By Chris Hastings
Published: | Updated:
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They recorded songs unlike anything before – Dancing Queen, SOS, The Name Of The Game, Knowing Me, Knowing You – selling more than 380 million records worldwide
Their music has stood the test of time, even if their fashions haven’t.
Now Swedish supergroup Abba have revealed they had good reason to wear such garish stage costumes – because it saved a little money, money, money on their tax bill.
The band, whose spangly flares, catsuits and platform heels were considered naff even in the 1970s, exploited a Swedish law which meant clothes were tax deductible if their owners could prove they were not used for daily wear.
The band reveal their wardrobe secrets in Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo and featuring scores of intimate, never-before-seen pictures.
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COSTUME DRAMA: ABBA's style owed something to Sweden's tax laws, which allowed deductions for clothing only if it could not be used for daily wear. Many Swedish bands made a practice of looking as flamboyant as possible. ABBA took this to a new level
He said: ‘Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were. In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years.
But we figured people would remember us even if we finished ninth.’
Colleague Benny Andersson added: ‘I’ve never regretted any picture . . . just grin and bear it.’
Ulvaeus poured cold water on rumours of a possible Abba reunion, saying: ‘If any one of us has opened the door a crack, I’m shutting it now.’
Save 35 per cent on Abba: The Official Photo Book: Page 54
As far as most of the world is concerned, the ABBA phenemenon began 40 years ago, with a Eurovision triumph in Brighton.
Armed with a song called Waterloo and outrageous costumes, two young couples put Swedish pop music on the map.
But for Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, the group’s male half, the story began eight years earlier, with a chance meeting on a Swedish country road.
Now, serialised exclusively for the first time in Event, a remarkable new book celebrates their astonishing career.
Two years in the making, the authors trawled through a quarter of a million photographs and interviewed the band members to produce the definitive, 400-page record of their story.
Scroll down for the amazing pictures...
ANNI-FRID LYNGSTAD: ‘Frida’ was born in 1945 to a German soldier and Norwegian mum but grew up with her grandmother in Sweden. Many children of German fathers fled Norway to escape bullying in the years after the war. ‘
BJöRN ULVAEUS: The future musician begged his parents for an instrument, they bought him a guitar at 13 and he formed folk outfit the West Bay Singers. They won a talent contest and were discovered by future their future manager
AGNETHA FÄLTSKOG: The Fältskogs were a working-class family and had no piano, but a neighbour did. ‘One of the first things I did was write a song,’ says Agnetha. ‘Using one finger, I wrote Two Little Trolls. I was five years old.’
GORAN BROR ANDERSSON: ‘Benny’, born in Stockholm in 1946; his first musical memories are of the accordion, and he got his own at six. At 15, he was a touring musician. 1965 he had his first hit, No Response, which went to Top 10
TAKE A CHANCE ON US: January, 1971, and the band that would become ABBA perform Benny and Björn’s recent hit, Hej Gamle Man, a song about a Salvation Army soldier, for the Sally Army, accompanied by fiancées Anni-Frid and Agnetha. ‘They were met with massive applause,’ said the organisers
That beginning? Two buses, one carrying Björn’s chart-topping group the Hootenanny Singers, the other Benny’s Hep Stars, encountered each other between gigs, and, from one bus, an invitation was yelled out.
‘So many coincidences form our lives,’ remembers Björn, 32 years after the band quietly embarked on an undeclared but apparently permanent retirement.
‘What were the odds I’d meet Benny on a country road in the Sixties? That I would meet Agnetha?
‘And what were the odds that Benny would meet Frida a few months later and that she was also a terrific singer?
'That one of the girls is a soprano and the other a mezzo-soprano, and that they would make magic when they sing together?’
They recorded songs unlike anything before – Dancing Queen, SOS, The Name Of The Game, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Fernando – selling more than 380 million records worldwide.
Then after ten incandescent years, from 1972 to 1982 – a career comparable to the equally brief yet bright flame of The Beatles – the couples split and the group fractured.
But the music of ABBA remains, fuelled in part by the staggering success of the Mamma Mia! musical and tour, and rumours continue to swirl of a final performance. The band are said to have been offered $1 billion to tour.
‘The Stones have chosen to keep on playing and that’s OK,’ says Björn.
‘But for us to suddenly make a comeback? Why? If any one of us has opened the door a crack, I’m shutting it now!’
However, last year, Agnetha, the group’s iconic, reclusive blonde, dropped hints of a concert to mark the April anniversary of the group’s Eurovision triumph. Nothing has been confirmed, but the group have reunited once again for the publication of this authorised photo book.
As the 40th anniversary approaches and the world awaits a reunion that may or may not take place, the four band members reveal the amazing stories behind these rare and unseen photos.
AGNETHA: While recovering from a doomed love affair, 16-year-old Agnetha wrote Jag Var Så Kär (I Was So In Love). The song knocked The Beatles off the top spot.
BJORN AND AGNETHA: 'I fell in love when I heard Agnetha's song on the radio. I was madly attracted to that voice.' The pair met in May 1968, when she was 18 and he was 23
BENNY AND FRIDA: The couple at home in Vallentuna, a northern suburb of Stockholm in January 1972. They chose the neighbourhood because it was within easy reach of the city, but cheaper and suitable for children, with meadows and forests close by. Agnetha and Björn moved into a home in Vallentuna that same month
BJORN: With parents Gunnar and Aina, at home in Västervik in 1972, the year Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida became ABBA. The year before, Benny and Björn had sold a few spare songs to a film producer for The Seduction Of Inga, a soft-p*rn film. Björn was offered a minor role in the movie, but fiancée Agnetha put her foot down
BENNY AND FRIDA: The two first met in 1969, in the Swedish finals of Eurovision: Benny co-wrote the song that came second, Hej Clown; Frida was fourth with Härlig Är Vår Jord. They recall hasty greetings backstage. ‘I thought he was totally sexy. He was exciting. But it took time for our love to grow’
BJORN: 'Looking back, it's weird that we went along with these pictures, but we were so tight with the media, almost cuddly. And no paparazzi.' Björn and Agnetha in their Brighton hotel the morning after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo
BENNY: In 1973, ABBA agreed to promote baby food company Semper – and Björn and Agnetha’s baby daughter Linda made her modelling debut. Then, in 1976, the band’s manager, Stig Anderson, sold the use of Fernando to electronics giant National for $1 million. with the song given a new lyric: ‘There’s so much more to National. So much more than just the many, many things we make for you.’ Agnetha and an older Linda are pictured below. ‘That did it for me,’ says a disgusted Benny. ‘We’ve never sold another song again’
AGNETHA: ‘I’ve always had a thing for dogs. I used to have a Yorkshire terrier and had to leave it with my parents when I was 18 and moved to Stockholm. So we got Ada and she was so sweet!’ Agnetha, Björn and daughter Linda in their Vallentuna townhouse. They lived as normally as possible so Linda would have the same upbringing as other Swedish children
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BJORN: ‘We figured with our clothes, people would remember us even if we finished ninth.’ It had been unthinkable that little Sweden could win Eurovision, but in 1974 at Brighton, ABBA triumphed with Waterloo – beating, among others, Olivia Newton-John, who sang for the UK. And earlier that day, Benny saw a good omen – the fire extinguishers in the hotel were branded ‘Waterloo’
FRIDA: 'I've always been really fond of dancing. When I was ten I wanted to be a ballet dancer.’ Agnetha and Frida taking dance lessons a year after their Eurovision triumph in Brighton
BJORN: ‘In my honest opinion, we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were.’ But photographer Wolfgang ‘Bubi’ Heilemann can remember all of the ABBA members digging through piles of costumes before photoshoots
BJORN: ‘OK, we smoked a bit of hash now and then, but that was as close as we got to drugs. We were never offered the stuff. It’s why we’re here today, for sure.’ ABBA’s first visit to the US, September 1974 – and unlike many bands of the era, the visitors have a wholesome image
FRIDA: ‘I think it’s fun. Did we wear panties? Of course. Bras too, if I remember rightly. We just pulled down the straps so they wouldn’t be visible.’ Taken in Stockholm in 1975, the infamous tinfoil shot did its job, grabbing enormous attention when it was cabled around the world a few weeks later. ‘I’ve never regretted any picture... just grin and bear it,’ says Benny
THE VISITORS: On an Australian tour, ABBA anchored off a beach near the mouth of the Swan River outside Perth, in the company of friendly sea lions. ‘Is it dangerous to swim here?’ one of the Swedes asked. ‘Don’t worry,’ the captain soothed them. ‘Sharks won’t attack if there are sea lions around. Sea lions are fast. They’ll ram a shark from the side if it gets too close
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY: When tickets were released for ABBA's two February 1977 shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the promoters were deluged with 3.5 million requests - the equivalent of 700 full houses
DANCING QUEENS: Film clips from ABBA shows include a remarkable number of zooms to the girls’ backsides or chests – such as this rear view of Frida. During the Seventies, Sweden was known as a country with a liberal attitude towards sexuality. A journalist said Agnetha Fältskog had ‘the world’s sexiest bum’
BJORN: ‘All these years later, I have almost no memory of the shows themselves. It’s a blur. I remember my jogging runs better – that was my way of getting my energy together. I used to try to get to the arena as late as possible, otherwise I’d just be pacing around, waiting to go on’
AGNETHA: ‘It felt like the fans were going to eat me up. I was still a normal kid from Jönköping, but now I couldn’t go anywhere.’ Agnetha was the least suited to dealing with the fans and photographers – she also badly missed her daughter. ‘When we were on tour, I longed for Linda. I had negotiated with our manager and the others that our tours would never last longer than two weeks, but this meant they had me down as cranky Agnetha. They thought I was demanding’
AGNETHA: ‘We were always asked whether Frida and I were rivals but we weren't. We helped and supported each other all the time, especially on tour. If one had a cold, the other could step forward and do more of the singing. We always had each other’s back’
AGNETHA: ‘A lot of people think I’m a recluse. But it’s just that I love my quiet life and have always enjoyed silence.’ After ABBA, Agnetha walked away from music for years, retiring to an island outside Stockholm. She has gone dancing incognito in Stockholm and has heard more than once that she looks ‘a lot like’ Agnetha Fältskog
BENNY: Their last TV appearance was on the UK’s Late, Late Breakfast Show, on December 11, 1982. They performed I Have A Dream and Under Attack, and were interviewed by Noel Edmonds. ‘Honestly, I just wanted a break for a couple of years,’ says Benny. ‘To try something new. The way I see it, ABBA is still on a break’
THE REUNION: Coffee in Benny's island studio, but will the four superstars reunite? Definitely not, says Björn. Maybe, says Benny
