Hitkrant, January 1982: ABBA's solo-plans

The Dutch record industry placed an order of 110.000 copies of ‘The Visitors’, even before the album was out. In Scandinavia that was 300.000, in Germany 600.000, in the United States 500.000, in France 250.000 and in the UK even 700.000. The headlines of album reviews in various countries: “New ABBA-album – their best thus far”, “A new and personal profile”, “ABBA’s latest: a real pop-album”, “ABBA’s album: the hit of the year” and we could go on like this.

It’s clear: ABBA’s tenth album (counting ‘Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and 2’) dropped like a bomb and once and for all put an end to the rumours that the group wouldn’t last for much longer. Nonetheless, it seems obvious that the separate careers of the ABBA-members will go in different directions eventually.

For instance, Björn and Benny still haven’t given up on their idea to write a musical and they’re hoping to make a start with that this year. The Christmas album that Agnetha recorded with her daughter Linda is doing really well in Sweden – the record is sung in Swedish – and is achieving high chart positions.
Frida is a different story: the past year she has had lots of worries and she also stayed more in the background than the other group members. Not only her looks have changed now, there are solo-plans as well: this year in March the red-haired singer will go into the studio to record an English-language solo-album; this time the producer will not be an ABBA-member, but no other than Genesis-singer/drummer Phil Collins.
Even if the ABBA-members wouldn’t be as rich as they are, none of the four would have any problem earning a living. After almost ten years of ABBA, it’s the question if that combination should be sustained or if the foursome will call it a day and do what gives each of them the most pleasure, separately.
For now, we are being assured that ABBA will stay together and “continue their successful work”. In the near future, we hope to be able to ask Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid and Agnetha in an exclusive Hitkrant-interview what ABBA’s future looks like.