1975

Stage three of this tour turned things around. On January 10th, 1975, they started to tour Norway and Sweden. Success at last, there were sellouts at every stop. The tour ended in Umeå, northern Sweden on January 22nd, 1975. During the summer they played at Swedish folk parks and were so popular that many people had to be turned away. This salvaged ABBA's losing so much money during their first tour. They were very popular in Scandinavia, now they had to prove to the rest of the world, Britain in particular, that they were indeed not one hit wonders.

The first six months of 1975 found ABBA in the studio working on their second album, ABBA. The album contained 11 songs and was scheduled to be released in May. ABBA was recorded at Glenstudio and at Metronome Studio in Stockholm. Since Agnetha and Frida only went to the studio to record the lyrics they were free to do more solo albums. During this time Agnetha released her sixth album, Elva Kvinnor I Ett Hus. Agnetha had co-written all of the songs along with Bosse Carlgren, with the exception of one song, S.O.S., which was written for her by Björn and Benny. In the meantime, Frida was also working on a solo album titled, Ensam (Alone) with Benny as producer. One track on this album, Fernando, was written by Björn and Benny.

June brought the worldwide release of ABBA. The first single taken from the album was I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do. It was an immediate success in Europe. The British critics remarked, ``This song is so bad it hurts.'' ABBA's popularity in eastern Europe caused the black market to enter the picture for fans that could not get the government allocations for the record. This enticed fans to buy the records at very high prices. The prices did not deter the eastern European fans. They loved ABBA. ABBA's fan club in Sweden was deluged with thousands of fan letters from Poland alone. During the same time, far away in Australia, ABBAmania was beginning to take place.

Finally! Success in Britain was obtained by the release of the single S.O.S.. This song, not only made the British notice ABBA, but its success all over the world convinced ABBA's critics that they were indeed a force to be reckoned with. It remained in the British charts for weeks. S.O.S. was followed by Mamma Mia. Mamma Mia was the breakthrough single in Australia. The Australians were enamored with the group and a compilation album titled Best of ABBA was released only there. It sold over 850,000 copies in a country of only 14 million people. ABBAmania down under was happening!

September 1975 found ABBA making an extensive promotional tour in the United States. The tour was to be two weeks long, but Agnetha was not happy leaving her daughter for that long of a period of time. Linda accompanied her parents to America. The long flight proved to be a taxing experience for this three-year-old. Agnetha was not only enduring her dislike for flying, but was also being torn apart inside over not being a good mother to her child.

At the end of 1975, following the release of Elva Kvinnor I Ett Hus, Agnetha's contract with CBS-Cupol Records was finally fulfilled. Polar Music would no longer have to pay any percentage to CBS-Cupol for using Agnetha.

In December of 1975, Agnetha had throat problems. She was diagnosed as having tonsillitis. The holiday break enabled her to go into the hospital and have her tonsils removed. It was a hard for her to quit, but Agnetha decided to totally give up smoking.