This is a translation of an interview with Agnetha in the Swedish newspaper Expressen after their reviewer gave her album "I Stand Alone" the highest grade, 5 wasps out of 5. The wasp is like a logo for Expressen.
FIVE WASPS, AGNETHA
-I know I’ve made something good and I’m very satisfied
By Eva Gussarsson
Five wasps for Agnetha Fältskog’s “I Stand Alone”.
-This is so much fun. I don’t think I’ve been a part of those who have received really bad reviews, but things have never gone this well, she says.
It’s not only Expressen’s Måns Ivarsson who likes Agnetha Fältskog’s new album. She is quite pleased with it herself.
-I may not think of what kind of reactions there’ll be, but I know I’ve made something good and I’m very satisfied, she says.
After ten years with ABBA and several as a solo artist, she still cares about the reviews.
-I care enough that I get happy when I get good reviews. And if I receive bad reviews, I have to take that as well.
Long between the albums
“I Stand Alone” is in a way a comeback for the solo artist Agnetha Fältskog. But you may also say the same about her previous two solo albums. There has been years of silence between each album.
And there’ll be silence in the future as well. Because this isn’t a comeback which will make Agnetha Fältskog step back into the limelight.
-No, I don’t intend to. Not if you mean traveling and making shows. I concentrate on TV, video and radio instead, she says.
-There won’t be a tour and I won’t be traveling.
So Agnetha Fältskog continues to live her life as usual, peacefully and calmly and anonymously, just the way she wants. But sometimes she misses the touring life, at least parts of it.
-Often you have a very nice time together when you’re on the road. I miss that – and the musicians. This time we recorded with Americans and I have missed our old musicians, the ones we’ve worked with in Sweden, she says.
More work with Cetera?
But don’t you miss the audience?
-There’s a certain contact (with the audience) when you perform on TV and things like that.
It’s not only Agnetha Fältskog who receives praise for “I Stand Alone”. Måns Ivarsson also praises the producer Peter Cetera.
Will you collaborate with him again?
-At the moment we don’t keep in touch, he’s working on his own LP right now. It’s very difficult to say if we’ll work together again. He has his own career. But it was something fun and we’re both very satisfied, and it has led to a great friendship.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?
-It’s tough to pick one, it changes all the time. At first it was the duet “I Wasn’t The One”, then it was “Let It Shine” and right now it’s “I Stand Alone”.
-In the long run, that’s the best one.
What will happen now, with you and this album?
-This week I’m going to do radio interviews and appear on “Jacobs stege” (Swedish entertainment show on TV. Claes’ note) this Saturday. Then next week or the week after that, we’re going to make a video for the single “The Last Time”. An English team will make it, but it will be filmed in Sweden. In January we’ll make a couple of more videos.
-The album will be released in Scandinavia now, and internationally in January.
So there won’t be a tour?
-No, I won’t travel. I could, but I limit myself when it comes to that.
