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1977 – The Height of Popularity?

It’s hard to believe that it’s 30 years ago. It’s even harder to believe that I was only 9 and only four years into my school career!

I’ve also found it hard to believe that many associate ABBA with 1977 as being the year that they were at the peak of their success.

The build-up towards 1977 for ABBA was pretty hard work with many sacrifices being made along the way, not just by the four of them, but many others as well. We’d all had the opportunity of being exposed to ABBA as such since 1973, many only more familiar with the group since 1974 and 1975 where they were met with greater success and then of course by the time 1976 and ‘Arrival’ came along, they were simply huge, the whole world wanted them. The mere fact that the world had, had ABBA since 1973 was irrelevant; the world just woke up to ABBA in 1976.

All of a sudden here were these four people from Scandinavia who oozed what everyone wanted, a squeaky clean pop fairytale, which is what ABBA were. They’d already paid their dues as individual performers in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and as a musical troupe, they had progressed into a group of two couples that made the most amazing music that appealed to all and sundry and across any age gap.

I was not part of the whole European and Australian ABBA mania of 1977 and no doubt I relied on the limited media available to me to quench my thirst for what was known as ABBAMANIA! My parent’s spoke about it, in fact both my parents still remember it, my peers spoke about it, we all knew about it, it was just there!

Unfortunately for us here in South Africa, and despite ABBA undertaking two ‘World Tours’ during their recording career, they somehow omitted to include South Africa on their itinerary! There was speculation once that ABBA objected to our then Government and their Apartheid Policies and supported our present Government, the A.N.C., with their cause financially. How true that is, I’ll never know, I’ve never read about this in any ABBA book, whether authorized or not!

With being an ABBA fan for so many years, one of the biggest thrills for me in life, which has been since it came out, has been watching ‘ABBA – The Movie’. To me, that gave a meaning of what 1977 was for ABBA and what it was to be an ABBA fan in 1977 when they toured your country. The merchandise, the hysteria, the concerts, the interviews, you name it, that piece of film has been something I’ll always thoroughly enjoy, simply because it was the only way I could experience it! I remember the first time I saw it, my parents took us to the Drive-In and there they were, ABBA in all their glory giving a concert on a huge white screen in total darkness, singing some of their biggest hits to date, and I’ll say to date because there were many more hits after 1977.

We all know ABBA never retained the stronghold they had over the Australian market after the 1977 tour, they’d been there, done that, and the majority had bought more than just the t-shirt! However, thanks to this tour and for the rest of the fans in the world who had missed out on it, we were given something that still means something to a lot of us all these years later and I have no doubt many Australian fans as well.

Today, I think the ABBA bandwagon went overkill in 1977 with promotion and saturated the market. ABBA had hit the big-time in such a limited period and yet it was over-capitalised and in hind sight, one almost gets the impression, that it was a case of ‘let’s get on the bandwagon quick while the going is still good, it might not be like this for us 6 months from now!’ Yet, when this has proven not to be the case, their promotional work was on the same scale but with a lot less hullabaloo after the fans realised ABBA were in fact real, and the hits still kept on coming for many years after 1977.

But, I don’t think 1977 can be classed as ABBA being at the height of their popularity. The purpose of this column is not to go into statistics about a group that I’ve been following since the beginning of 1975, and I also don’t think that because ABBA only had one number one hit in the U.S. with ‘Dancing Queen’ in 1977 for a solitary week, they can be put into this category either. There were other Top 10 and Top 20 hits in the U.S. both before and after ‘Dancing Queen’.

I also think that after the 1977 tour, the ABBA members respective lives changed, their outlook on life, their personalities, their appearance, and even their direction in music, and when one considers their success and fame, they could not have stayed the same, and they simply went forward. I have no doubt 1977 affected ABBA then and later in life, especially where they find themselves today.

It’s quite amazing that 30 years on, you can today buy ‘Official’ ABBA merchandise along the lines of T-Shirts, Coffee Mugs, Mobile Phone straps and a few other goodies on ‘The Official Site’. What I find so bizarre, is that 30 years after ABBA fans the World over were wearing an ABBA T-shirt ‘at the ‘height’ of their popularity in 1977’, I finally got my very own ‘Official ABBA T-shirt’ from Sweden, and I love it! It took me 30 years but I eventually got it. I take my daughter to school wearing it and I get all these ‘Oh my God, I just love that shirt, ABBA were so cool!’ from quite a few parents, who are in fact older than me.

Yes, the sales are still there, maybe not on the scale that they used to be, but people still know ‘Anni-frida (sic), Bjorn, Benny and Agnetha’ after all these years. I got asked the other day, ‘so who was originally with whom and then ended swapping out with whom?’ They still remember ABBA and will no doubt do so for many, many years, and I have no doubt that their 10 or so year career together helped cement this, it was a collective effort that I cannot justify simply as a result of 1977 – “ABBA at their apparent glory!”

There are actually quite a few people who remember ABBA for many songs, some of which were released much later on in their career, other than ‘Dancing Queen’ and a few others that represented ABBA at the “height of their popularity” in 1977!

I’ve never been able to compartmentalise ABBA in any way where their success is concerned. The markets they targeted and were successful in were not all conquered at the same time and success was not always achieved the world over simultaneously, it was done over a period of quite a few years, and funnily enough still continues today. Look at last year’s ‘Number 1’s’ release, pretty much flopped everywhere, but then hit number 1 in New Zealand!

Yes, sometimes, ABBA’s albums were at the top of the charts in many places at the same times as were some singles and then there were some singles that were hits in some places, minor hits in others and in some places not released at all! To me ABBA were, somewhere in the world, at the peak of their success even in 1982. They still sold albums and singles and still topped the charts, even if it was only the album charts in some places! Some fans will classify the latter part of ABBA’s career as their peak and some classify an earlier part.

As far as I am concerned, ABBA simply were on the top right to the end, and not in any isolated year.

Neil