third English-language solo album, the Peter Cetera-produced I Stand Alone, which also included the Billboard Adult Contemporary duet with Cetera, "I Wasn't the One (Who Said Goodbye)", as well as the European charting singles "The Last Time" and "Let It Shine". The album was extremely successful in Sweden, where it spent eight weeks at number-one and was awarded double-platinum status. Shortly after some minor European promotion for the album in early 1988, Fältskog withdrew from public life and halted her music career. In 1996, she released her autobiography, As I Am, and a compilation album featuring her solo hits alongside some ABBA classics.

In 2004, Fältskog made a successful comeback, with the release of the critically acclaimed album My Colouring Book, containing covers of songs that had the most impact on her teenage years in the 1960s. It debuted at number-one in Sweden (achieving triple-platinum status), and was a Top 10 hit in Denmark, Finland and Germany. It also became Fältskog's second solo album to reach the UK Top 20, peaking at number 12. The single "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind" (a cover of the song recorded by Cilla Black) became Fältskog's biggest solo hit in the UK, reaching number 11, while peaking at number-two in her native Sweden. A second single, "When You Walk in the Room", was released but met with less success. In January 2007, Fältskog sang a live duet on stage with Swedish singer Tommy Körberg at the after party for the final performance of the musical, Mamma Mia!, in Stockholm, at which Andersson and Ulvaeus were also present.

In May 2013, Fältskog released a solo album entitled A through Universal International. In a promotional interview, Fältskog explained that the album was unplanned and it was after she heard the first three songs that she felt that she "had to do this [record the album]". She also revealed that she completed singing lessons prior to recording the album, as she felt her throat was "a bit rusty". Fältskog stated that she would not be undertaking any tours or live performances in support of the album, explaining: "I'm not that young anymore. I don't have the energy to do that, and also I don't want to travel too much." The title of the album was conceived of by the studio production team.[56] A proved successful upon release, reaching the Top 10 in many European countries, including Germany, Sweden and the UK (where it peaked at number-six and is Fältskog's highest-charting solo album to date), as well as Australia.

Both female members of ABBA pursued solo careers on the international scene after their work with the group. In 1982, Lyngstad chose Genesis drummer and vocalist Phil Collins to produce the album Something's Going On and unveiled the hit single and video "I Know There's Something Going On" in August of that year.[93] The single became a number-one hit in Belgium and Switzerland and was a Top 10 hit in Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa and Sweden. The track also proved successful in the US, peaking at No. 13 (and spending almost four months on the Billboard Hot 100). Sveriges Television documented this historical event, by filming the whole recording process. The result became a one-hour TV documentary, including interviews with Lyngstad, Collins, Ulvaeus and Andersson as well as all the musicians. This documentary and the promotion videos from the album are included in Frida – The DVD.

Lyngstad's second international solo album, Shine (produced by Steve Lillywhite), was recorded in Paris and released in 1984. This would be Lyngstad's final studio album release for twelve years. It featured "Slowly", the last known Andersson-Ulvaeus composition to have been recorded by one of the former female ABBA vocalists to date. The promotional videos and clips for "Shine" are included in Frida – The DVD.

In 1992, Lyngstad was chosen to be the chairperson for the environmental organisation "Artister för miljön" ("Artists for the Environment") in Sweden. She was chairperson for this organisation until 1995. To mark her interests for the environment, she recorded the Julian Lennon song "Saltwater" and performed it live in Stockholm. She arranged and financed summer camps for poor children in Sweden, focusing on environmental and ecological issues. Her environmental work for the organisation led to the decision to record again. The album Djupa andetag (Deep Breaths) was released in 1996 and became a number-one success in Sweden. The lyrics for the single, "Även en blomma" ("Even a Flower"), deal with environmental issues.

In 2004, Lyngstad recorded a song entitled "The Sun Will Shine Again", written especially for her and released with former Deep Purple member Jon Lord. The couple made several TV performances with the song in Germany.

On 5 December 2005,[94] Universal released her box set, Frida – 4xCD 1xDVD, consisting of the solo albums she recorded for the Polar Label and the 3​1⁄2-hour documentary Frida – The DVD. On this DVD, which covers her entire singing career, the viewer is guided by Lyngstad herself through the years from her TV debut in Sweden in 1967 to the TV performances she made in Germany in 2004. Many rare clips are included in the set and each performance is explained by Lyngstad herself. The interview with Lyngstad was filmed in the Swiss Alps in mid-2005.

Lyngstad returned to the recording studio in 2010 to record vocals for the Cat Stevens song "Morning Has Broken", for Swedish guitarist Georg Wadenius's album Reconnection. The album, which featured other guest vocalists, reached number 17 in Sweden.[95]

In 2018, Lyngstad and multi-Grammy winning Jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval released a reworking of the ABBA song "Andante, Andante" as a single, which is also featured on Sandoval's album Ultimate Duets.

ABBA were perfectionists in the studio, working on tracks until they got them right rather than leaving them to come back to later on.[96]

The band created a basic rhythm track with a drummer, guitarist and bass player, and overlaid other arrangements and instruments. Vocals were then added, and orchestra overdubs were usually left until last.[96]

Fältskog and Lyngstad contributed ideas at the studio stage. Andersson and Ulvaeus played them the backing tracks and they made comments and suggestions. According to Fältskog, she and Lyngstad had the final say in how the lyrics were shaped.

When we gather around the piano to get our voices tuned up, we often come up with things we can use in the backing vocals.

After vocals and overdubs were done, the band took up to five days to mix a song.[96]

Their single "S.O.S." was "heavily influenced by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and the melodies of the Beach Boys", according to Billboard writer Fred Bronson, who also reported that Ulvaeus had said, "Because there was the Latin-American influence, the German, the Italian, the English, the American, all of that. I suppose we were a bit exotic in every territory in an acceptable way."[32]

ABBA was widely noted for the colourful and trend-setting costumes its members wore.[97] The reason for the wild costumes was Swedish tax law. The cost of the clothes was deductible only if they could not be worn other than for performances.[98] Choreography by Graham Tainton also contributed to their performance style.

The videos that accompanied some of the band's biggest hits are often cited as being among the earliest examples of the genre. Most of ABBA's videos (and ABBA: The Movie) were directed by Lasse Hallström, who would later direct the films My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.[99]

ABBA made videos because their songs were hits in many different countries and personal appearances were not always possible. This was also done in an effort to minimise travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. Fältskog and Ulvaeus had two young children and Fältskog, who was also afraid of flying, was very reluctant to leave her children for such a long time. ABBA's manager, Stig Anderson, realised the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicise a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour. Some of these videos have become classics because of the 1970s-era costumes and early video effects, such as the grouping of the band members in different combinations of pairs, overlapping one singer's profile with the other's full face, and the contrasting of one member against another.

In 1976, ABBA participated in an advertising campaign to promote the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.'s brand, National, in Australia. The campaign was also broadcast in Japan. Five commercial spots, each of approximately one minute, were produced, each presenting the "National Song" performed by ABBA using the melody and instrumental arrangements of "Fernando" and revised lyrics.[100]

In September 2010, band members Andersson and Ulvaeus criticised the right-wing Danish People's Party (DF) for using the ABBA song "Mamma Mia" (with modified lyrics) at rallies. The band threatened to file a lawsuit against the DF, saying they never allowed their music to be used politically and that they had absolutely no interest in supporting the party. Their record label Universal Music later said that no legal action would be taken because an agreement had been reached.[101]

During their active career, from 1972 to 1982, ABBA placed 20 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, 14 of which made the Top 40 (13 on the Cashbox Top 100), with 10 making the Top 20 on both charts. A total of four of those singles reached the Top 10, including "Dancing Queen" which reached number one in April 1977. While "Fernando" and "SOS" did not break the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 (reaching number 13 and 15 respectively), they did reach the Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando") and Record World ("SOS") charts. Both "Dancing Queen" and "Take a Chance on Me" were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies each.[102]

The group also had 12 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, "Fernando" and "The Winner Takes It All", reaching number-one. "Lay All Your Love on Me" was ABBA's fourth number-one single on a Billboard chart, topping the Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Nine ABBA albums made their way into the top half of the Billboard 200 album chart, with seven reaching the Top 50 and four reaching the Top 20. ABBA: The Album was the highest-charting album of the group's career, peaking at No. 14. Five albums received RIAA gold certification (more than 500,000 copies sold), while three acquired platinum status (selling more than one million copies).

The compilation album ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits topped the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in August 2008 (15 years after it was first released in the US in 1993), becoming the group's first number-one album ever on any of the Billboard album charts. It has sold 6 million copies there.[103]

On 15 March 2010, ABBA were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bee Gees members Barry Gibb and Robin Gibb. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The group was represented by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson.[104]

The members of ABBA were married as follows: Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus from 1971 to 1980: Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad from 1978 to 1981.[105]

Studio albums

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property.[1] An enslaved person is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery.

In a broader sense, however, the word "slavery" may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. To describe such circumstances, scholars may use such alternate terms as unfree labour or forced labour.[2]

Under the broader use of the term slavery, but also in certain cases of actual de jure (chattel) slavery, local laws and/or customs may vest the enslaved with limited rights and protections.

Slavery has existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations.[3] It was legal in most societies at some time in the past but is now outlawed in all recognized countries.[4][5] Nevertheless, as of 2019 there were an estimated 40 million people worldwide subject to some form of slavery, 25% of them children.[6] More than half of modern slaves are used for forced labor, mostly in the private sector.[6] The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In some areas of the world, slavery continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most common source of modern slaves;[2] serfdom; domestic servants kept in captivity; certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves; child soldiers; and forced marriage.[7]

The word slave is derived from the ethnonym (ethnic name) Slav.[8][9][10] It arrived in English via the Old French sclave. In Medieval Latin the word was sclavus and in Byzantine Greek σκλάβος.[8] Use of the word arose during the Early Medieval Period, when Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe (Saqaliba) were frequently enslaved by Moors from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.[11][12][13] An older interpretation connected slave to the Greek verb skyleúo 'to strip a slain enemy'.[14]

There is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as "unfree labourer" or enslaved person, rather than "slave", should be used when describing the victims of slavery. According to those proposing a change in terminology, slave perpetuates the crime of slavery in language; by reducing its victims to a nonhuman noun instead of "carry[ing] them forward as people, not the property that they were". Other historians prefer slave because the term is familiar and shorter, or because it accurately reflects the inhumanity of slavery, with "person" implying a degree of autonomy that slavery does not allow.[15]

Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage, is a form of unfree labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan.[16] The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined.[16] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their progenitors' debt.[16] It is the most widespread form of slavery today.[2] Debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia.[17]

Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel (personal property) of the owner and are bought and sold as commodities. Typically, under the chattel slave system, children inherited slave status via the mother (partus sequitur ventrem).[18] Although it dominated many different societies throughout human history, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the legal system of any internationally recognized government.[19]

"Slavery" has also been used to refer to a legal state of dependency to somebody else.[20][21] For example, in Persia, the situations and lives of such slaves could be better than those of common citizens.[22]

Forced labour, or unfree labour, is sometimes used to describe an individual who is forced to work against their own will, under threat of violence or other punishment, but the generic term unfree labour is also used to describe chattel slavery, as well as any other situation in which a person is obliged to work against their own will, and a person's ability to work productively is under the complete control of another person.[2] This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labour. While some unfree labourers, such as serfs, have substantive, de jure legal or traditional rights, they also have no ability to terminate the arrangements under which they work and are frequently subject to forms of coercion, violence, and restrictions on their activities and movement outside their place of work.

Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution and is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil and Mexico having been identified as leading hotspots of commercial sexual exploitation of children.[2][23][24] Examples of sexual slavery, often in military contexts, include detention in "rape camps" or "comfort stations," "comfort women", forced "marriages" to soldiers and other practices involving the treatment of women or men as chattel and, as such, violations of the peremptory norm prohibiting slavery.[25][26][27][28]

In 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts.[29] More girls under 16 work as domestic workers than any other category of child labor, often sent to cities by parents living in rural poverty[30] such as in restaveks in Haiti.

Forced marriages or early marriages are often considered types of slavery. Forced marriage continues to be practiced in parts of the world including some parts of Asia and Africa and in immigrant communities in the West.[31][32][33][34] Sacred prostitution is where girls and women are pledged to priests or those of higher castes, such as the practice of Devadasi in South Asia or fetish slaves in West Africa.[2] Marriage by abduction occurs in many places in the world today, with a national average of 69% of marriages in Ethiopia being through abduction.[35]

Economists have attempted to model the circumstances under which slavery (and variants such as serfdom) appear and disappear. One observation is that slavery becomes more desirable for landowners where land is abundant but labour is scarce, such that rent is depressed and paid workers can demand high wages. If the opposite holds true, then it becomes more costly for landowners to have guards for the slaves than to employ paid workers who can only demand low wages because of the amount of competition.[36] Thus, first slavery and then serfdom gradually decreased in Europe as the population grew but were reintroduced in the Americas and in Russia as large areas of new land with few people became available.[37]

Slavery is more common when the labor done is relatively simple and thus easy to supervise, such as large-scale growing of a single crop, like sugar and cotton, in which output was based on economies of scale. This enables such systems of labor, such as the gang system in the United States, to become prominent on large plantations where field hands were monitored and worked with factory-like precision. For example, each work gang was based on an internal division of labour that assigned every member of the gang to a precise task and simultaneously made their own performance dependent on the actions of the others. The hoe hands chopped out the weeds that surrounded the cotton plants as well as excessive sprouts. The plow gangs followed behind, stirring the soil near the rows of cotton plants and tossing it back around the plants. Thus, the gang system worked like an assembly line.[38]

Since the 18th century, critics have argued that slavery tends to retard technological advancement because the focus is on increasing the number of slaves doing simple tasks rather than upgrading the efficiency of labour. For example, it is sometime argued that, because of this narrow focus, theoretical knowledge and learning in Greece – and later in Rome – was not applied to ease physical labour or improve manufacturing.[39]

Scottish economist Adam Smith states that free labour was economically better than slave labour, and that it is nearly impossible to end slavery in a free, democratic, or republican form of government since many of its legislators or political figures were slave owners, and would not punish themselves. He further states that slaves would be better able to gain their freedom when there was centralized government, or a central authority like a king or the church.[40][41] Similar arguments appear later in the works of Auguste Comte, especially when it comes to Smith's belief in the separation of powers, or what Comte called the "separation of the spiritual and the temporal" during the Middle Ages and the end of slavery, and Smith's criticism of masters, past and present. As Smith states in the Lectures on Jurisprudence, "The great power of the clergy thus concurring with that of the king set the slaves at liberty. But it was absolutely necessary both that the authority of the king and of the clergy should be great. Where ever any one of these was wanting, slavery still continues..."

Worldwide, slavery is a criminal offense, but slave owners can get very high returns for their risk. According to researcher Siddharth Kara, the profits generated worldwide by all forms of slavery in 2007 were $91.2 billion. That is second only to drug trafficking, in terms of global criminal enterprises. Currently, the weighted average global sales price of a slave is calculated to be approximately $340, with a high of $1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $40 to $50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa.[42] The weighted average annual profits generated by a slave in 2007 was $3,175, with a low of an average $950 for bonded labor and $29,210 for a trafficked sex slave.[42] Approximately 40% of slave profits each year are generated by trafficked sex slaves, representing slightly more than 4% of the world's 29 million slaves.[42]

Throughout history, slaves were clothed in a distinctive fashion, particularly with respect to the frequent lack of footwear, as they were rather commonly forced to go barefoot. This was partly because of economic reasons but also served as a distinguishing feature, especially in South Africa and South America. For example, the Cape Town slave code stated that "Slaves must go barefoot and must carry passes."[43] It also puts slaves at a physical disadvantage because of the lack of protection against environmental adversities and also in situations of possible confrontation, thereby making it more difficult to escape or to rebel against their owners.

This was the case in the majority of states that abolished slavery later in history, as most images from the respective historical period suggest that slaves were barefoot.[44]