WITH ABBA RECENTLY ANNOUNCING THEY’VE FINISHED TWO NEW SONGS – THEIR FIRST NEW MATERIAL FOR MORE THAN 35 YEARS – CLASSIC POP TRACES THE BAND’S LIFE IN THE STUDIO AND SPEAKS TO ONE OF THE BAND’S HISTORIANS AND RECORDING EXPERT, CARL MAGNUS PALM

ANDY JONES

The announcement of a new ABBA tour – albeit one with just on-stage digital avatars – was greeted with unabashed joy among the band’s huge fanbase. They (and we) had given up on the chance of ever seeing the quartet together again on stage so, four decades after they last played live, even holographic recreations will do. This virtual tour has now led to an even greater event in the ABBA-sphere, as the band itself revealed: “We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did…”

This, as you know by now, meant that Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid recorded two completely new ABBA songs and their huge global fanbase, already in ecstasy over the avatar tour, is now in a state of extreme anticipation. What are the songs like? How are the voices holding up? Could the new tracks possibly be as good as the classics? Will they be happy or sad songs? Did they all get on?

Questions, questions… but the only thing we know for sure is that the end of this year will herald yet another ABBA revival. It’s going to be bigger than when Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert propelled them back into the spotlight in 1994. Bigger even than when Mamma Mia! the musical opened in 1999, or when the movie came out in 2008. Bigger than that 30 million-selling ABBA Gold album. This is avatars belting out the hits and NEW ABBA MUSIC! Mamma Mia…! This is going to be HUGE

Björn Ulvaeus in a recreation of Polar Recording Studios. This immersive exhibition at London’s Southbank Centre charts the band using objects from Stockholm’s ABBA: The Museum and the group’s private archives

© Nils Jorgensen/REX/Shutterstock

Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Michael B Tretow in the recording studio

Polar Studios was built in a disused cinema in Stockholm and paid for by profits from ABBA’s huge global success

Björn, Benny and Michael B Tretow in a control room built super-sized for added comfort

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

ABBA’s fame stems from the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and their song Waterloo, yet it was a previous Eurovision that first brought the band together. The four members had all enjoyed varying success well before ABBA formed. Frida signed to EMI Sweden in 1967 and released several singles before entering the Swedish heats for Eurovision in 1969. She only came fourth but met Benny Andersson during the competition, it would not only seal her musical future but her personal one, too – the pair eventually marrying in 1978.

Andersson had achieved success as a keyboard player with the band the Hep Stars, for which he’d already written his first song with Björn Ulvaeus. He was at that same 1969 contest with Lasse Berghagen with whom he’d written the song Hej Clown (which came second). Björn had been in the Hootenanny Singers before he met Benny in the mid-60s. Their songwriting partnership resulted in the song Ljuva Sextital, with lyrics by future ABBA manager, Stig Anderson, which also entered into those 1969 Eurovision heats but was rejected.