ABBA 1974: Waterloo and Eurovision victory
 After the 1970 release of Andersson & Ulvaeus' album Lycka, two more B&B singles were released in Sweden: Det Kan Ingen Doktor Hj?lpa and T?nk Om Jorden Vore Ung, with more prominent vocals by Anni-Frid and Agnetha, and moderate chart success. Anni-Frid released her first studio album Frida, and performed on her own; Agnetha released her fourth album and married Bj?rn July 6th 1971. Benny, Bj?rn and Agnetha started performing together on a regular basis this summer.
Stig Anderson, owner of Polar, was determined to break into the mainstream international market with music by Benny and Bj?rn (One day the pair of you will write a song that becomes a worldwide hit, he predicted). Stig encouraged Ulvaeus and Andersson to write a song for the Swedish preliminary of the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodifestivalen, and after two rejected entries in 1971 (Det kan Ingen Doktor Hj?lpa and V?lkommen Till V?rlden), Andersson & Ulvaeus submitted for the 1972 contest their new song S?g Det Med En S?ng (Say It with a Song), and they chose newcomer Lena Anderson to perform. The song came third, convincing Stig he was on the right track. The song became a huge hit in Sweden.
B&B Success in Japan
The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Bj?rn & Benny single She's My Kind Of Girl was released by chance by Epic in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit. Two more B&B singles were released in Japan: Merry-Go-Round and Love Has Its Ways.
1972: People Need Love: the first 'real' ABBA song
Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements. One of the songs they came up with was People Need Love, released in June 1972, featuring guest vocals by the women, who were now given much greater prominence. Everyone involved felt enthusiastic about the new sound and Stig Anderson released it as a single, credited to Bj?rn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song reached #17 in the Swedish combined single & album charts, enough to convince them they were on to something. The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at #114 on the Cashbox singles chart and #117 on Record World's singles chart. Billed as Bj?rn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), it was released there on Playboy Records. However, according to Stig Anderson, People Need Love could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers.
Music sample:
Ring Ring (1973)
A song which was a hit in many parts of Europe and headed off the Ring Ring album.
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Anni-Frid and Agnetha's first take at ABBA harmonies
As 'People Need Love' did so well, the foursome decided to record their first album together. Recording sessions began September 26 1972, and by October, a handful of tracks were in the can. A particular track gave the two women the shared lead vocal: Nina, Pretty Ballerina. The women's voices combined in harmonies for the first time gave them an idea of the qualities of their combined talents.
Ring Ring
For 1973, the foursome and their 'manager' Stig Anderson decided to have another try at the Melodifestivalen, this time with the song Ring Ring. The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a wall of sound production technique that became the wholly new ABBA sound. Anderson arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a surefire winner, but in the Melodifestivalen, on February 10, 1973, it came third, and thus never reached the international contest. Nevertheless the proto-group put out their first album, called Ring Ring, still carrying the awkward name of Bj?rn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida. The album did well and the Ring Ring single was a hit in many parts of Europe, but Stig Anderson felt the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit.
ABBA name
In the spring of 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA. At first this was as a joke, since Abba was also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden. However, since the fish canners were more or less unknown outside Sweden, Anderson came to believe the name would work in international markets. A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper. The group were impressed with the names Alibaba and Baba, but in the end all the entries were ignored and it was announced in the summer that the name ABBA was official. Later the group negotiated with the canners for the right to the name. ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's name: Agnetha, Bj?rn, Benny and Anni-Frid (Frida). The first 'B' in the logo version of the name was reversed on the band's promotional material from 1976 onwards and became the group's registered trademark. The first time the name is found written on paper is on a recording session sheet from the Metronome Studio in Stockholm, dated October 16, 1973. It was first written as Bj?rn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida, but was subsequently crossed out with ABBA written in large letters on top.
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