ABBA Voyage: General Discussion 2022 Sept - Dec

The Brit Awards and its earlier incarnations weren’t held as an annual event until 1982. The only one prior to that was 1977, when ABBA were nominated for Arrival as Best International Pop LP. The awards that year actually covered the 25 years of the Queen’s reign, so ABBA lost out to the 1970 Simon and Garfunkel album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. In 1982, there were no international awards so ABBA couldn’t be nominated.

The facts can be manipulated on the 1977 nomination. Apart from ABBA and Simon & Garfunkel, the other two nominations were Carole King’s Tapestry (released 1971) and Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life (like Arrival, also released in 1976). Were the organisers saying that these four albums were the best non-British studio albums released in the previous 25 years? That’s the implication, in which case ABBA did extremely well to even be nominated.

The success of ABBA Gold in the UK is phenomenal and unsurpassed. But ABBA's career mostly gets viewed from an Anglo perspective. During ABBA's original run there were several countries in continental Europe that took them to their hearts immediately and remained loyal to them until the end. It annoys me when it gets stated in documentaries that nobody wanted to know about them until the Australians made them big. This is simply not true. In countries like the Netherlands and Belgium "Ring Ring" was already a top five hit in 1973, regardless of Eurovision. Even The Hep Stars' "Sunny Girl" was a top five hit in the Netherlands. And after Eurovision the hits kept coming right away, up until the last single "Under Attack" which was only a top five hit in the Netherlands and Belgium. There was no gap in chart action between "Waterloo" and "SOS".
Even Agnetha & Frida's solo careers were very successful initially. "Something's Going On" and "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" shot into the top five, as well as the first two singles from each album. The commercial decline didn't set in until Frida released her third single "Here We'll Stay" in 1983, which barely charted and only briefly, followed by a complete no show of Agnetha's "Can't Shake Loose".

BAAB. It's nice ABBA have apparently got streets in Belin named after them. There's no streets named after them in the UK because street names tend not to be named after living people.

ABBA chose the UK for the opening of Mamma Mia and the venue for Voyage.

As for the BRIT Awards the British music critics have always been a bit snobby towards ABBA. ABBA didn't even get any points from the British Jury at Eurovision - held in the UK. But the British public made ABBA #1 with Waterloo.


Both you and Michel are right about ABBA's chart history being written from a UK perspective. ABBA did indeed follow up Waterloo with Top 5 hits many countries. And in 1982 were still having Top 5 hits in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium. But in Germany there was a dip in popularity late 1977 to late 1980 when they had no single at #1 or #2, for example.
ABBA Gold tracklist is UK centric but I am glad Honey Honey, I Dox5 and The Day Before You Came are not included. 😀 The Name of the Game, Voulez Vous and LAYLOM not as big on Mainland Europe are better. I would have liked SNC too which underperformed in UK, Nerherlands and Germany.

BAAB though started this discussion not by talking about chart positions but by size of record market. And that is sales. The reality is the UK is the biggest, yes,per head (compared to Netherlands, Belgium and others) and in total (compared with Germany - which has a bigger population)


Anyway, that's my last post on this topic.

That ABBA link

I think the documentaries you've been watching may have been made in the UK or Australia Some of them make the history of ABBA into the story they want to tell rather than the true history.

I don't believe that ABBA-mania in Australia was directly responsible for them taking off again in the UK, as the British public knew very little about the Australian music scene. Supposedly, the single Mamma Mia was released following its popularity in Australia but ABBA had already re-established themselves in the UK charts with SOS by that time. And Mamma Mia wasn't an instant success in the UK, taking a while to chart and initially only crawling up the lower half of the Top 50. It is my belief that the showing of the film Made In Sweden - For Export on BBC TV gave Mamma Mia a big boost up the UK chart and made it a big hit.

And of course you are right, in many European countries ABBA didn't exactly fade into the background after Eurovision and had also had the odd hit pre-Eurovision hit. However, once they were big in the UK, I imagine this reinforced their success in other countries, as the UK was musically influential at that time. My first ABBA single from overseas was a Spanish copy of Fernando which had "No 1 en Inglaterra" printed on the picture-sleeve.

We're going off at a tangent now, but if Mamma Mia had peaked at No 29, would ABBA have eventually succeeded in the UK? Without Mamma Mia as a No 1, I don't know whether Fernando would have been taken seriously by the radio stations, like Radio 1, but I do believe that Dancing Queen would have been another No 1 irrespective of that.

Mamma Mia is recorded as having 2 consecutive weeks at number 29 in the UK chart only because the 2nd week was 'post-Christmas' 1975 and no chart was issued that week. 

Having said that, it was indeed something of a slow burner in so far as its journey to the top 10 - not surprising though as ABBA had only had 2 big UK hits up to that point.  You can clearly see the momentum the single gained around the New Year (presumably as the radio airwaves cleared themselves of Christmas songs) by following its UK chart journey - 43, 32, 29, (29), 12, then into the top 10 and up to number 1. 

Re Mamma Mia number one for 2 weeks in UK. I am sure Queen was number one over the Christmas New Year period when charts were not compiled...Abba were number one for two weeks later in January 1976 when sales for those weeks counted towards chart positions in the UK....outwith the festive period.

Michel and BAAB.Totally agree on your 'objection' on Abba's success and 'no gab existing' concerning rest countries out of the UK.Just to add that 'Honey honey' was No2 in German charts after WATERLOO and remained in the top 5 for 4 months there and also SOS was No1 there (before the Mamma mia single) for 7 whole weeks.'Gap' was mainly UK wise.Abba had hits even in African countries before the MAMMA MIA single.

jensj2,the closest thing i happen to know on Abba and B.Springsteen is from an interview of their tour manager Thomas Johansson.It was featured in the extras of the ABBA IN CONCERT(Wembley Arena) dvd, released sometime around mid '00s that i own.He stated that Bruce Springsteen had attented one of their gigs and he also mentioned the guys from The Clash amongst others being there.He also hinted that Abba's 6 night in a row sold out Wembey Arena residency(5-10 November 1979)-that had 'turned heads' at the time- was an easy thing to be obtained and if the band had decided to remain 'they could have sold another 20' dates if they wanted.Be happy,die not,lol.

I second that. Springsteen is my favourite songwriter, and he has excellent taste in music too!

jensj2,i read the music press from very young age since the late '70s.I got surprised each now and then when discovering how many rockers either secrectly or openly loved Abba.I remember in the '90s spotting to a photo of BJORK being photographed holding in her arms a copy of Abba's 'More Gold' vynil.She even did a demo with the Sugarcubes of DQ,heard this in Utube.Also PLACEBO did simlar thing with DQ.David Grohl even has a video on Utube dancing alone to it in Disco-lights.Slipknot's Corey Taylor is also a big fan stating TACOM as his fave single as well as the drummer of KORN J.Davies not to mention Bil Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins!I do know some famous Abba haters such as Roger waters(PFloyd)/Graham Nash(uhh!)/Bob Geldof,but the lovers are way toooo many!

OMG! That's awful!!! I think I could have done better and I can't even draw a straight line with a ruler!!! what were they thinking??!

It hasn't even got the charm of ugliness. It's so clearly dashed-off that you're left thinking at this point that someone is actively having fun at the expense of the those driven to obtaining every officially sanctioned, barely exclusive release. That cover says: we can put out any old scheit knocked-off in a minute, stamp a limited number on it, and some of those obsessives aren't going to be able to pass it by. (I think they missed a trick - they should've put out a set comprising four different versions, each having the '30th Anniversary' line based on the handwriting of a different ABBA member.  Some would be scrambling to get all four.)