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Abba took over from the Beatles


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The Beatles as an entity virtually ended

in January 1970. The pressures had been building,

John was entering a very surreal.. avante guard

phase with the way out artist Yoko... in a way the break up had to happen.

Around that time over in Sweden two very talented guys were getting together to write songs.

... In age they were nt that far away from Paul..

Bjorn is only 18 months or so younger !

So they were basically from the same generation..

but obviously late developers.

The 60s had been male dominated... music and songs performed and sung by guys for

an army of teenage girls who were the main buyers of pop music.

Abba ... very unusually, decided to go with

female vocals.... the guys were content to put

Frida and Agnetha up front while they played guitar and keyboards in the background.

The formula worked and they became a massive world wide success... rivalling the Beatles... but never

quite cracking America where the real big money was to be made.

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who said they were the most commercially successful band of the '70s? I believe they'd be up there, but other bands, like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, they were very commercial and very successful in the '70s.

but mostly in the US (and Canada) I believe...

example for the Eagles, "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)":

* US: 29× Platinum

* CAN: 20× Platinum

* UK: Platinum

and probably less in other European countries or Australia (where it didn't even chart)

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who said they were the most commercially successful band of the '70s? I believe they'd be up there, but other bands, like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, they were very commercial and very successful in the '70s.

Commercial sales are in terms of albums sold, concerts and merchandise revenue. I don't have all the data info, except for album sales.

Albums sold in millions (worldwide)

Abba - 370

Eagles - 120

Fleetwood Mac - 100

Other 70s artists like Queen, Elton John, Bee Gees, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, etc. have also sold more albums than Eagles and F.Mac, though not all of those albums are from the 70's decade.

Abba is the 4th best selling artist ever, behind Beatles, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. :)

[small][source: wikipedia][/small]

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aBBA generated an excitement... on a par

with the Beatles and brought out huge crowds

wherever they appeared ( esp in Australia )

Their albums were an event and eagerly anticipated by their fans ... a la the Beatles.

The Beatles were really a " supergroup " with

3 brilliant songwriters in their ranks... as were the Moody Blues

as were Fleetwood mac in the 80s

So much writing talent packed into those groups was always going to generate brilliant albums

and mass following at concerts.

Abba's songwriters Benny and Bjorn were the more conventional type of writers... Benny wrote the melody and Bjorn put words to the melody.

The melodies just seemed to come into Benny's head .. as with Waterloo... he put the melody on

casette... Bjorn took it home and after a few listens and a few glasses of whisky he put some words to the tune.

Elton John is different, he needs words..

some lyrics or rhyme to inspire his melody.

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  • 8 months later...
  • 5 months later...

Hows about these guys:

Grand Funk Railroad.

10 gold and platnum albums in less than 5 years.

1969- 1 gold, 1 platnum

1970- 2 multi platnums

1971- 2 platnum

1972- 2 gold

1973- 1 platnum

1974- 1 gold

2- Back to back #1 singles, 1973 & 74

1971- Sold out Shea stadium in 72 hours.

(Took the Beatles 7 weeks)

Jim

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