Fancy it happening that you attend an ABBA press conference as a Pop Foto reporter, together with numerous domestic and foreign colleagues, and you get proclaimed the guest of honour of the day! Something like this seems like a dream, or one of those fantastic scenes from the ABBA movie, and when it’s happening in reality you really don’t know what’s coming over you...
Therefore, Pop Foto’s team was dumbfounded when the world famous ABBAs welcomed us with exuberance when they got us in their Swedish sights. Right away, remarks like ‘Hello there, how are you doing?’ and ‘What a wonderful report you had in your last issue’ were flying around, and the eyes of the competition were almost popping out of their sockets. Obviously, we have known Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny for quite some time now, but still... When you realise that they have reached the pinnacle of their fame since ABBA The Movie, that they are welcomed as kings and queens in every country (during the English premiere of their movie, even Princess Margareth was present) and that television producers are screaming out for a performance, then suddenly people that you have known for several years are starting to become insignificant characters. Luckily, the four famous Swedes still aren’t burdened with an exaggerated diva-like behaviour, that much was apparent. Because instead of the excessive demands that so many artists are having, ABBA only had one wish that, frankly said, almost made us blush.“We would like,” Anni-Frid confided in us, “that all magazines would write about us the same way that you do. In every Pop Foto that we see, our most beautiful pictures are being shown, and that special that you have made about our movie has a place of honour in our homes, truly.”
“And since we – as ABBA – want to show our appreciation,” Benny added, “for these fabulous covers of the girls (February and March issues) and all those wonderful reports, we want to do something in return. You just name it!”
Well, there we were, speechless! When you didn’t reckon with something like this, it’s extremely difficult to think of something. “Ehm... I... have an idea...,” our photographer mumbled after a strained silence, but immediately he was pulling a face as if he could bite his tongue. “Well, what is it?” it sounded in choir. “Well, ehm... perhaps it’s a little cheeky but, and you have never done this before, not for any magazine, but...”
“Well, come on now,” Björn grumbled. The photographer nervously shuffled from one foot to the other and all of a sudden he blurted out: “A picture of the four of you with our Pop Foto T-shirt!” For a while, the quartet looked suspicious, then Benny said: “Alright then, we will make an exception for Pop Foto and its readers!”
And thanks to that, you are looking at this rare picture!
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