SOLUTELY FABULOUS
Agnetha wrote her first song aged six and was already a star by the time she joined ABBA, having had a No1 in Sweden in 1968 at just 17.
She began dating Björn Ulvaeus in 1969. When he teamed up with Benny Andersson to record an album called Happiness, she and Benny’s Norwegian-born girlfriend Anni-Frid Lyngstad did the backing vocals.
The foursome got the name ABBA in 1973 based on their initials, but had to strike a deal with Swedish canned seafood firm Abba to share it. They had considered using “Alibaba” and “Friends and Neighbours”.
They found global fame when they won 1974’s Eurovision with Waterloo. Despite getting no
points from the
UK judges the track went to No1. It wasn’t until 1976, with hits like Fernando and Dancing Queen, that they became megastars.
Their 1977 gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall had 3.5million ticket requests. The group went on to have nine UK hits.
Their outrageous costumes were actually a tax dodge, as they could claim for clothes they wouldn’t normally wear in the street. Björn says:
“In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years.”
Agnetha and Bjorn married in 1971 but divorced in 1980, the year the band’s break-up ballad The Winner Takes It All came out. Frida and Benny married in 1978 and divorced in 1981, a year before the band split. Mum-of-two Agnetha shunned the spotlight when ABBA broke up, throwing herself into astrology and horse riding. She had a phobia of flying, suffered stage fright and nearly died in a 1983 bus crash.
has put together some fabulous facts about the Swedish supergroup…