Abba took the spotlight and kept rocking at their own pace with this winsome circus revelation. The Swedish pop group centered around married couples Benny Andersson & Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog & Björn Ulvaeus had taken the world by storm with a series of blockbuster albums (Ring Ring in 1973, Waterloo in 1974, ABBA in 1975, Arrival in 1976, The Album in 1977, and Voulez-Vous in 1979) that made them one of the biggest pop acts of all time.
'Super Trouper' was arranged and produced in Stockholm, Sweden at Polar Music Studios by Andersson and Ulvaeus and featured Benny Andersson on synthesizer, keyboards, and vocals; Agnetha Fältskog on vocals; Anni-Frid Lyngstad on vocals; and Björn Ulvaeus on acoustic guitar and vocals; with Ola Brunkert and Per Lindvall on drums; Lars Carlsson on horn; Rutger Gunnarsson on bass and guitar; Janne Kling on flute and saxophone; Janne Schaffer and Lasse Wellander on guitar; Åke Sundqvist on percussion; Mike Watson on bass; and Kajtek Wojciechowski on saxophone.
Andersson: “Money is a magical word. With ABBA, it’s actually the other way around. The work that we do, brings in the money. The work is magical..There has never been a band, a band in our genre, that’s been taken seriously. You are only taken seriously when you play loud ‘heavy metal’, look interesting, write obscure lyrics or follow the pop trends closely. Only then, you are working seriously. And the most ridiculous criticism on what we are doing is that our motives would be commercial. But you have already made the commercial step when you turn fully professional and want to make a record. So commercialism isn’t a dirty word.”
Fältskog: “I’m not as ambitious as the boys. Although I’m now going to write a song for the Swedish heat of the Eurovision Song Contest. I still have to write the song. Apart from that, singing with ABBA is an extremely tough job. Don’t forget that it’s the sound of ABBA. And it takes a lot of time as well. We are doing the vocal arrangements. I don’t believe that there are two masterminds in the group ABBA, but four. Even though Benny and Björn are doing all the preparatory work, that doesn’t mean that we don’t count...“In the end, we are very creative in the studio. And that’s what I like most about this job. The recordings.”
Lyngstad: “We don’t miss the writing of the songs. We are satisfied with the way things are going now. For that matter, I’ve often wondered if I could ever write a better song than Benny and Björn. The answer is no. There’s an absolute democratic spirit in our group. All four of us make the decisions, but apart from that, we do have some kind of distribution of tasks. Everyone of us has their speciality. Where we are the sound, Benny and Björn create the possibilities for that sound. It’s all about the quality of our input and not about the quantity.”
Ulvaeus: “We only write for ourselves. We never think about which people we could reach with which songs. That has never been our aim. There was only one aim: making the kind of music that we liked. And it’s still like that. I’m extremely proud of what we are doing. That’s not arrogance, but pure enthusiasm.”
'Super Trouper' reached number seventeen in the US; ten in Italy; eight in Japan; six in Canada; five in Australia; four in France; three in Austria; and number one in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, West Germany; and the UK.
http://www.abbasite.com/
http://www.abbaofficial.com/
lyrics:
http://genius.com/albums/Abba/Super-trouper
"Super Trouper"
"The Winner Takes It All"
"On and On and On"
"Lay All Your Love on Me"
'Super Trouper'
full album:
All songs written and composed by Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson.
Side one
1. Super Trouper (00:00)
2. The Winner Takes It All (04:12)
3. On And On And On (09:07)
4. Andante, Andante (12:47)
5. Me And I (17:26)
Side two
6. Happy New Year (22:21)
7. Our Last Summer (26:45)
8. The Piper (31:04)
9. Lay All Your Love On Me (34:30)
10. The Way Old Friends Do (39:05) (Live)"
Total length: 42:06
