The United Kingdom was
second in the running order and were represented by Australian
Olivia Newton-John, who had already had had a string of worldwide
hits with a series of soft country songs, but her Eurovision
entry was very different. "Long Live Love" owed more
than a little to Blue Mink's "Banner Man" but with a
catchy chorus and a fine performance it was certainly one for the
others to fear. After Spain had given us flamenco and the debut
Greek entry brought bouzouki to Eurovision for the first time, the
next serious contender was the Swedish entry. "Waterloo",
written and performed by the four-piece group ABBA. From the
moment the Swedish conductor dressed as Napoleon took the podium and
the two female singers dressed in the glam rock outfits bounced onto
the stage, everything about this bright cheery song made it clear
that Sweden had a serious chance of its first ever Eurovision win.
Three songs in French
followed, before the Dutch entry "I See A Star" performed
by the Mouth And McNeal duo used the gimmicks of a barrel organ and
puppets to supplement their singa-along song. Ireland were up next
and Tina's joyful and professional performance of "Cross Your
Heart" would have been a serious contender for victory in any
other year, but not in this company. The favourite, the Italian song
"Si" by Gigliola Cinquetti was the last to be performed.
Despite years of experience including her Eurovision win ten years
earlier, this was not the most assured performance of the evening.
As the television audience watched the interval act, The Wombles,
performing their hits, it looked like we would have one of the most
open contests ever.
The original intention was
to implement a new voting procedure in 1974, the one which is still
used today, but given the time constraints and the difficulties in
setting it up, it was decided to postpone its introduction for a year. Instead
the earlier system of ten jurors per country, each voting for their
favourite, was brought back, but a tie-break mechanism was also in
place to avoid a re-occurrence of the 1969 voting fiasco. However
countries did not vote in the order they performed, for example
Italy who had performed last, voted first. Trying to remember who
had and hadn't voted was therefore very difficult.
At the halfway point it was
almost impossible to predict a winner. The U.K., led with 12 points,
from Sweden with 11 with Luxembourg, Monaco and Italy all on 10.
However after getting 3 points from Netherlands an 2 each from
Israel and Norway, Sweden began to open up a small but significant
lead. Finland was the second last jury to vote and the 5
points they awarded to ABBA made the first Swedish victory almost
certain. In
the end Sweden's 24 points was 6 ahead of Italy with the Netherlands
a further 3 points behind. Olivia Newton-John ended up sharing 4th
for the U.K.,
with Tina sharing 7th for Ireland.
For the first time since
1969, Eurovision had an up-tempo winning song. It was obvious that
"Waterloo" would become a huge hit and within a few weeks
it had jumped to number one in the charts all over Europe. As
well as the original version in Swedish, ABBA also recorded the song
in French and German. However it was the English version that
blasted out from the radios of Europe for months after the contest. The
song also hit the charts in places like Japan, Australia and the USA
and Eurovision's reputation for constantly producing ballad winners
was blown away forever. 1974 remains the only year where all the
songs which finished in the top three positions at Eurovision all
went on to be big international hits.
As well as being synonymous
with Abba, "Waterloo" has also been recorded by several
other acts including Doctor & The Medics and Abba Teens. It has
also been covered on Abba tribute albums by rock group Nation and by
Bananarama. In 2004 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the
Eurovision win, the single was re-released and became a Top 20 hit
once again.
The story of one of the
most successful groups in the history of pop music began in earnest
in 1972 when the four members ABBA started recording together for
the first time. Benny Andersson (born in Stockholm in 1946) was a
member of the Swedish rock band Hep Stars who were very popular
in Scandinavia during the 1960s. During the same same decade,
Björn Ulvaeus (born in Gothenburg in 1945) was fronting a
skiffle group called the Hootenanny Singers whose sound was softer
and more easy-listening than the rockier Hep Stars. Benny and Bjorn
first started writing together in 1966 and one of the first songs
"Isn't It Easy To Say" was a big hit in Sweden for the Hep
Stars. Stikkan (Stig) Anderson who was manager of the Hootenanny
Singers saw the potential in the duo working together and encouraged
them to write more songs and create an album "Lycka" (Happiness) and released on the Stikkan
Anderson's Polar record label.
At the same time as Benny and
Bjorn began working together, Agnetha Fältskog (born in
Jonkoping in 1950) was becoming a pop phenomenon in her own right,
writing and performing Swedish hits while in her teens and also
starring as Mary Magdalene in the Swedish production of "Jesus
Christ Superstar". While touring Sweden on the pop and
folk circuit, Agnetha met and began a relationship with Bjorn
Ulvaeus, and when they married in 1971 is was one of Sweden's
biggest weddings of the year. Norwegian born Anni-Frid (Frida)
Lyngstad was a part-time cabaret singer who first came to attention
through winning a talent show in 1967 at the age of 22, and her
career immediately took off. She met Benny Andersson while on
tour and they became lovers and he invited Anni-Frid to sing
uncredited backing vocals with Agnetha on the "Lycka"
album.
Under the direction of Stikkan Anderson, Benny
and Bjorn made their first attempt at Eurovision in 1972, writing
"Say It With A Song" sung by Lena Anderson, which came
third in the Swedish selection. Later the same year the quartet released
"People Need Love", another Andersson and Ulvaeus song,
under the name "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid" and it
became a hit in Sweden. In 1973 the group had their first fully
fledged attempt at Eurovision. The music for "Ring Ring"
was composed by Benny and Bjorn and the lyrics were written by
international hitmaker Neil Sedaka and his songwriting partner Phil
Cody. The catchy song was widely expected to be the Swdeish entry
in Luxembourg, but surprisingly only finished third in the Swedish
selection. Despite this, it became a huge hit in Sweden and also
reached the charts in many European countries. It also became
the title track of the group's first album. Around this time Stikkan
Andersson, the group's manager, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA, which
was also the name of a well-known fish cannery in Sweden. Stikkan
came to believe the name would work in international markets and it
stuck.
A year later it was to be third time lucky for
Benny and Bjorn. Together with Stikkan, they composed
"Waterloo" and this time won the right to represent Sweden
at Eurovision. The song was produced by Michael B. Tretow who had a
distinctive "wall of sound" technique, similar to that of
Phil Spector and which was very fashionable in the mid 1970's thanks to the
hits of Roy Wood and his band Wizzard. Soon after the success of
"Waterloo" in Brighton, the song went on to top the charts
all over Europe and Stikkan Anderson's international ambitions for
the group looked like they were going to be fulfilled. However
rather surprisingly things started to how downhill very quickly. In
the U.K., the follow-up single was "Ring Ring", but it
failed to reach the Top 30. In Europe, "Honey Honey" was
chosen as the follow-up to "Waterloo" and it too failed to
make anything like the impact of the Eurovision winner. Ironically a
cover version "Honey Honey" by the group Sweet Dreams
reached the British Top 10, taking advantage of the song not being released
on a single in the U.K. ABBA's album also called
"Waterloo" also initially failed to become a best seller
outside of Sweden. In early 1975 the band returned to the studio to
work on a new set of songs.
The first single from the album "I Do, I Do,
I Do, I Do, I Do", became a minor hit in Europe but again
failed to reach the U.K. Top 30, however things took a dramatic turn
for the better, with the release of the next single "S.O.S".
That song hit the Top 10 all over Europe, including the U.K. and
helped launch the group's third album, titled simply
"ABBA". The next single "Mamma Mia" saw ABBA top
the charts all over the continent and helped establish them in the
Australian market, where they would go on to become the biggest
selling artists of all time.
Despite the success of the singles, the
"Abba " album was initially not as big a success as the
group and the record company had hoped for, so an unusual decision was
made. Despite only having a handful of hits in the two years since
winning Eurovision, ABBA released a "Greatest Hits" album
in April 1976. The compilation which went on to be a multi million
seller contained tracks from the group's three previous albums, with
the addition of one new song, the ballad "Fernando" which
was released as a single, enjoying massive success all over the
world. The group began to tour and would soon become the most popular
pop group in the world.
The second half of 1976 saw Abba release the song
that many consider their greatest, "Dancing Queen"
which went to number one in almost every singles chart in the world,
including Japan and the USA. By the end of the year, the group's
"Arrival" album had become another massive success and
further hit singles followed with the cabaret styled
"Money, Money Money Money" and the more mature and
reflective "Knowing Me Knowing You". By the end of the
year ABBA had famously overtaken car manufacturer Volvo as Sweden's
biggest earner of foreign currency.
In 1977 ABBA concentrated on touring the globe and returned to the
studios to record their next
collection of songs. The brand new single "The Name Of The
Game", which became another huge hit towards the end of the year. In 1978
Abba became a multimedia phenomenon with "Abba : The
Movie" (filmed the previous year on their Australian tour) becoming
a massive hit in cinemas all over the world and "Abba : The
Album" becoming another multi-million seller and spawning a
second hit single "Take A Chance On Me". In some
countries the semi-orchestral song "The Eagle" was also a
hit. However the most memorable track on the album, "Thank You
For The Music" which would be ABBA's anthem, would not see the
light of day as a single, for another few years.
Surprisingly the next ABBA single, the disco
flavoured "Summer Night City" released in late summer of
1978 was not as big a success as previous hits, perhaps due to a
complacent lack of promotion by the group. In early 1979 the group
performed a new song at a special UNICEF concert. "Chiquitita",
despite seeming to be a pale imitation of the earlier
"Fernando" was another big seller. The summer of 1979 saw
ABBA stray from their traditional sound to embrace the two big music
trends of the time, punk and disco. "Does Your Mother
Know?" which quite unusually had lead vocals by Bjorn had a
punky guitar sound and the double a-side "Voulez Vous" and
"Angel Eyes" were both pure disco as was their next single
"Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)". ABBA
also extensively toured the one part of the world where they weren't
dominating the charts; North America. While the tour was successful,
ABBA were never as successful in that territory as in the rest of
the world. Touring limited their chances of recording new material
and lead to the "Greatest Hits Volume 2" compilation,
which became one of
the band's biggest selling albums ever, at end of 1979. The new track
"I Have A Dream" topped the charts in Europe, but
just missed out on being the UK Christmas number one.
By 1980, the relationship between Agnetha and
Bjorn was clearly falling apart, and the powerfully emotional single
"The Winner Takes It All" showed a new maturity in the
songwriting of Andersson and Ulvaeus. That song which brought ABBA
their eighth UK number introduced the world to the "Super
Trouper" album. While it was another commercial success, it
showed a lack of creativity that had been the hallmark of the
group's earlier work. However it yielded two further
hits with the title track and the disco tingled "Lay All Your
Love On Me". In 1981 the foursome recorded their their final
album. "The Visitors" departed from their early poppier
sound and tackled more serious subjects. The melancholic
single "One Of Us" gave Abba their final Top 10 hit at the end of
1981.
By now the group while still drawing huge
audiences to their live shows, were beginning to lose their dominance
in the charts and recorded just two more songs for another
compilation album released at the end of 1982. However both singles
"The Day Before You Came" and "Under Attack"
were very minor hits, and it soon became clear that ABBA's days as a
group were over. During the rest of the 1980's ABBA were considered passé and
seemed to be consigned to the bargain bins of pop history. Both Agnetha
and Frida released several solo albums, to very limited success
outside of Sweden. In 1984 Benny and Bjorn worked with Tim Rice on
the stage musical "Chess", which generated good reviews and
was a sell out on the West End and Broadway and toured many
countries.
However things changed in 1992 when the band's catalogue changed
hands and another compilation "Abba Gold" became a massive
success, finding a market in both ABBA's former fans and the next
generation of pop music buyers. Ever since then a series of
compilation albums, re-releases, DVDs and television specials has
kept the name of ABBA in the charts and for the last ten years the
group have once again been multi-million sellers every year. The
musical "Mamma Mia" which uses the ABBA songbook to tell
its story has been one of the most successful stage musical of the
last five years. The four members of the group have been offered
enormous sums of money to record or tour together again, but they have
refused every offer, mainly due to the reclusiveness of Agnetha.
Sadly Stikkan Anderson the man who had done so much for ABBA, died
on September 12th, 1997.
2004
saw the 30th anniversary of ABBA's Eurovision win and as a
tribute to Eurovision's most successful winners, a special segment
featuring the band was shown in the semi-final of the Eurovision
Song Contest staged in Istanbul. It is unlikely the group will
ever perform together again, and it is certain they won't be in
Copenhagen.
