"Tell Me It's Over" by Frida

After the demise of the legendary pop group ABBA, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (aka Frida) embarked on a short-lived solo career that yielded a lone top 40 hit with "I Know There's Something Going On." The tune landed at #13 in 1982. 

You may recognize some of the drums and backing vocals on her record, as Phil Collins had a heavy hand in it. Still, outside from the title track and a handful of others, the songs just aren't there and failed to make a lasting impression, even among die-hard ABBA fans. The rocking lead off track, "Tell Me It's Over," is an exception, and I wonder what kind of solo career Frida might have had if she rocked out like this more often.

"Piece Of The Action" by Bucks Fizz

If ABBA could do it, then why not Bucks Fizz? In many countries, Bucks Fizz actually did become an "ABBA for the 80s" after winning the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with "Making Your Mind Up". Composed of two boys and two girls in silly matching costumes, the foursome had a signature harmony sound and typically sang upbeat dance pop numbers...just like you know who.

The group would score three #1 hits and several more top ten hits in their native UK, and sell over 15 million albums all over the world. Strangely enough, they never even scratched the bottom of a singles or album chart in the US.

If you like ABBA and never heard Bucks Fizz, you are in for a bit of a treat (I'm referring to the band, not the cocktail from which they took their name). I would not place them on the same tier as ABBA, but some of their songs come close, such as the wonderful "Piece Of The Action".

“Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA

Everyone knows ABBA and can probably even sing every word to their monster hits like “Dancing Queen”, “SOS”, and “Mamma Mia”. The group consisted of two couples:  Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (incidentally, the initials of their first names is where the moniker “ABBA” originated).

The band cranked out hit after hit from 1974 to 1982. The final ABBA single to chart in the US was 1982’s “The Visitors” – it only went to #63 and was the title track of their last studio album together.

While their songs were always catchy and danceable, the lyrics on the last couple records were getting more sophisticated and often heart wrenching, as the band members wrote about their divorces in song (listen to “The Winner Takes It All”).

Another prime example of their more emotive songwriting can be heard in one of my favorite underplayed ABBA tracks from “The Visitors” called, “Slipping Through My Fingers”.

As you can read in the lyrics below, this song sees Fältskog lamenting how quickly her daughter is growing up, and how many of the things she planned to do together are just slipping away with the ages. The song was written for her daughter Linda, who was seven at the time.

“Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning

Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile

I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness

And I have to sit down for a while

The feeling that I'm losing her forever

And without really entering her world

I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter

That funny little girl…

Slipping through my fingers all the time

Do I really see what's in her mind

Each time I think I'm close to knowing

She keeps on growing

Slipping through my fingers all the time”

The song gets me every time!

Despite numerous attractive offers for a reunion, “The Visitors” was all she wrote for the band ABBA. However, Lyngstad would resurface as Frida with the hit, “I Know There’s Something Going On”, which went to #13 late in 1982. Do you recognize those drums? They sound a lot like what you hear at the end of “In The Air Tonight”, don’t they? That’s because Phil Collins produced and drummed on the record…listen carefully and you’ll hear his backing vocals, too.