ABBA at 50

Product Information

And this companion volume has expanded to be very much a book in itself, and it’s taking much, much longer than I had hoped for. ABBA at 50' is packed with history, trivia and photographs of the band from birth till the present day.

The same goes for having each album's details at the end of each chapter; the integrated discography works for me in this presentation. The book charts the band's meteoric rise to stardom, plus the high and low points both professionally and in their personal lives.The art and the skill is in making such precision seem effortless, and ABBA accomplished that very well. Based in Lancashire since 1994, after a free transfer from Surrey following five years of 500-mile round-trips on the back of a Turkish holiday romance in 1989.

my more, shall we say, normal reaction makes it seems like I’m putting it down … but I’m not really. It’s a band that needs no introduction, but I’ll offer one anyway, ABBA emerging victorious from the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo’, quickly catapulted to fame, capturing hearts across the world over the next few years with their melodic, ever-so-catchy pop songs. While not as well-refined or developed in design or content as Carl Magnus Palm's own self-published books of recent (the excellent revised "ABBA The Complete Recording Sessions" or the anticipated "ABBA On Record"), this book will engage fans new and old of their enduring legacy in music and culture. This book charts the journey of ABBA from their separate beginnings in pop, forming the group, Eurovision 1974 (how embarrassing that the UK judges gave them zero points 😳), their rise to worldwide fame, personal relationships, the break up and right through to Mamma Mia the musical and ABBA voyage (which I’ve seem and is absolutely amazing! I considered starting this feature/interview with the line, ‘Ring, ring, I stare at the phone on the wall’ as a build-up to tracking down Carl Magnus Palm, seen as the world’s leading historian for a certain legendary pop quartet from his home nation.

The biggest reason for the ABBA fan to read this book, however, are the pictures; the wonderful pictures public and private. Beautifully illustrated with essential images, this book examines the group’s enduring legacy and much-loved musical repertoire of perfectly crafted pop. And while that long player failed to make any real ground outside Scandinavia, their fortunes would change in Brighton barely a year later … big time. There’s a lot about that, and it’s about chart positions, and I’ve gone through hundreds of album and single reviews from – primarily – the American and British music press, putting in extracts from that as well.

As far as I know … and for me – and I guess it’s the same for you, at least to an extent – I’ve been working from home for 30 years, so things just continued as they always had, largely.

From the group’s outlandish outfits to the toll commercial success took on the private lives of the two married couples, this book is a must for all ABBA fans. Well, the problem when people ask me about this is that because of the nature of the work I do, people expect me to be super-excited about it. Of course, most of us will always equate the proper arrival of the band with a certain event at The Dome in Brighton on April 6, 1974. But the 1990s ushered in a new wave of ABBA appreciation, and their music found favor again in modern popular culture.