The Smash Hits flexidisc, entitled Happy Christmas From The Stars, seems to be the full extent of ABBA’s Christmas adventures on record.įor the individual members the story is entirely different.
ABBA were part of the line-up, although Frida was absent from the recording. In a December 1982 issue of the UK pop music magazine Smash Hits, a flexidisc was enclosed, featuring brief Christmas greetings from many of the biggest acts of the day. At least one such greeting was even released on record. It wasn’t until 1999 and the imminent millennium celebrations that ‘Happy New Year’ was finally released as a major single, reaching the Top 20 in some countries.Īlthough ABBA never recorded a Christmas song as such, they often taped Christmas greetings, mostly for various radio and television stations. Indeed, for many years, a performance of the song, especially made for Swedish Television, would be aired every New Year’s Eve in ABBA’s home country. A Spanish version of the song, ‘Felicidad’, was issued in Spanish-language territories and reached the Top Five in Argentina, but for the rest of the world ‘Happy New Year’ would simply remain a popular tune each time December turns into January. Ultimately, however, ‘Happy New Year’ was not destined to be a single at the time. These latter sequences underscored the song’s wistful reflections on what the future may hold, thereby providing a marked contrast to the party scenes. Festive scenes were filmed in conjunction with the making of the album sleeve, after which the ABBA members’ actual performance of the song was filmed in director Lasse Hallström’s apartment. It seems there were even plans for making the track a single at one point, for shortly before the November release of the Super Trouper album, a promo clip was made for ‘Happy New Year’. It would be another three years before Björn and Benny finally started writing what was to become their first full-length musical, Chess (a collaboration with Tim Rice).īack in 1980, however, they were still quite fond of the New Year’s Eve concept, and in February they began recording ‘Happy New Year’ for the upcoming album. Cleese turned them down, however, and the songwriting team scrapped the project. They even pitched their idea to comedian John Cleese, of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame, hoping that he would want to write the book for their proposed musical. Written in Barbados in January 1980, ‘Happy New Year’ was originally intended for a musical about a New Year’s Eve, one of Björn and Benny’s many attempts to get started with a more ambitious piece of musical drama. And ‘Happy New Year’ was indeed one of the first songs to be completed for the new album. “It was written and recorded well before our summer holidays”, she said, “and at that time we had no idea when the album was going to be ready for release.” Frida wasn’t lying, for contrary to their reputation at the time, ABBA didn’t let perceived market demands dictate what kind of songs they would write and record. Frida was asked to comment on their criticisms, and maintained that the girls’ assumption was wrong. The girls liked ‘On And On And On’ and ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’, but were critical of the track ‘Happy New Year’, which they felt was speculative and which they were certain had been included on the album to cash in on the upcoming Christmas and New Year season. In November 1980, two teenage girls were asked to review ABBA’s latest album, Super Trouper, on a Swedish radio show. In this feature, we take a look at Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Frida’s musical season celebrations over the years.
But over the years the individual members have made quite a few forays into the Christmas market. The song Happy New Year was probably the closest ABBA as a group ever came to a Christmas record.
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