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This is my English translation for an article that can be found in Portuguese at http://jbonline.terra.com.br/jb/papel/cadernob/ Even though Portuguese is not my native language, it's fairly similar to Spanish in vocabulary, but not so in grammar or pronunciation. I've done my best to translate the article below. Unfortunately, parts of the original article are not accurate. Thanks to ABBAMAILer Juan Carlos Laye Montevideo, URUGUAY Tuesday, October 30, 2001. THE RISE AND FALL OF ABBA. A book gives details on the demise of this popular Swedish group of the 70s, which has come back into fashion at discotheques. By Rodrigo Fonseca. Back to life thanks to the soundtracks of recent box-office hits such as Priscilla-Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding, Swedish pop group Abba (sic), one of the most popular groups of the 70s, has once more become a must at dancing venues with hits such as Fernando, Chiquitita and Dancing Queen. But their return to the spotlight didn't stop there. The group has also had its repertoire adapted into a very amusing musical. Mamma Mia! has been successful since last year in London's West End and has just opened at the Winter Garden Theater in New York, that is, the same place where Cats was performed for years. But the four members of Abba, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, have not known the glory of success only. The personal dramas leading to the breakup of the group back in 1982 have recently started to be disclosed in a TV documentary and in a book recently published abroad. Both describe the biography of one of the most successful yet tacky groups of the disco era, just as a Mexican soap-opera would do. The TV special ABBA, aired on the "Grandes nomes" (Great Names) show on GNT channel today at 12 o'clock, tells what happened to the two couples of the group. These days they live in isolation in Europe, far from recording studios, which shows that their world tours ended up having a negative impact on their interpersonal relationships. In contrast to the fancy shows of the late 70s, which drew thousands of fans, some segments of the program focus on the individual members' attempts at individual solo careers. That idea was soon dropped due to the utter indifference of the public, since people were used to seeing them together. Even more radical than the documentary, the book Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of Abba (sic) by Carl Magnus Palm and published by Omnibus Press, describes details concerning the breakup of Ulvaeus and Agnetha as well as that of Benny and Lyngstad (sic). In great detail, it even gives information about their individual childhoods, painting an joyless portrait of ABBA before and during their peak years. DIVORCES. Carl Palm's description is like a trip through some of the sweetest yet most depressing lyrics by the group, such as The Winner Takes It All and SOS, in order to support the view that love-related arguments and traumatic divorces led to the separation of the group, even though they had been together since the late 60s. The book tells how Björn and Benny, two of the few representatives of Swedish popular music at the time, decided to record an album together titled Lycka soon after meeting each other. The album was released in 1969. A few months later, they decided to bring their girlfriends, who were singers as well, along on stage. That was the beginning of the foursome Björn Benny & Agnetha Frida. They got to record two albums under that name - People Need Love (sic) and Ring Ring. Thanks to those works they came to Stig Anderson's attention, a businessman who was responsible for the transformation of the group into a pop phenomenon. Also according to Carl Palm, [Stig] was to blame for the fights that brought about the group's end. Stig is the real villain in the life of those Swedish artists according to Bright Lights, Dark Shadows. The name Abba (sic) was formed by using the initials of their names, and was chosen by himself, who also decided what kind of image the group should convey and chose the recording companies with which they were to sign contracts. Obsessed with money and the idea of forming a group that could gain international recognition, Stig started refusing proposals from multinational record companies to offer a better "product" only to medium-sized companies that would be interested in the group, which was just taking off on the way to stardom and working full-time on it. DISCOS. In 1974, after winning the Eurovision Song Festival held in England with their song Waterloo, Abba managed to become part of the history of the recording industry. Two years later they recorded their main hit, Dancing Queen, which is always played by request at discos all over the world, as reasearcher Claudio Olivotto from Rio de Janeiro also points out. A DJ at Galería Café in Ipanema, he says that such high interest in the song attests to the group's charisma even twenty years after their split-up. "I often play cover versions of their songs by other singers that recorded them in the past, such as Perla and Juanita. The dance floor gets filled in a second," he explains. This is something unusual for a group that sang for very few people during the first years of their career. However, their being pampered/over-exposed by recording companies along with Stig's monetary demands gradually became a source of tension within the group, whose members also had to take care of their children. Afterwards, the blonde singer Agnetha suffered from acute depression that made it hard for her to appear on stage and ended up moving away from her husband Björn. Meanwhile, he drank more and more whiskey every day to chase away the feeling(s) of frustration. As a result, they broke up. They tried to go on being together a little longer during the group's appearances, but everything would come to an end when the romance that held the other couple of the group together was over, too. In late 1980 Benny Andersson got home one night and told Frida that he loved another woman. He packed up his things and left the house. That was the stopping point for Abba, which managed to go on for two more years thanks to Stig. MANIA. Nowadays, since Abba's repertoire has reapperead in movies set in the peak of the disco era, Abba has managed to gain the attention of the GLS* public and keeps on surviving on the dancing floors thanks to their pleasantly sweet style, as DJ Claudio Olivotto explains. "The kind of songs played at discos/night-clubs has changed very much. However, Abba is still being requested because their music provides a quieter dancing style, which lets people dance with a drink in their hands and without spilling it over," he says. *GLS: Gays, Lesbians and Supporters
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