Benny Anderson - Every UK Number 1

The Intro

Although ABBA still had a few years left in the tank, Super Trouper was their ninth and last number 1 to date. What a run. This is the story of their last chart-topper, their final act and their triumphant return as avatars in the 21st century.

Before

Super Trouper was the final track that Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus wrote for their seventh LP. Unusually, the album was already to have that name, which it shares with a type of stage spotlight once for large venues, that was once considered the brightest in the world. This song had the working title of Blinka Lilla Stjärna (Swedish for Twinkle Little Star), but as Andersson and Ulvaeus noticed how well the album title fitted with the chorus, so it became Super Trouper, and it replaced Put On Your White Sombrero to become the title track.

Although not as obvious as The Winner Takes It All, the song features references to Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog’s marriage coming to an end. In the first verse, ‘I was sick and tired of everything/When I called you last night from Glasgow’ referred to Ulvaeus missing his then-wife during promo work in the Scottish city. With this in mind, and the song’s central theme of a pop star who wants to get off the road and be with his loved one, you can consider Super Trouper a rather poignant goodbye to Fältskog from Ulvaeus. However, if that was the intention, it’s half-hidden and mixed in with the conceit of the pop star knowing that somewhere in the crowd is the one they love.

Review

Super Trouper is a suitably great way for ABBA to bow out of this blog. It’s classic ABBA, featuring a beautiful plaintive piano melody from Andersson and a yearning sound to the verses, before turning into a mix of synth-disco and schlager music for the chorus – the latter coming from the backing vocals. I’m not normally a fan of ABBA when they dip into schlager, but it’s irresistibly catchy here.

Lasse Hallström’s videos are usually reliably interesting, and Super Trouper is no exception. It features their biggest cast yet – a circus troupe, as displayed on the sleeve art, shown above. Mostly, it’s ABBA performing in front of loads of disco lights, interspersed with an annoyingly frequent moustachioed man controlling a ‘super trouper’, a very badly animated Andersson and an amazingly horrible jumper sported by Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

After

Super Trouper made ABBA the fourth biggest act for UK chart-toppers ever, with nine, behind only The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. They held this position until Madonna went to number 1 with Music in 2000. They now share the eighth spot for most number 1s with the Spice Girls and Rihanna. This single is their second biggest selling in the UK, behind only Dancing Queen.

It was one of the biggest singles of Christmas 1980, and may have perhaps even made it to Christmas number 1 had John Lennon not been murdered while it was top of the hit parade. It even spawned a famous festive Woolworth advert one year later.

ABBA followed up Super Trouper with another classic, Lay All Your Love on Me, which peaked at seven. It was, at the time, the biggest-selling 12″ ever.

1981 was an eventful year for the group. Ulvaeus remarried in January, and Andersson and Lyngstad divorced, followed by Andersson remarrying that November. The same month saw the release of The Visitors, which was to be ABBA’s last album for 40 years. With lyrics exploring the Cold War and the complexities relationships, it was their most mature work yet. The lead single, One of Us, peaked at three and was their last top 10 single for 40 years.

In 1982 ABBA released a compilation, over-optimistically titled The Singles: The First Ten Years, which included the acclaimed new single The Day Before You Came. Their last public appearance together for many years was on Noel Edmonds’ The Late, Late Breakfast Show that year. The group never officially announced they had split, and even denied for some time, but Fältskog and Lyngstad worked on solo albums, while Ulvaeus and Andersson began working with Tim Rice on the musical Chess.

10 years after ABBA’s last singles, some of their most popular songs were at number 1 thanks to synth-pop duo Erasure, who released their Abba-esque EP and helped kickstart an irony laden ABBA revival in the 90s, that has never really gone away. This was thanks also in no small part to the release one of the bestselling compilations of all-time – ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, the same year. Westlife’s cover of I Have a Dream, paired up with Seasons in the Sun, was the final UK number 1 of the 20th century.

Fältskog, Lyngstad, Ulvaeus and Andersson were not seen in public together again until the Stockholm premiere of the musical Mamma Mia! in 2005. In the same month, Madonna released Hung Up, featuring a sample of Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), which became her 11th chart-topper. Three years later, Mamma Mia! became a film, and although ABBA were together again for the premiere, they said they would never reform as a band.In 2016, the ice began to thaw. ABBA briefly appeared on stage again at a private party to mark 50 years since their songwriters first met. That year, Simon Fuller also announced a new project – ABBAtars – which would feature the group in avatar form. Two years later – the same year as musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was released – ABBA shocked the world. At last, they were to release new songs, to coincide with a TV special. However, the programme was cancelled, but although the next few years saw plans delayed in large part due to COVID-19, news of further new material leaked.

Finally in 2021, ABBA released a new album. Voyage was preceded by the singles I Still Have Faith in You and Don’t Shut Me Down. Although, perhaps surprisingly, they didn’t return to number 1 in the UK singles chart, the country, like the rest of the world, were much in need of reconnecting with one of the most popular bands of all time. Perhaps wisely, the group adopted a different approach to promotion. The long-awaited avatar project came to fruition, with a concert residency inside ABBA Arena, a custom-built venue at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. ABBA were immortalised just as they looked in 1979, but with newly recorded vocals, as motion capture digital avatars, backed by a 10-piece band, edited by one of former housemates when I was at university, which boggled my mind when I found out. ABBA’s fans had the opportunity to relive their favourite songs, and if they were to close their eyes or suspend their imagination, ABBA were back in their glory. Andersson confirmed in 2022 that this would be the final ABBA project. In 2023 their longtime guitarist, the unsung Lasse Wellander, died at the age of 70.

The Outro

For many years, I was turned off by ABBA. I found much of their work too cheesy, over-rated and prone to being covered by a range of awful groups (Erasure were not one of them. Westlife, they definitely were). Their schlager music left me cold, even if I recognised Dancing Queen as a classic.

One benefit of this blog is the way it has helped shed new light on artists I might previously have rejected. ABBA are one of those. Some of their 70s number 1s helped raise the bar among some seriously lacklustre chart-toppers, particularly in 1976. And it’s perhaps only with the passing of time and certain experiences that you can appreciate that underlying or often blatant sadness at the heart of some truly amazing and even painful songwriting. I was, frankly, a fool to under-appreciate ABBA. I am prone to being a music slob, and questioning the British public for buying records I’d have run a mile from. In ABBA’s case, I have been well and truly humbled.

What far-reaching effect the concept of avatar concerts may have in years to come on other, perhaps long dead musical acts, remains to be seen.

The Info

Written & produced by

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

3 (29 November-19 December)

Trivia

Births

6 December: Footballer Steve Lovell
7 December: Footballer John Terry
8 December: Actor Nick Nevern
15 December: Actor Neil McDermott/Kasabian guitarist Sergio Pizzorno
16 December: Actor Michael Jobson

Deaths

29 November: Historian Joel Hurstfield
2 December: Labour Party MP Patrick Gordon Walker
3 December: British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley
4 December: Cricketer Geoffrey Cooke
6 December: Novelist Margot Bennett
8 December: Beatles singer-songwriter John Lennon (see ‘Meanwhile…’)
10 December: Writer Philip MacDonald
11 December: Novelist Margaret Malcolm
12 December: Businessman Sir Jules Thorn
13 December: Anthropologist John Morris/Labour Party MP Harry Pursey
14 December: Physician Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys, 2nd Baronet/Scottish cricketer Forbes Jones
16 December: Jazz trombonist Keith Christie/film director Peter Collins
17 December: Artist Elsie Few
18 December: Writer Ben Travers

Meanwhile…

8 December: The UK joined the world in mourning the unexpected and shocking loss of John Lennon, founder of The Beatles and only 40 when shot dead by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota, his home in New York.

14 December: Thousands of fans mourned Lennon in Liverpool, his birthplace, with a 10-minute vigil.

18 December: Labour leader Michael Foot got off to a promising start in his new role, with a MORI poll showing his party leading the Conservatives by 24 points.

The Intro

In 1974, ABBA looked ready to go huge. They’d won Eurovision with Waterloo, and then… not a lot happened. It seemed likely that Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were to become one-hit wonders. But 1976 proved the doubters wrong.

Before

So what did happen in the two years inbetween Waterloo and Mamma Mia? Well, ABBA’s UK record label didn’t help matters. They decided to follow up their Eurovision smash with a remix of Ring Ring, whereas elsewhere, Honey, Honey did pretty well, including reaching two in Germany. Ring Ring didn’t even enter the top 30, whereas a cover of Honey, Honey by Sweet Dreams went to 10.

November 1974 saw them embark on their first European tour, but most venues didn’t sell out and some dates even had to be cancelled. Around that time they released So Long as a single but it didn’t chart. It was followed in mid-1975 by I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do. It didn’t. Although it reached the top five in many European countries, it scaled the lofty heights of 38 in the UK.

Fortunately, things picked up after that. Their eponymous third studio album was released in April and hit number 13, and their next single SOS went to six. And rightly so – it’s one of their best.

Mamma Mia was the final track to be recorded for ABBA but would be the LP’s opener. It had been written at Ulvaeus and Fältskog’s home, and never intended as a single. It was even offered to Brotherhood of Man, soon to become Eurovision winners themselves, but they turned it down. Which is rather ironic when you consider they would completely rip off Fernando with their number 1 Angelo in 1977. In addition to Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny, it featured session musicians Janne Schafer on guitar, Mike Watson on bass and Roger Palm on drums. That distinctive and memorable sound you hear tick-rocking in the opening was a marimba, which was incorporated at the last minute when Andersson found one in the studio and rightly thought it could work well.

Review

As I stated in my blog for Waterloo, I’m far from ABBA’s biggest fan, and was turned off by them in general for many years, but there are exceptions to my rule. Where does Mamma Mia rate in my opinion? Well, it’s chock full of hooks and an excellent introduction to the songwriting of Andersson and Ulvaeus, featuring bittersweet lyrics set to an upbeat sound. While it can work well to use sad lyrics in a happy song, and it’s something ABBA would excel at, I’m not sure it works so well here. The girls are singing about being ‘cheated by you since I don’t know when’ and have had it happen so many times, it’s over. They don’t sound particularly cut up about that. However, you can rightly point out that love isn’t that simple, and as we discover, ‘just one look’ is all it takes to forget all the bad times, and bring the good rushing back. Such is love. Does ‘Mamma Mia’ sufficiently encapsulate the power of that love? It’s no ‘A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-lop-bam-boom!’, that’s for sure, and was perhaps a placeholder that they decided to keep, with deadlines approaching.

Ultimately for me, despite its good points, Mamma Mia makes me think of the ‘cheesy’ aspects of ABBA that used to turn me off. They still sound a little ‘Eurovision’ here, and while I’m quite partial to a bit of cheese, and the guitar sound is a nice throwback to the glam they would soon ditch, I’m not fussed about hearing this song ever again. But I know I will, such is its ubiquity.

After

Mamma Mia was released in Australia in August, and spent 10 weeks at number 1. Epic went full steam ahead on promotion this time around in the UK, and it paid off. They filmed a video that’s proved to be an enduring image of the group – the girls and Ulvaeus dressed flamboyantly in white against a white backdrop, with Andersson tickling the ivories. You can see it in the link above.

It’s appropriate that future legends Queen, after nine weeks at the top, could only be defeated by another band that would in time be one of the biggest in the world. Even more appropriate when you consider that Bohemian Rhapsody contained the lyric ‘Mamma mia’ in the opera section.

The Outro

And of course, there’s the fact both bands have had musicals and films named after their songs. ABBA got there first, with the theatre show Mamma Mia! hitting the stage in 1999, followed by the cinema adaptation in 2008 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018. I’ve seen enough clips of the film, starring Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, to know that I would be physically ill if I was ever made to sit through it in full.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

2 (31 January-13 February)

Births

2 February: Swimmer James Hickman
10 February: Actress Keeley Hawes

Deaths

11 February: Actor Charlie Naughton
12 February: Philosopher John Lewis

Meanwhile…

2 February: Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.

4–15 February: Great Britain and northern Ireland competed at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. They only win one gold medal, on 11 February, when John Curry won the figure skating competition.