Sunday 21 September 2008

Studio, 1983: Agnetha Fältskog without ABBA

Before ABBA brought together the careers of Frida, Björn, Benny and Agnetha, the last of these four, Agnetha (‘the blonde’) already had a solo career in Sweden. She had her first hit in 1968 with ‘Jag Var Så Kär’ and enjoyed her biggest success with ‘Om Tårar Vore Guld’. During a television show where she performed this song she met Björn Ulvaeus, at the time member of the Hootenanny Singers.
Now ABBA has achieved all there is to achieve, both in highs and lows, the members are working more for themselves again. Like Frida, Agnetha has recorded a solo album as well, produced by Mike Chapman. When you have the amount of money and influence like Agnetha Fältskog, you can do pretty much what you want when it comes to choosing producers, songwriters and musicians. The fact that Agnetha chose a successful producer of typical chart-pop (among others, Chapman produced Sweet, Mud, Racey and Smokie) indicates that in her spare time she has no other pretensions than making lightweight pop.
From Agnetha’s LP ‘Wrap Your Arms Around Me’, ‘The Heat Is On’ is known already. That was a pleasant song, that can be considered as one of the best on the album. The rest is not bad, but isn’t saying much. None of her ABBA-colleagues contributed to this album. Three singers of Smokie did.

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