Waterloo 50th / BBC Documentary / Other Anniversary Events

Abbaworld will open in Malmo for 2 weeks during the eurovision period. Go to Abbafanclub news.

ABBA: Against The Odds will air in Sweden on 6 April according to information received by Carl Magnus Palm.

This may well be the first European broadcast, therefore.

Several tv specials on the BBC: Against all odds, abba at the BBC, More Abba at the BBC, Abba in switserland, the joy of abba,

2 articles in the Swedish press (Aftonbladet) Today:

Aftonbladet 21 of March 2024

ABBA and Eva Rydberg receive the Royal Order


Updated 13.42 | Published 13.14


The members of ABBA and actress Eva Rydberg have been awarded the Royal Order of Vasa, the Royal Court has announced.

Benny Andersson, Agneta Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus can thus call themselves "commanders of the first class" while Eva Rydberg becomes commander.

----------------------------------------------------------

ABBA does not appear on its own tribute in SVT

'Joint decision'
The 50th anniversary is also celebrated in England


Updated 08.59 | Published 05.55


When ABBA is celebrated at a live gala from Cirkus in Stockholm, the main characters themselves choose not to show up.

This was announced by the group's manager Görel Hanser in an email to TT.

On Saturday, April 6, it will be 50 years since ABBA made music and television history, when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo" in 1974.

It is celebrated with a gala evening on SVT, which is broadcast from Cirkus in front of an audience. The live TV gala will be the culmination of a whole week where the group is celebrated on SVT, but the media-shy ABBA members will not participate in the celebration themselves.


In an email to TT, Abba's manager Görel Hanser writes:

"Agnetha, Frida, Björn and Benny have jointly decided to decline all requests in connection with the anniversary."
The ABBA members will also not be present during the gala evening at Cirkus, she explains.

ABBA will be celebrated on SVT throughout the week until Saturday, April 6. During the gala, "some of Sweden's most prominent artists" will perform and perform the group's classic songs. On the same night, the documentary "The Tale of Abba" will also be released, which focuses on the period between the album releases "Arrival" (1976) and "Super trouper" (1980).

The 50th anniversary is also celebrated in the UK, where the BBC, among others, invests in documentaries, concerts and radio programs to draw attention to the group.

Is there a reason 3 of them get this for 'VERY outstanding contributions' and Björn gets just 'outstanding contributions'? 😄

One more article , now from Expressen


The King's tribute to ABBA: "Very prominent"


Published 21 Mar 2024 at 13.28

Updated at 2:28 p.m.


King Carl Gustaf praises ABBA – 50 years after winning Eurovision.



Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agneta Fältskog are all honoured with the Royal Order of Vasa Medal.


The King and Queen visited ABBA Voyage in London in 2022.

Photo: PONTUS LUNDAHL/TT / TT NYHETSBYRÅN

It will not be the first time that ABBA has met the head of state. Here in 1979 at the Royal Palace.

Photo: OLLE LINDEBORG / TT NYHETSBYRÅN

Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson.

Photo: KARIN TÖRNBLOM / IBL


On 31 May, The King will hold an award ceremony, at which Swedes who have made "exceptional contributions" will be honoured with orders of chivalry.

According to the Royal Court, this is the first time in 50 years that these will be distributed, and the petition has been drawn up in consultation with the government.

On it is Lieutenant General Dennis Gyllensporre, who will be Commander of the First Rank of the Royal Order of the Sword "for outstanding leadership under war-like conditions in Mali".

The list also includes the ABBA quartet Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agneta Fältskog, who 50 years after winning Eurovision with "Waterloo" will become commanders of the first class of the Order of Vasa.

"For very outstanding contributions to Swedish and international musical life," the court writes in a press release.

The first review is not encouraging...

Abba – against all odds
Photo | Rogan Productions

Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaes won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo, but it was far from obvious that it would lead to more success for Abba.

Abba documentary interestingly portrays the pop-hostile 70s, but is far from the ultimate film about the ultimate pop group.
By Frederik Hoff

After the victory with Waterloo at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, Abba almost instantly became Europe's most popular music group.

And looking at Abba today, it seems inevitable that the well-oiled pop machine would become a huge success.

But with the documentary Abba – against all odds, the British director James Rogan shows how unlikely it really was.

The award-winning creator of music films such as 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything has accessed a treasure trove of archive material from twelve different broadcasters, including DR, to tell the story of Abbas's Napoleonic world conquest in the late 70s.

The documentary takes shape especially as a portrait of a very special time in music history, when it was actually a real problem for artists to be too broadly appealing.

As early as 1974, it was a tradition that Eurovision winners were never heard from again once the first ones had won. And in the music press, it was pretty much only rock that got anything other than perfidious slurs as a reward for the trouble.

Worst of all, it happened to Abba, who were regarded as hideously calculating folk opium produced by two money-grubbing pop boys and their wives. The many interview recordings from Abbas's heyday show again and again four talented musicians who have to put up with being asked only how much they earn.

The group is even unfortunate enough to venture into disco music – with hits such as Voulez Vous and the queer club hit Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) – just as the disco sucks movement starts.

In 1979, hundreds of disco records were burned at halftime of a baseball game in Chicago in a homophobic, racist demonstration disguised as musical puritanism.

Punk was the new thing, and it stood in total contrast to the well-coiffed Swedes in permanent relationships. Even though the Sex Pistols and the proto-punk Pete Townsend were Abbas' biggest fans, as the film wittily reminds us.

In the late 70s, art had to be political to be valuable.

An interesting point because the same can be said to some extent about the 2020s. Apart from the fact that today there is also respect for the more subdued political: the image of the divorces and life crises of the Scandinavian middle-class existence, which can be found in the best of Abbas's texts.

Abba - Against All Odds demonstrates quite effectively that Abba became great in spite of the zeitgeist and not because of it.

The correct conclusion must then be that when Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid managed anyway, it was because of their artistic strength. The problem is that Jamens Rogan is apparently not particularly interested in Abbas' music.

The film does contain the inevitable hit parade, but although it's worth the price of the ticket just to hear Knowing Me, Knowing You on cinema speakers, the tracks are mainly background noise.

The documentary never delves into Abba's impressively advanced compositions or Rutger Gunnarsson's all-important bass playing.

This time, too, there is no explanation of how Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog came up with the magical consonance, where the voices in unison are completely glued together and sound bigger than anything else when they harmonize.

The two uncommonly well-disciplined pop stars are forever breathtaking to watch, as are Benny, the shy genius, and Bjørn, who looks wonderfully awkward no matter where you place him.

But the film is far too busy and prioritizes time poorly.

As soon as you get caught up in, for example, the famous concert at Wembley Stadium in 1979, it's over and we have to move on to the next scene about broken marriages and the hatred of the press.

Three times it is explained that Agnetha is afraid of flying. But no time is spent on Abba's last and most experimental album Visitors, which is otherwise the most obvious argument for taking the group seriously.

Abba – against all odds had its world premiere at the Cph:Dox festival, where the film is highlighted as "the ultimate film about the ultimate pop group". The latter is probably true. But the definitive story of all that Abba was and could do remains to be told.

Despite the official note from Görel, that none of The Four will take part in any anniversary celebration - swoosh - Benny shows up in a Celebration Video produced by SVT:



Only local swedish performer are included in the "cast" though. Not really appealing to international audiences.

It sounds pretty good to me, actually, despite it not venturing into some areas like the girls' vocals or the recording process.

It's impossible to cover every aspect of the group's career and strengths in the space of ninety minutes. Rogan decided to concentrate on "the world (as it was in the 1970s) vs ABBA" angle, and the reviewer seems to be saying he succeeded.

Not a bad review at all. I'm looking forward to it immensely.

Did ABBA go to Britain in 1980 or 1981? I don't recall ever seeing any TV footage of those years.

It looks like Saturday 6th April that When ABBA Came to Britain will air in the UK.

Early April and a Saturday night, so it's got to be then

www.musicweek.com/media/read/abba-set-for-catalogue-boost-with-bbc-programming-to-mark-50th-anniversary-of-eurovision-win/089460#:~:text=Music%20Week%20has%20reported%20on,No.10%20overall%20in%202023.



And fron the BBC itself

www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2024/the-bbc-celebrates-abba-in-april-50-years-since-their-eurovision-win-in-1974

In 1982 they the German ShowTime and the rather awkward apperance on that Noel Edmunds show.