ABBA on record

11 October LP release: Arrival. Polar POLS 272. A: ‘When I Kissed The Teacher’; ‘Dancing Queen’; ‘My Love, My Life’; ‘Dum Dum Diddle’; ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’. B: ‘Money, Money, Money’; ‘That’s Me’; ‘Why Did It Have To Be Me’; ‘Tiger’; ‘Arrival’.

Note: ‘Fernando’, which was recorded at the same time as ‘Dancing Queen’, was featured on the Great- est Hits album in many territories and so not included on Arrival, except in Australia and New Zealand.

Arrival, first released in Sweden on 11 October 1976, was the first of ABBA’s albums to be hotly anticipated on a global level. Following on from the massive success enjoyed by the ‘Fernando’ single and the compilation albums variously entitled Greatest Hits or The Best Of ABBA – and notwithstanding the success of the ABBA album in some territories – the world was now truly holding its breath to see what ABBA would come up with next. As for the album sleeve, it’s not entirely clear what came first: the cover image fea- turing a helicopter or the title Arrival. What is clear is that the title came from Lillebil Ankarcrona, the then common-law wife of designer Rune Söderqvist. In more recent times, neither Lillebil nor Rune have been able to recall the order of the process – either the word “arrival” came first and then it was up to Rune to figure out a visual concept that would tie in to that title, or the designer thought of placing ABBA in a helicopter and then, having seen the photograph, Lillebil thought of the word “arrival”. Either way both photograph and title were the perfect match. “It was always difficult to find a way of presenting four people in an environment and a context that felt original and exciting without being forced,” Rune recalled, “but this was an efficient and suitably dramatic concept.”

Benny and Frida took a ride in the helicopter together with pilot Olle Wikman.

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Although Rune and sleeve photographer Ola Lager had worked together before on other projects – mainly advertising assignments, but also Frida’s 1975 Frida ensam solo album – this was the first time that they’d collaborated on an ABBA album sleeve. By this time, of course, Ola was a veteran of two out of the three previous ABBA albums (Waterloo and ABBA), and a handful of promotional picture sessions, so he was a both familiar and friendly face to the group. Once the concept of the helicopter arrival had been decided upon, the next step was to head out to Barkarby Airport, north-west of Stockholm, to shoot the picture; judging by the members’ looks and hair, and the knowledge that they were busy recording and mixing the album until at least 12 September, the Arrival photo session would have taken place mid- to-late September 1976. The helicopter used was a Bell 47, a type of helicopter that had been in use since 1946. This particular aircraft had previously been used for training Swedish air force pilots, but its present use was mainly for transports to and from the Stockholm archipelago. The idea of grouping the four members of a pop band in a helicopter was certainly clever, but it presented its own sets of challenges. First of all, to get the right kind of lighting they needed the sun to be really low, almost about to set. Ola Lager would recall a long day of waiting, and then they had to work really fast before there was no sunlight left to work with. As if that brief window of opportunity wasn’t stressful enough, the shoot itself was quite tricky. “We had a problem with the glass canopy, which was really low on the helicopter,” explains Ola Lager, “because that meant I as the photographer was reflected in the glass. We tried to solve it by tearing off a lot of grass and then my wife had to lie next to me and hold the grass up in front of me, so that some of that reflection was covered.” Reportedly, the helicopter pilot, Olle Wikman, also helped out with the grass. Nevertheless, the silhouette of a human shape – presumably the photographer – is visible in the glass, between Frida and Agnetha. For the back of the album cover, they needed an image that wasn’t overly busy, but which was still attached to the concept of a helicopter arrival. Olle Wikman, the pilot, was asked to fly up in the air, so that Ola could take a picture; it’s unclear exactly who were in the helicopter when this picture was taken: when interviewed by this writer, Ola thought it was Benny along with Ola’s daughters. However, there is a photograph of Benny, Frida and Wikman airborne in the helicopter, but perhaps it took off more than once during that long day of waiting for the right sunlight, allowing different combinations of passengers a rare opportunity of helicopter-flying. The end result was one of ABBA’s best and most striking album covers: of its time, cer- tainly, yet still looking fresh and intriguing today. Ola Lager is still very happy with the cover, and, with his background in advertising, he was especially pleased with how the helicop- ter concept was extended beyond the sleeve. “When ABBA were in London to promote the album [in November 1976], they arrived by helicopter to the press reception,” he enthuses. “And that concert tour they did a few months later kicked off with the sound of a helicopter. Then you’ve taken the concept building a step further: that’s exactly how to do it if you want to achieve the very best result. It was the perfect job.” 189 ABBA on record

Front and back of the Arrival sleeve, both with the helicopter featured prominently.

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The instrumental title track, which had originally been entitled ‘Ode To Dalecarlia’ (Dalecarlia being the province in Sweden most closely connected with the type of fiddle-heavy folk music emulated by this tune), was renamed ‘Arrival’ once the album title was in place, thus further extending the concep- tual thinking. The music inside the striking sleeve spoke for itself, but although you’d think that there would be little need to promote and market the album, there’s no such thing as automatic sales. As Epic promotion man Jeff Rose points out, “Marks & Spencer is an incredibly famous brand but they still advertise, don’t they?” If there was one nation where Arrival almost sold itself, it was ABBA’s home country of Sweden. Since the success of Ring Ring, every album had gone to number one on the charts, breaking not only all previous sales records, but also the sales record set by the previous ABBA album. No mean feat, and even before release Arrival just confirmed the upward curve ABBA were on sales-wise in the Sweden: pre-orders amounted to a record-breaking 327,000 LPs and cassettes. It sold around 600,000 copies before the end of 1976 and by mid-1977 sales were approaching 740,000 copies, more than any other album up to that time – in a country of only 8 million people. That said, though, ads were taken out in newspapers and magazines, and, no doubt, ABBA were greatly helped by the Front and back of the Arrival inner sleeve, the first ABBA album to feature lyrics. broadcast of the television special ABBA-dabba-dooo!! on SVT’s channel 2 on 5 November, watched by 4.5 million viewers. All other considerations aside, in terms of promoting the album, the timing couldn’t have been CHARTS better. Aired three and a half weeks after the album release, Sweden: 1 the programme served to remind prospective buyers that UK: 1 ABBA had a new album after the initial buzz, reviews and news Australia: 1 reports around the release date were falling into oblivion. And United States: 19 with the Christmas market just around the corner, it showed those looking for a suitable gift exactly what they would get for their money. Eight of the ten songs on the album were performed in the programme (only ‘That’s Me’ and the title track were excluded although the latter was heard in the open- ing section of the programme), which must have been a marketing person’s dream. Small wonder Arrival spent 12 consecutive weeks at number one on the album chart.

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