Monday 7 September 2009

Weekend, August 1982: ABBA’s continued existence is not in danger, but... Anni-Frid is thinking about her future

An article from Dutch magazine Weekend about the imminent release of Frida’s solo album Something’s Going On. The poster comes from German magazine Pop Rocky and features a photograph of Frida's performance on Show Expres in Germany in September 1982. On that show, she performed I Know There's Something Going On and Baby Don't You Cry No More from her new album.
Without any doubt, ABBA is one of the most successful pop groups in the world. All four members of the Swedish group are multi-millionaires. Despite these vast amounts of money, Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny are not resting on their laurels, they are always busy creating new hits for the group. Now that it has been announced that both Agnetha and Anni-Frid are planning to record solo material, ABBA-fans all over the world are worried that the twosome will be leaving the group.

Especially the red-haired Anni-Frid seemed to be the cause of concern among ABBA-fans. For months on end, she worked passionately on a solo album. Most people were surprised that she didn’t get any help at all from the other ABBA-members. Could it be that they disagreed with Anni-Frid’s solo ambitions? Anni-Frid herself doesn’t see any problem at all, she thinks it’s great fun to record an album without ABBA being involved in any way. “I want to prove that I’m able to survive without them, I would love it if people would say ‘Look, that Anni-Frid is perfectly able to cope on her own’.” All songs on Anni-Frid’s album are composed by famous people from the music business. Among others: Rod Argent, Bryan Ferry and Russ Ballard.
Anni-Frid’s first solo record is called: ‘Something’s Going On’ and the title track will be released as a single in August. One month later, September that is, the album will follow. It’s all going to be very exciting for the red-haired singer. After all, you never know how something like this will be received.
Anni-Frid thinks it’s ridiculous that some people feel that her solo activities will be at the expense of ABBA. “That’s absolute nonsense. At the moment, Benny and Björn are very busy producing a live album, that’s a huge task, only the best parts of our concerts will be included. It’s the intention that this album will be released in November.”

The ABBA-members haven’t reacted yet to the activities of their Anni-Frid. Only the important man behind ABBA, Stig Anderson, was very pleased with Anni-Frid’s album and he congratulated her wholeheartedly. Obviously, Frida isn’t done with this project by just recording the songs. She’s facing a very busy time of promoting her album. For instance, she will travel to America, England, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France and Spain to record television specials and do some interviews. On October 2 and 3, she will be in Holland. In the meantime, Anni-Frid has already made several promotion films, that are most probably going to be very successful.
It is rumoured that the other ABBA-lady, blonde Agnetha, is also busy expanding her line of action. She has serious plans for a solo album as well, but due to ABBA’s busy schedule it can’t be recorded until next year. Apart from that, it’s very likely that she will star in a Swedish movie. Unfortunately, the title of the movie has to remain a secret for a while. However, these solo plans of the ABBA-ladies do mean that they won’t have to depend on their success in the group format any longer.

Agnetha (smilingly): “People mustn’t make too much of this. Look, I’ve been working together with Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid since 1970. Initially, Frida and I were some kind of backing choir for the boys. When ABBA became successful, all four of us didn't do much else than work extremely hard. It’s very refreshing to be able to do something without the group and Anni-Frid feels the same way. There’s no reason for anyone to be afraid that ABBA will stop existing in the near future.”
A true relief for all the anxious fans. But only time can tell whether ABBA will suffer from the girls’ solo careers. For the time being, we are looking forward to Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s solo album ‘Something’s Going On’ with anticipation.

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