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The Agnetha Fältskog Solo Albums

The world will always recognise Agnetha Fältskog primarily for her contributions as one of two amazing lead singers in ABBA. But her recording career started in 1967, and despite 17 years when she made no recordings at all, her solo albums actually out-number ABBA’s studio albums. August 2005 saw the re-release on CD of her three LPs for the Polar label, and this feature takes a closer look at those albums.

She was so in love

Agnetha Fältskog’s career as a recording artist began in 1967, when she was only 17 years old. A prolific songwriter for many years even at that tender age, her début single featured one of her own songs, ‘Jag var så kär’ (“I Was So In Love”). The single shot to number one on the Swedish sales chart in early 1968, kicking off Agnetha’s recording career with a bang. Four years later, when ABBA recorded their first single in the spring of 1972, Agnetha had four albums and a slew of singles to her credit, all of them released on the Cupol label. For the first few years of ABBA’s career, Agnetha would remain signed to Cupol, although her fifth album – Elva kvinnor i ett hus (“Eleven Women In One House”), released in 1975 – constituted her farewell to the label. After that she became a full-time Polar Music recording artist and the remainder of the decade was almost exclusively devoted to her work with ABBA.

Her first release as a solo artist on the Polar label came towards the end of the ABBA era, in October 1981. And the album in question was no straightforward pop creation either. Agnetha had felt for a while that it would be nice to record something with her and Björn’s daughter, Linda. In November 1980, mother and child entered Polar Music Studio in Stockholm, Sweden to record a collection of Swedish-language Christmas songs. Linda was seven years old at the time. The original intention was that the album should be rush-released in time for Christmas shopping in 1980, but it was soon realised that the deadline wouldn’t be met. Therefore, Nu tändas tusen juleljus ("Now A Thousand Christmas Candles Are Being Lit") as the album was called, wasn’t issued until October 1981. Upon release it reached number 6 on the Swedish album chart and has remained a consistent seller each Christmas since then.

Wrap your arms around her

The next time Agnetha had the opportunity to release an album under her own name was in May 1983. The previous year had seen the ABBA era grinding to a halt, with the group making what turned out to be their very last recordings. At the time, the intention was merely to take a break, so that Björn and Benny would have the time to collaborate with Tim Rice on writing and recording the musical Chess. In the meantime, Frida and Agnetha would concentrate on their solo careers. Frida had released her first English-language album, Something’s Going On, in 1982, and now it was Agnetha’s turn to make her début solo album for an international market.

Her choice of producer was Mike Chapman, who’d enjoyed a highly successful career during the 1970s as songwriter and producer for the likes of The Sweet, Mud, Smokie and Suzi Quatro, and producer for acts such as Blondie and The Knack. After Agnetha had trawled through hundreds of demo tracks in late 1982, she and Chapman met up at Polar Music Studio in January 1983 to record the best of those songs. She also asked singer Tomas Ledin – a very popular artist in Sweden, who had been afforded a solo spot on ABBA’s 1979 tour – to write something for her album, the resulting track being the reggae-flavoured ‘Take Good Care Of Your Children’. Mike Chapman collaborated with Holly Knight on what ultimately became the title track of the album, the seductive ‘Wrap Your Arms Around Me’. However, the most popular song to emerge from the recordings sessions was the jubilant, calypso-styled ‘The Heat Is On’. It was the first single from the album and reached number one on the Swedish chart. The track was indicative of Agnetha’s overall intention for the album. “We wanted good songs with strong melodies, a positive spirit. Not just tragic ballads about someone having left you, or that life is difficult,” she explained in an interview.

When the Wrap Your Arms Around Me album was released it shot to number one on the Swedish album chart, becoming one of the biggest albums of 1983. In international terms, alongside Frida’s Something’s Going On, it is the most successful solo album ever released by an ABBA member, reaching quite respectable chart positions and selling a reported 1.2 million copies worldwide. Agnetha herself has said that it’s her favourite among her 1980s output. Another major single from the album was ‘Can’t Shake Loose’, written by Russ Ballard who’d penned the previous year’s Frida hit ‘I Know There’s Something Going On’. ‘Can’t Shake Loose’ gave Agnetha her biggest solo success in the United States, where it reached the Top 30.

Stewarded by Stewart

The period 1982–1986 was a highly prolific period for Agnetha as a recording artist, mirrored by the slew of bonus tracks included on the current CD version of Wrap Your Arms Around Me. For example, her 1982 duet with Tomas Ledin on ‘Never Again’ was also recorded in a Spanish version, ‘Ya Nunca Más’, while the songs on her 1983 hit single ‘It’s So Nice To Be Rich’/’P B’ – released shortly after Wrap Your Arms Around Me – were taken from the Swedish movie P & B.

Further bonus tracks from the era have been added to the third and final album in this reissue series, which was also Agnetha’s final album for Polar Music. Eyes Of A Woman was recorded in Stockholm in the autumn of 1984, with Eric Stewart of 10cc in the producer’s chair. The album project is notable for producing what still remain the final two Agnetha Fältskog compositions to be made public. One of them, ‘You’re There’, was not included on the album, but used for a single B-side (it is one of the bonus tracks on the current Eyes Of A Woman CD). However, the second tune, ‘I Won’t Let You Go’, was not only included on the album but was also released as the incredibly catchy first single from the project. For Agnetha, though, this artistic triumph came at a price, as she found that it had become a battle for her to write songs. “I was struggling alone with ’I Won’t Let You Go’ for the whole of last summer,” she told a reporter. “It’s only a matter of hard work, no glamour at all.” The increased pressure she placed on herself to come up with high-quality tunes, probably explains why she gave up songwriting altogether soon afterwards.

The way she is

The Eyes Of A Woman album was released in March 1985, reaching number two on the Swedish album chart and achieving respectable positions on other European charts. The album contained two tracks written by Eric Stewart, and also a contribution from Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues. The second major single release from the album, ‘One Way Love’, had been written by Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra. However, the next time Agnetha achieved a significant single hit in her home country was in 1986, when she teamed up with singer Ola Håkansson for the duet single ‘The Way You Are’/‘Fly Like The Eagle’. The single has been included as a bonus feature on the Eyes Of A Woman CD.

In 1987, Agnetha released two more solo albums – a children’s album with her son Christian and the international pop LP I Stand Alone – before retiring completely as a singer and performer. It would be 17 years before she released another album, My Colouring Book, issued in 2004. Although her comeback was quite successful, at the time of writing it remains to be seen if Agnetha will record a follow-up album. In the meantime, a large slice of her Eighties production is now being made available in freshly restored sound, for all of us to enjoy her voice in a context quite different from ABBA: Agnetha Fältskog on her own.