For the 50th anniversary of the victory at Eurovision, ABBA has restored the video of its triumph: people of the era

“On the same Saturday as now, only 50 years ago, an event took place that forever changed the history of music” – under such a somewhat pathetic annotation, something echoing the delight of the flight to the moon, still alive (and thank God, and long summers!) the Swedish group ABBA presented last Saturday with a separate clip a restored and victorious performance at the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 in Brighton, England with the song Waterloo, after which the worldwide ABBAmania began.

In other words, the great musical era of ABBA had arrived. It’s like how we, behind the Iron Curtain, and just a year after the triumph of the Swedes, began our own sovereign musical era – Alla Pugacheva.

For the Swedes, however, everything turned out more quickly, one might say, like a rabbit – the group thundered through the concert venues of the Earth and the best television shows for only ten years, released 8 albums, each of which became a blockbuster, and in 1982, recording a farewell lyrical the passive ballad The Day Before You Came (“The day before you appeared”), happily ceased to exist. Much later, Philip Kirkorov, having listened to this opus on my tip, grimaced in bewilderment and said in disappointment: “It’s somehow completely inexpressive – for a farewell song.” The song is good though. Just like any ABBA…

For the next 40 years, despite periodic rumors of a reunion, it seemed that the legend had sunk into oblivion forever. Until, in 2021, the legendary Swedish foursome unexpectedly released a new, ninth album, Voyage, and then staged a unique multimedia concert show ABBA.Voyage with “live” ABBAtars, which still attracts crowds of ABBAfans from all over the world to specially built in London for this ABBA Arena production.

Despite all the stunning success and explosive creative potential with which they sang and sang the way their friend and colleague, Woman of the Epoch Alla Pugacheva, sang for a long time, the Swedes were ruined by banal confusion in the traditional Swedish family. Consisting of two married couples, ABBA began to burst at the seams back in 1979, when the union of Agnetha Falstkog (the fair one) and Björn Ulvaeus fell apart. Gritting her teeth, Agneta spent another three years as a vocalist in a group that became more bitter than wormwood for her, and then, when everything completely fell apart, she cursed the remaining trio and couldn’t stand them for almost 40 years.

In 1981, the union of Annie Frida Lyngstad (the dark one) and Benny Andersson also fell apart, after which everyone finally became unbearable, and at the peak of their fame the group, unexpectedly for everyone, simply disappeared, without even bothering to notify the excited musical community about it.

However, love is carrots, and business is business. Despite the collapse, the group’s albums, both former numbered ones and endless compilations, continued to be released in incredible numbers, reaching a record 375 million copies, which left far behind their closest pursuers in the recording market – The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Madonna.

Alla Pugacheva, meanwhile, being a star not at all on a global, but on a purely domestic scale, churned out, according to various sources, from 200 to 250 million copies of her records, most of which came during the Soviet period, so all the million-dollar income then went into the state budget to feed the workers. -a peasant state with a layer of working intelligentsia, and not into the singer’s bank account, in contrast to the collapsed ABBA, which continued to grow enormously rich, despite draconian Swedish taxes. But the numbers are comparable. This is what people of the era mean…

ABBA still sells 2-3 million records a year, its music unites generations and continues to be heard not only in the original, in cult films (for example, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”), but also in countless incarnations. In 1999, the group’s songs were adapted into the musical Mamma Mia, and the subsequent musical film of the same name in 2008 with the brilliant Meryl Streep collected a record box office worldwide. On March 15, 2010, the band was officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Eurovision 1974, in fact, went down in history with the victory of ABBA, after which the group, founded two years earlier, began a worldwide triumph. The competition was supposed to be held in Luxembourg, but the Grand Duchy then transferred the right to host it to the English city of Brighton, citing the fact that there was no money, but they had to hold on. Now they bite their elbows – so miss history.

Since then, Sweden has won Eurovision 6 more times and, as fate would have it, won last year in Liverpool with the song Tatoo performed by Lorin. Thus, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s triumph will take place as part of a competition in the group’s homeland in Sweden, which is very symbolic, in the city of Malmo in May this year. Everyone, of course, hopes for the personal presence of the heroes of the day, but so far only a grandiose tribute show has been promised, and ZD will tell you how everything will turn out.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29254 dated April 10, 2024

Newspaper headline:
ABBA triumph restoration