ABBA at 50

Product Information

And it turned out to be the first of eight singles that appeared on debut LP, Ring Ring, which received a limited release in late March 1973. This book charts the journey of ABBA from their separate beginnings in pop, forming the group, Eurovision 1974 (how embarrassing that the UK judges gave them zero points 😳), their rise to worldwide fame, personal relationships, the break up and right through to Mamma Mia the musical and ABBA voyage (which I’ve seem and is absolutely amazing! But I don’t think I’ve properly encountered a telephone attached that way since the days my Mum would take herself off to the hall, perching at the bottom of the stairs while chatting to friends and family. The thing about ABBA during their heyday is that they were at least liked by most (even if secretly) and loved by many. ABBA at 50 takes fans on a remembrance journey…before, during, and after this group took the music world by storm.

It covers a major group during a period of great change in music history as well as the relationships of four very real people. It seems apt that Voyage came out – and straight in at the top of the charts – 40 years to the month after The Visitors seemed to signal the end of the story. The book charts the band's meteoric rise to stardom, plus the high and low points both professionally and in their personal lives. One of the most commercially successful acts in the history of pop music, they topped charts worldwide from that breakthrough year until – initially – 1982, their nine UK No.As a child of the 70's, I was very aware of ABBA right from the start of their popularity in the United States; my older brother had a 45 of "Waterloo". The art and the skill is in making such precision seem effortless, and ABBA accomplished that very well.

In 2021, after a forty-year hiatus, the band released a new album Voyage, and announced an accompanying concert featuring their digital avatars, dubbed “ABBAtars. And not only is it now 50 years of ABBA, but soon you’ll be able to mark half a century of your own journey – your Voyage, I guess – with the band, in effect from that day as an eight-year-old you picked up your first ABBA single, ‘Ring Ring’. It’s very detailed stories about how the album sleeves were put together, it’s about chart success, it’s about how the record company people in the UK and the US primarily promoted or tried to promote their music. While not as well-refined or developed in design or content as Carl Magnus Palm's own self-published books of recent (the excellent revised "ABBA The Complete Recording Sessions" or the anticipated "ABBA On Record"), this book will engage fans new and old of their enduring legacy in music and culture.

That’s always a thrill, you know, when you have a new book out, and it’s, ‘Oh, wow, it actually exists! I didn’t know they were already famous in the role vans respectively before creating the group ABBA. The author has included little known tidbits about the writing process, touring, costumes, biographies and increasingly stressed family life. I interviewed people who used to work for CBS in the 1970s and who were involved with the ABBA catalogue, or putting together commercials, or running up to radio stations or whatever they had to do. Then ‘Waterloo’ was a big hit and a remix of ‘Ring Ring’ was released in the UK, and that was the one that went to No.