ABBA blog

When writing about ABBA, the year 1982 isn't the most fun period to get to grips with. Sure, the music was still great - who can argue with masterpieces such as 'The Day Before You Came' - but almost everything else is somehow tainted by declining fortunes in sales and, most pertinently, Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida's changing attitudes to ABBA as a group. The book I'm working on right now, ABBA On Record, explores ABBA's commercial fortunes, what they did as a group to promote themselves, and what others did for them, so, in the case of 1981 and 1982, it's a hard story to tell when so little was done. Also, the majority of articles written about them in the Swedish press had to do with their business investments, which is rather depressing. However, it wasn't all doom and gloom: I've been fortunate in securing interviews with people who worked ABBA product at CBS/Epic in the UK back in 1982, so fortunately we will get a flavour of "I was there" as I tell the story of last few releases in 1982, when ABBA committed to promotion outside Sweden for the first time in two years. Can't wait to share it with you all!

As previously announced, I plan to print ABBA On Record towards the end of 2023. I am, as ever, sorry that it has taken such a long time to get the book finished and very, very grateful for the patience those who have pre-ordered have shown. It goes against every fibre of my being to take pre-orders and then not deliver as promised. It's just that I realised as I began work for real that I could make a much better book if I researched things even more. Going through as many documents, newspaper/magazine items, radio and TV interviews as possible, was what I needed to do to ensure that I didn't miss any interesting details - or at least missed as few of them as possible. And doing that and then organising the info, sifting facts from fiction, takes time. Plus, of course, ABBA's Voyage album came along and complicated and delayed things further.

Anyway: thanks again for your patience - your reward will be a book brimming with new or long-forgotten facts and stories about this group we all love.