Abba and that momentous 1974 Eurovision Song Contest victory
Next Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of Abba's victory in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest that kick-started their astounding success. Charlie Carter looks back at the Swedish super-group's story
Four decades ago next Sunday, the first chapter of pop's least likely success story was written on a stage in Brighton as the British seaside town hosted the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
Clad in tight satin outfits and platform boots that would have made even David Bowie blush, four suburban Swedish musicians known as Abba blew away the fusty traditions of the otherwise folksy contest with a song that would set them on the road to superstardom.
To this day, the Beatles are the only band to have outsold Abba and [they] remain one of the top-10 artists of all time
was a barrelling glam-pop song that broke all the Eurovision rules. It was raunchy. It was fun. And when it was sung in English that night on April 6, 1974, it launched a career that over the next eight years would defy all odds to make Abba the only non-English language pop band to take on the world and win.
To this day, the Beatles are the only band to have outsold them and the Swedish group remain one of the top-10 artists of all time, with their irresistibly catchy numbers remaining radio favourites and karaoke-bar staples in Hong Kong and throughout Asia.
In an era when rock stars were debauched, aloof and indulging themselves in 10-minute guitar solos, Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid's ordinariness and their fairy-tale love stories struck a chord with pop lovers, inspiring the biggest pan-generational fan cult since Beatlemania.
"They were family friendly and their image was wholesome, but they took that simple pop song, that simple direct communication that the Beatles had left behind, and put it into a 1970s pop song," says Carl Magnus Palm, Abba biographer, fanatic and friend.
