Was Abba really "successful" in the USA in the 70s?

Indeed, you don't get to decide what it is. It is what it is and you can either accept it as it is or invent an alternative to it and live in fantasy.
I choose to face it as it is, harsh of a reality that it might sometimes be.

 

I agree. Was it a catchy radio earworm akin to their glory days of 1975-1979? No. But worst thing they ever did when their first two albums were padded down with filler? Of course not. They were all around 36-37 at this point and both couples were divorced. They were perhaps moving too far away from pop and they were losing popularity everywhere as a result, but there's some interesting songs in those 1982 sessions. I wish B&B would finally release "Just Like That" officially

 

LOL! You're doing it AGAIN.... deciding what the reality is for everybody, and what fantasy is.

People obviously have different experiences with this, and unless you were every person, everywhere, at all times....

YOU DONT GET TO DECIDE WHAT "THE TRUTH" IS.

Not here, not there.

Not in the rain, not in a plane, not with a house, not with a mouse.

 

Well thats why its an opinion. All of our opinions are just that. I suppose we should preface or follow up all our postings with that caveat..... but it would get redundant!

 

Don't discount the power of the magic scepter

 

That was my takeaway from visiting the appropriately anodyne ABBA museum last year (+ that they were quite famous before ABBA - ergo a "supergroup"). The folkies and the hippies hated them. And then I went to visit some old-school boomer intellectuals, in the Stockholm suburbs, and they still hate ABBA. It must be a real drag to tell foreigners that you're Swedish, and 99% of respondents will make some ABBA reference.

 

ABBA was quite popular in the US for a decent chunk of the 70s.

 

Don't take those posts seriously, that member does this on almost every thread. Fair enough but you end up having no credibility as at all with your posts.....

 

Look, people, everybody has their own reality. What's true for you may not be true for me, and vice versa. That is all fine until people start deciding that their own reality applies to everyone else. Then we have problems! We all live in the same world, but we all grew up in, and live in different cultures.

I've had several people over the years on this forum tell me I was making stuff up just because they never experienced what I did. This forum would go a long way of being more civil if everyone would accept that not everyone has the same experiences. It would make life, and our understanding of the world easier if we did, but, we don't.

 

No they weren't. They were regarded as a pop, singles band (albeit a very successful one). No more, no less.

 

How about 2 + 2 = 129? Everyone has a right to their own _opinion_, but not to their own set of facts. This is the legacy of the enlightenment. Facts, logic, and reason. Reality is most definitely a shared operation. Didn't say I necessarily liked it.

 

It's a question of perspective. Over here in the UK Abba were truly massive and, on a personal note, truly dreadful.

And then in about 1981 some fellow from the Americas with a funny name, Julio Greasyass was the joke, got to number 1 with Begin the Beguine.

Back then, everybody and his dog knew that Abba was Sweden's most successful export. So imagine the surprise when the UK and Europe learned that Abba weren't the most successful act on their record label. This Julio Greasyass was!

But as to defining success in the US? Big in North Dakota I heard.

 

I'm gonna use that!

 

Don't waste your time on Rockledge. Pity him, but don't waste your energy arguing with him. Let him live in his own world, smile politely and move on.

 

This thread has been a really interesting depiction of "reality"... because of nothing else, it shows us that there are often a lot of different realities, simultaneously occurring. That sounds like something out of The Big Bang Theory, but, there have been all kinds of people saying, "this is how it was where I lived" and its been different in many cases, from other people's.

One thing I've noticed in three different forums, is that people who didnt live in the USA during this time, have really strong opinions about "how it was", and if you dont agree with them, if you offer a differing perspective, they can get somewhat prickly about it.

 

I can see a whole new type of argument being banned here: my reality vs. your reality.

 

Problems arise when people try to re write history, and this has what has happened on this thread. Added to this the resident troll decided to stir things up in his usual bigoted way....

 

Speaking as a Brit who's only visited the States but never lived there, I can understand your point, especially with so many cultures within the country. I wouldn't pretend to understand how popular ABBA were based on Billboard chart positions. This is why I haven't posted on this thread until now.

However, on this forum at least, some American posters show an equal lack of understanding about what went on in other countries, especially the UK. Just because the majority of members are American, it does not mean that nothing happens elsewhere. Please note this is not aimed at you. It's just annoying sometimes, especially when so many forum favourites are British!

 

As a big Abba fan, I'm well aware of what they accomplished in Britain, Europe and Australia and other parts of the world. I hope I did not start the thread with some sort of indication that I believed they did not do very well all over the world.

Basically I was only trying to get confirmation of some sales figures another person told me about on another forum. I knew they were popular in America in the 70s, but from my personal experience, I was surprised at the number of sales.

Even tho I openly admitted my personal experience was just that, mine and mine alone, and admitted I was a punk rocker at the time and not interested in Abba and did not seek them out; still, some of the responses to me were.... condescending and bordering on personal attack, or, attacking or condemning the area I lived in.

Just silly. I'm sorry this thread took an ugly turn at times.

 

I was working in radio when ABBA first became popular with "Waterloo" and I DO recall that some of our "hipper-than-thou" employees tended to dismiss ABBA, as Björn put it in a documentary, as just a bunch of "dumb Swedes." But that attitude was not prevalent among the listeners, who enjoyed the catchy hooks that every ABBA single presented.

As long as we're in apology mode, I'm the one who posted the Hot 100 chart on the first page. If that's a source of consternation to anyone, then my apologies. I didn't have sales figures, but I DID have that chart.

Harry

 

It depends what you mean by "successful"

Yes - they had success. 10 Billboard Top 20 hits, 4 of them Top 10 and 1 a Number One. In terms of albums a couple of million sellers and several others with half a million sales or more.

But it's all relative...
Not in same league as other acts at the time eg Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees
And not on the same scale as success as many other countries eg Uk, Germany, Australia. Their UK sales then were higher than their American ones...

My understanding is the US music scene varies considerably from state to state - and ABBA were more popular in some states and cities more than other. The comparison would not be individual European countries but the Conntinant of Europe (huge success in UK, Germany, Scandinavia, Netherlands...mixed fortunes in France and very limited success in Italy and Spain (until Chiquita for the latter)

That's in terms of charts and stats...

Critical Acclaim..I have never lived in the US but from what I gather (by reading about it and talking to Americans) I would say "no". They were not seen as cool. (They weren't 'cool' where I am in the UK but had commercial success)


Why weren't they more successful?

Why has "Gold" sold so well in America? It can't be because of Mamma Mia! it sold millions before it came out and a couple of films featuting ABBA songs around 1992 wouldn't explain the slow steady sales over almost a decade before the Broadway debut of Mamma Mia or the movie version even later.

 

7 million albums and 8 million singles seem very plausible...

Albums..
Greatest Hits and The Album certified platinum. That's a minimum of 1 million each. Say 3m total.
Arrival, Voulez Vous, Super Trouper getting on to a million each say 2.5m for those 3.
Then there's the early albums, The Visitors, Greatest Hits Vol2 and The Singles. Yep, 7m seems fine.

Singles
Dancing Queen, Take a Chance on Me million sellers. Let's say 3m sales...they had other big hits too. You could easily get another 5 million with them....8m singles seems fine too...

 

It was a case of a near-perfect compilation at the perfect time. Almost a decade had passed, and viewing ABBA from that perspective made them more palatable to those who lived through the era and pretty much dismissed them. But catchy songs won't stay buried forever, and seeing that ABBA compilation, with its classy gold-on-black design, and no pictures of strange 70s outfits to tarnish it, it was quite appealing. I remember picking that one up any number of times and perusing its track list, but putting it back down. Still, I knew I wanted it and would have it someday. That day didn't come until MAMMA MIA! came on the scene, and then it felt quite right to buy ABBA GOLD.

Others in America succumbed to the charms of that compilation, and it remains a perennial best-seller.

Harry

 

GOLD - Greatest Hits was a slow but steady seller in the US...by the time Mamma Mia! hit broadway it sold almost 6 million.

What do people think of the track-listing? It seems very UK-centric, all their big Top 10 hits in the UK (Summer Night City not included but Lay All Your Love On Me which was a #1 in 1992 by Erasure).

No "I Do I Do I Do" even though it was a big hit everywhere (but not the UK)....No Honey Honey even though it was a big hit in some European countries and a hit in the US....

Were people in the US familiar with say One of Us? The single chosen in America was When All Is Said and Done......

Would a more "international" track-listing have been better?

 

I bought this on vinyl when it first came out in 1982: