The roads to the Top 40 are many. Each song has a story of how it got to there, whether it's the artist or the writing or production of the song or even outside sources that had something to do with that song's success.
But never had a song from the famed Eurovision Song contest ever made it to the Top 40 before. There were famous songs that came from the contest: In 1967, Britain's entry, "Puppet On A String" by Sandie Shaw, won the contest and not only hit No. 1 in her native England, but was a Top 10 hit in just over a dozen countries.
Just not here.
In 1969, Scottish-born Lulu represented the United Kingdom on "Boom Bang-A-Bang" and was amazingly one of four songs that shared the win that year. On the British chart, "Boom Bang-A-Bang" hit No. 2 that year for Lulu, one of the biggest hits she ever had in her native land.
It never crossed over to the U.S.
In 1970, the song "All Kinds Of Everything" won the annual event for the UK and for the singer, who went by the name of Dana. The song was released immediately and less than a month after winning the contest in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, "All Kinds Of Everything" jumped into the No. 1 spot in the UK, spending two weeks at the top, while hitting the Top 10 in nine other countries.
Again, just not in the U.S.
Eurovision, for all its greatness and glory across the Atlantic Ocean, had no standing in the U.S. Maybe it was meant to be a separate entity for someone's success in other foreign lands.
And it set the tone for the evening of Saturday, April 6, 1974. The site was a place simply called The Dome in the seaside town of Brighton, England. The 19th annual event featured 18 countries, but would soon become 17 when France withdrew its entry due to the passing of President Georges Pompidou four days earlier.
One of the favorites to win the event was the latest United Kingdom entry, "Long Live Love," written by Valerie Avon and Harold Spiro and performed by pop and country star Olivia Newton-John. Couldn't miss. Another act with pop success on their side was Mouth & MacNeal of "How Do You Do?" one-hit wonder fame in 1972. They were at the contest to represent their native Netherlands on the song "I See A Star."
Three other acts were back to represent their countries -- Gigliola Cinquetti, who won for Italy in 1964, was back to represent the country, as was Romuald Figuier for Monaco, 10 years after he represented them in the event and five years after he represented Luxembourg, and the Bendik Singers, back for the second straight year to represent Norway.
Newton-John went second in the 17-act event and "Long Live Love" was convincing enough to take the early advantage. And through seven acts, the UK was on its way to yet another victory.
That when the next act came on the stage -- and it was nothing like any of the other acts the judges saw. First, the conductor of the orchestra representing the country of Sweden, Sven-Olof Walldoff, famously walked out onto the stage dressed like Napoleon Bonaporte as he led the orchestra. Then came the two men and two women who were to represent the country. Benny Andersson sat down and played piano. Bjorn Ulvaeus, who co-wrote the entry with Andersson and group manager Stig Anderson, was on stage wearing space boots with high heels while carrying a multi-pointed-shaped guitar. Then came the ladies to the stage -- blonde-hair Agnetha Foltskog dressed in blue and redheaded Anni-Frid Lyngstad in orange. The two would sing in harmony throughout on the song that blew the rest of the competition out of the water.
The song was "Waterloo" and featured Andersson's pounding piano and a rousing saxophone over an irresistible beat. Together since 1972, the group called ABBA had arrived on the biggest stage throughout Europe.
The judges thought very highly of the song and the act. In the end, the Finnish and Swiss judges gave them first-place votes and the 24 points ABBA accumulated were enough to win the annual Eurovision contest.
The song was released immediately by the record labels that had ABBA signed to them and became an instant smash. It hit No. 1 in Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, West Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, South Africa, Norway, Denmark and in England, where it spent three weeks at the top in May 1974. Though the song surprisingly didn't go to No. 1 in their native country, their Swedish-language version went to No. 2 and their English-language record went to No. 3 at the same time.
Seeing the potential of a hit record, Atlantic Records, who signed ABBA to a deal just a year earlier, also released "Waterloo" as a single. After climbing the Hot 100, it finally reached the Top 40 as it debuted at No. 39 on the week of June 22, 1974. And the song would keep climbing until a month later when it hit the Top 10 and would peak at No. 6 in August, the first of four Top 10 hits in this country for the quartet.
Though they became huge throughout the world and as big as Volvo in their native Sweden, ABBA never had that same type of success in the United States, even with 14 Top 40 hits here.
ABBA ultimately broke up in 1982 and in 2010, were inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame with all the members but Faltskog attending the ceremony. Between then, Andersson and Ulvaeus wrote the score for the play they created, "Chess," in 1985, then in 1999, they developed another play based on ABBA's music, "Mamma Mia," which was turned into a movie in 2008 starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Amanda Seyfried.
Since that memorable win in 1974, Sweden has done well for itself with five more wins in the Eurovision contest, including titles in 2013 and 2015. But for as big a win as maybe those acts had, none will ever have the presence that ABBA had that night in 1974 in the town of Brighton, England, when they brought the house down with a history lesson for the ages, traveling a well-remembered road to success.
No comments:
Post a Comment