The four stars of ABBA paid the price for their worldwide success. Today, we regard the Swedish band as pop legends, having sold 385 million records since winning Eurovision 50 years ago. However, it was not easy to start, even in their own country many people hated the band. Later, at the top, working together destroyed the marriages of the two couples: Agnetha and Björn, and Anni-Frid and Benny. The American breakthrough did not succeed, because of this they almost broke up and he got sick. I talk about this in a documentary that has just been released.
It all started with the hit song “Waterloo” in 1974, when they won the international song festival and became famous all at once, but the big breakthrough was waiting for them.
ABBA will not return at Eurovision 2024
– Brighton had Eurovision, which we won, we were booked in England as a lemonade pop band. So success came in vain in the homeland of rock and in the center of the music world, there was no need for us – Benny recalled.
– We weren’t very popular in Sweden either, it was funny to say that you like ABBA. It looked like we were going straight from the top to the bottom. But we didn’t give up, we wrote the songs and Mamma Mia made the European breakthrough.
The song was at the top of the charts and the fans slowly liked the rest as well.
– We found our voice, realized that we are a pop group and started writing songs like this, to the wonderful voices of Agnetha and Frida. “Knowing Me, Knowing You” came, then “Dancing Queen”, recalled Björn.
We made it, but success came at a price, we had to leave our child at home for months because of the tours, we were together from morning to night, and our marriage suffered from this, and this was the case for both couples. The love ended, but the working relationship remained excellent, so the band lived on, no one quit.
Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus split in 1980, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson split in 1981, when ABBA was at its peak worldwide, except in the United States, where the band was not known at all.
It hurt us a lot that we didn’t make it to the top of the entertainment industry in America, I got really sick of it
Agnetha admitted.
– The others also felt that we should give up on this, we were on the floor, but in England they welcomed us with open arms and we played 38 sold-out concerts in Wembley, it was medicine for the body and the soul. We paid a high price for success, but in retrospect we can say that it was worth it for all of us.
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