Sadaf VidhaIf you are a fan of old-school pop music, you’ve surely heard songs by ABBA. Here, we dig a bit about the members, the history and the best hits of the band.
Formation of ABBA:
ABBA is a Swedish poplar music band formed in 1972. The four members of the group are Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. Benny and Bjorn were part of two different bands before they decided to come together for the band.
Initially, it was started by the two male members of the band and was known as Bjorn and Benny. Later, the girlfriends of both these founders joined the band. In the early days, they used their last names to form an acronym LUAF, and that did not do very well. They also functioned as AABB for a while. That too did not catch on greatly. Then, they went back to the board and rearranged their letters to form ABBA. They shot to fame with their song Waterloo, which is about a British rail terminal and won Eurovision Song contest in 1974.
Waterloo by ABBA
Why did they choose Waterloo station? Bjorn states that they had gone through all the names of the station, but could not find any which rhymed with ‘could not escape, I wanted to’ apart from Waterloo and so, they settled for that!
Some other famous hits
While ABBA made some great music in their active years, when looking at many ‘best of’ lists together, these are the common songs:
- The Winner Takes It All
- Dancing Queen
- Knowing Me, Knowing You
- Take A Chance On Me
- Does Your Mother Know
- Waterloo
- Mama mia
ABBA’s record sales have been estimated between 140 to over 500 million sold records.
Marriages
The two couples in the band did get married after a few years of the band become successful. At the height of their popularity, both relationships were suffering strain which ultimately resulted in the collapse of the Ulvaeus–Fältskog marriage in 1979 and the Andersson–Lyngstad marriage in 1981. These changes reflected in the music of the band, when the lyrics became darker and deeper as compared to the usually pop sounding songs.
Movies
Many movies were made using ABBA songs. Many of these were tribute movies like Mamma Mia, which was made using entirely ABBA songs. There was also a musical by the same name. Several films, notably Muriel’s Wedding (1994) and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), further revived public interest in the group and the spawning of several tribute bands.
Disbandment
They did not officially announce the split or the end of the group. The last performance of ABBA was in 1982. Bjorn was quoted saying that they may have continued a while longer if the 1982 song had been a number one hit. However, it was evident that members were starting to have solo careers of their own and so, last together for long did not seem to be on the cards. The band still stays memorable to this day.
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