ABBA is now widely recognized as one of the world’s most renowned bands. The Swedish quintet is still regarded as a global phenomenon. Agnetha Faltskog, one of the group’s members, has chosen a life away from the spotlight.
Faltskog, along with Anni-Frid Lyngstad, was a key member of ABBA. With an all-time great pop voice, she made people dance while shattering their hearts with others. After all, she and her other band members became some of the most interesting music icons of all time.
Faltskog now leads a solid life in Sweden, but that doesn’t stop her from creating new songs. She looks fantastic at 72!
There aren’t many individuals who haven’t heard of ABBA. It makes no difference if you were present for the first performance of Waterloo or were not born for another 30 years. When they hear the group’s song, today’s 10-year-olds are likely to dance just as crazy as everyone else.
It’s nearly hard to pick just one favorite ABBA song. That’s undoubtedly why they became such global superstars; there’s an ABBA song for every moment of our lives, whether sad, joyful, inspirational, or regretful.
After ABBA broke up, it’s pretty unusual that all of the group’s members pretty much disappeared. They continued to compose music, but they were glad to live a tranquil life away from the spotlight. Agnetha Faltskog, on the other hand, was
So, what happened to her after ABBA broke up? And how did she first become engaged with the group? This is Agnetha Faltskog’s fantastic story!
Agnetha was born in Jönköping, Sweden, on April 5, 1950. She was the first of two girls born to Knut Ingvar Fältskog, a department store employee, and Birgit Margareta Johansson.
Agnetha Faltskog has had a lifelong interest in music. Her favorite performers included Tom Jones, Petula Clark, and Dusty Springfield, and she had a lot of skill.
Faltskog penned her first song, about two tiny “trolls,” when she was just five years old. She would frequently go to her neighbor’s house to play the piano, and she began formal lessons at the age of eight. She was also a member of the local church choir.
Faltskog created The Cambers with two childhood friends in 1960 when she was 13 years old. They only did modest local concerts, and two years later she thought it was time to try something new.
Agneta became a member of the Swedish folk-music group Bernt Enghardt. The band performed Swedish dance music on tour around Sweden.
“Before me, they had a vocalist named Agneta who resigned,” Agnetha recounted. “They had printed advertisements asking for a new vocalist, and when they found me and I auditioned, the fact that I was also called Agnetha was a major benefit.”
Faltskog worked as a telephonist for a car company while traveling with Bernt Enghardt, but her circumstances were not ideal.
At the age of 17, she released her first single.
She arrived home late, “about 2 or 3 a.m.,” and was scheduled to return to work mere hours later. She even passed out in the auto dealership one day, and her mother handed her an ultimatum.
“‘Either you work like a normal person or you devote your entire life to singing,” Agnetha remembered her mother saying. “That wasn’t a difficult decision; I wanted to keep singing.”
Agnetha stayed with the Bernt Enghardt band for two years before leaving to start a solo career. She opted to add an “h” to her surname when she launched her first solo record.
Faltskog’s debut song, Jag var s kär [I Was So In Love], was released when he was 17 years old. In 1968, it immediately soared to No. 1 on the Swedish sales list, and shortly after, a guy named Bjorn Ulvaeus heard her song on the radio.
“I recall listening to Agnetha’s first hit on the radio. It was amazing,” Benny stated in the BBC documentary Agnetha: Abba and After.
“She sang a couple of sort of back-to-back, both good tunes,” Benny Andersson remarked. She did some nice things, like sing in harmony with herself.”
Bjorn and Benny were both accomplished musicians who had previously collaborated. Agnetha’s career took off after her debut hit, and she was soon booked to perform alongside Bjorn Ulvaeus.
“We did a TV show together, and she and I sang a duet together. “That was a fantastic moment,” he said. “That evening was when it truly occurred; we fell in love, and then we became a relationship.”
As Agnetha and Bjorn were performing together, Benny fell in love with another singer, Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
They were four really brilliant musicians in the same room, but they had no intention of forming a band. Anni-Frid and Agnetha later sang as background vocalists on Bjorn and Benny’s 1970 album Lycka [Happiness].
The four quickly began to collaborate. They released the song People Need Love in 1972, but it was just a small hit in Sweden. The quartet called itself Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid at this stage. They opted to compete in Melodifestivalen, Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest qualifying competition and performed the song Ring, Ring. They finished third, but the song was a huge smash in Sweden.
Ring, Ring, extended to various European nations, where it thrived. By this stage, the group was gaining attention all over the place. They would ultimately accomplish their dreams a year later, in 1974.
They returned to Melodifestivalen, but this time with the song Waterloo. They won the Swedish qualifier and then did something that would change the course of music history before performing at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton: they chose to change the name of their group.
ABBA was created.
While ABBA went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest, which many consider the most memorable event in ABBA history, Agnetha had other plans.
She and Bjorn Ulvaeus married in 1971, and their first child, Linda, was born in 1973. Agnetha was pregnant in the midst of this ABBA mania, which was growing by the day.
Needless to say, bearing children while growing into one of, if not the, largest tribes on the globe was difficult.
In fact, Agnetha revealed that she was relieved they didn’t win Melodifestivalen with Ring Ring since she was about to give birth to Linda.
“Over the 10–12 years we were performing ABBA, I managed to mix marriage, delivery, divorce, and global success,” Faltskog stated. “I can tell you it wasn’t easy. It was difficult to leave home, especially because dad [Bjorn] was also away. We left our children but made certain that they were well cared for.
“We weren’t gone as long as you would suppose.” We determined that if we were gone for 14 days, we should also be gone for 14 days.
ABBA’s worldwide popularity was fantastic for all of its members, but Agnetha still agonized over the fact that she had to leave her children.
That was difficult for her, and she even considered leaving the organization.
“It was difficult to decide if I could manage it or if I should go. ‘How can we fix this?’ “I told you we had to spend the same amount of time at home as we did on tour,” Agnetha added.
“I was never going to quit [the group], but it was something I could tell myself to get by, to let everyone understand how difficult it was.”
Waterloo was a massive success. But it was only the beginning of a new period in music history. Because winning Eurovision did not guarantee post-competition success, it took ABBA some time to find their next major hit.
They published the song SOS 18 months later, which was also a great hit. The band released the song Mamma Mia on the same album, ABBA, in 1975, and it went to number one on the charts all over the world.
It reached No. 1 in Australia for ten weeks, and ABBA mania was rampant. Australia actually handed the group six Number One single, making it one of the ABBA-crazy countries.
ABBA released many albums over the next few years, and the hits just kept coming. Tracks like Fernando and Dancing Queen rapidly became hits, with the latter becoming the group’s lone No. 1 in the United States.
By this point, ABBA had established itself as one of the world’s most popular groups, and rightly so. Money, Money, Money; Knowing Me; Knowing You; Chiquitita; The Winner Takes It All; Super Trouper; Take A Chance On Me; and Lay All Your Love On Me are among the group’s many singles.
Agnetha and Bjorn were divorcing as ABBA released their sixth album in 1979. It wasn’t nasty, though, and the band went on with their professional duties.
Agnetha sang the song The Winner Takes It All, which was about their divorce.
“It’s incredibly touching that he wrote it right after we divorced. “I didn’t mind,” Agnetha said. “It was amazing to do the song because I could put so much emotion into it.”
“I didn’t mind sharing it with the whole public,” she continued. “That didn’t feel wrong at all. The song contains so much.”
Agnetha discussed her divorce from Bjorn with the Daily Mail in 2013. They are on excellent terms, she claims, if only for the sake of their two children.
“Bjorn and I have been through heartbreak,” she explained. “It’s friendly. There are many ups and downs in love, but I stay positive. I haven’t shut any doors.”
Anni-Frid and Benny, who married in 1978, divorced two years later. The band thought they were very much done in 1982.
They published a new album, The Singles: The First 10 Years, which included all of their greatest hits as well as two new tracks. But when New Year’s Eve approached that year, ABBA decided to take a hiatus.
If they wanted to, they could always get back together in a few years, according to the group. Yet that never came to pass.
Instead, Agnetha pursued a solo career. She released a number of songs, with the lovely Wrap Your Arms Around Me being the biggest hit of her three albums published in the 1980s.
She opted to go away from the spotlight after achieving little success. Agnetha was quiet and desired a life away from the spotlight. She still resides on an island outside of Stockholm, Sweden. And she still looks fantastic!
Faltskog opted to leave ABBA and her star career behind. Nonetheless, many people believed she was being quite secretive in doing so.
Her decision to seclude herself was rather mysterious. Agnetha Faltskog, on the other hand, was dissatisfied with such a view.
“I’ve been labeled as mysterious, but I’m not,” she told The Guardian. My life is full of other things: I have children, grandchildren, two dogs, and a large rural estate. “I have a life of my own.”
Agnetha is the grandma of three grandkids. Yet they don’t know much about their grandmothers’ background as global superstars.
“I spend a lot of time with the grandchildren,” stated Faltskog. “They enjoy it when we all sing together. It’s wonderful to hear them, and they can truly sing. I don’t talk to them much about Abba and the past, but they will become more conscious as they get older. Tilda, the oldest, already knows a little bit more.”
According to The Guardian, Agnetha Faltskog is worth around $20 million. Because there’s speculation about ABBA returning, that figure might rise shortly.
Faltskog’s most recent album was published in 2013, however, Bjorn Ulvaeus has promised that new ABBA songs will be released.
“There will be new music this year; that is a certainty; it is no longer a question of whether it could happen; it will happen,” Ulvaeus told the Herald Sun.
“We’re very, really good pals. For the first time in 40 years, the four of us stand in the studio, and there’s something special about knowing what we’ve gone through. It’s difficult to put into words, but we have such deep, powerful relationships.”
I am completely smitten by Agnetha Faltskog’s vocals. She was a great superstar, and I want to see her on stage again soon.
Which ABBA song is your favorite? Fill in the blanks with the answer of your choice. Meanwhile, please share this post in celebration of ABBA!