It’s an incredible 50 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. We take a look back at the amazing success, and often turbulent love lives, of the Swedish superstars
WORDS: MITYA UNDERWOOD PHOTOS: GETTY, DAVID REDFERN/REDFERNS, DAWBELL PR,REX/SHUTTERSTOCK, ALAMY, PA
LIVING LEGENDS
On 6 April it will be exactly 50 years since the UK judges at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton famously awarded “nul points” to the platform-heeled, satin-clad entry from Sweden. Half a century later, that score seems more than a little ironic given ABBA’s current status as one of the world’s most-loved artists – with eight consecutive No1 albums in the UK and the Hollywood-actor-packed Mamma Mia! films and West End show to prove it.
The group – made up of Agnetha Fältskog, who turns 74 this week, Björn Ulvaeus, 78, Benny Andersson, 77, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), 78 – were introduced to the Brighton Dome stage in 1974 by the British announcer as the entry from “a country full of mountains, lakes and forests”. But few people could have anticipated what was to come in the following three minutes – and the subsequent 50 years.
“Well, actually I had a £20 bet on it, in Brighton, at 20/1,” Benny once said of their Eurovision performance.
“There were some good songs, but I did think ours was better. I was standing there, and I’m good at mental arithmetic, so I knew exactly the moment where we would win even if we got no more votes and I told the others, ‘That’s it, we’ve done it.’”
Prior to that momentous night, Benny and his then girlfriend Frida were touring as a cabaret band with Björn and Agnetha, who were also a couple, performing covers of other artists. But, as Benny later said, they weren’t particularly happy about it.
“It was so f**king embarrassing,” he once said in a very unABBA-like response. “But in the middle of the set, we would sing a 10-minute medley of songs from that record [the 1970 album Lycka by Benny and Björn], and that was the only bit we felt good about. That was the bit we liked, never mind about the audience, we knew that we liked those 10 minutes.”
By the early 70s, the foursome were wondering how to “make people outside Sweden know we exist?” They entered their own song, Ring Ring, in the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest selection festival, Melodifestivalen, but came third. The following year, they re-entered with Waterloo and the rest, as they say, is history – but also
