ABBA has stretched across generations, turning skeptics into believers with their amazing music,
stage shows, and films. But how much do you really know about the people
who have brought us so much joy? Here's what happened to the members of ABBA.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a yearly songwriting competition that was first
held on May 24th, 1956. Although only seven countries participated in the first Eurovision,
the contest has grown to include over 40 countries,
becoming one of the biggest pop culture events in the world.
Originally, participants sang in their country's national language, but in 1965 the Swedish entry
was sung in English. The competition reacted by passing a rule requiring participants
to sing in their native languages, a rule that remained in place until 1973.
That year, ABBA tried to make it into the competition, but their song "Ring Ring" came
in third in their national competition to select the Swedish representative.
But then they got a break that would help launch them to international stardom:
in 1974, Eurovision temporarily relaxed their rules against performing in a different language.
ABBA swept in with the English-language song "Waterloo," and a legend was born.
So how did ABBA come about?
Musicians Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson met in 1966, and three years later they met Agnetha
Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, known as Frida. It turned out that they made beautiful music
together, both literally and figuratively: Fältskog and Ulvaeus became a couple,
marrying in 1971, and Lyngstad and Andersson also became a couple, eventually marrying in 1978.
"This is Frida, my, uh, well, I hope she's going to be my wife."
"Well, I hope for your sake too!" "We're engaged right now, this is Anna, married to Bjorn."
By then, ABBA had been born. In 1972, the two couples formed a musical group,
which they originally called Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. But by 1974,
they had shortened it to ABBA, using the first initials of their four first names.
At first, their success at Eurovision was as much a negative as a positive,
as there was a stigma around winning the competition. But in 1975, their new singles
"SOS" and "Mamma Mia" became their first big worldwide hits, propelling them to the top of
the global charts for years to come. In 1977, they even put out the feature film "ABBA: The Movie."
They seemed to be on top of the world.
Unfortunately, things began going wrong just as they hit the highest highs - and,
in part, because of those highs. In 1978, the same year Lyngstad and Andersson married,
Fältskog and Ulvaeus announced their divorce. Lyngstad and Andersson's
marriage didn't last long, either, and by 1981 they had also announced their divorce,
as the pressures of stardom took a toll on both relationships.
Still, they continued to work together, putting out their eighth album,
"The Visitors," in 1981. Looking back at those days Ulvaeus later said,
"Agnetha and my divorce was an amicable one. We just grew apart and decided let's split up.
Benny and Frida's was a little more difficult. It was not a happy time, but still very creative."
The writing was on the wall, though. In 1982, ABBA didn't release any new music, putting out
instead a greatest hits compilation album. And a year later, they went on an indefinite hiatus.
The idea was that they could get back together if they ever wanted to.
But that would be a very long time coming.
In the early 1980s, Tim Rice came to Ulvaeus and Andersson with the idea for a musical.
And by 1984, "Chess" was born, a musical about a Cold War-era
chess match between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
The LP was released in 1984 and the musical made its London stage premiere in 1986.
Chess tells the story of a love triangle between the American Grandmaster, the Russian champion,
and the Hungarian-American chess second. Unfortunately, the musical received a
poor review by “The New York Times'” Frank Rich, who described the love triangle as
"...ricocheting arbitrarily between the American and the Soviet players
as if she had no self respect or political convictions."
The review was damaging. "Chess" received no Tony Award nominations and crashed out
after a short and financially damaging run. Still, despite "Chess'" lack of success,
some of its songs like "One Night in Bangkok" and "I Know Him So Well"
went on to become international hits. And even though the New York production closed
after just a few months, the London production ended up running for more than three years.
Agnetha Fältskog was a successful solo artist before ABBA, so when the band went on hiatus,
she went back to her solo career. Her first album after ABBA, which was also
her first English-language solo album, came out in May 1983. Titled "Wrap Your Arms Around Me,"
the album did incredibly well in Sweden, and it ultimately sold over a million copies worldwide.
The success of her solo albums gave Fältskog some needed distance from ABBA.
She later told “The Salt Lake Tribune,”
"There was several years after I had stopped with the group that I couldn't listen to the music."
Fältskog recorded two more albums, "Eyes of a Woman" and "I Stand Alone," but by
1987 she was worn down, and after "I Stand Alone" was released that year,
she took a break from music that wound up lasting 17 years. She later said,
"I was so tired [...] and just wanted to be calm and be with my children."
After taking a step back from her solo career,
Fältskog retreated from the spotlight and focused on just living her life;
according to “The Irish Independent,” her time in ABBA had resulted in a phobia of large crowds
and open spaces, and she also suffered from a fear of flying and stage fright.
It wasn't until 2004 that Fältskog came back to music with her album
"My Colouring Book," followed by "A" in 2013. Both albums went gold in multiple countries.
Frida Lyngstad also had a solo career before joining ABBA, and she resumed her solo career
once ABBA went on their indefinite break. Lyngstad's first post-ABBA solo album - which was
also her first solo English-language album - was "Something's Going On," produced by Phil Collins.
According to the official ABBA website, Lyngstad also wanted Collins to produce her next album,
"Shine," but unfortunately he was just too busy with his own music.
Although both albums did well across Europe, Lyngstad ended up putting her solo career on
pause, though she occasionally would work on projects that interested her.
But most of her work became focused on environmental charities; in the 1990s,
Lyngstad joined The Natural Step and Artists For The Environment.
In 1996, Lyngstad went back to music with her Swedish-language album "Deep Breaths",
which was one of the first in the country to be released with a video CD-ROM. According to “ABBA
Experience,” the album was incredibly successful in Sweden. Still, though there have been several
re-releases, remixes, and compilation albums since, Lyngstad has yet to record another solo
album - for tragic reasons. Princess Frida
In 1992, Lyngstad married Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss, Count of Plauen and officially
became Princess Anne-Frid Synni of Reuss, Countess of Plauen. The Coast writes that
although the House of Reuss doesn't formally rule over any territories anymore, they once
controlled land in modern-day Thuringia, until the territories were taken into Germany in 1918.
But, tragically, there was no fairy-tale happiness. In 1998, Ann Lise-Lotte
Fredriksson Casper, Lyngstad's daughter from her first marriage to Ragnar Fredricksson,
died in a car accident in New York State. And in 1999, Prince Ruzzo Reuss died of lymphoma,
according to “UDiscoverMusic,” making Lyngstad the Dowager Princess of Reuss.
According to “All Music,” Lyngstad had originally planned on doing a third solo album, but after her
daughter's tragic death and her husband's passing, she stopped work on the album indefinitely.
According to “Smooth Radio,” Lyngstad now lives in Zermatt, Switzerland with her partner Henry Smith,
5th Viscount Hambleden. She continues to make guest appearances on occasional singles,
and also makes public appearances with the other members of ABBA, albeit rarely.
According to the official website for the "Mamma Mia!" musical,
the idea to make ABBA's work into a Broadway production came way back in the early 80's
when Ulvaeus and Anderson were working with Tim Rice on "Chess." Judy Craymer was working for
Rice at the time and decided to approach Ulvaeus and Andersson about the idea of an ABBA musical.
Ulveaus and Andersson were initially skeptical,
but Craymer kept at it for years, until finally in 1995 Ulveaus said,
quote, "If you can find the right writer and story, well... let's see what happens."
Craymer brought in Catherine Johnson as a writer and Phyllida Lloyd as the director,
and before long "Mamma Mia!" was a go. On April 6th, 1999,
the 25-year anniversary of ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest,
"Mamma Mia!" had its world premier at the Prince Edward Theatre in London's West End.
The show became such an international success that it was translated into numerous languages.
It opened on Broadway in October 2001, and ran for more than 5700 performances;
when it finally closed in September 2015, it was the 8th longest running Broadway show in history.
And it also jumped to the big screen in 2008, with a hit film version starring Meryl Streep,
Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, and Pierce Brosnan. It was a massive hit,
especially in the UK and Ireland, where it became the highest grossing film ever up to that point.
The success eventually prompted a sequel, "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again," in 2018.
In 1993, Frida performed "Dancing Queen" for Queen Silvia of Sweden's 50th birthday.
But she did it without the other members of ABBA. Even in 2010, when ABBA was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the group didn't reunite; though it's traditional for
new inductees to perform, only Frida and Benny attended, and only Benny performed.
And it shouldn't have been a surprise. Over the years, various members made
comments that seemed to suggest that the ABBA part of their lives was over.
In an interview in 2008, Björn Ulvaeus stated,
"We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group.
Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were. Young,
exuberant, full of energy and ambition."
According to “the Lad Bible,” Agnetha Fältskog also said in 2014,
"I think we have to accept that it will not happen, because we are too old
and each one of us has their own life. Too many years have gone by since we stopped,
and there's really no meaning in putting us together again."
Frida Lyngstad also stated that, quote, "no amount of money" could change their
minds. And she meant it. “Business Insider” reports that in 2000, ABBA even turned down
a $1 billion deal to reunite for 100 shows. Billion. With a B. $1 billion.
And though Andersson and Ulvaeus have worked together on numerous projects over the years,
Andersson has admitted that they never felt tempted to reunite ABBA,
quote, "because we've been so busy doing other things."
But has that finally changed?
Since all the members of ABBA made it pretty clear that a reunion wasn't on the horizon,
fans were surprised and delighted in 2017 when ABBA announced that they would be doing a reunion
tour. However, there was a twist: instead of the actual members of ABBA, the songs would
be performed by digital avatars of the four group members, accompanied by a live band.
Ulvaeus said,
"It's a kind of ABBA tribute show, but the centerpiece [...] will be something I call
'Abbatars.' It is digital versions of ABBA, from 1979."
The tour was initially announced for 2019, but after a series of delays,
it's now expected to launch in 2022. And those delays actually ended up being a great
thing for ABBA fans, because it unexpectedly inspired an actual ABBA reunion at long last.
In 2018, ABBA announced that while working on their delayed Abbatar project, they decided to
record some new music as well. According to “The Guardian,” ABBA released a statement saying,
"We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again
and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood
still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!"
At the time, there were just two new songs announced. But in 2021,
the band confirmed that they will be releasing at least five new songs, saying
"There will be new music this year,
that is definite, it's not a case anymore of it might happen, it will happen."
After four decades, the sad breakup of ABBA might finally get a different ending.
"The Abbatars hint at another ending. A happy ending, perhaps!"
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