‘Does Your Mother Know’ It’s Been 51 Years Since ABBA Won Eurovision
By Scarlett Bantin, Second Year History
On 6 April 1974, Sweden’s ABBA took victory at the Eurovision Song Contest with their iconic song ‘Waterloo’, going on to be named the best song in the contest’s history in both 2005 and 2020 and beating the likes of the United Kingdom’s Olivia Newton-John and 1964 winner, Italy's Gigliola Cinquetti.
Founded in Stockholm in 1972, by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, the group had all had various successes in Sweden as stand-alone artists and decided to collaborate to try and reach a wider audience. They first entered Melodifestivalen, the Swedish music competition from which the winners would enter Eurovision, in 1972 with the song ‘Ring Ring’ which came third and was credited to all four artists by name. It was only in 1973 that ABBA was officially created by their producer, Stig Anderson, as an abbreviation and palindrome, which he hoped would catch on in not just Europe, but also the UK and US.
This move towards appealing to an English-speaking audience would prove pivotal for their success in Eurovision. Electing to sing ‘Waterloo’ in English rather than their native Swedish, allowed them to appeal to a much wider European audience, winning Eurovision, appearing on television and gaining places in the charts of dozens of countries.
Fears of being a one-hit wonder – sparked by the unpopularity of ‘Ring Ring’ in the UK – were soon dissipated by the success of their self-titled album, ‘ABBA’. International stardom was secured with their compilation album ‘Greatest Hits’, which featured the new single ‘Fernando’ and reached number one on the charts of over a dozen countries and sold over 10 million copies internationally. In turn, they flourished with album sales of ‘Arrival’, featuring ‘Money, Money, Money’; ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’; and crucially ‘Dancing Queen’. These all reached the tops of various charts around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Soviet Union, and South Africa, allowing the pop group to tour internationally.
ABBA’s performance on 11 December 1982, less than ten years after their Eurovision victory, would be their last public performance until their 2016 reunion. Their split followed breakdowns in the two respective marriages the pop group were built upon, the rising tensions of which had shown in the darker tones of their later music.
The cover of Mamma Mia! The Movie’s official soundtrack, featuring a cast including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.
Despite this breakdown, their legacy and popularity, even today, is indisputable. The hit musical, Mamma Mia! debuted in 1999, written by British playwright, Catherine Johnson, with music composed by Andersson and Ulvaeus. The musical is still in production in the West End today, has grossed over $4.5 billion worldwide and has even been adapted into an iconic film of the same name in 2008.
More recently, the group have developed ABBA Voyage, a virtual concert residency which has been running since 27 May 2022. It allows its audience to experience ABBA as they appeared in 1979, with specially re-recorded vocals and a live instrumental band, and despite its experimental nature has received incredibly favourable reviews.
An advert for ABBA Voyage in London.
No matter the form ABBA’s music takes, whether film, musical or avatar, the joy they continue to bring to people around the world is undeniable. Those who were part of the audience in the Brighton Dome for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest were lucky enough to have witnessed the beginning of a legacy of one of the most popular and best-selling music groups of all time.
Edited by Ben Bryant