Bravo, 1982: Agnetha: “We are coming on tour!”

If it was up to Agnetha, she would be in the studio this week and record her first solo album with Barry Gibb as her producer. But the blonde ABBA singer had to postpone her plans. The other three ABBA members need her...
It had been very quiet for ABBA for weeks. Time to relax, time to spend privately on their favourite hobbies. Benny decorated a new house in Stockholm together with his wife Mona, Björn could only be found with his daughter Emma, who was born in January. Agnetha didn’t leave her boyfriend Torbjörn Brander’s side for a minute. Only Anni-Frid was busy the whole time. She recorded her new solo album with Phil Collins.
But then the usual flurry of activity returned at Hamngatan in Stockholm, where the ABBA building is situated. First of all, Anni-Frid and Phil took residence in the big recording studio. In six weeks time, they recorded the eleven tracks for Anni-Frid’s solo album. It will be called ‘I Know, Something’s Going On’. It should be released at the end of August. The single ‘Something’s Going On’ will be released already in July.
Anni-Frid had barely completed her recordings, when Agnetha actually wanted to start recording her album. But Benny and Björn prevented this from happening. They had written for new songs that they wanted to record. In the beginning of May, both of them went into the studio, followed by Anni-Frid and Agnetha at the end of May, to sing those four songs. Then they were mixed.

The four songs will be released on two new ABBA singles. The first one will be released in the summer, the second in the autumn.
Because then a new ABBA double album will be released. All ABBA singles that were released so far will be on that album. From ‘Waterloo’ to ‘SOS’ and ‘Super Trouper’ up till the latest single ‘Head Over Heels’, and of course both new ABBA singles.
When the album is released, the four ABBAs will appear in public abroad again. They want to perform in Paris, London and here with us in Germany in a couple of TV shows.
Björn and Benny are also working on a concept for a new live show. This will be the basis of a big ABBA world tour, that the four have planned for 1983.
To Agnetha, this means: she won’t be able to start recording her album before the end of November. Although most of the songs have been written already, she won’t have enough time until the end of the year.
There’s one advantage to the matter: by that time, Bee Gees boss Barry Gibb will have completed shooting the Bee Gees movie and nothing will be in the way of his collaboration with Agnetha. Just like Anni-Frid, Agnetha won’t use the other members of ABBA in her solo venture. Both girls want to stand on their own two feet.
Only one thing is clear: whoever is rumouring about an ABBA split, is wrong. The four of them are working harder than ever. And during the press conference on the occasion of the launch of her solo album in Stockholm, Anni-Frid emphasized as well: “ABBA will be around for a long, long time to come.”