ABBA - Biography - IMDb Biography Jump to: Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (27) Trade Mark (1) Flamboyant on-stage gear / knee-high platform-soled boots / tinsel headgear Trivia (27) 6th April 1974: Won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, England, with the song "Waterloo". Anni-Frid Lyngstad was the only non-Swedish member of the group. She is Norwegian. In 1975, "SOS" became the first song with a palindromic title recorded by a group with a palindromic name - Abba - to score a Top 20 hit on the pop charts. Created the band's name ABBA by taking the first letter of the first name of each band member and flanking the males' initials with the females' initials. Artists who have requested permission to use samples of ABBA songs include: Fugees ("The Name of the Game" for "Rumble in the Jungle"), Madonna ("Gimme Gimme Gimme" for "Hung Up"), etc.

Their popular songs were mostly composed by Björn Ulvaeus (lyrics) and Benny Andersson (music). Not only were ABBA the most successful Swedish band in pop history, they were the most successful pop act to emerge from a Eurovision Song Contest victory (1974), apart from Céline Dion, who represented Switzerland in 1988. At the Swedish premiere of Mamma Mia! (2008), the foursome were seen together, in public, for the first time in 22 years. As of 2008, more than 30 million fans worldwide have seen the stage production "Mamma Mia!" When adapted for the screen, Mamma Mia! (2008) went on to become the most successful movie in the UK's box office history, outstripping the record heretofore held by the Harry Potter series. In addition to Mamma Mia! (2008), an earlier film that also features the music of ABBA is the highly acclaimed Muriel's Wedding (1994).

Before 1974, the members of the group resisted using the name ABBA, which was what fans and disk jockeys were starting to call them. A Swedish seafood company had trademarked the name in 1906. (As with the singing group, the seafood company's name was an acronym. It stands for "AB Bröderna Ameln" which translates to "Ameln Brothers, Ltd.") In 1974, the two ABBAs agreed to a deal where the singing group would pay a licensing fee to the seafood company in exchange for the use of its name. All four members of the group were the first-born children in their respective families. Anni-Frid Lyngstad was an only child. The other three each had one sister and no brothers. Have sold over 375 million records, making them the fourth best-selling music artists in the history of music. "Abba Gold" has sold over 28 million copies worldwide. It is Abba's most successful album and one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. It is the third biggest selling album of all-time in the UK with sales exceeding 4.6 million copies.

"Abba Gold" has occupied every position in the top 75 of the U.K. album chart, while also appearing in the chart every year since the release except for 2002 and 2006. It now jointly holds the title of longest time spent in the album charts (490 weeks in the Top 100) with "Greatest Hits Vol 1" by Queen. Their 1976 single "Fernando" has sold 10 million copies worldwide. In Australia the single spent 14 weeks at number one and 40 weeks on the singles chart. It topped the chart in 13 countries and sold over 6 million copies in 1976 alone. Have never scored a top 10 album in the U.S. Their highest charting album there is "ABBA: The Album" which made #14 in 1978. "Dancing Queen" is their only US number single. They scored 9 other top 20 hit singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 between 1974 and 1980. The band only ever toured 3 times in its history.

This was mainly to do with them wanting to be the headliner and not the opening act. In fact, they had only played 23 live dates in total before their 1979 tour in support of "Voulez Vous". That tour was the only time the band toured North America and would also prove to be their last world tour. Were once offered a billion dollars to do a reunion tour. During one of their live shows in Perth in 1977, an anonymous phone call informed that there was a bomb somewhere at the venue. Everyone except Benny (playing the instrumental piece "Intermezzo No 1") was evacuated. There was no bomb though and both the audience and the artists later returned to the venue and continued the evening. Anni-Frid_Lyngstad and Benny Andersson were engaged in August 1969 but did not marry until October 1978. They divorced in 1981. Agnetha_Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus married in July 1971 before filing for divorce in 1979, which was finalized in June 1980.

The 1980 single "The Winner Takes It All" was written by Björn in the aftermath of their divorce and became a major hit single. In 2009, the British performing rights group Phonographic Performance Limited celebrated its 75th anniversary by listing the 75 songs that have played most in Great Britain on the radio, in clubs and on jukeboxes. "Dancing Queen" was number eight on the list. "Waterloo" is the most successful song to come from the Eurovision Song Contest, topping several charts worldwide and selling over 6 million copies. On 22 October 2005, during the 50th celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history. They have 9 #1 singles and albums in the UK. They have sold over 18 million albums in the UK alone, making them the 7th best selling UK album artists of all time. ABBA's musical, "Chess" at the Marriott Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 1990 Joseph Jefferson Equity Award for Musical Production.

See also Why ABBA won't be getting back together - Telegraph Music news Why ABBA won't be getting back together Ahead of the release of ABBA: Live at Wembley Arena, Benny Andersson tells Craig McLean why he isn't interested in an ABBA reunion A still from ABBA: Live at Wembley, a recording of an ABBA concert from 1979 By Craig McLean 10:51AM BST 29 Sep 2014 At the ABBA Museum in Stockholm, all your dreams come true. Via the wonder of digital avatars, you can become the fifth member of the band, singing alongside Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Fridt. At another interactive exhibit, you can create your own mix of one of the innumerable hits that powered the band to 360 million album and singles sales. Or you can make your own pop video to Summer Night City. If ever a band were ripe for a ride on the reunion carousel, it’s the Swedish super-troupers, who are now being celebrated again, 40 years after their victory at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton.

Sadly, this museum is probably the closest any fan will ever get. Recreated in the small but packed museum is the small suburban kitchen inhabited by Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog in the late Seventies. In the audio guide, Ulvaeus explains how the weight of the foursome’s huge global success undermined this group comprising two married couples, creating all sorts of domestic subsidence. While his soon-to-be-ex-wife was increasingly craving more time with their children Ulvaeus, alongside songwriting partner Benny Andersson, was a slave to the recording studio. On the audio guide, we hear the result of that: Slipping Through My Fingers, a song about the lyricist’s regrets about not being around to see their son and daughter grow up. “Of course that was difficult for me too,” Fältskog told me last year, the sadness still etched into her face. We were talking in a grand, castle-style conference venue in another part of the Swedish capital. Now a 64-year-old grandmother of three, she was promoting A, her first solo album in nine years. “You want to be with them all the time.

But then, there was long periods when the boys were writing and we could take it easy and be with the children. That could be half a year sometimes. [Then] I did the opposite of ABBA – coming from hotels and this life that we had, home to dishes and cooking and being with the children. I loved to come home.” Related Articles Abba's Benny and Björn reunited for Eurovision anthem 15 Apr 2013 Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad had no children together, but Ulvaeus and Fältskog worked hard to give their kids a normal life. “Yes, and we had very, very good nannies to take care of them. I think we did it well – they’re very normal persons today.” As for her children's children, they've seen granny’s old videos, “but we don’t speak about it often. We just live a normal life. I sing with them at the piano. But they are not aware of all things that has happened.” Does it feel like another life? “It does really,” she replied quietly. “It does.” A couple of hours before my ABBA Museum experience, I have my own time-travel trip.

In his studio on the island of Skeppsholmen, a short boat-ride away, Andersson is introducing Live At Wembley Arena. It’s a recording of an ABBA concert from 1979, now being released on double-CD for the first time. The still shaggy-haired, still-spry 67-year-old pops some chewing tobacco in his mouth and presses play on a laptop. Wild cheering, clapping and whistling bursts from the speakers, accompanied by the portentous sounds of an old Swedish folk song, Gammal Fäbodsplan. Then out booms the arena-sized, synth-pop storm und drank of Voulez-Vous. After it ends, the keyboard player holds his hands up. Compared to the well-known single version (Number Three, 1979), “you can hear the tempo is slightly faster – that was the adrenalin. And I was responsible for the counting.” Pause. “But it was too fast.” Andersson gives a what-can-you-do? shrug. He plays Knowing Me, Knowing You. “Not so bad, right?” he smiles.

Then we hear Andersson introducing I’m Still Alive, written by Fältskog. From the stage Andersson calls the woman his bandmate was in the middle of divorcing “Björn’s old friend, Agnetha the little blonde girl”. The description solicits all sorts of lusty yells from that windy north London arena. Hearing this 35 years on, Andersson rolls his eyes. In her teens, pre-ABBA, The Blonde One was a busy songwriter, reaching Number One in the Swedish charts aged 17. Fältskog had 18 solo hits before joining the band. But presented with the alchemical magic of Andersson/Ulvaeus partnership, she had happily given up writing. I’m Still Alive, then, was a rare return to composition – all the rarer for never appearing on an ABBA album. Andersson professes to not know why that should be the case, then says: “She wasn’t too keen on that.

She wrote a song or two for the first albums, and then said, ‘oh, I don’t want to do that.’ I think she wrote it for the tour actually.” Acknowledging the notably personal lyric, Andersson notes that Fältskog “is very personal. She writes good stuff. She does. But,” he adds, “there are a lot songs missing here. Because this was ’79 and we worked for another three years. We have to go on the road again,” he says, playfully. “No, I’m just kidding.” Standing next to Andersson is another interested party. He’s Ludwig Andersson, producer of Live At Wembley Arena. He’s also Benny’s son with the Swedish TV producer he married in 1981, the year he divorced Lyngstad. "The Brunette One" now lives in Switzerland, with her British boyfriend, Henry Smith, 5th Viscount Hambleden, an heir of the founders of WH Smith.

A handsome, fair 32-year-old, Ludwig explains in English as smooth as his father’s how he received a hard-drive containing “a million gigabytes” of material, culled from all six of ABBA’s Wembley shows in November 1979. His task: assemble an album that faithfully captured ABBA live and, in audio form at least, ABBA mania. “It’s a very difficult thing to do. You listen to six identical evenings – ’cause they are in many says identical,” he says. “And then after a while you end up questioning your judgment – who’s to say which is better than the other? So I tried to base my judgment on just a feeling.” Methodically, Ludwig colour-coded each performance of each song with highlighter pen on sheets of paper. “So if I liked it I gave it a pink colour. And if it was OK I gave it a green. And if it wasn’t I gave it yellow.” Then he applied a points system, with pink meaning five points. “And then the evening with the highest score seemed like the right one to pick.” Was he tempted to cherry-pick all the pinks from across the six sell-out nights? He shakes his head.

He wanted to take one night. “My thought was that it would be nice to have one uncensored evening for everyone who wasn’t there.” Notably, he concedes, himself. “I did it for me,” smiles Ludwig, “’cause I wasn’t born at the time. So I never really got to hear this. So I just did it so I could listen to all the live stuff.” Did Ludwig go through a teenage phase of hating his dad’s music? “No!” he declares cheerfully. Honestly? “It’s a good question, but I don’t have anything to compare it to. For me, it was never a moment where I felt like, ‘oh my father’s doing something different to the other guys’ dads – they go to work and they come home in the evening.’ Dad went to the studio and my friends’ parents went to the office.” All four members of ABBA are still in regular, friendly contact, although it is Andersson and Ulvaeus who take the most active role in the stewardship of the brand. They were co-producers of the 2008 film of Mamma Mia!, the hit jukebox musical that moved from the world’s stages to become a giant screen success.

Ulvaeus, meanwhile, is Executive Chairman of the ABBA Museum, while Andersson and his son have taken the most active role producing this new live album. What does Benny think of current state of the music industry? “I have no clue,” he smiles. “I feel sad for everyone who’s actually a songwriter. They don’t get paid. Because of all the downloadings [sic] around the world that exist. Spotify, [and] things like Spotify – probably a good idea. It’s better than nothing. But otherwise I don’t know how they gonna do it. Because songwriters, they don’t go out on tour. They sit home and write songs. That’s not very healthy, I think. But otherwise, I think, yes, it’s very alive isn’t it? Thousands of new acts. It’s easy to come out – you do something, you put it up on your computer and it’s spread all over the world instantly. That’s nice.” The album is released as part of the ABBA 40th anniversary celebrations. It was preceded by a lavish photobook documenting the band’s career. But what’s next? Nothing, he insists – there are no “lost” albums or demo recordings. “There’s nothing.

There’s nothing,” Andersson repeats. “While we were working we took away stuff that we didn’t want to use. We completed the things we thought was good enough. That’s it, there’s nothing. I think it’s a good way to keep your cupboards clean.” And yet: with nostalgia still very much what it used to be, the clamour for an ABBA reunion continues. Around eight years ago, as Mamma Mia! madness swept the world, they were offered a $1bn payday to reform. They refused point-blank. “It is so silly when old bands go back on the road," said Ulvaeus at the time. “I would rather leave our fans with the image of us as we were. The best legacy is our records and videos.” When I met he and Andersson in London before the release of the film, the guitarist staunchly stood by that quote. “Absolutely. I feel that way. They were talking about 120 gigs or something, and television, and sponsors, and commercials and what have you," he said with a grimace. "It would have taken 10 years out of my life. Just the stress. And leaving people disappointed all the time. Eeuuurgh.

It was easy to say no to it. And we all felt the same.” Andersson chipped in. “You say, ‘what about all the fans, all the people who couldn’t come to Wembley or wherever?’ I think we’re doing them a favour by not doing [a reunion]! I thinks it’s better that everybody remembers it as it was, when we had the energy.” Now, in his lovely, wood-built studio in Stockholm, I mention to Andersson the excitement surrounding the return to the stage of Kate Bush. “She’s wonderful!” he interjects. Her current run of concerts in London are the first time she’s performed live since, coincidentally, 1979. Considering the rapturous responses to Bush’s return, is there not a small part of him intrigued to see ABBA up there, again, too? “I love her,” he replies, ignoring the question, “and she’s very, very special.” “You should tour with her!” suggests his son. “Yes!” chuckles dad. “If she needs a piano player …” But that’s it – he’s still firm that there will be no ABBA reunion? “Yes, absolutely,” he says. And all four of them are in agreement?

“Yes.” ABBA drummer dies in apparent accident - CNN.com ABBA drummer dies in apparent accident Story Highlights Ola Brunkert, who toured with ABBA in '70s, dies on Spanish island, police say Brunkert apparently fell against glass partition that broke, cutting his throat Drummer played on Swedish pop group's first single, "People Need Love" From Al Goodman CNN MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A drummer for the Swedish pop group ABBA has died after an apparent accident at his home in Spain, a Civil Guard spokeswoman said Monday. Ola Brunkert was found dead late Sunday at his home in the town of Arta on Spain's Mediterranean island of Mallorca, the spokeswoman said. Police believe Brunkert may have fallen against a glass partition separating his home's kitchen from the garden, and the glass broke and fatally cut his throat, she said. He was found in the garden and is believed to have bled to death, she added. An official cause of death is pending until after an autopsy. Brunkert, born in 1946 in Sweden , played drums on ABBA's first single, "People Need Love," according to Abba's official Web site.

He was not among the four best-known members of ABBA whose faces adorned the album covers -- Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Faltskog -- but he was a key supporting musician for the group as it achieved stardom. The group's hits included "Dancing Queen," "Waterloo," "Take a Chance on Me" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You." "Ola toured with ABBA in 1977, 1979 and 1980," the official Web site said. "Together with bass player Rutger Gunnarsson, Ola is probably the only musician to appear on all ABBA albums -- he was one of the most frequently used Swedish session musicians during the 1970s." E-mail to a friend Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid, ... Stikkan (Stig) Anderson (manager) Agnetha Fältskog Agnetha Ase Fältskog was born in Jonkoping in Southern Sweden on April 5th 1950.

She first performed at the age of six at a Christmas Party for elderly people organised by her father. By the age of 15, Agnetha, who idolised Connie Frances, was already singing regularly with a dance band, and being a guest star with others. Then in 1967 a tape was sent to a talent scout called Littler Gerhard by one of his distant relatives which contained Agnetha singing in the background, and it was this which grabbed his attention, to lead him asking the 17 year old Agnetha for a full audition tape. The tape contained a song called 'I was so in love' which clinched her a deal with CBS-Cupol (which lasted until 1975 hence 'Agnetha appears courtesy of CBS-Cupol' on the first few ABBA Albums) and by 1968 was a smash hit in Sweden. This started Agnetha's career and she had hits throughout the late 1960s/early 1970s. Then in 1970 she was to be guest on a Swedish Television show, and another guest just happened to be Björn Ulvaeus....

Björn Ulvaeus Björn Christian Ulvaeus was born in Gothenburg on April 25th 1945, and six years later moved to Vastervik. He started playing music with his first guitar by the age of 11. While he was still at school, Björn and three of his schoolmates formed his first group - West Bay Singers, which was made more formalised when they hired a Volvo and toured Europe. When they returned, the group caught the attention of Bengt Bernhag, who was a partner of Stig Andersson in Polar Music. They were then signed up and the name was changed to the Hootenanny Singers in 1964, when they became professional after completeing their exams! For two years they had constant success until in 1966 the authorities grew imaptient, and they had to go on military service. This didn't impede on their success as they were allowed to leave to continue their careers. When they finished their military service in 1967 three of the members went off to study at Gothenburg University, but Björn opted to study at Stockholm University.

It was while he was in Stockholm that he stengthened his friendship with Benny Andersson who he first met in 1966. They ten started writing songs together for Benny's Hep Stars and then performed together under the banner of Benny & Björn from 1969 - 1972. Benny Andersson Goran Bror 'Benny' Andersson was born in Stockholm on 16th December 1946, and was given his first instrument at the age of 6. This started his love affair with music which continued during his formative years. Then in 1964 he joined the Hep Stars who became the Swedish equivalent of The Beatles, but at this time had yet to get off the starting blocks. Then in 1965 the successes started with 'A Tribute to Buddy Holly'. It was also in 1965 when Benny started writing songs for the group which become huge sellers, and the Hep Stars sold thousands upon thousands of recods. However this didn't stop them from losing most of their money due to a failed film project, failed production company (called Hep House, cf.

Apple Corps) and the Swedish Inland Revenue who landed the group with a tax demand of the equivalent of #100,000. He then left the Hep Stars in 1969, and in the same year he met a certain Ann-Frid Lyngstad in a radio show.... Anni-Frid Lyngstad Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad, born in Narvik, Norway on November 15th 1945, has possibly one of the saddest starts to her life of anyone involved with ABBA. This is because she was the daughter of a German soldier, which due to the occupation of Norway during World War II bought a lot of scorn upon Frida's mother, Synni Lyngstad, people in her village would spit at her or shout abuse because of going out with a German soldier and having his child. This lead to Synni's very premature death at the age of 21. Frida's grandmother then took her to Sweden in 1947, and it was her who encouraged Frida to sing.

She first sang in public, aged ten at a Red Cross Soiree and by the age of 13 was singing professionally with a dance band at a restuarant in Eskilstuna, though she had to lie about her age - she said that she was 16! She then started singing with a big band lead by Bengt Sardlind, and Frida fell in love with another member, Ragnar Frederiksson, who with Frida went on to form the Ann-Frid 4. They also married and had tow children, Hans and Liselotte. However she still wasn't satisfied and entered many local talent competitions and won. One was the equivalent of ITV's New Faces which lead her to compete on a talent contest on SVT's Hyland's Corner. She won, and signed a contract with EMI. Despite this, she still didn't have much success, until she met Benny Andersson in 1969 who then became both her fiance and her producer! Her first hits came in 1971 and she then had solo sucesses even during ABBA's first few years (as with Agnetha) up until 1975.

Stikkan 'Stig' Anderson (manager) Stig Anderson was born on 25th January 1931 in a small village near Gotheburg. Although he was interested in music he became a school teacher. However, during this time he didn't let his interest get left behind as he continued to write songs, and by the 1950s they began to be recorded by different artists, then in 1959 he had his first Scandinavian smash-hit with 'Är Du Kär I Mig Ännu Klas-Göran' (Are you still in love with me Klas-Gï¿½ran?). In 1963 he set up his own music company called Union Songs, then along with Bengt Bernhag (who discovered the West Bay Singers and became close freind with Björn, but he died on the same day as his marriage to Agnetha) they formed Polar Music AB in 1964. He then became close freind with Björn which lead to him being asked to take Bengt's place after his death in 1971.

Björn said he would only do it if he shared the post with Benny (they had become Polar Music's chief writers by this time) which they did. Since then he went on to become an intrinsic member of ABBA, and writing the lyrics for many of their early world-wide hits (up until The Name Of The Game). However, in the mid 1980s the relationship between ABBA and Stig became very strained due to financial irregularities. Today, he has no formal link with ABBA, though the relationship with them has thawed out. Tom HUDEC , Tom=at=ABBA-dot-cz , Last modification: May 3, 2007 That's all folks! BBC - Culture - Why are Abba so popular? Popular culture Why are Abba so popular? The Swedish group burst onto the world stage 40 years ago this month – and are still one of the most successful bands of all time. Andrew Harrison asks why. By Andrew Harrison 21 October 2014 When you’ve sold as many records as Abba have – and only The Beatles have sold more – specific figures become hazy.

They disappear into a statistical stratosphere occupied by a tiny elite of global megastars. There are simply too many territories to report on, too many releases to keep track of, too many vast numbers to juggle. All one can say with any certainty is that the Swedish quartet have sold in excess of 380m albums and singles since they first came to prominence 40 years ago this month, winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with a performance of Waterloo that still ranks as the high point of the much-maligned transcontinental cheese-fest. At their commercial zenith in the late ‘70s Abba were reputedly second only to Volvo in their contribution to Sweden’s exports. Such was the demand for their music that their management had to arrange for royalties from the Soviet Union to be paid in oil commodity rights rather than the embargoed rouble. This was unprecedented popularity for an act from outside the English-speaking world, and as the recorded music business accustoms itself to the reduced circumstances of the digital age it seems unlikely that another artist will ever better it. Meanwhile, critically rehabilitated and driven on by the Mamma Mia!

juke-box musical which has now played to over 54m people worldwide, the band’s records continue to sell. One day Abba may well have sold half a billion records. View image of Abba, Melodifestivalen, 1974 (Olle Lindeborg/AFP/Getty Images) (Credit: Olle Lindeborg/AFP/Getty Images) For all that, their music remains a curious anomaly – a universally successful sound based not in the riotous, sexualised lingua franca of rock or r’n’b but in more homely, restrained and European values. If rock’n’roll is about escape and outsiderdom then Abba’s pop songs excavate the dreams and disappointments of those who never wanted to rebel. Summed up in the tumultuous ecstasy of Dancing Queen or the cascading fatalism of The Winner Takes It All, suburbia’s hopes and fears are no less epic and no less valid. And there are an awful lot more people living there. Swede dreams “The key to Abba is their understated Swedishness,” explains Carl Magnus Palm, author of the definitive biography of the band Abba: Bright Lights, Dark Shadows.

“Specifically it’s the importance to their music of Swedish folk songs and of a sound called Schlager, which means ‘hit’ in German.” Bereft of rhythm and blues or soul influences and cloyingly kitsch and sentimental to modern ears, the central European sound of Schlager was vastly popular – the soundtrack to a million camping holidays and cabaret evenings. “It’s not cool music,” says Palm, “but Abba grew up loving Schlager and they added other things that they loved like The Beach Boys and The Beatles to that simple blueprint. Millions of people related to it. “And there’s also a melancholy Nordic streak even in Abba’s happiest songs. Even in Mamma Mia there’s some extra layer of sadness that you wouldn’t hear in a contemporary record by, say, The Brotherhood of Man. There’s a depth to Abba that hints at deep sadness.” That sadness was not imagined or confected. All four members of Abba experienced private sorrows as they grew up in postwar Sweden, from family poverty to parental coldness and debilitating shyness.

Both Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid ‘Frida’ Lyngstad became unmarried parents before they reached 20; each had to make the decision to leave their children behind to pursue music. As Abba’s success grew, Benny (beard) married Frida (dark hair) and beardless Björn Ulvaeus married blonde Agnetha Fältskog, only for both couples to divorce towards the band’s end. These marital breakdowns imbued Abba’s final albums Super Trouper and The Visitors with a very adult pathos and resignation, qualities which dismissed critical charges that the band made only vapid good-time pop. But Anni-Frid’s unhappiness was of a different order. “Frida’s background is so painful that you wouldn’t believe it if it was a work of fiction,” says Palm.

View image of Anni Frid Lyngstad (Fotos International/REX) (Credit: Fotos International/REX) Born out of wedlock in 1945, the daughter of an occupying German soldier and young Norwegian girl Synni Lyngstad, Frida grew up fatherless and was ostracised as one of the shunned ‘Tyskerbarnas' or German children. She and her mother moved to Sweden for a fresh start only for Synni to die suddenly of a kidney infection. Brought the girl up in straitened circumstances by her hardworking but distant grandmother, Frida understandably developed a morose outlook on life. A withdrawn and plain girl with an amazing voice and beautiful handmade clothes, desperately in need of a father figure – it’s almost too much even for an ABBA song. (Scarcely believable misfortune followed Frida even after the end of Abba. She married the Swiss-born Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss of Plauen in 1992 to become an actual princess. But the prince to died of lymphoma not long after Frida’s eldest daughter Lise-Lotte was killed in a car crash).

Super troupers When the band finally hit the big time, one of their strengths was that they were not newcomers arriving with the first song’s they’d written. All four had over a decade of experience in songwriting, recording and gruelling tours – hundreds of dates a year, sometimes three shows a day – across Sweden’s unforgiving municipal folkparks. Björn had been a key member of the clean-cut Hootenanny Singers (“the worst name that any band has ever had,” he once said. “It’s just so ugly, possibly beaten only by Abba”) and Benny played with Swedish rock band The Hep Stars. Agnetha already had a patchy career singing Schlager and Frida sang blues and jazz. Though they formed Abba at a low ebb in their individual fortunes, the band was in fact a sort of supergroup. “They were lucky in that they’d got most of their really bad songs out of their system before they formed Abba,” says Carl Magnus Palm. “By then they were seasoned performers. When you see them on Eurovision in 1974 you can tell that they’re not new to the stage. They’re confident, they know what they’re doing.

And they were perhaps lucky that they were initially popular only in Sweden and Scandinavia for the first few years of Abba, in 1972 and 1973. By the time they came on the international scene with Waterloo they had a much clearer picture of what they wanted to be.” View image of Abba, 1976 (Andre Csillag/REX) (Credit: Andre Csillag/REX) What they wanted to be was something new in pop – the companionable singalongs of Schlager allied to meticulous songwriting and a giant ‘Wall of Sound’ production drawn from the visionary American producer Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and the English-speaking pop tradition. Detail would be everything, and key to ABBA’s success was studio engineer Michael Tretow who created a form of double-tracking which duplicated the instruments and made the band sound enormous. Abba didn’t just have better songs. They sounded like nothing we’d heard before. “When you listen to The Name Of The Game by Abba it’s just got so many bits in it, far more than you notice at first,” observes Neil Tennant, Ivor Novello-winning singer with Pet Shop Boys.

“They’re all incredibly catchy and moving at the same time. They gently bring up that yearning, Phil Spector quality that is so marvellous.” Abba dissolved at the end of 1982 and by now even the most committed fan surely accepts that they will never work together again. The legal acrimony of the post-split years has ebbed away and by all accounts the four former members of Abba get along well now. With the Mamma Mia musical playing around the world – enabling the music to tour without the band and, as a sideline, resurrecting the stage musical – there seems little need for a reunion, and little to prove either. “Abba didn’t just write great songs, they made great records and that was their secret,” says Palm. “They conceived them as productions and arrangements – visions of perfect pop music. Why are there so few successful covers of Abba songs? Because they’re just so hard to inhabit. “To sound like Abba,” he says, “you have to be Abba.” If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter .

ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog: Why I loved singing about the pain of my divorce | Daily Mail Online Share this article Share Her confession to The Mail on Sunday’s You magazine comes despite her ex-husband previously insisting that the song was ‘fiction’. Miss Fältskog, who is now single, said she is on good terms with Björn, having put their differences aside for the sake of their two children. ‘Björn and I have dealt with the heartbreak,’ she said. ‘It’s amicable. In love there are so many ups and downs but I remain optimistic. I haven’t closed any doors.’ SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW Abba stars Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaaus before the collapse of their marriage For a decade she was one of the most famous faces in the world – then, when Abba broke up in 1982, Agnetha Faltskog walked away from the public eye.

In her first major interview for three decades, she talks to Moira Petty about the loves and losses of the intervening years – and about ending her seclusion to record an album once again Looking back: Agnetha Faltskog opens up after decades of virtual radio silence Passengers arriving at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport trundle through to the feel-good beat of Abba’s greatest hits. Honestly, it takes restraint not to execute a few dodgy disco moves as the tunes blast out from huge screens advertising Abba The Museum. Once Sweden’s second most important export after Volvo, Abba is still, more than 30 years after disbanding, helping to sell the country’s brand to visitors. The new monument to the group’s decade of dancefloor dynamite is timely, as Agnetha Fältskog, always the most retiring of the Abba four, has emerged from her Swedish island home to release an album of new songs. But my first glimpse of her is the 1978 Agnetha, all 1970s knitwear, high boots and pale blue eyeshadow, as the video for ‘Take A Chance On Me’ beams out across the arrivals hall.

Then she’s full screen, eyes full of inky emotion, lips sticky with gloss, a bit tremulous, voice sliding magnificently from euphoria to anguish. Since Abba abandoned a half-finished album in 1982, Agnetha has mainly hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The catalogue of disasters includes two broken marriages and a series of failed love affairs, a road traffic accident in 1983 – when she was thrown out of the window of a bus on a solo tour – an accumulation of phobias, the suicide of her mother in 1994 and the persistent attention of stalkers, with one obsessive ruining her last album release in 2004 (her first since the 1980s) when his threats caused all interviews to be suddenly cancelled. We meet in a brick, wood and slate house overlooking a sparkling lake on one of the many islands that surround Stockholm. This is home to Jörgen Elofsson, the co-producer and writer of her new album A. I am hanging out in the kitchen, a little bit tense, as she’s somewhere in this house having her make-up done.

Then she pads into view, en route to the bathroom, in white towelling dressing gown and slippers, hair in rollers, smiling broadly, with a friendly ‘Hi’ to everyone. She exudes a Zen-like calm, the advantage no doubt of spending decades standing on her head because, as she tells me later, yoga and meditation helped rescue her from depression. She is excited about her album and a little nervous, but it is full of lushly orchestrated numbers, every track about love and heartbreak, including a seductive duet with Gary Barlow. Her voice throughout sounds fantastic. ‘I will always be compared with Abba, with what was. I can only produce a good album, otherwise why would I do it? We had a joke about it. I said: “If I sound like an old woman, we won’t give it out. VIDEO Watch Agnetha's interview with You Magazine here... Sweden's most famous sons and daughters welcome visitors at Stockholm's Arlanda airport 'After a few times, I kept saying: “This is not good.” So I trained and trained, took a couple of lessons, and suddenly on the third take it was there, and my voice sounds really young.

I thought my previous record in 2004 was going to be my last. It’s not very common that you do records when you get past 60. Your voice changes, and your body, and you don’t have the same energy.’ Has she sung in the interim? ‘For myself, yes; at home, at the piano and with my grandchildren, but nothing professional.’ Oddly, the only people who have been shielded from the Abba legend are her three grandchildren, aged 12, six and three, the offspring of her actor daughter Linda, 40. Her son Christian, 35, a computer programmer, has no children but Agnetha, an ardent grandma, is keeping her fingers crossed. She is cautious about talking about the little ones for security reasons but says, ‘I spend a lot of time with the grandchildren. They love it when we sing together. It’s fantastic to hear them and they really can sing. I don’t talk to them so much about Abba and the past, but as they get older they will become more aware.

Already the eldest one, Tilda, knows a little bit more.’ Agnetha Faltskog from ABBA in the band's heyday She apologises for her English, which becomes charmingly fractured under pressure. She is creamy-skinned, well preserved, robust looking, and emanates a mature beauty. She gave up smoking in the 80s, rarely drinks, and leads a healthy life tucked away on another Swedish island far removed from the stresses of youth culture and cosmetic surgery. She listens to some contemporary pop on the radio (‘I like it if it’s not too hard and has melody...even rapping can be nice’) but doesn’t know who the performers are. Is she ready to leave this haven and embrace her public again, with all the madness it might bring? ‘I know that it is necessary if I am to get this CD out. It feels fantastic to meet new people again. 'I was very afraid of flying – I still am – so I had therapy. Now I am able to fly for three to three-and-a-half hours, no longer. 'The press has always written that I am a recluse and a mysterious woman, but I am more down-to-earth than they think.

I live on a farm and there is a little bridge to get to Stockholm. I live a normal life there with my pug Bella and my puppy Bruno, a rare breed, just a little bigger than a chihuahua, with these big ears. 'I chat to other dog walkers, I go shopping and out to restaurants with friends. I don’t mind signing autographs as long as there’s not a queue forming,’ she says with a hearty laugh. She is estimated to have a £20 million fortune. ‘It helps, but I don’t think about it much,’ she shrugs. ‘You can go shopping, and if you see something very special you can buy it. ‘Maybe I was a recluse for some years. I was so tired once Abba was over and just wanted to be calm and with my children. I married, was in Abba, had my children, divorced, all in ten years. I wonder how I managed it, but I was young.’ The pop behemoth that became Abba was formed in 1970, when Agnetha and her boyfriend Björn Ulvaeus teamed up with his songwriting pal Benny Andersson.

Soon, Benny’s girlfriend Anni-Frid – also known as Frida – Lyngstad joined them. Both couples went on to marry and divorce. Abba has sold 378 million records since 1972, the figure rising annually with new generations becoming fans after the success of Mamma Mia!, the stage musical and film. Having shunned other premieres of the musical, she turned out for the film premiere in Stockholm in 2008. ‘That was so exciting. Meryl Streep was really good in it. I didn’t know that she could sing. She was very fresh and down-to-earth, not like a big star, and said, “It’s so good to meet you. I love these Abba songs.” She’s been into it a long time, singing the Abba songs. I think the Mamma Mia!

craze is great.’ Abba in Germany in 1975: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Frida Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Benny Adding to the buzz, Abba The Museum, an interactive exhibition in which visitors can record as if part of Abba, as well as peruse the band’s artefacts, will open on the island of Djurgården off Stockholm on Tuesday. ‘I didn’t keep any of my stage costumes from the Abba days. I have donated items to the museum, not very much but some things I had at home, some gold records, I can’t really remember. I think it’s nice that these things are in a place where they will be taken care of.’ Agnetha recalls Abba days with mixed emotions, as she found it hard dealing with global fame. ‘Fans would become really hysterical – banging on car doors. But very, very nice as well,’ she adds, not wishing to sound ungrateful for all this adoration. ‘Things that happened were quite incredible. We would arrive in our cars and there would be small children there and we were so scared that we were going to drive over someone or hurt them.

Sometimes we could hardly leave our hotels. It was frightening, but we had so many people taking care of us and everyone wanted to show us the best [of their country] wherever we went. ’ She admits that she grew to dread going on stage. When she and Frida caught the whiff of cannabis from the audience, they would joke about taking in a few lungfuls, but Agnetha preferred a glass of champagne to fire her up. ‘Performing live is not my favourite. I am more of a recording person; I prefer to be private. I didn’t mind doing videos, even if they came very close with the camera. I can take that, but walking on stage in concert and singing live, that is a bit difficult. And I don’t think we sounded or looked very good.’ For a minute I am in shock, thinking that she means the platform boots, satin jumpsuits and glittery make-up, but she is talking about their lacklustre choreography, which wouldn’t stand muster next to routines by Lady Gaga or Rihanna, with their troupes of backing dancers. ‘It was nice to look how we looked, but we had no professional dance help.

We did it on feelings, so when we had our concerts it was different every night. Frida and I didn’t talk beforehand about what we were going to do. We were very different types. We have been described as not being friends and in competition with each other, but we had something concrete between us on stage. There was some bad feeling when we were weary with our heavy schedule; little niggles, differences of opinion when we were a little irritated and tired of each other – and of ourselves. Agnetha with Björn and their daughter Linda in 1973 The couple in 1977 with baby son Christian ‘But we helped each other a lot. If I felt I had a little cold, or Frida did, the other would work harder that night. During all of those times we worked so hard, through fevers and flu, and only ever cancelled two shows. The costumes were designed for us. I didn’t have the time to get involved with that, but Frida was more into it and had more time. We had to go and try everything and get measured, and I think they did a good job.

Dancing in those platforms was OK, but I couldn’t do it today.’ Tours were never protracted, often 14 days off and 14 days on, which helped when she had her children. Did separations hurt? ‘Yes, but I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t have any choice. When I was at home, I concentrated on the children. Linda was with us in California, but she was so little then, and my son was with us in London. I tried to explain [their lifestyle and work] to the children but it was hard for them to understand. It is difficult if your parents are famous but I tried not to spoil them.’ What is Agnetha’s favourite Abba song? ‘“The Winner Takes It All”,’ she says immediately. ‘Björn wrote it about us after the breakdown of our marriage. [They divorced in 1980.] The fact that he wrote it exactly when we divorced is touching really.’ Didn’t she hate reliving all that grief? ‘I didn’t mind. It was fantastic to do that song because I could put in such feeling. I didn’t mind sharing it with the public. It didn’t feel wrong.

There is so much in that song. It was a mixture of what I felt and what Björn felt, but also what Benny and Frida went through. I always thought about the story behind those songs. I used to wonder what Björn and Benny were thinking about.’ Perhaps the hardest blow for Agnetha, who says she is ‘very sensitive’, was the death of her parents. Tragically, her mother Birgit, a former shop cashier, threw herself to her death from the sixth-floor flat in Jönköping where Agnetha had been raised. She was 71. ‘You knew about that?’ she whispers. ‘It was terrible. You wonder if you could have done something. Then my father [Ingvar, 73, once an administrator for a power company] died a year later. It’s so painful. You want them with you and to have known your grandchildren. I was depressed after that. Those were terrible years. I withdrew into myself and that was when I really began practising yoga because there was so much [emotion] coming out. I stayed at home a lot, meditated, listened to very special songs, lit candles. It helped heal me.

You carry pain through your life, and when you get distance from it, you survive – but it never leaves you. Agnetha and Linda in 2009; 'The press have always written that I am a recluse and a mysterious woman, but I am more down to earth than they think' ‘They were good parents. I started to compose when I was five years old, but had to use a neighbour’s piano. My parents made sacrifices to buy me a piano when I was seven. I used to play the harpsichord alone in the church. When I was 12, I played a fooj’ (fooj? Fudge? Ah, fugue!) ‘by Bach to an audience. I could never do that today.’ By 1965, aged 15, she was in a pop trio, the Chambers, with her friends Lena and Elisabeth, all hoping to become ‘world famous’. Then she became a singer with a dance band, and when its leader sent a demo to a record company, they were only interested in Agnetha. At 17, she had her first solo number one in Sweden and was on her way.

Her younger sister, Mona, took over her job as a switchboard operator, and took the bus 175 miles with her parents to visit Agnetha in Stockholm. Agnetha couldn’t persuade the family to take money from her or move to the city because they felt that they would be out of their depth. Back in those more unguarded days, she offered tantalising glimpses of herself in interviews with Swedish publications, which visited her at home with Björn. He was then a member of popular folk group The Hootenanny Singers, and she had fallen in love with him when they recorded a TV show together in 1969. ‘He’s grumpy in the morning.’ ‘He buys me flowers after I’ve done the cleaning.’ ‘Sometimes I fall out of love with life.’ The happy housewife, the sensitive soul, the occasional depressive were laid bare. The teenage Agnetha drove men crazy, especially when she wore a pink jumpsuit with a large heart-shaped cut-out on the abdomen, which caused one Swedish reporter to slaver unpleasantly about her ‘sexy little tummy’.

Another declared his temperature had been normal before he knocked on her door and dissolved into a description of ‘peachy skin’ and ‘hair like frozen waterfalls’. This was just from Swedish journalists, so no wonder she became alarmed when stalkers became a fixture. Probably the worst was Dutch forklift truck driver Gert van der Graaf, 16 years her junior, who set up home a quarter of a mile from hers on the island of Ekero, west of Stockholm. When he turned sinister, police raided his cabin, which had become a shrine to her, and he reappeared with threats in 2004. Abba in 1974. Sweden's victors after their success in the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with 'Waterloo' Does she find it easy to decide who is genuine? ‘I don’t think I’m very good at judging people. Sometimes I get a bad feeling but not very often. I have a very open heart and mind.

I want to give everyone a chance.’ I sympathise that it must be hard to meet new people, and in a mastery of understatement she replies: ‘Yes, I’m not only well-known in Sweden.’ She once compared the behaviour of poker-faced Swedes in a lift adversely with the chattiness of Americans, but now talks approvingly of ‘Swedish reserve: they respect you a lot’. The Swedish winter she finds less congenial – ‘It is too long and cold and can really make you tired’ – but now that she can fly, she breaks it up with holidays in sunnier spots such as Majorca. ‘On my ordinary days I don’t look like this,’ she says pointing to photo-ready hair and make-up. ‘So people don’t recognise me. And in winter we are fully dressed [she mimes pulling a hood over her head] so as not to freeze. ‘I see Björn now and then, when the children have birthdays, but he moved to London and started a new life, and he and his wife are grandparents too.’ It was reported that he was suffering from some kind of memory loss and had forgotten parts of his early career and life.

‘I know, but I haven’t talked to him about that,’ she says. ‘We don’t have that sort of relationship.’ She doesn’t seem to regret her absence from music for so long, saying, ‘I’m not jealous of the boys,’ as she calls Benny and Björn, who have continued songwriting, mainly for musicals. In 1969, she joked that when it came to songwriting, ‘Björn is almost as good at me.’ By the time they were in Abba, he could not persuade her to take time away from the children to compose for the group. She talks about being ‘self-critical’ and ‘lacking self-confidence’, especially in this new and exposing project. She has written just one song for the album, ‘I Keep Them on the Floor Beside My Bed’, about the mementos of love. It contains lyrics such as: ‘I never thought my heart would break so easily…I should have stayed and worked it out.’ She had a German record producer fiancé before Björn, and after her divorce had a series of high-profile boyfriends, including a fashion designer, ice hockey star and police inspector.

There was also a second marriage in 1990 to a surgeon and karate expert, which lasted two years. Agnetha with her co-producer Jörgen Elofsson in his studio I wonder if her new song was about Björn, but she says, ‘Björn and I have dealt with the heartbreak. It is amicable. In love, there are so many ups and downs, but I remain optimistic about it. I haven’t closed any doors.’ Jörgen, who has written for Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Westlife and many others, contacted Agnetha last year, and he and co-producer Peter Nordahl got to know her and then presented her with their new songs. ‘My God!’ she squeals. ‘A Swedish girl was on the demos and I said, “Why can’t she do this?”’ But the songs reflect the romantic war wounds of an older woman. ‘I was a little scared of the mic and thought, “How am I supposed to do this?” The answer was, “In your own way” because it’s one of the few things I really can do and am good at.

I go into a bubble as if I was in a film role and bring my life and experience into that.’ Gary Barlow flew to Jörgen’s home studio to co-write a song, ‘Should Have Followed You Home’. Despite the title, it is not about stalkers but a missed romantic opportunity after a dancefloor meeting. Agnetha was away in Majorca but due to fly back for Gary’s last day until her travel plans changed. It isn’t clear whether this was a mishap or due to her anxiety over singing the duet, but they recorded separately. Still, her eyes glitter as she says: ‘When I heard his voice in the headphones, I thought: “Oh, I have to match this enormous, cool voice and the way he sings.”’ She purrs, ‘It’s verrry sexy and a very good song. I hope to meet him in London.’ The album also contains a 1970s disco-style number, ‘Dance Your Pain Away’, which Jörgen wrote with her gay fans in mind. After so many half-hearted forays back into music, this seems the right album – mature, considered, sounding like a hit – at the right time.

Other forces were needed, she agrees, to kick-start this return, but now she believes, ‘It was really meant to be.’ Agnetha’s new album A will be released by Polydor on 13 May. To see an extract of a video interview with Agnetha, go to you.co.uk

Question: Which member of Abba is not Swedish?
Answer: Anni-frid