The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover [Hardcover]

Through exclusive interviews and over a decade of deep research, renowned music journalist Jan Gradvall explores the secrets to ABBAs success.

There has never been a group like ABBA. More than half a century after their songs were recorded, ABBA still make people the world over dance and sing their hearts out. In 2013, when the band had not been interviewed for over thirty years, Jan Gradvall was granted unique access to them for the next decade and the result isThe Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover.Agnetha F?ltskog, Bj?rn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad all share their personal stories, their thoughts and their opinions about ABBAs music more openly than ever before. Weaving in and out of their story, well-known international music critic Jan Gradvall reveals the context in which their unique sound developed and shows how the story of ABBA is also the story of Sweden and the globalization of pop culture.

From their earliest hits in Sweden like People Need Love and Ring, Ring to their chart-topping international hits like Dancing Queen, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and Mama Mia! to ABBAVoyage their first album in forty years  and the two-million-ticket-selling eponymous concert-experience in London, it is undeniable that, in the history of pop culture and music, there has never been a group like ABBA. With remarkable intimacy, Gradvalls sensational book brings readers closer than ever to one of the worlds most notoriously private groups.

JAN GRADVALL is an award-winning writer and Swedens most respected music journalist in the last 40 years. He has written several books on popular culture. Gradvall is the recipient of the Swedish Publicists Associations Grand Prize in 2013 for and won Journalist of the Year awarded by trade organization Swedens Magazines in 2001. Gradvall was also instrumental in the founding of the Swedish Music Hall of Fame and served as chairman the first three years since itló4