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The original Polydor press release of ABBA Gold:
“ABBA GOLD – GREATEST HITS”
1992 has been quite a year for ABBA, the Swedish quartet who dominated the charts of most of the world for around eight years, starting in 1974. Thanks to prolific hit makers “Erasure” and their hugely popular EP, “ABBA-ESQUE”, ABBA songs have once again appeared at the top of the UK singles chart, and simultaneously one of the most popular live attractions in the world is Australian band “Bjorn Again”, a group whose act is strongly based on ABBA hits. Neither Erasure nor Bjorn Again chose to pay tribute to ABBA by chance – Vince Clark and Andy Bell admired the numerous ABBA hits, and were sure that those fabulous songs remained popular, not only with parents who so clearly remember the hits from the first time round, but also with their teenage kids. Bjorn Again doubtless knew that ABBA had very rarely performed live, and that a demand existed for a group that performed ABBA’s songs like ABBA themselves.
Of equal significance, but less publicised, is the fact that for the first time ever, the entire ABBA catalogue is now available worldwide to just one multi-national record company, Polygram. At the height of their success the group’s material was licensed to competing major record labels in Britain, the USA, Germany, Australia etc. Thus Polygram is able to compile the ultimate ABBA collection, (released by Polydor), – a single album to be released virtually everywhere in the world featuring all of ABBA’s biggest hits. This 19 track selection of maximum single CD length (around 77 minutes) is the ABBA album for everyone – fans of course, as the tracks have been digitally remastered in Polar Studios by Michael B Tretow, who engineered the original classic recordings, but also for those who have yet to acquire an ABBA album. Historians of popular culture will regard “ABBA Gold” as a great representation of the work of the most popular act of the 1970’s with chart topping albums and singles in Britain, the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, South America and other countries. The group were the only foreign artists whose records were sold in Russia for around two years.
“Gold” includes all ABBA’s nine singles which topped the UK chart. Between 1974 and 1980, ABBA spent 31 weeks (out of a possible 350-ish) at number one. The only artists since 1955 to spend more weeks than ABBA at the top of the UK singles chart are Elvis Presley (whose active career lasted over 20 years), The Beatles (the group to whom ABBA were often compared at the peak of their fame) and Cliff Richard, whose career has so far lasted 35 years. From the chronological top: “Waterloo” (1974, the only non- British Eurovision Song Contest winners to make a major impression in North America). “Mamma Mia” (1975), “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen” (both 1976), “Knowing Me, Knowing You” and “The Name Of The Game” (both 1977), “Take A Chance On Me” (1978), “The Winner Takes it All” and the final “Super Trouper” (both 1980). The rest of the album, ten tracks, includes ABBA’s other immense international hits, including the 9 no: 1’s from Germany, the 8 no: 1’s from Holland, the 6 no: 1’s from New Zealand, the 5 no: 1’s from Australia, and of course “Dancing Queen” which topped Billboard’s chart in the USA.
One reason for ABBA not continuing to dominate the world’s charts was the pressure of super stardom which contributed to the two married couples becoming divorce statistics. Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus still continue as a prolific and highly successful song writing team, whose most internationally prominent work, post ABBA, has been their collaboration with famed lyricist Tim Rice which produced “Chess”, an acclaimed musical that includes several hits.
“U2” have been playing an acoustic version of “Dancing Queen” on their recent ‘Zoo Tour’ and Bjorn and Benny appeared with them in Stockholm for this song (to ecstatic applause). Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn’s ex-wife, is today a housewife and mother in Sweden, who seems to have largely abandoned her career as a solo vocalist, which may also be true of Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad, Benny’s erstwhile wife, who now apparently lives in Switzerland. Earlier this year Frida appeared on stage in Zurich with “Roxette” and performed and “ABBA” song.
PolyGram International Ltd c 1992