Dancing Queen

August 16, 1976

Dancing Queen is a song by Swedish pop group ABBA from the year 1976. The piece was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson and sung by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog. The song is one of the most successful songs of the group and with over six million copies, one of the best selling singles of the 1970s.

Dancing Queen soon developed after its release to the disco classics and kept this reputation to this day, where it almost always takes a position in rankings for disco music or compilations, such as in the RTL TV show The Ultimate Chart Show. Also, the term "Dancing Queen" became the epitome of famous and talented dancers and winners of dance contests.

Creation and publication

Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus intended in the summer of 1975, to write a piece with a modern dance rhythm. It proved to be a difficulty that their fondness for funk and soul could not be considered for the new project, since these genres were not combined with their music from their perspective. They therefore were inspired by George McCrae's disco classic Rock Your Baby from 1974 for the Groove of the new play, which was initially produced under the working title Boogaloo and the shooting began simultaneously with those of the new studio album on August 4, 1975.

Sound engineer Michael Tretow and drummer Roger Palm contributed a drum rhythm in which they had taken from the album Gumbo by Dr. John, and Ulvaeus with painted some passages with the electric guitar. The finished demo tape in the key of A major, presented the composer finally very happy. Agnetha Fältskog and Anni -Frid also Lyngstad were positive about it. So Lyngstad told in numerous interviews that she thought the music was so beautiful that she began to cry when she heard it for the first time and Fältskog later remarked:

" For most songs, it was hard to say whether they would be hits. In Dancing Queen we knew immediately that it would take right! "

Then the text was written by ABBA's manager Stig Anderson and revised by Ulvaeus. It is about a group of girlfriends who goes out dancing on Friday night. Matching Anderson gave the song also his final title "Dancing Queen". In mid-September 1975, the vocals were recorded with the two singers and integrated into the music. After further revisions in the fall of the piece towards the end of the year was completed.

The beginning of 1976 stood next to Dancing Queen and the also newly finished piece to Fernando choice for a single release. As Stig Anderson was of the view that the latter is a welcome contrast to the tempo richer predecessor Mamma Mia, was finally resolved in favor of Fernando. Dancing Queen, therefore, was not published until August 16, 1976 as a single, more than a year after recording starts. However, the play was presented on 18 June 1976 on the eve of the wedding of the Swedish king in honor of the future queen on TV, where ABBA appeared in baroque costumes. On the cover of the single known ABBA logo was used with the mirror-image "B" for the first time.

1992 Dancing Queen was re- released as a single to promote the publications in the same year compilation album ABBA Gold, which is the best-selling ABBA album today. Here, the song was released both as a 7 "single with The Day Before You Came as a B- side, on the other hand, as a maxi-single with the same song and also Lay All Your Love on Me and Eagle add- on CD.

Success and reception

Dancing Queen reached in more than 20 countries and took the charts in 15 countries the first place. In the U.S., it was the only number -one hit of ABBA; the single standing there in April 1977 week at the top of the charts and sold about a million times. In Britain, they argued for weeks at No. 1 and is sold there at 1.1 million units, the most successful ABBA single ( digital downloads included in the calculation ). Similar successes recorded Dancing Queen in Sweden, where she was 14 weeks on the chart peak, and in Australia, where she put 300,000 copies.

The single re-release In 1992 in Switzerland, Norway and Ireland the top ten of the charts and in five other countries, the top 20 in the list of 500 greatest songs of all time Rolling Stone is the piece of space 171

Cover versions

Dancing Queen is one of the most gecoverten pieces of ABBA. More than seventy cover versions by various solo artists and bands emerged since the 1980s. These include, for example, interpretations of Belinda Carlisle, Wing, S Club 7, Jennifer Love Hewitt, or e- Rotic. In addition was the song was often interpreted by musical artists at concerts, such as U2 worldwide in their Stockholm concert in 1993 or Kylie Minogue at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney before 110,000 spectators in the stadium and about three billion television viewers.

Sources and Literature

  • Carl Magnus Palm: Abba. Story and songs compact. Bosworth Edition, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-227-8 ( German translation: Cecilia Senge )
  • Carl Magnus Palm: light and shadow. ABBA - The True Story. Bosworth Edition, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-86543-100-4 ( German translation: Helmut Müller)
  • Super Troupers - 30 Years of ABBA. Documentation, 2004 ( in 1999 under The Winner Takes It All - The ABBA Story appeared shortened ).
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