ABBA (album)
| ABBA | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABBA studio album | |||||||||
|
Publication |
April 21, 1975 |
||||||||
| Label (s) |
|
||||||||
|
Format (s) |
LP, MC, CD |
||||||||
|
Title (number) |
11 (LP, MC), 13/14/18 (CD) |
||||||||
|
running time |
|
||||||||
| occupation |
|
||||||||
|
Studio (s) |
Glenstudio, Stocksund and Metronome Studio, Stockholm '74 –'75 |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
ABBA is the third album by the Swedish pop group ABBA . It was released in April 1975 and was largely recorded at Glen Studios in Stockholm. With the hit singles SOS and Mamma Mia , the album was ABBA's decisive step towards a world career.
History of origin
Start of recordings
After the group won the Eurovision Song Contest , the title Waterloo stayed at the top of the charts in Great Britain until mid-May 1974. In order to repeat their success, ABBA dedicated the following summer to the recordings for their next album together, which began on August 22, 1974. The first songs were Man in the Middle , So Long and SOS . It was planned to finish the album before the end of the year. This failed, however, on the autumn tour that took place in November 1974. Before it started, Hey, Hey Helen , Bang-A-Boomerang , I've Been Waiting for You , Rock Me and Crazy World were recorded in September and October .
At around the same time as the tour began, So Long was also released as the first single of the recording sessions. Both the concert tour and the single were unsuccessful. The first concert in Copenhagen on November 17, 1974 was not sold out, nor were the following concerts in Hanover, Munich and Vienna. The planned concerts in Düsseldorf and Zurich were ultimately canceled completely due to poor ticket sales. In December the instrumental piece Intermezzo No.1 was produced, which was also used on stage as an opening. The single So Long , which only made it into the top ten in Austria, Sweden and New Zealand and was a commercial flop, also suffered from the promotion thwarted by the tour .
Release of the album and first reactions
The Scandinavian tour started on January 10, 1975 with a concert in Oslo, which sold out quickly. Ticket sales in Sweden and Finland also went well, and the concerts were overall more successful than in Central Europe. From the end of February the four artists could concentrate on the final studio recordings for Tropical Loveland , I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do and Mamma Mia . The album, entitled ABBA , was finally released on April 21, 1975, where it immediately entered the album charts at number 1 in Sweden . It also reached the top ten in seven other countries. Around 450,000 copies had been sold in Sweden by the end of the year.
Also in April 1975, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do was released as a single. Although she was able to top the charts in four countries, she did not achieve the desired success in the British charts. The song was heavily criticized by numerous magazines and only reached number 38. A year had passed since the success with Waterloo , and ABBA had still not managed to repeat this performance. Gradually, in the spring of 1975, the production of music videos for I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do , SOS , Mamma Mia and Bang-A-Boomerang began under the direction of Lasse Hallström , who was already involved in 1974 directed the music clips for Ring Ring and Waterloo . The work on the videos was done with a relatively low budget of 50,000 crowns .
Return to the international charts
In the summer of 1975, ABBA carried out a month-long tour of the Swedish folk parks, which started on June 17 and was seen by over 100,000 spectators throughout, making the group a record. At the same time, the song SOS contained on the album was released as a single. In addition, the single Rock Me was released in Australia , which reached the 4th place.
Meanwhile, ABBA returned to the top ten in Great Britain with SOS . In October the single reached 6th place on the UK singles chart, and in Germany SOS was the first of six consecutive number one hits . Spurred on by the great success of Mamma Mia in Australia, the single has now also been released in Europe and on January 31, 1976, was the first ABBA song since Waterloo to reach 1st place on the British charts.
Cover
The cover picture of the LP shows the group, classically dressed in a Rolls-Royce , while passers-by and fans crowd in front of the windows to catch a glimpse of the pop group. This scene was staged, however, and was intended to allude to ABBA's growing popularity. Ulvaeus holds a bottle of champagne in his hand, while Fältskog and Lyngstad hold fine drinking goblets in front of them and Andersson a walking stick. The photo was taken in March 1975 on Tyrgatan in Stockholm's Östermalm district . The back cover was created in the entrance hall of what was then the Castle Hotel in Riddargatan, also in Östermalm. In order to appear elegant and sublime, the group members also posed here in fine costumes. Ola Lager was the executive photographer.
With the motives of wealth, luxury and slight arrogance, ABBA reiterated the accusation that their music was too commercially oriented or that their appearance was detached and arrogant. Since their victory at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 they had heard this mainly from the “Progg”, a politically left-wing movement in Sweden that was directed against commercial music without a political message. It was for this reason that they were all the more anxious to meet the allegations with irony. In the same year, the cover was parodied by Swedish musician Peps Persson , which the ABBA members themselves were very amused.
Track list
- page 1
- Page 2
- I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do
- rock Me
- Intermezzo No. 1
- I've been waiting for you
- So long
- Bonus title (CD version 2001)
- 12. Crazy World
- 13th Medley (1978 mix)
- Pick A Bale Of Cotton
- On Top Of Old Smokey
- Midnight Special (recorded May 1975)
Publications and chart successes
album
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
 SE
|
|||
| 1975 | ABBA |
DE31 (12 weeks) DE |
- | - |
UK13 (10 weeks) UK |
US174 (3 weeks) US |
SE1 (34 weeks) SE |
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
After its release in April 1975, the album immediately entered the Swedish album charts and immediately reached number 1, which it occupied for a total of 16 weeks. It sold more than 470,000 copies, breaking the group's own record from Waterloo . ABBA also proved to be successful in the other Scandinavian countries . In Norway it was also at the top of the chart for 16 weeks, while in Finland it came in 6th. Outside of Scandinavia, the success was initially significantly lower.
In Germany, the album was first released under the original title, then as Mamma Mia . Both versions of the LP turned out to be “slow-moving” and did not enter the charts until March 15, 1976, where it reached number 31. Success in Great Britain was also limited; ABBA did not hit the charts until 1976 and peaked at number 13. In the US, where some advertising campaigns for the album were started, the LP did not get past the top 200. Things looked different in Australia and New Zealand, where the single Mamma Mia was released in September 1975 . Along with the success of the single, the album also received a lot of attention and reached number 1 on the Australian album charts, which it occupied for eleven weeks. It received eleven gold awards and sold 550,000 times. ABBA ranked 3rd in New Zealand .
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
CH
|
UK
|
US
|
SE
|
|||
| 1974 |
So Long I've Been Waiting For You |
DE11 (16 weeks) DE |
AT3 (8 weeks) AT |
- | - | - |
SE7 (8 weeks) SE |
|
| 1975 |
I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do Rock Me |
DE6 (22 weeks) DE |
AT4 (12 weeks) AT |
CH1 (17 weeks) CH |
UK38 (6 weeks) UK |
US15 (15 weeks) US |
- | |
|
SOS Man In The Middle |
DE1 (30 weeks) DE |
AT2 (24 weeks) AT |
CH3 (18 weeks) CH |
UK6 (10 weeks) UK |
US15 (17 weeks) US |
- | ||
|
Mamma Mia Intermezzo No. 1 |
DE1 (24 weeks) DE |
AT3 (16 weeks) AT |
CH1 (25 weeks) CH |
UK1 (21 weeks) UK |
US32 (8 weeks) US |
- | ||
Sources and literature
- In Focus: The Making of the ABBA Album on abbasite.com, accessed July 23, 2018
- ABBA Gold - The Success Story, 1992
- “ABBA Annual” from 1974 , 1975 and 1976
- ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists
- Carl Magnus Palm: Light and Shadow. ABBA - The real story. Bosworth Musikverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86543-100-4 (German translation: Helmut Müller).
- Carl Magnus Palm: Abba. Story and songs compact. Bosworth Music, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-227-8 , (German translation: Cecilia Senge).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ release date
- ↑ a b c d e f g Carl Magnus Palm: Light and Shadow. ABBA - The real story.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Carl Magnus Palm: Abba - Story and songs compact.
- ^ Sara Russell: The ABBA travel guide to Stockholm. German edition, Premium Publishing Verlag, Stockholm 2010.
- ↑ January Gradvall, Petter Karlsson: ABBA - The whole story in 600 images. G + J NG Buchgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2014, page 172
- ↑ a b ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento April 6, 2012 on WebCite )
- ^ Billboard Magazine 1979 Excerpt from the Billboard special edition of September 8, 1979
- ↑ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Finland
- ↑ German "Mamma Mia" - LP on getabba.com
- ↑ ABBA Phenomenon Archive: The Abba album , accessed September 13, 2014
- ↑ ABBA Sales: Australian Sales ( Memento from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ ABBA - The Worldwide Chart Lists ( Memento of September 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) New Zealand