Björn Ulvaeus & Benny Andersson - BB (1973)

Björn Ulvaeus began his musical career at the age of 18 as a singer and guitarist, when he fronted the Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk–skiffle group. He started writing English-language songs for his group and even had a brief solo career alongside. Meanwhile, Benny Andersson was also 18, and was a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars, that performed, among other things, covers of international hits. The Hep Stars were known as "the Swedish Beatles", and they even set up Hep House, their equivalent of Apple Corps. Andersson played the keyboard and eventually started writing original songs for his band, many of which became major hits, including 'No Response', which hit number three in 1965, and 'Sunny Girl', 'Wedding', and 'Consolation', all of which hit number one in 1966. The Hootenanny Singers and the Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring, and in June 1966 Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together, with their first attempt being 'Isn't It Easy To Say', a song that was later recorded by the Hep Stars. Stig Anderson was the manager of the Hootenanny Singers and founder of the Polar Music label, and he saw potential in the collaboration, encouraging them to write more. The two also began playing occasionally with the other's bands, although it was not until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first real hits together. 

Andersson wrote and submitted the song 'Hej, Clown' for Melodifestivalen 1969, the national festival to select the Swedish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, and the song tied for first place, but re-voting relegated Andersson's song to runner-up. As their respective bands began to break up during 1969, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and recorded their first album together, 'Lycka', in 1970, which included original songs sung by both men. Frida Lyngstad also participated in the Melodifestival in 1969, and this was where she first met Andersson, and before long they were a couple, with Andersson producing her single 'Peter Pan', which was her first collaboration with Benny & Björn, as they had written the song. During filming of a Swedish TV special in May 1969, Agnetha Fältskog met Ulvaeus and they married in 1971, and both girls started adding backing vocals to Benny & Björn's recordings. An attempt at combining their talents occurred in April 1970 when the two couples went on holiday together to Cyprus, and what started as singing for fun on the beach ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the UN soldiers stationed on the island. 

They then formed a stage act called Festfolket (which translates from Swedish as "Party People" and in pronunciation also "engaged couples"), but the cabaret show attracted generally negative reviews, except for the performance of the Andersson and Ulvaeus hit 'Hej, gamle man', which was their first recording to feature all four singers. They also performed solo numbers from their respective albums, but the lukewarm reception convinced the foursome to shelve plans for working together for the time being, and each soon concentrated on individual projects again. After the 1970 release of 'Lycka', two more singles credited to Björn & Benny were released in Sweden, 'Det kan ingen doktor hjälpa' and 'Tänk om jorden vore ung', with more prominent vocals by Fältskog and Lyngstad. The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Andersson and Ulvaeus single 'She's My Kind Of Girl' was released through Epic Records in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit. Two more singles were released in Japan, 'En Carousel' (an early version of 'Merry-Go-Round') and 'Love Has Its Ways'. Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their song-writing and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements, and 'People Need Love' was released in June 1972, with the women given much greater prominence, and so the single was released as by Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. 

The song peaked at number 17 in the Swedish single charts, and convinced them that they were on to something. In 1973, the band and their manager Stig Anderson decided to have another try at Melodifestivalen, this time with the song 'Ring Ring', and he commissioned Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody to provide an English translation of the Swedish lyrics, but it only came third in Melodifestivalen, and so never reached the Eurovision Song Contest itself. Nevertheless, the group released their debut studio album, also called 'Ring Ring', and the title track was a hit single in many parts of Europe and also in South Africa. In 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA, and after a competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper, it was officially announced in the summer that the group were to be known as 'ABBA'. But that's a whole other story, and this post charts the four member's journey to that point, with all the non-album singles and b-sides that they released in the early 70's, right up to that original version of 'Ring Ring', which could be classed as their first pre-ABBA recording. 

Track listing

01 She's My Kind Of Girl (single 1970) 
02 Inga Theme (b-side of 'She's My Kind Of Girl')
03 Det Kan Ingen Doktor Hjälpa (single 1971) 
04 På Bröllop (b-side of 'Det Kan Ingen Doktor Hjälpa'
05 Tänk Om Jorden Vore Ung (single 1971) 
06 Träskofolket (b-side of 'Tänk Om Jorden Vore Ung'
07 Hey, Musikant (single 1971) 
08 Was Die Liebe Sagt (b-side of 'Hey, Musikant')
09 En Karusell (single 1972)
10 Att Finnas Till (b-side of 'En Karusell')
11 Love Has Its Ways (single 1972)
12 Rock'n Roll Band (b-side of 'Love Has Its Ways')

13 People Need Love (single as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid 1972) 
14 He Is Your Brother (single as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid 1972)
15 Santa Rosa (b-side of 'He Is Your Brother')
16 Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal) (single as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid 1973)
17 Ah, Vilka Tider (b-side of 'Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)')

Gemini - I Am The Universe (1987)

With ABBA returning from a 40 year hiatus with a new album, their name is everywhere at the moment, and this blog is no exception. After releasing their masterpiece 'The Visitors' in 1981, followed by the singles 'The Day Before You Came' and 'Under Attack', the band broke up in 1982, and both Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstag launched solo careers. But what happened to Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus? Well, they carried on making music, but in a much more low-key manner, taking established brother and sister duo The Glenmarks under their wing and writing and producing two albums with them. Karin and Anders Glenmark, together with their aunt and uncle, had been recording since 1972 and had released four albums before Anders left for a solo career. There was already a connection to ABBA, as Anders had provided backing vocals on Faltskog's 1975 solo album, as well as playing guitar on Lyngstag's 'Ensams' from the same year, and so when Bjorn and Benny were looking for a pair of vocalists to replace the girls, the Glenmarks were the obvious choice. After contributing backing vocals to the soundtrack album of Bjorn and Benny's collaboration with Tim Rice on their 'Chess' musical, they were encouraged to change their name to Gemini, and they signed to the Polar label and started recording at the Polar studio in Stockholm, using many of the musicians who'd played on ABBA's albums. Their first single was the unreleased ABBA composition 'Just Like That', and it was promoted in the UK with a live appearance on The Terry Wogan show in 1986, but ABBA were considered a bit passe by then, and even a high profile appearance on British TV couldn't launch the group to an apathetic UK audience. They were reasonably successful in their native Sweden, however, and so a second album 'Geminism' appeared in 1987, and as with the first one, the songs were a mix of Andersson/Ulvaeus originals and songs written by Anders Glenmark and Ingela Forsman, and while Anders' songs were perfectly acceptable pop fare, the quality of Bjorn and Benny's easily eclipsed them, and so it is those songs that we really want to hear. As it happens, if we extract the Andersson/Ulvaeus songs from both records we end up with a great 46-minute album, played on and produced by Bjorn and Benny, and therefore being the nearest thing to new ABBA music in the mid-to-late 80's that we'll ever get to hear.

Track listing

01 T.L.C.
02 Slowly
03 Too Much Love Is Wasted
04 Mio My Mio
05 Slow Emotion
06 Just Like That
07 Ghost Town
08 I Am The Universe
09 Have Mercy
10 I'm A Bitch When I See Red
11 Another You, Another Me
12 Nearly There